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Mel Gibson, the Hollywood actor and film producer, is due to visit Medjugorje in February to begin work on a new film based on the apparitions and messages of Our Lady. Gibson, who directed, The Passion of Christ, is thought to have been influenced by actor Jim Caviezel, a frequent visitor to the Shrine with his wife, Kerri (below). Commenting on the documentary film, Fr Jozo Zovko said it will be a spiritual story, not a movie about miracles and extraordinary events. The former pastor of the Medjugorje parish also had some input to Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of...

A rash of dubious miracles and rival congregations is trying the Vatican’s patience RELIGIOUS fervour swept southern California this winter when a statue of the Virgin Mary was claimed to be crying blood. ...In May a statue of St Pìo of Pietrelcina wept blood in a church in Marsicovetere, southern Italy — although in this case the diocese excluded “supernatural intervention” when tests showed that the blood belonged to a woman. Indeed, such “private revelations” have proliferated. ... But of the 295 such episodes reported since 1905, the Vatican has affirmed the authenticity of just 11, among them the appearances...

Three significant movements have swept through the Church since the Second Vatican Council, all of which have been sources of great blessing and sometimes confusion, with, on occasion, some devotees mistakenly making themselves a Magisterium unto themselves. Most of them outgrow this error. I am speaking of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, the Marian movement — particularly involving reported apparitions, especially those occurring in Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia — and the Traditionalist/ Tridentine Mass movement. I most closely associate myself with the charismatic renewal which I credit with perhaps saving my life while Jesus was working on saving my soul.Of...

Folks, I watched Dateline NBC's report on "The Mystery of Miracles" earlier this week and I have the following thoughts. The program touched on the Medjugorje events which started to manifest itself in that Bosnia-Herzegovina town back in the late 1970's. The basic details are these: Our Lady supposedly appeared to four young adults and a boy and began a dialogue with her that for some of them continues to this day. I've read some early books about the Medjugorje events and for a while, there was much agreement between them. But as the record grew and the alleged apparitions...

The modern Marian "movement" is characterized by a large number of alleged apparitions, many of which bear little resemblance to the historical series of major approved apparitions, those between Guadalupe, in 1531, and Banneux in 1933. This article looks at the actual mechanism of the modern alleged apparitions, and compares it with that of the genuine apparitions: when this is done, the shortcomings of the former become very clear. The topicality of all this is evident from the recent statement of Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo, who, speaking at the Synod of Bishops in Rome, on the subject of religious...