Medjugorje is back in the news. On October 23, 2020, it was announced that Tomislav Vlasic, former spiritual director to its seers, had been excommunicated. The sentence was incurred after Vlasic steadfastly refused to comply with the canonical sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, when he was defrocked. During the intervening decade, he persisted in … Read more
Devotees of the Medjugorje apparitions often quote Scripture in their defense: “By their fruits you shall know them.” It’s now 38 years since the alleged apparitions began. Decades of disapproval from the local hierarchy have not sufficed to suppress enthusiasm about the so-called visionaries. Today, the Medjugorje issue seems to boil down to one question. … Read more
Distilling some of the ideas in my book on Thomistic angelology, I published a previous column in Crisis on the massive intelligence and powers of angels. The flip-side of these spiritual faculties, as Aquinas points out, is the existence of a dark kingdom, using the same intelligence and power to prevent the spread of God’s … Read more
Last week I received a mailing from Caritas of Birmingham, in Sterret, Alabama. It was an invitation to come to the four-storey Tabernacle of our Lady’s Messages at Caritas, where a visionary, Marija Pavlovic Lunetti, is slated to receive five messages and apparitions during the 2012 gathering from July 1 to July 5. Caritas is … Read more
In Volume I of Jesus of Nazareth, authored by Pope Benedict XVI before he became pontiff, the three temptations of Christ in the desert before entering public life are considered. The devil poses these temptations to try to confirm his suspicions that Jesus is the chosen one of God, and the temptations themselves are geared … Read more