Sex, lies and apparitions

Drago

You have no clue about Medjugorje. If you are a Catholic at all and if you have visited medjugorje and confessed there - you would not be saying such a bad things about it. You are discrace !!

MB

This article is entirely biased, and written by a reporter with an obvious and persistent vendetta. The priest he links to Medjugorje left there 24 years ago, and was only there for two years (and not at the beginning of the apparitions). Even those associated with Medjugorje had long distanced themselves from him, for the main part. Meanwhile, the Vatican clearly allows private pilgrimages.

MB

This article is entirely biased, and written by a reporter with an obvious and persistent vendetta. The priest he links to Medjugorje left there 24 years ago, and was only there for two years (and not at the beginning of the apparitions). Even those associated with Medjugorje had long distanced themselves from him, for the main part. Meanwhile, the Vatican clearly allows private pilgrimages.

Sean

This is tabloidism at its worst, a ridiculous article full of lies. I would urge readers to do their own investigations into Medjugorje and to not ignore the most important spiritual event in the past 2,000 years.

RC

And to think that this is only about half of the folly of Medjugorje.

Caldwell doesn't even mention the charges of immorality against Fr. Zovko, another so-called "saint"; the seers who go on speaking tours and have their "apparitions" conveniently wherever they want; the apparition's endorsement of condemned pseudo-mystical writings by Maria Valtorta.

Rod

Well done Simon! A neat, factual summary of events. Medjugorje is the pseudo-spiritual equivalent of man-made global warming pseudo-science. A massive con. Last May, a renowned Italian exorcist, Bishop Andrea Gemma, slammed Medj as "a mixture of interests, personal and diabolical", fuelled by "the lure of easy money". (Gemma also predicted the Vlasic condemnation, stating that "soon the Vatican will intervene with something explosive to unmask once and for all who is behind this deceit.")

George Weber

The pope's beliefs are much more refined than those of the Medjugorje rabble because of the philosophical grinding that has gone on in Rome for the past 2000 years. In fact, both parties operate with unprovable claims.

Peter Inkley, Johannsburg South Africa

Archbishop Rowan Williams obviously does not live in cloistered isolation from the real world. He should be a welcome addition to the Board of some of the companies "too big to fail" (Our idolatrous attitudes to markets-Spectator 27th September 2008). It's pity his stewardship of the Anglican Communion has not endeared him to it's diehard traditionalists .

Kevin

An excellent report - factual and well written. It's high time the Vatican reined in this huge fraud. Sadly, those with vested interests will continue to promote it, and the fanatics who defend it will never listen to reason, but this needed to be written. The Vatican needs to do more. A forthright condemnation of the whole phenomenon is needed.

waterinckx mark

I have been 24x in Med. and have 200 arguments against the authenticity of Med.What S.Caldwell describes is only a small part of the TRUTH! Med. is based upon propaganda, manipulation and lies. Read carefully Vlasic's condemnation by the Vatican :schism, heresy, manipulation of consciences, dubious doctrine, suspected mysticism, disobedience..
What else can Rome tell us more about that modern Rasputin, the first spiritual leader of the 'seers'...

Jim

I can only speak from my own personal experience of Medjugorje and for me and many others it is a place of pray, peace and spiritual growth. People openly practice their faith individually and in groups. to me it is a little piece of Heaven here on earth.

Josh LeBosh

I visited Medjugorje in 1993 on business unrelated to the apparition industry. I was sickened to see tacky key chain and fridge magnet souvenirs bearing the image of the Mother of God being sold right next to similar items with swastikas and other nazi iconography. Obscene really - no less so when one wonders how much of the money fleeced from pilgrims must have helped to finance Franjo Tudjman's atrocities in the region.

FL

Your article well supports what Pavao Zanic (RIP), the first Bishop of Mostar to condemn Medjugorje, had maintained from the beginning and which he published in his 1990 Statement about the 'visions', the 'visionaries' and their manipulators: that Vlasic is the creator of Medjugorje, and that the 'visions' are a staged pantomime. Well done Simon.

Edward

I can not believe that any Medjugorje enthusiast has any authentic respect or reverence for the Mother of God. At best the moral qualities the seers themselves attribute to their vision, whom they claim to be the mother of God, involve a being (or fantasy or hoax) who is emotionally insecure, capricious, ignorant of human history, subservient to the seers, obedient to the seers, snottily dismissive of church authority, snottily dismissive of church doctrine, and venomously uncharitable and threatening towards those exercising their Catholic and moral obligation to be skeptical of any claimed apparition. When our lives are over and we have to give an accounting, do we really think Jesus is going to be thrilled if we in any way gave support, actively or passively, to a phenomenon that depicted his mother as a shrew?

Bevvy

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Paul Called by God
11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1

giogio

this is a lie, the Vatican suspended father vlasic a LONG time ago! He lost his faith poor devil but as for the apparitions they are TRUE! And they have nothing to do with vlasic.
Cadwell what do you say of thousands HEALINGS that happen there every year? There are thousands of scientific dossiers waiting to be approved.. and don't doubt medjugorje will be approved! Wash your mouth after this and ask for forgiveness untill you're on time..

Tim

I'm laughing at this article. I'm hoping Simon Caldwell goes to Medjugorje. We will see you has the last laugh. Mary and her son will humble this foolish man named Simon Caldwell.

Cibi

This Simon would do well to spend a week in Medjugorje.
He ought to read the books written by Michael Brown(e), a worldly journalist like himself.
Books by Heather Parsons, who was sent to Medjugorje to investigate the visionaries, for Irelands National TV company; RTE. She was chosen because she was NOT CATHOLIC.
Wayne Weible, a Pastor/Sunday school teacher, of a Protestant church also writes about Medjugorje.
What more can I say...before 'knocking' anything, one must experience it. Common sence, and also fairness dictates that course. But perhaps Simon is one that makes judgements on rumour, rather than on factual investigation. Therefore, there is no reason for anyone to take him seriously. Cibi

Joseph

Well done Simon! "The Truth Shall Set You free" I'm a devout Roman Catholic and I truly believe it to be a fraud, pure and simple. It has nothing in common with true apparitions, and has all the signs of a satanic hoax.

EddieL

One of the seers said she saw and conversed with her dead mother. This cannot be true because in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man Jesus said that a barrier has been placed between this world and the next so that no one can cross either way. This should prove that the "apparitions" are a hoax.