Jimmy Akin sheds light on the recent Vatican document regarding apparitions and supernatural phenomena. He discusses the implications of this document for Medjugorje, exploring the Vatican’s new classification and its impact on the devotion surrounding the reported apparitions.
Jimmy’s Article: https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/medjugorje-closer-look-at-vatican-ruling
Transcript:
You know what, Jimmy? I saw there was news, and it’s related to something you have talked about on this show, and I don’t think anyone else has talked about, is that document that came out, the Vatican document,
on kind of how to proceed when there are claims of apparitions and supernatural things. And now there’s some news based on that from Medjugorje, and I think that’s what a lot of people have been waiting for. So can you kind of run us through what that’s all about, what was said?
So first of all, for more information, I wrote a piece about this for the National Catholic Register. They asked me to do a piece on it for them, so you can read that for more detail. But basically, what I suspected might happen did happen.
After the announcement of the new norms for evaluating reports of private apparitions, they took the,
Cardinal Fernandez was asked if, you know, they were gonna do Medjugorje, and he said at the time, well, I haven’t reviewed that material yet, but we should be able to proceed to a decision now.
And even though one of the now seven categories for classifying reports of an apparition
sounded like it was tailor made for Medjugorje, he kind of went in a different direction. He raised the possibility of given it what’s called a Nihilabstadt, which means nothing obstructs the faithful from having a devotion to this, but with some clarifications. And that’s what they did.
So a Nihilabstadt is now the highest ruling, the most positive ruling that can be given to an apparition without the direct intervention of the Pope. What a Nihilabstadt does not do is pass any judgment on is this genuinely supernatural or not. And so the Vatican has not made a ruling on are the reported apparitions at Medjugorje supernatural, in fact, at the conclusion of the new document on it, they say that three times. So they really want to make it clear, we’re not saying whether this is supernatural or not,
but they say, you know, a lot of the messages associated with it are wholesome and can be used for devotional purposes by the faithful, and there’s good spiritual fruit, you know, conversions and reconciliations of marriages and stuff like that connected with Medjugorje. And so the faithful can have a reasonable devotion here, but there are some clarifications they needed to insist on. And so you can read the article or the original document, which is linked in the article for more information about that. Basically, it leaves us in the same position that we were in before. People who think that Medjugorje is supernatural can continue to think that, but they’ve been put on notice by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that not all the messages should just be regarded as this is the will of heaven. They specifically say that some of the messages can be misleading or are misleading, and there are some things in them that you just need to not pay attention to. So if you’re gonna think it’s supernatural,
don’t be thinking it’s just, this is what heaven says. On the other hand, they say that if you don’t think Medjugorje is supernatural, you’re welcome to think that too.
But they have ruled that there are genuine spiritual fruits connected with Medjugorje, and so you shouldn’t be downplaying those either.