Medjugorje, 12 Question Interview

[Denise]

Interview with M.Jones who unmasked Medjugorje and ex-Fr. T.Vlasic already 20 years ago : 12 Questions

I left all the text so you have to read through some short emails

webmaster
semperficatholic.com


----- Original Message -----
From: 'Mark Waterinckx'
To: 'Mark Waterinckx'
Sent: Tue Aug 18 12:56
Subject: Fwd: FW: Interview with M.Jones who unmasked Medjugorje and ex-Fr. T.Vlasic already 20 years ago : 12 Questions




-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Mark Waterinckx [markwaterinckx@skynet.be','','','')">markwaterinckx@skynet.be]
Verzonden: dinsdag 18 augustus 2009 18:53
Onderwerp: Interview with M.Jones who unmasked Medjugorje and ex-Fr. T.Vlasic already 20 years ago : 12 Questions



-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: jones@culturewars.com [jones@culturewars.com','','','')">jones@culturewars.com]
Verzonden: dinsdag 18 augustus 2009 14:53
Aan: markwaterinckx@skynet.be
Onderwerp: Fwd: Re: interview

Dear Mark,

Here is the interview in English. It appeared in about eight Serbian journals.

Mike


----- Original Message -----
From: Sungenis@aol.com
To: jones@culturewars.com
Sent: Thu 09/07/30 03:35
Subject: Fwd: Re: interview
In a message dated 7/30/2009 9:30:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
jones@culturewars.com writes: Dear Bob,

Can you send me a copy of the interview I just sent you? I
inadavertently deleted my copy.

Thanks,

Mike Here you go. I cleaned it up a bit yesterday.

On Wed 09/07/29 11:50 , "sasavazic" vazicsasa@gmail.com sent:

Dear Mike, Sorry it took me more time than I thought it would.
Now, here is a bulk of questions. Excuse me for all the language
mistakes and typos... they are due to my rush to send you these qs
and do the interview.

1. According to the report issued by Vatican on Sunday, the Pope
Benedict the Sixteenth had defrocked the Catholic priest Tomislav
Vlasic, responsible for establishing a cult of Our Lady in Medjugorje
in Herzegovina. This happened 28 years after the first M. apparition
and raises many questions. First, and as is known, the question of
Medjugrje has been neglected by Vatican for such a long time. Does the
new Pope have some new visions about this phenomena or some new facts,
that is what has made him make such a decision?

1) No, I don't think there has been any new information about
Medjugorje for at least ten years. The main difference is the pope
himself. When I met with then ordinary of the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno,
Bishop Pavao Zanic, in 1988 he told me that Cardinal Ratzinger, who is
now Pope Benedict XVI, was in complete in agreement that the so-called
apparitions of Medjugorje were a hoax orchestrated by the renegade
order of Franciscans in his diocese. Bishop Zanic then told me that he
presented the same evidence to Pope John Paul II. "And what did the
pope say?" I asked. "The pope said nothing," Zanic replied. This
confirms what I learned in my meetings with Cardinal Ratzinger. He was
convinced that Medjugorje was a hoax from the beginning. The main
reason for the inactivity in Rome was Pope John Paul II. The main
reason for recent activity is Pope Benedict XVI, not new evidence.
2. Stripping of rank is the most severe punishment for severe
crimes. In this case they have been tolerated for 28 years. In the
Middle Ages one could easily be burnt at the stake... Does the
Pope’s decision mean that Vatican is determined to stop the whole
story about Medjugoje or just to punish one of its culprits, one big
Franciscan businessman?

2) I think this is the first step in the Vatican's campaign to
de-legtimatize Medjugorje. Anyone familiar with the story knows that
the apparitions were the creation of two Franciscan priests: Tomislav
Vlasic and Jozo Zovko. Children do not create world-wide movements
generating millions of dollars a year in revenue.

3. What do you expect to happen next?

3) When the true story gets out, bishops across the world will begin
to ban the "seers" from their dioceses. This has already happened in
the Diocese of Joliet, outside of Chicago. Ivan Dragicevic cannot
longer show up in parishes their and fleece unsuspecting Catholics of
their money.

4. How will the Croatian bishopric react?

4) The Croatian bishops in general will say that the findings on
Vlasic confirm their verdict of "non constat supernaturalite," which
was handed down in 1990. Bishop Ratko Peric will say that the
defrocking of Father Vlasic will confirm what he and the late Bishop
Pavao Zanic have said all along. Medjugorje was the invention of a
renegade and rebellious groups of Franciscan priests who have used
this hoax to enrich themselves financially at the expense of unity in
the Church and of good relations with the Orthodox.

5. Apart from Franciscan, some other monastic orders have also
supported Medjugorje. What will happen to them?

5) Juridically, nothing will happen, but there will be widespread
disillusionment when the denial that has been going on for so long
becomes impossible to maintain any longer. Bishop Zanic said that the
ultimate fruits of Medjugorje will be division and disillusionment in
the Church.

6. Medjugoje has to do with abuse of the psychological and spiritual
state of the people from the areas suffering from poverty and faced
with various turbulences. It was easy to manipulate with them, as
testified by the earliest historical events all over the globe. In
this case, huge amount of money were at stake, people even bequeathed
their inheritances to the church, leaving their families without them.
How will this problem be solved?

6) If you're talking about donations to the rebellious Franciscans
of Caplinja, Siroki Brijeg, Medugorje, etc, those assets are held by
the Franciscans in trust for the Church and could be appropriated by
the bishop of Mostar. Whether they can be returned to the people who
gave them under false pretenses is another matter. However, the real
issue here is not Church law. The real issue is police enforcement of
the law. When Bishop Peric when to Caplinja to talk to the rebellious
priests there, he was physically assaulted. Neither the Vatican nor
the Bishop has a police force that can enforce canon law.

7. If we look back, we can see that all through the history and in
many regions, during turbulent times, social crises, insecurity,
spiritual fall... take place, there are many more such things and
phenomena attributed as miracles, salvation etc. People believe in
seeing saints on tree barks, there are stones in churches and
monasteries which are only to be touched and one is saved from all
troubles and sufferings... Does this happen today in developed and
peaceful countries?

7) It depends on what you mean by developed and peaceful countries.
It certainly has happened in the United States. Why it happened is a
matter of conjecture. In my book The Medjugorje Deception, I claim
that Medjugorje was one of the sequelae to the cultural revolution
which took place in the United States in the wake of the Second
Vatican Council. When confronted with a Church that seemed determined
to destroy itself, many Catholics sought refuge in what seemed to be a
reassuring message which came directly from the Blessed Mother. The
result of the Church's inadequate response to modernity was a host of
phoney apparitions, and of the Medjugorje was the most famous, largely
because it corresponded in time to the Reagan Administration's
eventually successful crusade against Communism.

8. None of the pilgrims to M. have ever seen anything, there is
always some medium who can see the Virgin Mary, whereas a large crowd
of people 'communicate' with her, believe in what they actually don't
see. Visions can be hallucinations rather than actual seeing, but all
this goes so far so that the medium is glorified. What will happen to
those media? It could happen that they now claim that they have seen
Gospa again sending word to the Pope to bring the Franciscan back...

8) First of all, I disagree with you when you say that the pilgrims
who have gone to Medjugorje have ever seen anything. Shortly after the
publication of The Medjugorje Deception, I got a call from a Unitarian
from Boston who had gone to Medjugorje with a number of pious Italian
ladies from Boston. He then related the following incident: While
standing in his room waiting to go down to dinner, he saw a naked
woman walk through the open doorway to his room. She then walked
across the room and then walked through the wall. Medjugorje, I
learned from a priest who heard confessions there for years, is
infested with evil spirits. This charge came out one year ago when the
bishop of Mostar released his dossier on Tomislav Vlasic. In addition
to sexual improprieties, Vlasic was also guilty of trafficking in
spirits. Hence, the demonic infestation at Medjugorje.

As St. John of the Cross said, "The devil rejoices when people seek
private revelations." That is so because they are so easy to
fabricate.

9. Based on some talks with some Croats and some reports, it can be
concluded that M. is a mass movement which, on a subconscious level,
excuses the bloody things done, mostly, against Serbs, but also
against Gypsies and Jews, unfortunately, by certain number of Croats
known as Ustashas? What is your opinion about this?

9) There are many levels to the Medjugorje phenomenon, and one of
them may very well be the collective guilt which the village felt
because of its role in the massacre of Surmanci, which took place just
on the other side of the apparition hill. There were also numerous
links between the Medjugorje branch of the Franciscans and the
Ustashe. I personally saw the pictures of Ustashe soldiers on the wall
of the monastery at Siroki Brijeg when I visited there. Jozo Zovko
deliberately injected a political note into the apparitions when he
put the grb on the altar during the early celebrations of Mass at the
time of the first apparitions in 1981.

10. What is your opinion about the fact that some Croatian
government officials have neglected, or even supported, Medjugorje?
What is the importance of such a political support?

10) Medjugorje was a crucial element in the resurgence of Croatian
nationalism which led to the break-up of Yugoslavia. After the
break-up the late Franjo Tudjman went to Medjugorje. From a
nationalist point of view, it didn't matter whether the apparitions
were genuine or not. What mattered was whether they could be mobilized
politically. I do not know how the current Croatian government feels
about M or the still significant tourist revenues which it brings in.
But I do know that in places like Split whenever I talked to
Franciscans, I encountered skepticism about the apparitions. M is an
operation of one particular group of Franciscans who have had a long
history of rebellious behavior and who are a disgrace to the Catholic
Church.

11. What do we do with Medjugorje? What do we do with the fraud
lasting for 28 years now?

11) All we can do is to continue to tell the truth. My hope is that
the recognition of the truth about Medjugorje at the highest level of
the Catholic Church will lead to reconciliation --particularly between
Catholics and Orthodox in the Balkans--and the healing of the wounds
which this hoax has caused.

12. What you claimed 20 years ago and what you have proven in your
book, has been justified at the highest place by the Holy See. A nice
satisfaction for your long lasting work. How do you feel about it?

12) I believe that the truth is great and that it will prevail. But
in the meantime 28 years of inactivity on the part of Rome has allowed
this lie to take root in parishes all across America (and in Europe as
well). Uprooting that error after so many years of negligence is going
to be a formidable task. On a personal level, I live in a diocese
which allows advertisements for pilgrimages to Medjugorje to run in
its diocesan newspaper. I live in a diocese which writes positive
articles about each year's Medjugorje conference, also held in this
diocese. The local bishop in fact was scheduled to concelebrate Mass
with Jozo Zovko, even though Zovko's faculties had been suspended by
both Bishop Peric and Bishop Zanic.

So in terms of the local church, there is no recognition whatsoever
on the part of the clergy or the laity that I was right about
Medjugorje. Whether that will change is something I cannot predict,
but as Christians we are told not to look for vindication in this
life. Our reward is in heaven.