Misunderstanding Medjugorje

Denis Nolan

Donal Anthony Foley, the self-appointed crusader against Medjugorje, is back on the battlefield!  He vigorously and lengthily defends himself against the erudite and analytically precise arguments deployed against him by Daniel Klimek.  Foley’s opening sally gives some indication of the quality of his counterargument: “Daniel Klimek’s article … is over the top, ignorant, insulting.”  The same shrill if not hysterical tone is a recurrent theme in both Foley’s article and his book Understanding Medjugorje.  I feel compelled here to respond to Foley’s latest salvo for three reasons, the third being the most important:  (a) he has taken issue with some of my own arguments in two books (b) he has misrepresented Klimek’s case for Medjugorje and, (c) more important than the first two considerations, he continues to poison the well of grace that is Medjugorje by turning believers away from the truth underlying a phenomenon that has drawn not just tens of millions of believers and non-believers but such spiritual giants as Blessed Mother Teresa and the soon-to-be-beatified John Paul II.  Medjugorje is a spiritual tidal wave that has now washed ashore in Rome – so undeniable is its impact that the Vatican had to rescue it from the petty politics of the very ecclesiastical official that Foley still seeks to defend.  Although, in an unprecedented action, Rome stripped away the Bishop of Mostar’s authority over a phenomenon in his diocese, namely Medjugorje, Foley feels compelled still to appeal to this same authority in making his case.  This would be akin to a contemporary American appealing to the authority of the British parliament when making a case in an American court.  So my first message to Foley is this:  don’t appeal to the authority of Mostar in these discussions because that ship has sailed!

Foley’s arguments have been preempted in several books.  Here I want to point to three instances of intellectual dishonesty that are fundamental to Foley’s work both in his book and his article and that fully justify Klimek’s conclusion that Foley’s book is “a fraud.”  Foley’s defense against the Klimek article ignores these real issues.  Since he persists with his campaign of disinformation, it is incumbent on him to respond to at least these three issues that fatally undermine his arguments.

Fr. Ivo Sivric

First and foremost there is the chief witness to Foley’s prosecution, Fr. Ivo Sivric (also the case in E. Michael Jones’ book).   Sivric is trotted out by Medjugorje critics as the most reliable source since he speaks Croatian and is from the area and moreover has transcripts of the original conversations.  Foley, in fact, calls Fr. Sivric’s book “the seminal text on the visions” and says in his article:  “Klimek is thus claiming to have extensive knowledge of Medjugorje, yet he has apparently not read the seminal text on the visions, that is Fr Sivric’s book, rather being content to accept Sullivan’s opinion.”  What Foley like other critics of Medjugorje fail to mention (although, scandalously, they are well aware of it) is that Fr. Sivric had a vested interest in discrediting Medjugorje:  (a) his nephew, when the apparitions first began, was the head of the Communist party in the Medjugorje area and was given the responsibility for bringing it to an end.   (b) his niece was the social worker who, in the early days, kidnapped the visionaries (a well-known incident in all histories of Medjugorje).  Both nephew and niece ultimately failed in their mission but their efforts led to their becoming persona non grata in Medjugorje.  Fr. Sivric’s book, in a way, was an act of vengeance on the phenomenon that had led to their family being ostracized.  It sought to kill two birds:  discredit the phenomenon and rehabilitate his relatives.  This damning background story is well known by the locals but carefully ignored by critics like Foley.  In my Medjugorje: A Time for Truth, A Time for Action, I quoted the comments of Robert Bela Wilhelm, a National Catholic Reporter journalist, on the relevance of family squabbles: “Sivric himself is – of course – another actor on the scene, part of the quarreling families of Pavlovics, Vlasics, Ivankovics and Zovkos.  The notion of an impartial observer is untenable in the culture of Medjugorje.”

(NCR, July 15, 1988).

The leading Croatian theological authority on Medjugorje was Fr. Ljudevit Rupcic who served on the Theological Commission of the Yugoslavian Bishops Conference from 1969 to 1980 and also spent several years in Communist prisons.  He wrote several books on Medjugorje but three specifically responded to the polemical attacks on the phenomenon.  These were The Truth About Medjugorje, Once Again the Truth About Medjugorje and The Great Falsification:  The Hidden Face of Medjugorje by Ivo Sivric (which was, of course, about Fr. Sivric).  All three books should be required reading for all aspiring Medjugorje critics. I cite him heavily in my book on Medjugorje.  Let us see what Fr. Rupcic had to say about the arguments and author of what Foley calls “the seminal text on the visions.”  Fr. Rupcic’s is especially critical because Foley says his whole book rests on the Sivric transcripts:  “In doing this, he [Klimek] has failed to understand what the book is really about: a critical investigation of the transcripts of the original tapes of the Medjugorje visionaries, as recorded during the first week or so of the visions.”

Fr. Rupcic points out that because Fr. Sivric “is sentimentally attached to his relatives, he too felt himself a target in the loss of community esteem.  For that reason, even prior to his undertaking an investigation of Medjugorje, he held a clearly negative view of the event of Medjugorje.  By proving the events to be non-authentic, he, in fact, hopes to demonstrate the correctness of the stance and deeds of his relatives who, supposedly approached the events in a ‘diplomatic’ and ‘sober’ manner, in contrast to the vast majority of the parishioners and the millions of pilgrims of Medjugorje.” 

What about the transcripts that is the whole basis of Foley’s critique?  Fr. Rupcic: “The true sources still today are the living people, the partakers of those events:  in the first place, the Seers, their families, and the Pastors and Assistants.  The author, nonetheless, relies on a few taped conversations involving some of the direct witnesses.  It is important to note here that not all, including the most relevant facts and situations associated with the events at Medjugorje are recorded on tape.  Beyond that, the author selects the tape recordings in harmony with the goal he has set for himself.  Aside from that, the tape recordings used by Sivric are not the original tapes. The original tapes are clear and complete.  The police confiscated those tapes at the time they arrested the pastor, Fr. Jozo Zovko.  The Bishop sought to retrieve the tapes so as to make use of them for his Investigative Commission, but was unable to get them.  The tapes made use of by Sivric are copies of copies made by individuals for their private use.  When the tapes are being copied, often individual parts of the conversations were deleted;  thus, the spliced conversations are spread over a period of days and dates.  Evidence of this is seen in the transcription of the tapes used by the author in his book.  Sivric often notes that the tape has been cut, and notes that the tape recordings are undecipherable in at least 148 instances.  Since all the participants in these taped conversations are still living, it boggles the mind that the author does not attempt to fill in or clarify those missing parts. …Such tapes, ‘documents’ for the author, are seventh-hand witness, at best, which, by established principles, cannot be recognized as having the strength of proof.  Fr. Jozo Zovko, himself, having read the author’s transcription of conversations held with him, said, ‘This is not my composition.’” (The Great Falsification:  The Hidden Face of Medjugorje by Ivo Sivric, p.4).

“The author also falsely maintains that the seers began to have inaudible conversations with the Virgin only after the apparitions were transferred to the Church in January of 1982.  Meanwhile, according to the witness of Grgo Kozina himself, who followed the events of the apparitions and the Seers from the very start, the Seers sometimes spoke audibly and at other times inaudibly with the Virgin.  They, in principle, always spoke inaudibly with the Virgin.  They related the questions of those present in an audible manner. … One cannot determine by listening to the tape recordings as to whether there was any inaudible dialogue with the Virgin:  it must be clear to the author that inaudible conversations cannot be recorded on tape.” (The Great Falsification:  The Hidden Face of Medjugorje by Ivo Sivric, p.5).

Did the visionaries say that the apparition would end in three days? “If we compare Sivric’s claims with the statements made by Mirjana and Mica, only one thing is unambiguous, that Sivric’s claims are mere manipulation.  Above all, Sivric does not cite Mirjana’s words but instead puts Mica’s words in her mouth.  Mica incorrectly relayed Mirjana’s question to Our Lady as well as Our Lady’s reply to Mirjana.” Once Again the Truth About Medjugorje, 81).

E. Michael Jones

Foley stands by his guns in defending E. Michael Jones as a reliable source:  “In sum, E. Michael Jones is discredited only in the minds of people like Klimek, who do not want to face up to the evidence provided by him about Medjugorje.”

Jones, like Foley, used Sivric as his main source – so he is already in trouble on that score.  In Medjugore – A Time for Truth, A Time for Action, I had shown the incoherence of Jones’ arguments.  Foley does not even try to answer my counter-arguments.  More important yet are the arguments against Jones laid out in essays in this book by people who knew Jones.  The most striking is the critique of Jones by the distinguished moral philosopher Janet Smith who makes an impressive, lucidly argued case for Medjugorje while also showing where Jones has gone wrong.  Has Foley even read this?  If so he should at least give a response before blithely dismissing critiques of Jones as coming from people “who do not want to face up to the evidence provided by him about Medjugorje.”

The Bishop of Mostar

Foley continues to maintain, most recently in this article, that “the Holy See has implicitly upheld the position of the successive Bishops of Mostar, because there has been no explicit move to declare the alleged visions genuine in the intervening period.”  My first reaction to this statement was:  What is he smoking?  Let’s take a parallel example.  The account of the visions and messages reported by Sr. Faustina Kowalska was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books.  Thanks to Pope John Paul II, the case was re-opened and over a period of several years the writings were accepted as worthy of belief.  It is true that during the period of investigation, the Vatican implicitly upheld the position of placing the book on the Index because there was no explicit move to declare them authentic for a long period of time.  The whole purpose of an investigation is to arrive at a decision;  if the decision is a foregone conclusion, the Vatican would not go through the time and energy required to set up a commission.  Is Foley seriously saying that the Vatican went through all these motions simply to rubber-stamp the rash statements made by the local Ordinary?  Anyone who is not fanatically anti-Medjugorje should see that the whole move was actually an explicit, and not simply implicit, rebuke relating to the said Ordinary’s competence in this matter.

Like the other Medjugorje critics, Foley refuses to address the question of what motivated the original Bishop of Mostar in changing his initial position on the apparition (which was welcoming and warm).  Not to worry. Fr. Rupcic lays it all out (in passages I have quoted in my book):  “Shortly after this, however, the bishop began to change his mind about the events, although there was no important change in Medjugorje itself to account for it.  The explanation for the bishop’s change of attitude is to be found outside Medjugorje.  The Communist and (officially) atheist state management in Yugoslavia soon began to take note of the fact that the Bishop of Mostar’s positive stance toward the apparitions – expressed clearly in his oral and written statements, as well as in his public appearances – stood in contrast to the official state attitude toward the events, namely, that the apparitions were counter-revolutionary. 

“Officials of the State Security Police, through the Executive Committee, summoned Zanic to Sarajevo and there threatened to imprison him unless he stopped speaking in favor of the apparitions.  Their threats worked impressively on the bishop, who returned to Mostar another man.  … During this same period, Fr. Jozo Zovko was also summoned to see the U.D.B.A. (State Security Police).  They threatened Fr. Jozo with imprisonment if he didn’t change his (favorable) stance towards the Medjugorje apparitions.  No doubt the threats leveled at the bishop and at Fr. Jozo were siilar, since they were both “guilty” of the same “crime”.  But Fr. Jozo continued to act according to his convictions while, at the same time, trying not to provoke the U.D.B.A. into carrying out its threats. … Faced with the threat of imprisonment, Fr. Jozo continued to support Medjugorje, knowing full well the risks to which he exposed himself in doing so.  The bishop, however, in the same situation, and confronted with the same threat, reacted differently.  … Immediately after his face-to-face meeting with the U.D.B.A., the bishop called Fr. Jozo and related to him how he had been interrogated by the Executive Committee in Sarajevo and how, on his arrival back in Mostar, 12 of his priests had met him and upbraided him for his positive stand on Medjugorje.  On August 17, 1981, Fr. Jozo was arrested and, in the end, sentenced to three and a half years of hard labor because of his stand on Medjugorje.  … The situation grew more and more tense.  In those days it was very dangerous to utter even a word in favor of Medjugorje. 

“Immediately after he was released from prison (February 18, 1983), Fr. Jozo paid a visit to the bishop.  In the conversation, among other things, they touched on Medjugorje.  The bishop tried on this occasion to justify his actions, stating that, under the circumstances, it was not ‘possible’ for him to have acted differently than he did, threatened as he was by the UDBA with imprisonment.  Besides this, he mentioned once again the pressure brought to bear on him from diocesan priests and from some Franciscans not to intervene on Medjugorje’s behalf.  … In such a situation, the bishop had ‘had’ to think of his own interests, he told Fr. Jozo.  ‘How could I have acted differently?’ the bishop asked.  ‘I could not have gone to prison for Medjugorje,’ he said, thinking of the UDBA threat, ‘nor did I wish to go from being bishop to assistant pastor of a village,’ referring to pressure from his diocesan priests.  He feared the UDBA because they could imprison him, and his priests because he was a newcomer in the diocese and the clergy had threatened him with some sort of boycott. … Because he was not ready to contradict his previous statements, he had to discover some means by which he could keep the powers at bay and still present himself in public as an honest person. (The imprisonment of Fr. Jozo had convinced him that the threat coming from UDBA was serious).  Therefore he began to invent ‘arguments’ against Medjugorje from which one could ‘see’ that cowardice had not caused him to change his attitude, but his new-found ‘reasons.’”  (The Truth About Medjugorje, 70-75).

As to where the Vatican stands on Medjugorje today, a public statement from the Holy See’s Ambassador to Bosnia, the Apostolic Nuncio, says it all.  Last March 20, 2010, when announcing the formation of an investigative commission on the Vatican level, Archbishop Alessandro D’Errico, Apostolic Nuncio to Bosnia and Hercegovina, stated at the end of 48th Bishop’s Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina: 

“Whenever I would meet the Holy Father, he was always very much interested in Medjugorje.  He was involved in everything, starting with the time when he was Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is aware that this is the issue of special importance, and he, as supreme authority of the Church, needs to give his precise statement about that matter.  The Holy Father is very much familiar with the Medjugorje phenomenon; he even mentioned that to me personally. He is aware of a huge amount of positive and good influence of local priests, religious, Franciscans, lay people, and therefore, it is very difficult for him to perceive that there can be so many opposing information about the same matter.  That is why he wanted to establish this Commission that is on really high level.”

Rome Reports, a popular Vatican news source sent out a March 29, 2010 news story stating: "Millions of pilgrims visit Medjugorje every year. For this reason, the Vatican is considering building a diocese for the sanctuary, independent from Mostar, which it depended on until now. According to close sources of the Vatican, the new diocese will likely be based in the city of Makarska. The project was proposed in September 2009, but was not carried out due to the lack of support from the bishop of the region, Ratko Peric."

Miscellaneous

A few relatively minor points:

Here is Foley’s response to Klimek’s John Paul’s statement about Medjugorje as the fulfillment of Fatima:  “Klimek fails to provide an authoritative, public and official source for the claimed quote from Pope John Paul II given here.”  The real issue is not whether or not this quote can be satisfactorily substantiated.  Rather it is what John Paul thought of Medjugorje.  On this there can be no further doubt since there are letters in John Paul’s hand expressing his views on Medjugorje, e.g., “I thank Sophia for everything concerning Medjugorje.  I, too, go there every day as a pilgrim in my prayers"; "I myself am very much attached to that place.  It can be that there is only one such sanctuary in the world"; "We everyday return to Medjugorje in prayer."  Not surprisingly, Foley leaves aside the question of why a Pontiff who received all available data on Medjugorje and knew Eastern Europe from a native’s point of view would be wrong on the facts while he (Foley) got it right.

Secondly, Foley says he went to Medjugorje and remained a skeptic.  Well, a number of skeptics descended on Lourdes when the apparitions there were taking place and yet remained skeptics.  If your mind is already made up, God is not going to over-ride your freewill.

Finally, I note Foley’s citation of St. John of the Cross and his warning against a thirst for signs and wonders.  By a remarkable coincidence, another Englishman named Foley, the late British Jesuit Fr. Richard Foley, a good friend of mine, had already addressed this charge.  Fr. Foley was a colleague of such famous Jesuit thinkers as the historian of philosophy Fr. Frederick Copleston and, in fact, reported that Copleston too was impressed with the supernatural nature of Medjugorje.  Fr. Foley pointed out that St. John’s warning against diabolic phenomena was never intended as a warning against all supernatural phenomena.

It should be said here that Foley is already notorious for writing an article on Marian apparitions in the magazine The Voice of Padre Pio and slipping in his pet peeves about Medjugorje.  The subsequent protests from the readership of the magazine led its editors to apologize for this abuse of authorial privilege.  Foley’s book is in some ways an extended version of the article.  As I have already said before, there are no new facts, discoveries or insights in the book.  It is a re-run of previous devious assaults. 

Even the highest authorities in the Church take seriously the claim that the Blessed Mother is appearing in Medjugorje.  That is why the Vatican has appointed an international commission to investigate the claim.  I grant that some people have sincere concerns about Medjugorje and therefore they have good reason to air their concerns.  This is understandable and acceptable.  There are others, however, who not only have concerns about Medjugorje but also air outright falsehoods about it and propagate demonstrably distorted accounts of the phenomenon.  Foley’s book belongs to this latter category.  Klimek has provided a great service to the cause of truth by exposing the book for what it is: “Foley's book—as any well-read person on Medjugorje would be able to point out—is full of distortions, half-truths, specious logic, unsubstantiated rumors, dubious conclusions, highly selective (often out-of-context) quoting, contradictory claims, creative conspiracy theories and, at times, downright falsehoods.”