http://www.vecernji-list.hr/newsroom/news/bih/586608/index.do

Article from Vecernji List July 16, 2006
Author _arko Ivkovi_

Request from the Vatican
The Church has decided to studiously review the events at Medjugorje
A New Commission will decide what is happening in Medjugorje

The Catholic Church is starting a new commission that will look into the Medjugorje events. This sums up what Cardinal Vinko Puljic, president of the Bosnia and Hercegovina Bishops Conference and Archbishop of Sarajevo, said to reporters at the end of the Bishops conference held July12-14, 2006 in Banja Luka. This announcement surprised many, because Medjugorje was not even one of the topics discussed at the meeting. On top of that, it is well know that the Church will not take a definite position about the Medjugorje phenomenon while it is still going on, and even more well known is the position of the bishop of Mostar, who time and again has claimed that there are no apparitions of the Mother of God in his diocese.

Request from the Vatican
Then why is a new commission being established that will reanalyze the position of the bishops taken in the 1991 Zadar declaration, by which “it cannot be determined that anything supernatural is happening there”?
Our sources tell us that the request to establish a new commission came from the Vatican, who cannot ignore what is happening in Medjugorje and has been insisting for over a half a year that something be done.
The Medjugorje phenomenon has had effects all over the world, there are more and more pilgrims from the entire world coming in throngs to the small village in Hercegovina and are praying to the Mother of God. It is interesting that the commission will probably be put together by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, even though the normal practice is for that kind of commission to be established by the local bishop.
But, because of the negative position of Bishop Ratko Peric, the commission will be international in order for it to be completely objective and neutral. It will probably consist of two teams that will have clear jurisdiction and orders.

Holy Place
It is clear that the Holy See has decided to take Medjugorje into its own hands and finally decide whether Medjugorje is an official shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary where people come not only privately but with the official recommendation of the Church, or a “normal” place of prayer in which nothing supernatural has occurred. The third possibility is that all pilgrimages to that site be banned, but if the Holy See were planning on doing that it would not be establishing a commission to look into it.
“I was very happy to hear the news that Cardinal Vinko Puljic announced,” said Father Petar Ljubicic, the priest who is suppose to announce the secrets of Medjugorje when the time comes for them to take place. “We have been expecting this for a long time. The Cardinal said that the Holy See, that is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, will name a new commission that will analyze and look into what has already been happening in Medjugorje for 25 years. Since I was a priest in Medjugorje and have followed the events since the beginning, I am very happy that it will now be looked into more seriously.”

Serious study
Father Petar stresses, “As for as the previous commissions, that looked into the events, are concerned I can say that some members were open and serious theologians, who were specialists in spirituality and had studied mystical experiences, but there were other individuals who understood everything superficially and they were not serious about the events. It is well known that some of them never actually came to Medjugorje. I ask myself how they could give their opinions that ‘there is no evidence that the apparitions could be authentic’. Especially since it is known that some of them rejected, a priori, that apparitions were possible at all. That greatly confused me. The need was felt a long time ago for the Holy See to take the whole matter in its own hands.