Still Running Off at the Keyboard

THE MEDJUGORJE DECEPTION CONTINUED

Dr. Jones devotes an entire chapter to Bishop Paolo Maria Hnilica, who "defended" the Vatican in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, incurring a multi-million dollar debt to an underworld figure in the process, and being accused by the Italian government of trafficing in stolen goods in his effort to obtain Roberto Calvi's briefcase.

Bishop Hnilica's consecration is in question. There are hints of his being a communist agent. There is a tape recording in the hands of the government of a conversation between the Bishop and an underworld figure that led to his indictment. The story is almost too fantastic to be real. It's certainly a long long way from being holy.

Bishop Hnilica is also implicated in Medj. In the mid 80s the Yugoslavian government woke up to the fact that there was money to be made off of the apparitions, and began passing legislation that would regulate it in such a way as to make the money accessible to the government. Room rates were fixed by the government and were paid directly to the government in the local currency, dinar, which was worthless outside of Yugoslavia. Jones writes:

As tourism increased, the Franciscans and their local supporters were faced with a new problem, namely, what to do with the money. If they deposited it in local banks, it became worthless as hard currency and subject to the government's draconian taxation policies. As a result, the promoters of Medjugorje were in urgent need of people willing to launder money for them, a process which involved getting it first out of the country.

Hnilica, according to one source close to the Franciscans in Medjugorje, was a major conduit of Medjugorje money out of Yugoslavia. The relationship was symbiotic in a number of ways. Hnilica was given access to money at a time when he was strapped himself [because of his underworld debt] and had just been turned down by the Holy See for a $10 million loan. He was also involved in a publicity campaign that could just as easily be turned to the benefit of Medjugorje as it was, at least according to his account... (p. 113-114)

One gets the sense that there is a lot more to the Hnilica story than has so far been uncovered, and it ties Medjugorje into the Vatican Bank scandal and Roberto Calvi's murder.

The occult comes up briefly in Jones' discussion of the activities of the Gospa encouraging the ecclesiastical disobedience of Prusina and Vego, both suspended Franciscan friars who continued to administer the sacraments. The account is brief, but given the activities of neo-Cathar James Twyman that I blogged several weeks ago, it would seem that the occult is a distinct possibility in Medjugorje.

The real question, and the only one most are really interested in, is whether the apparitions have Church approval? No. Or disapproval? Well...sort of, and sort of not. Jones explains:

On May 23, 1985, the Vatican issued the first of its warnings on Medj. Archbishop Alberto Bovone, undersecretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a letter to the Italian Bishops in which he announced that the Church did not allow the faithful to organize pilgrimages to Medjugorje. ...

On May 2, 1986, [Bishop] Zanic's commission--in reality, his second commission--dissolved after presenting its unfavorable verdict to the bishop. One month later, in June, Zanic sent the report to Rome and presented it to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. ...The negative findings were never published. (p. 124)

Instead, on January 18, 1987 another commission, the third, was announced, this one under the auspicies of the Yugoslavian Bishops' Conference. This was a Vatican effort to buy time with the hope of resolving the political situation. The statement establishing this third commission was ambiguous regarding pilgrimages. Jones writes:

The prohibition of pilgrimages, while in line with the warning of Archbisjhop Bovone a year earlier, strikes an odd note at the end of a document which, in effect, opened the gates for a flood of pilgrims, the most in the history of the apparition, which would last right up until the civil war made tourism impossible. (p. 125)

Finally in 1991

Zanic arrived in Rome with a report that condemned Medjugorje in no uncertain terms, he found a willing collaborator in Cardinal Ratzinger who was ready to "blow it out of the water." The pope, however, was not going to let that happen for a number of reasons. The one which this priest [unnamed, but associated with the apparitions for more than ten years] mentions is the intervention of Rene Laurentin. But the pope was favorably disposed for other reasons as well. "The pope is an apparition nut," claimed the priest. "He had rehabilitated Sister Faustina in his diocese and he felt that the Medjugorje visionaries were just as real." So instead of condemning Medjugorje, the Vatican apppointed another commission, which gave the impression that the whole thing was unsettled and that Zanic's authority got in the way. This state of affairs lasted for five years until the spring of 1991, when the Yugoslavian bishops finally condemned Medjugorje but in language that still seemed to allow for pilgrimages. (p. 127)

So it would seem that the apparitions, themselves, have been condemned, but pilgrimages to Medj. have not been condemned. The question remains what are pilgrims journeying to when they take this pilgrimage?

According to Jones an article which appeared in an Italian publication in February 1987 claims in the words of Bishop Mistronigo of Treviso, that the Pope

has shown that he knows and follows events in Medjugorje. He maintains there is nothing bad in them because people pray there, go to the sacraments and are given a chance to begin a more serious spiritual life. As to the belief in the real presence of Mary there, caution is to be exercised, and of course, bishops' assessments as well as theologians' are still to be unanimous. (p. 126-127)

What this seems to come down to is that the Pope was comfortable with failing to discourage outright fraud. Strange thinking, but not wholly out of line with a Pope who condoned the cover-up of a sexual abuse scandal. But is this the activity of a Pope who is about to be dubbed "Great"? A cooling of emotion regarding our late Pontiff is needed before anything foolish is decided on his behalf.

Dr. Jones explains further:

The Church could never give its approval to something this scandalous. So instead of deciding, the pope temporized. He appointed another commission, which created a breathing space during which Medjugorje would continue to grow and along with it the Croation nationalist pressure on Communism in Yugoslavia. ...Rome's political aspirations interfered with its sense of Church governance and the truth. ...The same Church that always wanted an independent Catholic Croatia knew that Medjugorje was an integral part of Croatian nationalism, and it knew as well that to condemn Medjugorje would have dealt a severe blow to Croatian identity and fundraising at the time.

On the other hand, the evidence against Medjugorje as documented by the local bishop, whose authority had been upgraded as a result of Vatican II, was so damning that anyone with a modicum of theological expertise knew it could never be approved. So Rome temporized and appointed another commission, which took five years to come up with a verdict. The years from 1986 to 1991 were, of course, five extremely crucial years, during which the forces of nationalism gained the upper hand in Yugoslavia and ultimately brought down the Communist regime there. But Yugoslavia was not Poland, and the religious forces which brought down Communism eventually set off a three-way religious war, as Bishop Zanic had predicted, between the Croatians, the Orthodox Serbs and the Muslims. So the apparitions of Our Lady, Queen of Peace set up the dynamic that led to the worst fighting in Europe since World War II and gave the world the new term "ethnic cleansing" as well. The promulgation of the Church's official position on Medjugorje coincided almost to the day with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. ...

But if there was a geopolitical advantage in temporizing on the condemnation of Medjugorje, there was an ecclesial downside as well. It was a classic case of political goals in conflict with religious goals. ...The net result was a charismatic internal front in the Church, a group of people who would now be able to use Marian piety as a weapon against legitimate Church authority, specifically bishops. When it came to Medjugorje, the pope could attain his geopolitical goals only at the expense of his ability to govern the Church. (p. 130-131)

There it is again. Antinomianism. The underlying cause of the sexual abuse scandal? Given the two priests--Rohr and Rolheiser--who were on the program of the Cardinal Suenens Center's conference at Mundelein Seminary, and given the nature of Fr. Rolheiser's article on "Skin" which included a reference to "sexual sacrament", I think it is not unreasonable to believe there is a connection.

History would validate such a connection. Cathar history. Bogomil history. The history of heresy.

Did the Pope's embrace of phenomenology cloud his judgment over Medj? Did he opt for expediency in the form of people seen to be worshipping because his daily life revolved around the very people in Europe who were giving up on the faith? Did he grasp at this worship "straw" because of Europe's abandonment of Catholicism, making his daily vision a vision of failure?

Whatever is lurking under the sexual abuse scandal and the Medjugorje spiritual scandal, their source may be the same, and it may be a scandal sufficient to top both of these. We haven't heard the full story yet. Not by a long shot!

The more I learn about what has taken place in the Church over the last 20+ years, the more I have to fight off the desire to distance myself from something so scandulous and corrupt.


Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!