Former spiritual director of 'Medjugorje visionaries' excommunicated

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What bothers me about Medjugorie is that whereas the seers of Lourdes and Fatima and other places all suffered or entered religious communities (or both), the seers of medjugorie seem to have gone on to lead comfortable or even more than comfortable bourgeois lives.
 
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He founded New age religious community which he says have full support of Our Lady of Medjugorje. Wikipedia article is correct but there are many other things which aren’t mentioned. He also found “new Catholic Church - with aliens from other planets which is chosen by Jesus”. It is called Chuch of Jesus Christ of the Universe.
His community is very active in Medjugorje (he and his wife/partner have retreat centers in Medjugorje) and in Italy. In Croatia there are also many suspicious communities which promote Medjugorje, Queen of Peace and very strange teaching.
Don’t know if he also has other spiritual centers in other parts of the world.

It is mess here with all these things going on.
 
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I found it interesting that the regular apparitions suddenly were announced to be ending right when the COVID travel bans went into effect and the visitors were dwindling. What a coincidence! :roll_eyes:
Maximian said:
What bothers me about Medjugorie is that whereas the seers of Lourdes and Fatima and other places all suffered or entered religious communities (or both), the seers of medjugorie seem to have gone on to lead comfortable or even more than comfortable bourgeois lives.
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There are seers of Vatican-approved apparitions, specifically Banneaux and Beauraing, who went on to lead normal lives with spouses and families and didn’t seem to suffer outside of normal life sufferings (like having loved ones pass away, developing age-related illnesses etc) or enter religious life. However, they also left the public eye after the original sets of apparitions were finished, and didn’t claim to continue receiving apparitions for years and years.

I know Mariette Beco, the Banneux seer, died a few years ago and she said at some point before she died that her role was similar to the postman who delivered the mail, in that her job was to just deliver the message from Our Lady and having done that, she was no longer important and had thus just lived an obscure life.

Here’s the article on Mariette’s death:


Edited to add, the Beauraing seers also lived quiet family lives. Two of them would apparently lead Rosaries at the apparition site for some years and another one took up evangelizing in Africa. All of them shunned public attention, saying they were just messengers and not important. See page 19 of this book.


It’s just sad that the Church-approved apparitions of Beauraing and Banneux have become so obscure.
i understand from a guy who has been there that one of the apparition sites was almost impossible to find and he was the only one there and he apparently almost got stuck there all night but managed to hitch a ride back to civilization with some passing truck. Meanwhile, unapproved sites like Garabandal and Medj have people beating down the doors to visit. Something is really wrong with this picture.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
regular apparitions suddenly were announced to be ending
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They are still happening. I did read the CNA article about the apparitions ending, and thought the same, but then the monthly messages keep coming. So I think CNA might have dropped the ball here. I remember going back to the article and looking for the source, and there was no source for the story. Found it odd.
 
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The purported end of the monthly apparitions was announced on the Medjugorje dot com web site. The announcement is still there. The story was also picked up by many news outlets besides CNA. The original source was Mirjana/ the Caritas community. I’m not linking anything because all the sources have material from the apparitions which it is verboten to post here.
 
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Only one of the three approved seers in Rwanda became a nun. I honestly don’t think becoming a nun or other religious has any bearing on whether or not approval is given to an apparition.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The purported end of the monthly apparitions was announced on the Medjugorje dot com web site. The announcement is still there. The story was also picked up by many news outlets besides CNA. The original source was Mirjana/ the Caritas community. I’m not linking anything because all the sources have material from the apparitions which it is verboten to post here.
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I just went there. I am confused. The top banner does say, remember that tomorrow Marija has her apparition and message for the world.

I am terrible at finding stuff, you mention medjugorge dot com and I was looking at medjugorge dot org. What ever the differences are, I have no idea. But I still do not see an end of anything. I am often told I go to the sea and do not find water.
 
Alleged apparitions are still happening. It only stopped with Mirjana when coronavirus came.
I cannot post source because it’s against rules but I know some who are “attending it”.
 
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No of course not. But for me it adds to the credibility of the seer.
 
A lot of things are being reported, but not so much from reliable sources. Mirjana did stop having her monthly visions-in April, I believe. Just about the time that Covid started restricting travel, severely. Also, there is now a new bishop assigned Mostar-Duvno…the diocese in which Medj is located. I believe that was early this year. Almost two years after the previous bishop had handed in his resignation to the Pope…as required to, on reaching his 75th birthday!

I don’t know how much this has to do with the Covid crisis, but things seem to be winding down. Most hotels were required to close, and tourism from many countries was banned. It just seemed like the time was right to start closing this ‘tourist attraction’ which had never been fully approved. Yes, Pope Francis had officially allowed pilgrimages, but always with the warning that it was not officially approved.

I know that there are some who will always believe, but I believe that Pope Francis has left this questionable-at-best-site free to die a natural death. So, leaving those older people living on the tourism and trinket business to retire, and the younger to close these businesses, work on the legitimate tourism locations, or explore new careers. There are many people living honest, respectable lives, who have simply never known Medj without visions…they were born, or at least came of age, after the ‘visions’ began. I never thought there was anything positive to say about the pandemic…but now, I see this. May God Bless those who have now seen the need to change their careers!
 
Maximian said:
What bothers me about Medjugorie is that whereas the seers of Lourdes and Fatima and other places all suffered or entered religious communities (or both), the seers of medjugorie seem to have gone on to lead comfortable or even more than comfortable bourgeois lives.
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I agree completely, even though some people here are saying that other seers whose apparitions have been approved have had nice lives and not gone into religious lives, the responses from these kids has been than none of the six entered religious life even though supposedly Mary asked them (or some of them) to if I’m not mistaken. Ivan even moved to Germany and decided to marry some supermodel. That’s very much the opposite of religious life.

Back to the article though, in what way was Tomislav Vlasic excommunicated by the Vatican? It says the excommunication was announced by the Diocese of Brescia, Italy, where the laicized priest lives. Where exactly was he excommunicated from?
 
Google translate of the press release posted on Diocese of Brescia website regarding the excommunication:
On July 22, 2020, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith formally communicated to the Bishop of Brescia that on July 15, 2020 a declaratory DECREE concerning Mr. Tomislav Vlašić was issued by the same Congregation.

The decree declared that Mr. Vlašić incurred the penalty of excommunication mentioned in can. 1331 §§1-2 of the Code of Canon Law. The grave canonical penal provision was imposed on him due to the fact that unfortunately, during these years, Mr. Vlašić has never complied with the prohibitions imposed on him in the canonical penal precept issued against him by the same Congregation, on 10 March 2009, under penalty of excommunication reserved for the Holy See.

In fact, in all these years, in the Diocese of Brescia and in other places, he has continued to carry out apostolic activities towards individuals and groups, both through conferences and through information technology; he continued to declare himself a religious and a priest of the Catholic Church, simulating the celebration of invalid sacraments; has continued to cause serious scandal among the faithful, carrying out acts seriously damaging to ecclesial communion and obedience to the ecclesiastical authority (see Declaration to the faithful of the Diocese of Brescia of 17 January 2020, prot. no. 41/20).

Because of this penalty of excommunication, Mr. Vlašić is prohibited from taking part in any way as a minister in the celebration of the Eucharist or in any other public worship ceremony, from celebrating sacraments or sacraments and from receiving sacraments, from exercising functions in offices or ministries or any ecclesiastical positions, or to place acts of government. In the event that Mr. Vlašić intends to take part in the celebration of the Eucharist or in any act of public worship, he must be dismissed or the liturgical action must be interrupted, unless a serious cause is opposed.

It will be the responsibility of the Bishop of Brescia, having regard to the indications received from the Holy See, to notify the aforementioned decree to the interested party, duly informing the Bishops of the C.E.I. and other interested Ordinaries, from non-Italian dioceses, from which the faithful who follow Mr. Vlašić come.

Thanking you for your attention, best regards.
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That’s helpful thanks. He was already laicised and yet still passing himself off as a priest and celebrating sacraments. If I understand correctly the main difference I can see is that now, as well as not being allowed celebrate sacraments, he is prohibited from receiving the sacraments.
Tis_Bearself said:
In the event that Mr. Vlašić intends to take part in the celebration of the Eucharist or in any act of public worship, he must be dismissed or the liturgical action must be interrupted, unless a serious cause is opposed.
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Okay so if this was found to be happening before (after he was laicized) he wouldn’t have to have been dismissed or the liturgical action interrupted?
 
Polak said:
the responses from these kids has been than none of the six entered religious life even though supposedly Mary asked them (or some of them) to if I’m not mistaken.
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It is expected that visionary lives holy life growing in virtues but it is not rule that they must enter monastery.
All of them six actually were called to religious life (my source is book on all investigations of Medj published by that diocese in Croatian) but some of them didn’t want to enter. Part of them was in seminary/novitiate and left shortly after alleged apparitions began.

Ivan lives in US and part of year spend in Medj.

If you want read what diocese says about Medj it is almost at the end of page under section ‘Medjugorje phenomenon’, just pick English. They published many things but minority is translated to other languages.


Edit: I was wrong, not 6 but 5 of them was called to religious life. From Diocese page by Bishop Perić (2007).
IV. HOW MANY VOCATIONS HAVE RESULTED FROM THE “APPARITIONS”?
Of the six “seers” of Medjugorje, none of them have received a religious vocation. Three of them mentioned that they were going to enter and two even went on to follow this inexplicable voice, yet with time everything vanished.
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Inbonum said:
All of them six actually were called to religious life (my source is book on all investigations of Medj published by that diocese in Croatian) but some of them didn’t want to enter. Part of them was in seminary/novitiate and left shortly after alleged apparitions began.
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Well this is one of the reasons this so called apparition is so questionable. They all supposedly saw Our Lady speaking to them and none of them, not one, decided to enter religious life.
Inbonum said:
I was wrong, not 6 but 5 of them was called to religious life.
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Still shocking that none of the five would have accepted this call.
 
Polak said:
Well this is one of the reasons this so called apparition is so questionable. They all supposedly saw Our Lady speaking to them and none of them, not one, decided to enter religious life.
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If they are not called at first then it is fine but if they are and leave then it is very strange.
Polak said:
Still shocking that none of the five would have accepted this call.
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Well, there are reasons why some left when entered and some didn’t enter at all.

This is officially from Bishop on Diocese web page
Ivan Dragičević, became a candidate for the Franciscan Province of Herzegovina. In 1981 he went to the minor seminary of Visoko where he continued with the “apparitions”. Due to the fact that he failed to pass his repeat examination, it was decided that he could possibly do better if he went to the minor seminary of Dubrovnik. While in Dubrovnik, he managed to pass his repeat examination and enter into the second year, but he didn’t show the same aptitude for school as he did for the “apparitions”, and hence he returned home in January 1983.
Having said farewell to the seminary, Ivan continued not only with daily “apparitions” to this day, but at a certain point began imposing the harsh demands of this phenomenon of his upon the local bishop Pavao Žanić, that he accept the “messages” of Medjugorje. In 1994 he married an American woman in Boston and thereby irrevocably transformed his religious vocation into a marriage.[4]
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Vicka Ivanković at the outset demonstrated enthusiasm for the religious life. In September 1981 she confided her feelings to an Italian weekly: I would like to enter a convent and become a nun.
Even though she was an “enrolled nun”, Vicka never entered a convent. Twenty years later, she found a young man from the neighbouring parish of Krehin Gradac and the two of them were married in Medjugorje. Over two thousand invited and curious guests attended their wedding party. During the wedding festivities, the “seer” went to her new house a few kilometres away from the noise of the wedding party with husband alongside her and had a “vision”, according to the usual routine and regular programming. Afterwards they went back to the wedding party.
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Marija Pavlović . In response to an Italian journalist’s question Why haven’t any one of you decided to become a priest or nun? Marija in 2001 gave the following explanation: For many years I though that I would become a nun. I began visiting a convent and my desire to go there was very strong. But the Sister Superior once told me: “Marija, if you want to enter, you are very welcome; but if the bishop decides that you must not speak about Medjugorje, you will have to obey”. At that moment I began thinking that my vocation might possibly be to witness to what I have seen and heard, and that I will be able to find the road to holiness outside the convent. [6]
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Thanks for those. I had not read them before. Do you have any link to the reasons any of the others didn’t do it?
 
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