Pope appoints Special Envoy to Medjugorje Archbishop Henryk Hoser, S.A.C., Bishop of Warszawa-Praga, Poland. On Saturday, Archbishop Hoser was appointed Pope Francis' Special Envoy to Medjugorje. - RV 11/02/2017 14:24(Vatican Radio) On Saturday, Pope Francis named Archbishop Henryk Hoser, S.A.C., the Bishop of Warszawa-Praga, as a Special Envoy of the Holy See to Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The scope of his mission, according to the press release announcing the appointment, is “to acquire a profound understanding of the pastoral situation” in Medjugorje, with special concern for the “needs of the faithful who come on pilgrimage;” and on the basis of that understanding “to suggest possible pastoral initiatives for the future.” His mission, therefore, “will have an exclusively pastoral character.” Responding to questions from journalists, the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Greg Burke said, “The Special Envoy of the Holy See will not enter into the question of the Marian apparitions, which are the competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” Archbishop Hoser’s mission, he said, “is a sign of Holy Father’s concern for the pilgrims. It’s purpose is not inquisitive, but strictly pastoral.” Burke said, “The Special Envoy of the Holy See will be in contact with the diocesan Bishop; the Franciscans, to whom the parish of Medjugorje is entrusted; and with the faithful” of Medjugorje. Archbishop Hoser, who will continue to exercise the office of Bishop of Warszawa-Praga, is expected to complete his mission by summer. http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/02/11/pope_appoints_special_envoy_to_medjugorje/1291940
Pope Francis recognizes and does not recognize the obvious. He recognizes the pastoral needs; he doe not recognize that the pastoral needs are there due to the apparitions of Our Lady of Medjugorje, the Mother of God, not just a "postmistress."
This is very positive news, and not unexpected. I am only surprised by the timing. But I have always believed that Our Lady is very generous with her gifts and graces on her feast days (Our Lady of Lourdes). The Pope is obviously concerned about the pastoral care of pilgrims and the local faithful. All is not hunky-dory at Medjugorje. There are many problems and difficulties, especially for local people, and while a handful of Franciscan priests do their best for all who visit and live in Medjugorje, there isn’t enough of them. The local bishop and the BiH bishop’s conference were commissioned to accompany the pilgrims pastorally, but has this happened? It doesn’t appear so when the Pope has had to appoint his own man to report back to him and explore ways of improving the pilgrims’ lot. One thing seems pretty sure, the Pope is in no mind to shut down Medjugorje if he is intent on making plans for new pastoral initiatives. If anything this will only encourage more pilgrims to visit, with or without any official recognition of apparitions. I have a feeling that there will be a lot less focus on the visionaries and the messages. I can’t see the parish continuing to parade some of the seers at events, or even Mirjana being encouraged to continue to give witness to the apparitions at the Blue Cross which she does every month. But on the other hand I don’t see the Pope discouraging anyone, even the visionaries, of witnessing to all they have seen and heard at Medjugorje. For sure there are special graces given at Medjugorje, with or without the presence of the visionaries – or even the apparitions. The new envoy’s commission is expected to finish by summer, hopefully after the start of August when he has been able to witness first hand the graces that abound at the annual Medjugorje Youth Festival. It is said that Archbishop Henryk Hoser had never intended to become a priest until he experienced an epiphany moment. Many pilgrims returning from Medjugorje would be able to relate to his experience.
Vatican appoints pastoral envoy to Medjugorje February 11, 2017 8:21 AM Vatican City, Feb 11, 2017 / 09:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Saturday appointed Archbishop Henryk Hoser of Warszawa-Praga as a delegate of the Holy See to look into the pastoral situation at Medjugore, the site of alleged Marian apparitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “The mission has the aim of acquiring a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation there and above all, of the needs of the faithful who go there in pilgrimage, and on the basis of this, to suggest possible pastoral initiatives for the future,” stated a Feb. 11 communique from the Vatican Secretariat of State. “The mission will therefore have an exclusively pastoral character,” it added. Greg Burke, the Holy See press officer, strenuously reiterated the pastoral, and not doctrinal, nature of Archbishop Hoser's mission, while speaking at a press conference. “The special envoy won’t enter into the substance of the Marian apparitions, which is a doctrinal question in the competency of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” he said. The alleged apparitions originally began June 24, 1981, when six children in Medjugorje, a town in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, began to experience phenomena which they have claimed to be apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to these six “seers,” the apparitions contained a message of peace for the world, a call to conversion, prayer and fasting, as well as certain secrets surrounding events to be fulfilled in the future. These apparitions are said to have continued almost daily since their first occurrence, with three of the original six children – who are now young adults – continuing to receive apparitions every afternoon because not all of the “secrets” intended for them have been revealed. Since their beginning, the alleged apparitions have been a source of both controversy and conversion, with many flocking to the city for pilgrimage and prayer, and some claiming to have experienced miracles at the site, while many others claim the visions are non-credible. In April 1991, the bishops of the former Yugoslavia determined that “on the basis of the research that has been done, it is not possible to state that there were apparitions or supernatural revelations.” On the basis of those findings the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith directed in October 2013 that clerics and the faithful “are not permitted to participate in meetings, conferences or public celebrations during which the credibility of such 'apparitions' would be taken for granted.” In January 2014, a Vatican commission completed an investigation into the supposed apparitions' doctrinal and disciplinary aspects, and was to have submitted its findings to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will have analyzed the commission's findings, it will finalize a document on Medjugorge, which will be submitted to the Pope, who will make a final decision. Pope Francis visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 2015, but declined to stop at Medjugorje during his trip. During his return flight to Rome, he indicated that the process of investigation in the apparitions was nearly complete. When journalists noted this point at Saturday's press conference, Burke responded that the doctrinal question of the alleged apparitions “are still being studied … this is neither a recognition nor a negative judgement. That is always a doctrinal question separate from this, which is pastoral. If you read [the communique], you can’t read any doctrinal judgement” in the pastoral appointment of Archbishop Hoser. Rather than being involved in the doctrinal questions, Archbishop Hoser's mission is a matter of “people’s needs,” Burke emphasized: “pastoral life, liturgy, catechesis, sacraments and the experience of devotion they have there,” but not the management of local parishes. “It’s important to note that it’s not an apostolic visitation,” Burke concluded. “Look at the words. This is more 'for' than 'against'. It’s for the life of the pilgrims who go there.” Archbishop Hoser will remain Bishop of Warszawa-Praga, and is expected to complete his role at Medjugorje by the summer. http://www.catholicworldreport.com/...-appoints-pastoral-envoy-to-medjugorje-99955/
That Medjugorje Envoy February 11, 2017 by sd The news that Rome has named a Polish bishop to serve as pastoral envoy to Medjugorje serves as tacit acknowledgement of the apparition site’s global significance. In fact, beyond the tens of millions who have visited is the effect: pilgrims virtually always report a profound uplift in their spirituality and a great deepening of their Catholicism. One European cardinal has publicly stated that Medjugorje has produced more priestly vocations than any other force in the Church — and indeed has rescued parishes. How a place of such potent positive results — something the Church knows as “fruits” — could be so vehemently resisted, including and indeed even most acutely within factions of the Church (among certain passels of conservatives on one side, and especially with modernist liberals at the other extreme of the spectrum), is baffling though one can always note prudence. In other cases, it seems more like flat-out spiritual warfare. Effects have been especially noticeable among young who have visited and returned as fervent Catholics, no longer resisting Mass attendance — something that among the Catholic young is a massive crisis. There is no such issue among young after visiting the place in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The church is full to overflowing — such that pilgrims must sit outside. But the naming of Archbishop Henryk Hoser, the Bishop of Warszawa-Praga, as “Special Envoy of the Holy See,” is hardly an acknowledgment of the apparitions themselves. The scope of his mission, according to the press release announcing the appointment, is “to acquire a profound understanding of the pastoral situation” in Medjugorje, with special concern for the “needs of the faithful who come on pilgrimage;” and on the basis of that understanding “to suggest possible pastoral initiatives for the future.” His mission, therefore, “will have an exclusively pastoral character” and ends next summer. Still, this is welcome news at a place where there has been inadequate Church guidance of seers and faithful alike since the onset of apparitions’ in 1981. “It’s important to note that it’s not an apostolic visitation,” the Vatican press chief, Greg Burke, concluded Saturday. “Look at the words. This is more ‘for’ than ‘against.’ It’s for the life of the pilgrims who go there.” A final decision on authenticity will be made not by an envoy but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose current prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, as first reported here, famously stopped seers from public apparitions in the United States and some spots elsewhere. Through the years, the Vatican has quietly sent observers to Medjugorje — including Pope Benedict XVI himself, when he was Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, prefect of the congregation — but for a long while Rome had allowed the situation to remain solely in the hands of two factions that oppose each other, the local Franciscans who operate the parish and the secular Bishop of Mostar. They had vied with each other for authority over Hercegovinian and Bosnian parishes (leading to the antagonism, toward Medjugorje, of Mostar bishops), but the local bishop’s authority was stripped in the late 1980s (despite claims of those who continued to use statements from Mostar against the apparitions). The appointment of an outside bishop definitively reaffirms the limitations of Mostar’s even pastoral involvement. It was perhaps the fact that Benedict (as Ratzinger) had paid the personal visit (perhaps more than one) that swayed him from taking action against it. Critics have tended to be those who adjudge from afar. There was also the strong, almost fervent support of Saint John Paul II, who told many visiting cardinals, bishops, and priests not only to visit the site but to protect it, mentioning in personal letters to Polish friends that he “went there every day” in prayer. (He reportedly blessed Medjugorje, which is just across the Adriatic from Italy, when he flew over the region on his many trips abroad). It has always been of interest to followers that John Paul II instituted World Youth Day after purported messages from Medjugorje called for just such interaction with the young. (Saint John Paul II was known to have requested the monthly message.) Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta sought the intercession of the Medjugorje Madonna to find an AIDS cure. But the stance of the current Supreme Pontiff is not known. As far as anyone can tell he never visited and on at least two occasions has reportedly poked fun at seers who issue daily messages (as if, said the Pope, Mary is “the head of the post office”). On the one hand, there are the equivoques of the Pope, and the restrictions of Cardinal Müller, while on the other hand is the fact that the Pope has chosen as envoy an archbishop from a nation that has sent more pilgrims to Medjugorje in recent years than any but for Italy and perhaps Ireland, and that Francis is close to Cardinal Christoph Schõnborn of Vienna, who periodically hosts appearances of Medjugorje seers at the city’s cathedral. Though not necessarily indicative of his overall attitude, the Pope’s “postmaster” criticisms portend a skeptical stance toward certain ways in which the situation has been handled, and thus the institution of an envoy, who may well put a halt to the scheduled apparitions that often draw thousands to hills and halls at Medjuogorje and churches elsewhere. But overall, news of the envoy will probably lead to an upsurge of pilgrims. Though attendance has been lagging since last year, Medjugorje may have a larger following than Fatima did at this stage. The shrine at Fatima, commemorating the 1917 apparitions, was not completed until 1954, though there was a large pilgrimage in 1942. http://spiritdaily.org/blog/uncategorized/that-medjugorje-envoy
Italian journo Andrea Tornielli (Vatican Insider) had the scoop on the pastoral angle three years ago when he reported on the handover of the Medjugorje dossier to Pope Francis: “Some of the Commission’s members have highlighted a need for a change of pace in the provision of pastoral care to millions of faithful who come to Medjugorje from all over the world.” So now we see his first response to one of the recommendations in the dossier. More to come.
This is probably a preliminary pathway for what has been in the mill for some time.....that Medj. will have its own Bishop of sorts just for it and for which there has been a facility behind the church already there....just waiting.....while the messages and/or secrets play out!!
Interesting "connections" in the history of this envoy to Medjugorje, Archbishop Hoser: New Vatican Special Envoy To Medjugorje Was Missionary in Rwanda During Time of Church Approved Apparition. Event Known as “Our Lady of Kibeho” Has Similar Qualities to Medjugorje http://www.mysticpost.com/2017/02/n...f-kibeho-has-similar-qualities-to-medjugorje/ And also has deep connection to Divine Mercy.....story of how the Statue of the Divine Mercy came to be in Kibeho....and I understand that to solve the problem of the people having to walk so far daily to get water, the place of the Statue began flowing with water....so, Mercy/Water/Kibeho and Divine Mercy connection coming to Medjugorje to fulfill in the devotions to Jesus and Mary JPII's declaration of these end times belonging to the TWO HEARTS, together! A Brief History of the Divine Mercy Statue in Kibeho on Nyarushishi (Rwanda) ...... It was made in Mexico City, Mexico, in bronze, weighing 2 tons. It is 16 feet tall. He had the statue sent to Puebla, Mexico, so that it could be blessed on May 18th, in that city, because that was the site of the first foreign trip made by Pope John Paul II. It was blessed on May 18th, Pope John Paul’s birthday, by a special delegate from the Vatican. It was then transported to Chicago and it arrived on the feast of Corpus Christi in Chicago in June of 2000, during the Great Jubilee Year. It travelled to different parishes around Chicago and Illinois for three years. However, for various reasons, the statue was not to be permanently placed in Chicago. On September 8th of 2003, Mr. Delgado gave the statue to our Blessed Mother, on her birthday and he put her in charge of where she wanted the statue of her Son to go. At this time, during the International Congress of the Marian Fathers on the Divine Mercy in Poland, two Fathers said that the best place for the statue would be in Kibeho in Rwanda, where they are founding the Marian Formation Center. They proposed putting the statue of Jesus on a hill, about a mile from the Shrine of Our Lady of Kibeho. They consulted with Mr. Delgado and the commission for the statue. After he prayed about it, he agreed to send the statue of Jesus to Rwanda, forever. It came to the country of a Thousand Hills in the month of August in 2004 and it was installed in Kibeho, on the hill of Nyarushishi, on November 13, 2004. The official enthronement was celebrated on December 8, 2004, the closing of the Jubilee of the 150th Anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. http://www.kibeho.org/en/statue_history.php
I pray to dear God, this is not just the carrot to be followed by the stick routine. Immaculate Heart of Mary, Triumph and reign in all hearts that are touched by the Grace of God. May God touch all hearts especially those who have not felt God's love personally.
We live in historic times. With all the bad news, some good news. However the devil will hate this and will be a plotting and a planning.
I do find it amazing but the papal envoy is right now celebrating Mass in St James' church in Medjugorje. You can actually watch it live at the moment: http://www.davidtlig.org.uk/webcam.html There have been so many arguments about whether the church was going to close down Medjugorje etc yet here we have an amazing confirmation that the Holy Father is happy with what is going on there. This is a much more important development than I had thought possible just a month or two ago.
Here is a report of the Archbishop's homily: Archbishop Henryk Hoser, appointed as special envoy to Medjugoije by Pope Francis, celebrated his first Mass in St James church on Saturday evening. In his homily, spoken in French, the traditional diplomatic language of the Church, the Polish prelate said, "Let us pray for peace because the destructive forces are immense, the arms race is on the rise, people are torn apart, families are torn apart, societies are torn apart. We need an intervention from heaven! And the presence of the Blessed Virgin is this type of intervention. It is an initiative of God. And so, I would like to encourage and comfort you as a special envoy of the Pope. "Protect the world with peace through conversion of the heart; the greatest miracle of Medjugoije is the confessions here. The sacrament of forgiveness and mercy. It is a sacrament of the Resurrection. I thank all the priests who come to confess here, about fifty- today, in the service of the people. "I have spent many years in the West where confession has disappeared and personal confession no longer exists except here and there. The world dries up, hearts are closed, conflicts multiply. "[...] Let us be the apostles of the good news of conversion and also of peace in the world. [...] Whoever touches the love of God, his Mercy, sees something irresistible and cannot resist. "We are witnesses of what saves life. We are witnesses of what saves the world. The Franciscan friars said that there are pilgrims who come from more than So countries from around the world. This call can spread to the ends of the Earth as Christ said by sending his apostles. "Mary is with us and shares in our suffering and pain. She helps us, helps to bring us to repentance and to feel its spiritual presence. We call her, especially here, the Queen of Peace and invoke this title when we pray the litany of the Blessed Mother. [...] She participates in the reign of her Son. [...] We thank her for her constant presence with each of us. The Queen of Peace brings peace to our hearts, and so to our families, our countrv and society. "You are therefore witness to Christ's love of his Mother's love and the love of the Church. May God bless you and strengthen you. Amen. http://www.themedjugorjewitness.org/
In one link it said the Polish Cardinal told them at Medujorje that he had been to Kibeo ( hope it is spelled ok), Africa and how Blessed Mother had warned them there of what would come in the future if they did not repent. Of course not enough people repented and a genocide followed. This was interesting, because some of the visionaries were approved in Kibeo, and the apparitions also. Could this be a positive sign the Church will approve Medjugorje. To be fair, approval is not likely until the apparitions are over. But even so, it is so hopeful for those of us who feel Blessed Mother is truly present there. And with the Grace of God, we can continue to try and respond to Blessed Mothers request for prayer, fasting and repentance.
As you say, Julia, formal approval is unlikely until the apparitions are over. For me, this intervention of Pope Francis by sending his own envoy amounts to a de-facto recognition of the apparitions. I doubt that there will be more until events associated with the secrets begin to unfold. The words of Archbishop Hoser to the pilgrims in Medjugorje say it all: "I would like to encourage and comfort you as a special envoy of the Pope".
