Our Lady of Medjugorje

MOB R23 Medjugorje

Our Lady of Medjugorje , also called Queen of Peace (Croatian: Kraljica mira) and Mother of the Redeemer (Croatian: Majka Otkupiteljica), is the title given to alleged visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary which began in 1981 to six Croatian teenagers in Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina (at the time in SFR Yugoslavia). The alleged visionaries are Ivan Dragičević, Ivanka Ivanković, Jakov Čolo, Marija Pavlović, Mirjana Dragičević and Vicka Ivanković. They ranged from ten to sixteen years old at the time of the first alleged apparition.

There have also been continued reports of the visionaries seeing and receiving messages from the apparition of Our Lady (Gospa) during the years since. The seers often refer to the apparition as the “Gospa“, which is a Croatian archaism for lady. On May 13, 2017, Pope Francis declared that the original visions reported by the teenagers are worth studying in more depth, while the subsequent continued visions over the years are, in his view, of dubious value.As a pastoral initiative, after considering the considerable number of people who go to Medjugorje and the abundant “fruits of grace” that have sprung from it, the ban on officially organized pilgrimages was lifted by the Pope in May 2019. This was made official with the celebration of a youth festival among pilgrims and Catholic clergy in Medjugorie for five days in August 2019. However, this was not to be interpreted as an authentication of known events, which still require examination by the Church. 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.ù