Cantalamessa Not to Hold a Lecture in Medjugorje

The preacher of the papal household Raniero Cantalamessa has withdrawn from plans to deliver a series of lectures in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, after the local bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar and Duvno denied him permission to speak there.CZECH

Mostar (BIH): Father Raniero Cantalamessa OFMCap, who has been the pope's preacher since 1980, was to be the keynote speaker at the XII International Seminar for Priests on 3-5 Jul in Medjugorje, the site of thousands of alleged appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was expected to have given three lectures at the event, but he pulled out after Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar and Duvno informed him that he did not have his permission to attend the event.

'My principle is not to preach, especially not to the clergy, without the permission of the local bishop,' Father Cantalamessa wrote in a letter to Bishop Peric on 13 Jun. His decision to withdraw from the seminar was announced by Msgr Srecko Majic, Mostar vicar general. 'This diocesan chancery never received any written request for permission, as is the norm, from either of the parties involved with regard to the spiritual retreat,' he said and added: 'The norms of the Code of Canon Law have not been respected in this case.' As the organizers hadn't asked for permission of the event, the entire spiritual exercises are against norms, Majic said. Finally, there are doubts about the announced participation of Father Jozo Zovko, who throughout the 1980's acted as a spiritual adviser to the six alleged visionaries, but whose priestly faculties were revoked by Bishop Peric in 2004.

Msgr Majic said the diocese had decided to publicize Father Cantalamessa's decision partly to help to clear up confusion over the status of Medjugorje, which, according to an April statement by Bishop Peric, is 'neither a diocesan nor national or international shrine.' He also said the diocese accepts the statement of the Holy See that 'it cannot be affirmed that these events concern supernatural apparitions and revelations.' The bishop last year complained personally to Pope Benedict XVI that priests from overseas were ignoring the wishes of the local bishops not to go on pilgrimages there.

'As the local bishop, I maintain that regarding the events of Medjugorje, on the basis of the investigations and experience gained thus far throughout these last 25 years, the church has not confirmed a single apparition as authentically being the Madonna,' he said. In July Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo announced that the Bosnian bishops would form a commission to review the alleged apparitions and the pastoral provisions for the many thousands of pilgrims who visit the town each year.