DUBIOUS FRUITS
We keep hearing about all the good “fruits” and the opinion seems to be that these things cannot be of the devil because they are ‘good fruits.’
NOT SO!
The devil is in a battle for souls. He can afford to lose a few battles if he can win the war. He will produce some good ‘fruits’… even throw in signs and wonders, miracles and healings. He will convert and revert souls to the church, as long as he can get them to believe lies, blind them to truths and get them to be disobedient to the rightful authority: the Devil gets his man in the end.
Most of the messages do not appear to contradict the faith and the subtle lies just go undetected. Among other things, the visionaries endorsed Vassula and Valtorta. The Magisterium condemned both. Both Vassula and Fr Gobbi endorsed Medjugorje. False seers support one another.
There was the case of Magdalen of the Cross, a nun who made a pact with the devil. Healings, stigmata, levitation, prophecies were attributed to her. She fooled cardinals, bishops and priests….before she died, she repented. When the Medjugorje deception will finally unravel, think of the disillusionment and loss of faith it will bring to those who trace their conversion or call to the priesthood to Medjugorje!
But clearly, there are not only good fruits in Medjugorje. The apparitions produced some distinctly rotten fruits. Disobedience, invalid sacraments, immorality, lies – none of these are good fruits:
“A nun in Zagreb by the name of Sister Rufina wrote to Bishop Zanic from Germany where she had gone into hiding, pleading with him that the father of her child (whom she asserted to be none other than Fr. Tomislav Vlasic) help financially support the child. When the Bishop confronted Fr. Vlasic he did not deny the nun’s claim that he fathered her child.
Another ex-Franciscan priest Fr. Ivica Vega, who also was involved in promoting the Apparitions in Medjugorje,was expelled by the Pope for seducing a nun, yet continued to celebrate Mass and administer the Sacraments in defiance of the Vatican’s orders. What is even more scandalous is that the Gospa’s message through the Medjugorje seers backed the suspended priest against Bishop Zanic. This is theologically impossible and was the final straw that turned the Bishop against the Apparitions. Fr. Vega later married his mistress, Sister Leopolda, and has had five children, and presently resides in Italy.
Fr. Jozo Zovko, the original pastor of St. James in Medjugorje, was expelled from Medjugorje for molesting some of the young pilgrims in the village. He now is employed as a fundraiser for orphans at a Medjugorje center.
The Franciscan Order in Bosnia has been ordered by the Vatican to turn over the control of 54 parish churches in the province to the Bishop of Mostar, the local Bishop. So far only 4 have been handed over, and even 2 of these 4 still remain under Franciscan control. The Franciscans have opened a seminary in Zagreb, a convent and a new Pavilion chuch behind St. James Church in Medjugorje without any permission from the Bishop.”
“An angry mob breaks into a bishop’s official residence. They search for him, going from room to room until they find him. They drag him outside and pressure him to agree to their demands. He refuses and says that if necessary he will suffer just as Christ had to suffer. This type of language only makes them more infuriated, and some of them press forward, tearing off his pectoral cross, ripping his cape, and then assaulting him. He tells them that automatic excommunication is the penalty for attacking a bishop, but they pay no heed, dragging him off and imprisoning him. They hold him until late at night, their mood growing uglier with every moment, his life in imminent danger. The mob thinks he has insulted some of their deceased relatives; they shout that they have plenty of weapons. Finally, a local leader manages to persuade the crowd to disperse, and the Bishop narrowly escapes their clutches.”
On April 2, 1995, Bishop Peric was kidnapped by a mob sympathetic to the Medjugorje Franciscans demanding that he give the local Franciscans permission to operate their illicit church. When the Bishop refused, they beat him up and kept him prisoner for ten hours. It took the intervention of the Mayor of Mostar aided by UN troops to finally get him released.
