Papal preacher cancels Medjugorje retreat after local bishop complains

BY ANNA ARCO
THE POPE'S official preacher has cancelled plans to conduct a spiritual retreat for priests at Mejugorje next month at the request of the local bishop.
Fr Ranier° Cantalamessa, a Franciscan Capuchin, agreed to preach at the unofficial Marian shrine in Bosnia Herzegovina at an event organised without the permission of the Diocese of Mostar.
The preacher to the papal household was billed alongside Fr Jozo Zovko, a Franciscan who was stripped of his priestly faculties by Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar in 2004.
Fr Cantalamessa cancelled his engagement after he was contacted by the diocese and told that he did not have official permission to go there. "My principle is not to preach, especially not to the clergy, without the permission from the local bishop," wrote Fr Cantalamessa in a letter to Bishop Peric.
The organisers of the 12th
International Spiritual Seminar for Priests had failed to comply with the rules set by the diocesan chancery of Mostar in a circular letter of 2001. These require all foreign priests "who have been invited to hold spiritual retreats, seminars and similar spiritual encounters" to be approved by the diocese in advance.
"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 and its moderater," said the statement from the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno on Monday. Bishop Peric reportedly also objected to the way the seminar was advertised on the internet for months before it was due to happen.
The statement re-iterated the comments in which Bishop Peric recently condemned the "obstinacy" of the priests and others who refused to acknowledge the Church's official position on Medjugorje and the 2001 pastoral decision of the diocese. Medjugorje, according to the bishop's statements, "is neither a diocesan nor national nor international shrine. This status must be acknowledged while the events remain as they stand."
Fr Ivan Sesar, a parish priest in Medjugorje, told Bishop Peric last week that "upon my insistence due to
the shortness of time, I asked Fr Cantalamessa to send his acknowledgement of receipt of my letter by fax, which he did in the meantime. He accepts my apology and regrets that due to the newly arisen circumstances he cannot come, since in principle he never does public appearances without the permission of the local ordinary."
The apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje have not been acknowledged as authentic by the Vatican. Officials are still monitoring events but have said in the past that it was not necessarily the Vatican's role to issue an official judgment on the purported apparitions there.
The Vatican has discouraged dioceses or parishes from organising official pilgrimages to Medjugorje.