BBC take a closer look at the phenomenon of Medjugorje

by Annabel Freyberg MEDJUGORJE is the focus of BBC1's "Everyman" this Sunday, in a 55 minute documentary entitled "Madonna of Mejugorje", compiled with the advice of author Mary Craig.
The programme aims according to its maker to take a comprehensive look at the background to the Mejugorje apparitions its sociological and political history, in the simplest and clearest way possible. Medjugorje lies in an area dominated by the Franciscan order, and one of the notable features of the appearances of the Madonna, which Everyman plans to bring out, is the fact that diocesan priests claim these visions are part of a conspiracy by the Franciscans, while Franciscan priests insist on their authenticity.
Roger Stott, who researched the programme and spent five weeks at Medjugorje this summer, is adamant that the six children who saw and heard the Madonna are not fakes. An agnostic who was brought up a Protestant, he is sure that "something has happened there". He describes the girls — he met five of the six, as "simple, sincere, straightforward".
Over a million Italians alone visit the shrine every year, and the hotels for 30 or so miles around are constantly full. The Italians are particularly keen to touch the visionaries Mr Stott reports. He claims that the place grows on you; you become aware of its reverberations. The workmen no longer swear in the fields — and this has considerably impressed the locals.
Another extraordinary fact brought out in the programme is Mary Craig that the first apparition of the Madonna, occurred 40 years to the week after a particularly brutal Nazi killing of Serbian women and children, when they were thrown off cliffs seven miles away from Mejugorje.
Other longstanding feuds in the area have also been resolved. But for Mr Stott the authenticity of Medjugorje was summed up by a young girl cousin of one of the visionaries who said "If only all these people would go away and leave us alone with the Madonna".