Vatican suspends Bosnian Franciscan
By Simon Caldwell and Mark Greaves
12 September 2008

Pilgrims pray at Medjugorje, where Fr Vlasic was once 'spiritual leader' to the six visionaries (PA Photos)

The Vatican has authorised "severe cautionary and disciplinary measures" against a priest who once served as "spiritual leader" to the visionaries in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has written to Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar-Duvno, whose diocese covers Medjugorje, to inform him that they are investigating the case of Franciscan Fr Tomislav Vlasic.

The CDF has asked the bishop, for the good of the faithful, to inform the community of the canonical status of the Bosnian priest, whose actions automatically provoked Vatican sanctions.

In a statement posted on the website of the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno, Bishop Peric explained that Fr Vlasic has been reported to the CDF "for the diffusion of dubious doctrine, manipulation of consciences, suspicious mysticism, disobedience toward legitimately issued orders", and accusations of sexual immorality.

The doctrinal congregation said in the letter, also posted on the website, that the priest had been disciplined after he stubbornly refused to cooperate with the inquiry, instead "justifying himself by citing his zealous activity" in initiating religious communities and building churches in the Medjugorje area.

A decree confirming action against Fr Vlasic was signed by Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the CDF, and Fr José Rodriguez Carballo, the minister general of the Order of Friars Minor, earlier this year.

It confined Fr Vlasic to a Franciscan monastery in Italy and banned him from contact with the Queen of Peace community, which he founded, or with his lawyers without permission from his superior.

He is banned from making public appearances, preaching and hearing confessions, and he will be required to make a solemn profession of the Catholic faith. The Vatican has warned Fr Vlasic that he will be excommunicated if he violates any of the prohibitions.

"Fr Vlasic is forewarned that, in the case of stubbornness, a juridical penal process will begin with the aim of still harsher sanctions, not excluding dismissal, having in mind the suspicion of heresy and schism, as well as scandalous acts contra sextum [against the Sixth Commandment] aggravated by mystical motivations," Bishop Peric wrote.

In Rome a Franciscan official told Catholic News Service that it is true that "disciplinary measures have been taken" against Fr Vlasic "but he is still a friar of our order; he has not been dismissed from the Franciscans or the clerical state".

Passionist Fr Ciro Benedettini, vice director of the Vatican press office, also confirmed the content of Bishop Peric's letter.

Fr Vlasic was a key figure in promoting the apparitions at the unofficial shrine in Medjugorje. In 1984 he wrote to Pope John Paul II to say that he was the one "who through divine providence guides the seers of Medjugorje".

Four years later he moved to Parma, Italy, where he set up the mixed Queen of Peace religious community dedicated to the Medjugorje apparitions.

Fr Vlasic is the second spiritual adviser to the visionaries to be suspended from his ministry. Bishop Peric confirmed the suspension of the faculties of the other priest, Fr Jozo Zovko, in 2004. The Medjugorje phenomenon began June 25 1981, when six children told a priest they had seen Mary on a hillside near their town. Since then, Mary is said to have appeared to the six more than 40,000 times and imparted hundreds of messages. But three Church commissions failed to find evidence to support their claims, and the bishops of the former Yugoslavia declared in 1991 that "it cannot be affirmed that these matters concern supernatural apparitions or revelations".

In 1985 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then prefect of the CDF and now Pope Benedict XVI, banned official, diocesan or parish-sponsored pilgrimages to the shrine. However, individual Catholics are still free to visit and have a priest with them.

John Hanrahan, convenor of the Medjugorje Apostolate in England and Wales, said the CDF was investigating the entire ministry of Fr Vlasic and not just his involvement in Medjugorje.

He said: "Fr Vlasic was associated with Medjugorje at the beginning but we should not presume the final judgment of the Church [on Medjugorje]. We are being totally obedient on the matter of private pilgrimages."