In May 2019, Pope Francis authorized dioceses and parishes to officially organize pilgrimages to Medjugorje.
Newsroom (November 29, 2021, 9:50 PM, Gaudium Press) Archbishop Aldo Cavalli, until now apostolic nuncio to the Netherlands and permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, has been appointed as the new apostolic visitor in a special capacity for the Parish of Medjugorje, indefinitely and ad nutum Sanctae Sedis.
Archbishop Aldo Cavalli succeeds Polish Archbishop Henryk Hoser, who died on August 13 in Warsaw at the age of 78, and who had held this position since 2018. The Holy See has already advanced that this is an exclusively pastoral mission and therefore does not enter into the question of the veracity or otherwise of the Marian apparitions that some young people claim to have had since June 24, 1981.
Monsignor Aldo Cavalli
Born on October 18, 1946, in Muggianico di Lecco, Lombardy, Bishop Cavalli was ordained a priest in Bergamo in 1971. He completed his studies at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, entering the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1979.
Appointed apostolic nuncio, he was ordained bishop in 1996, becoming titular archbishop of Vibo Valentia. He guided the nunciatures of São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, Chile, Colombia, Libya, Malta, and the Netherlands.
The Medjugorje apparitions
Benedict XVI established a commission chaired by Cardinal Camillo Ruini to analyze the content of the apparitions that are said to have taken place there. This commission produced a report which stated that the first seven apparitions that occurred there were credible, and called for the recognition of the supernatural character of these apparitions.
On a flight returning from Fatima on May 13, 2017, Pope Francis told reporters that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had expressed doubts about that report and that he had asked that all the information be sent to him so that he could express his own opinion.
Francis first appointed Bishop Hoser to do a pastoral investigation into the practices that are carried out there. One of the things that impressed the Polish archbishop most was the many confessions that were held there. (EPC)
Compiled by Zephania Gangl
