Excellent Spirit Daily article on Cardinal Schönborn visit to Medjugorje

Most of the US Catholic media has fought a strong campaign against the authenticity of Medjugorje. Similarly Simon Caldwell in the British Telegraph newspaper has been a trenchant critic. However the visit of Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna to Medjugorje has caused consternation among the critics.
Spirit Daily sums it up nicely

Pope Benedict, went the buzz, would finally put a rein on the apparitions, and perhaps even dismiss them.

That was the hope in a band of detractors who for years have spearheaded e-mail campaigns against Medjugorje, led by the bishop.

So there was consternation if not a degree of shock last week when a major cardinal -- Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert von Schönborn of Vienna, better known simply as Cardinal Schönborn -- not only visited Medjugorje, but celebrated Mass at St. James Church with Medjugorje pilgrims, freely moved about the village -- at least once with a seer who accompanied him up the hill of apparitions -- and issued what could only be interpreted as positive statements about the apparitions.

"Who could make these things up?" he asked at one point after his arrival. "Who could invent this thing? Man? No, this is not a human act."

The cardinal also called Medjugorje a "superpower" of God's mercy.....

There will be no decision, he added, until the phenomena cease -- a dramatic confirmation of what supporters have argued -- accurately, as it turns out -- for more than two decades. "Both in Lourdes and Fatima, the events first ceased and than the Church made its decision about that; its final decision," he said. "Sooner or later that will take place here as well, but until then we leave the Mother of God with freedom of choice.

It wasn't the only time he compared Medjugorje with Lourdes and Fatima.

Said the Cardinal: "There are three elements which are connected with this phenomenon. Almost always Our Lady appears to children. Those were not especially intelligent children or holy children but normal. Bernadette did not know how to write. She was 14, almost as children over here. Secondly, Mary gives the messages through the children. It is insulting for one bishop. Why Our Lady does not come to bishop’s house? Why does she come to the hill filled with stones or by the river? This is not practical. In Fatima she appeared in the bushes. She gives the messages through children because children are not complicated. The third element: it looks like Our Lady has her own program. In Fatima she appeared before Russian Revolution and she gave a message. When rationalism was on its highest level she appeared in Lourdes. She appeared in Yugoslavia in the moment when we did not have an idea that Yugoslavia would fall apart in the time when the Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox were living together. She appears with the name Queen of Peace. I think that theologians have to study the syntax of Mary’s apparitions and in that context to study the phenomena of Medjugorje."

"I am fascinated with the coherence of Medjugorje with other Marian shrines, apparition sides," went on the eminent churchman. "I always say that there is a grammar of Mary’s apparitions. That style has something special with Our Lady....."

Access the full Spirit Daily article here