TEN SECRETS FROM MEDJUGORJE

Part 1 of a segment of the prime-time TV program "Extraordinary Lives" which aired December 12th, 2005 on Rete 4, in Italy.



Padre Livio Fanzaga is probably one the most informed persons with regard to Medjugorje. He has known the seers since almost from the beginning. And in fact Radio Maria started off as the unofficial mouthpiece for Medjugorje. But from the time it became a nation-wide radio, moving beyond the jurisdiction of its home diocese and the local bishop, Radio Maria eventually wound up coming under the personal protection of then-Pope John Paul II. Padre Livio has always been very careful to follow the Church with regard to Medjugorje and in fact, the Church has never had anything but positive words for Radio Maria which has been instrumental in revitalizing the faith of millions of Italians.
[Note: The word "conversion" generally means 'converting to God' – returning to God through repentance, prayer and penanc]

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Part 1

The Medjugorje children

Woman moderator (speaking from Lourdes, France):
And here we are together again, to trace the path of Mary's interventions in the history of mankind.
It is June of 1981, barely a month has passed since the attempt on Pope John Paul's life, an event tied to the apparitions of Fatima, and in Medjugorje, a small village of Bosnia Herzogovina in comunist Yugoslavia, the Madonna appears to six children and says to them that she wants to continue there what she had begun at Fatima. Today, the apparitions are still under way... a phenomenon absolutely unique in the history of the Church. In fact, never was there known such an assiduous and continuous presence of the Madonna.
[Actually, the record-setting precedent goes to Laus in France. The Madonna appeared there I believe for 50 years or more]

[scene with the Medjugorje children]
Female narrator:
Here is an original documentary of one of the first apparitions...
The children begin to pray simultaneously...
And then suddenly the apparition vanishes.
The children to whom the Virgin appeared on that 24th of June, 1981, were about 15 to 16 years of age. In that era they had to face not a few intimidations and persecutions on the part of the comunist regime. Today they are all adults, they've gone to school, gotten degrees, they've married and they have children. They are very normal people, affable, simple and intelligent. And in the mean time, that little Bosnian town in the middle of nowhere has become the most extraordinary place of pilgrimage in all the Christian world. Millions of people come there from around the globe. The Madonna, from the first words she spoke, has asked for prayers for peace. She herself defined herself as the 'Queen of Peace'.

Franciscan friar:
The principal message of these apparitons is peace... for mankind. The children say that the Madonna had said that the world, with these present tensions, is walking on the edge of disaster.

Female narrator:
In 1981, nothing seemed to threaten the peace in Bosnia. Ten years later, in that very place, the bloodiest war to be seen in Europe since World War II would explode.

Antonio Socci (Italian author and journalist):
A war that was very amply prophesied by the Madonna who asked for prayers and penance in order to hault it... it was like a prophetic sign that had been given by the Madonna to make us understand that also other warnings, more important, more general, which are given to mankind are to be taken very seriously.

Female narrator:
The bishops which succeeded one another in the diocese of Mostar, under which jurisdiction Medjugorje falls, have always been contrary to the apparitions. They maintain that the seers are not sincere and that the messages of the 'Queen of Peace' are actually written by the Franciscan friars who run the parish church of the small town. Fueling the dispute there is also an age-old contention between secular clergy and the Franciscan friars in that territory. But in contrast with the opposition of the local bishop, hundreds of other bishops, some cardinals and even, it seems, the Pope himself have attested to [the truth of the apparitions] by their esteem for the seers and for the phenomenon of the apparitions. John Paul II has expressed on more than one occasion, in conversations with the seers and with other people he received in private audiences, among whom many prelates, his conviction with regard to the authenticity of the apparitions of Medjugorje.

Padre Livio Fanzaga:
In Germany, there came to light a collection of Pope John Paul II's private letters and in two or three of them the Pope manifests, let's say, his personal espousal of these apparitions. Evidently of course, that is a personal opinion, it doesn't implicate the authority of the Pope. The problem of official approval [of Medjugorje] remains but there is no doubt that if Medjugorje has been able to move forward in all these years it's also because the Pope has protected it.

Woman moderator:
Up to now the Church has not recognized the apparitions of the Madonna of Medjugorje and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the middle 1980's, established that official diocesan pilgrimages, led by a bishop, are not allowed there. This [decree] though has never limited private pilgrimages by individuals. The Church has declared that, as yet, it has not been ascertained if there is a supernatural reality to the events. This doesn't mean that the Church has expressed an opinion contrary [to the apparitions] but rather, it has suspended the pronouncement of a definitive judgment seeing as how the apparitions are still as yet unfolding.

[scene with the children]
Female narrator:
The six seers in the course of these 20 years have been subjected to much analysis and clinical testing. They have been studied, examined and put on the spot in many ways. The results have always shown them to be healthy, normal, and neither fanatics nor fabricators of fantasies. All of the experiments have concluded that during the apparitions something inexplicable happens.

Padre Livio Fanzaga:
There are some phenomena that science isn't able to understand, that is, how is it that during the ecstasy the children don't hear sounds, the children don't react to stimulus, how is it then that... all the children see the Madonna in the same instant, all of them fall to their knees at the same moment, how is it that their eyes are all fixed on the very same point, how is it that they all get up at the same time when the Madonna goes away, how is that... our pupils normally, when they fix on a point, remain stable if there is no decrease of light in which case the pupils would dialate, or an increase of light and in which case the pupils would contract. How is it that during the apparition the pupils dialate enormously--so why is it that they dialate?

Female narrator:
The faithful of Medjugorje say that the number of graces, healings and above all the number of conversions, as a consequence of the apparitions, cannot be counted. According to the children, the message repeated continually by the Madonna is an invitation to prayer, to fasting and to conversion.

Padre Livio Fanzaga:
With people's fasting and conversion the war in ex-Yugoslavia was prevented from becoming the spark that could have set off a world-wide conflict, but still it was a tremendous war.

Female narrator:
There are ten secrets tied to Medjugorje which regard the future of mankind. Of these secrets it is known only that the third one speaks of an unequivocal and beautiful sign that the Blessed Virgin will leave on the hill which rises over the village and which was the site of the first apparition. The seventh sign instead regards the destiny of the world and according to some people it will be very dramatic. But Mirijana insists that there is nothing to be afraid of.

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Part 2

The Medjugorje children

Female narrator:
We are in October of 2000 and the Church seems to be pervaded with optimism through the course of the Jubilee Year. Karol Wojtila wants to bring the statue of the Madonna of Fatima once again into St. Peter's square. On that occasion he made an act of consacration to the Blessed Virgin in which he pronounced the following words: "mankind today possesses instruments of unspeakable power, he can make of this world a garden or reduce it to a pile of rubble." Almost no one took notice [of these words] but they are the carefully pondered words of a man who evidently was able to see into the future. There are only eleven months to September 11th, 2001, to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center which will change history and plunge men into terror.
[scene of World Trade Center]

Padre Livio Fanzaga:
The Pope said that the world is in danger of destroying itself... we are at a dramatic turning point in the history of mankind... the ten secrets of Medjugorje demonstrate the will of the Madonna to save humanity in a moment when it would be able to compromise its entire future.

Female narrator:
One of the seers, Mirijana Dragicevic – who is now 38 years old, has a degree in agriculture, is married with two children – is the sole repository of all ten secrets and received from the Madonna the assignment of revealing them. She knows what they are, where and when they will be realized and she must communicate them ten days prior to their unfolding to a Capuchine monk who has already been chosen by her. The monk shall [announce the secret] to the whole world 3 days before its realization. This is what Mirijana says about the prophecy:

Miriana Dragicevic (seer of Medjugorje):
The Madonna always says not to speak about the secrets but to pray, because if you were to think about it, the secrets could [all be realized] for you this evening [if you were to die]. who says that tomorrow morning we will be alive? So then, we must be prepared in every moment and not wait for the secrets.

Padre Livio Fanzaga:
The Madonna, naturally, doesn't want that the ten secrets be revealed at this time, but in contrast with Fatima where the secrets were revealed after the second World War had already begun, so someone could have asked, "why weren't they revealed beforehand?" This time they will be revealed beforehand. Why will they be revealed beforehand? In my opinion it's because this is a salvific event. We should remember that the apparitions at Medjugorje are the last ones of the Madonna for the rest of time. The Madonna also said that she has come for the last time to call the world to conversion [to a return to God through prayer and penance].

Antonio Socci:
We know very little about these secrets. The children, the seers of Medjugorje are very reserved with regard to this. We known that the third one is a [physical] sign, immense and beautiful, that the Madonna will leave on the rocky hill above the town where she appeared for the first time, and it will be an unequivocal sign of Her presence at Medjugorje.

Miriana Dragicevic:
It will be a beautiful sign... a sign that can be seen, a sign that cannot have been made by human hands... something that is given by the Lord and which will remain. I cannot say anymore.

Antonio Socci:
We know that the other successive signs refer to events that must happen which in some cases are very hard trials, very hard trials for mankind.

Miriana Dragicevic:
I prayed to the Madonna [asking] if at least one part of that secret can be changed and She said that we must pray. So we prayed very much and She told me then... that this had been changed, this very little part changed, but that it is no longer possible to change anything else because the will of the Lord must be accomplished.

Antonio Socci:
But we know – that the context... that She has given us in these factual prophecies – these real prophecies, is that in the end it is She who will triumph. In some way these secrets concern the last decisive battle between Her and Satan which, in the course of the 20th century, unleashed particularly cruel and furious forces upon mankind. So, the victory of the Madonna is a sure promise that She gave at Medjugorje to the seers, of this we can be certain. And so an era of peace should follow suit.

[scenes of Sept. 11, 2001]
Male narrator:
According to Padre Livio Fanzaga who has dedicated a series of books to the study of Medjugorje and with his radio [Radio Maria Italia] has been following for years the unfolding of events, the facts surrounding September 11, 2001 could be the beginning of the events at Medjugorje. Padre Livio retains that the planetary danger could well be represented by a kind of terrorism that is ready to devastate the world with weapons of mass destruction.

Padre Livio Fanzaga:
One of the most shocking messages which the Madonna, Queen of Peace' gave was on January 1st, 2001 – passing from one millenium to another – that night on the hill over Medjugorje, under a star-filled sky and very cold – there were thousand and thousands of Italians – the message which the Madonna gave was so shocking because She said, these were Her exact words: "Now that Satan has been loosed from his chains, stay closer to My Heart and to the Heart of My Son". This phrase from the Madonna affected people profoundly because this passage from one millenium to another was celebrated throughout the world with fireworks and partying, with a lighthearted air. We had just finished the Jubilee Year so there was a climate of religious euforia, and so that message sounded really strange. So, the Madonna, at the beginning of the new millenium, anticipated the wars that we are experiencing now, the wars that we thought would never be, the wars, that She calls "the wars of our incredulousness" because we do not trust Her [we do not confide in Her], [the wars that are generated by] anxiety for the future, this is the war of terrorism. In short, the Madonna had warned us, in a moment when no one was expecting it, that we were entering a period of tribulation.

Woman moderator:
With regard to the phenomenon of Marian apparitions, one can express disinterest or disbelief, but there are also authoritative writers like Vittorio Messori and Rino Cammilleri who have written a book reconstructing the entire historical and geographic map of the principal Marian apparitions from the time of the French Revolution up to our present today. Well. And so it emerged that the Madonna has always appeared in conjunction with terrible events in order to help the faithful, to comfort them or to avert a greater tragedy.

[scene with guillotine]
Male narrator:
The apparitions during the years of the Reign of Jacobian Terror were an unexplicable phenomena which even Napoleone had experienced. It was a February 11th, the same day on which the Madonna would appear for the first time at Lourdes. This is only one of many stupefying coincidences with dates which Vittorio Messori has written about. At Fatima, the final apparition on October 13th with the miracle of the spinning sun took place almost simultaneously with the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution. And the apparition of Banneux in 1933 coincided with Hitler taking power in Germany. And last of all, the apparitions of Kibeho in Rwanda, which had not been able to avert one of the most terrible genocides of these last decades.

Vittorio Messori [international best-selling catholic author]:
Here there is a story of a parallel history: Marian history. There's the history that we all know, the history of wars and battles of peace treaties, of geniuses, of great men... And then there is the history underneath this, off to the side, in the shadows... a secret history which however can be glimpsed through the eyes of faith. It is the story of this Mother of mankind, the Madonna, which, at the important turning points in history, intervenes. She intervenes in such a way as to reassure those who are devoted to her, to reassure the faithful that it is God Himself who guides history.

Marco Tosatti (vaticanist for La Stampa, italian newspaper)
Clearly, as a believer, one could think that the Madonna tries to warn her children or the faithful that they are on the wrong road, as she has done other times in the past. A lay person on the other hand could say that there is something in people's heads that sets in motion unknown alarm signals which then materializes let's say, in that moment of crisis and according to one's faith, in an apparition or in a vision. I believe in any event that there is certainly an undeniable connection.

[Liturgical chant – scene of the Madonna of Fatima being carried in procession]
Male narrator:
The white plaza of Fatima is animated by thousands of candid white handerkerchiefs waving an affection salute to the White Lady of Peace.