by Father Fr. Joachim Heimerl von Heimthal
"By their fruits you shall know them" (Mt 7:16). With these famous words, Jesus teaches his disciples to recognize false prophets, and the Church has been guided by them for centuries, most recently in the case of the Marian apparitions of Medjugorje.
Numerous medically unexplainable conversions and healings have occurred in Medjugorje. In addition, countless priests and religious have experienced their vocation there, including myself.
Francis has now acknowledged all these "good fruits", but not - and this is the grotesque thing - the apparitions of Our Lady and her messages.
It is clear that this is illogical. One could just as easily affirm that apples grow by themselves and do not need a tree to do so. Does Francis seriously believe that a place of pilgrimage, where so many signs and miracles take place, is born by itself and without the intervention of Heaven? Or does he think that God has imposed silence on himself forever and will not intervene again in our time and in our history, not even through the Blessed Virgin Mary? Or to put it another way: for Francis faith is only gray theory instead of reality, he has a faith without God - who knows?
One thing is certain: as long as Francis sits in the Chair of Peter, there will be no recognition of Marian apparitions; he stubbornly refuses to confirm the supernatural nature of such phenomena. Ultimately, of course, this means that he does not believe in the words of Jesus: after all, the good fruits of which Jesus explicitly speaks are not there for their own sake. On the contrary, they are meant to bear witness to HIM and lead us to HIM; this is already so in the Gospel, and in Medjugorje it is, of course, the same thing: everything that happens there only happens because the Blessed Virgin wants to lead us to her Son, and without her apparitions there NOTHING would happen.
Ultimately, therefore, the Pope's refusal says nothing about Medjugorje, but everything about his pontificate. Francis is not a builder of bridges to the supernatural and even less to the truths of the faith. On the contrary: he causes confusion whenever he can and recently he has even questioned on several occasions the uniqueness of salvation through Jesus Christ. Sorry: no Pope, no Catholic and no Christian can do that. So it is not surprising that Francis does not want to recognize the Marian apparitions. On the contrary: this attitude fits his pontificate, which is the first in history to be characterized not only by presumption, but even by heresy.
That this is so has already been seen in many examples, and most recently, as so often before, in connection with the "Synod of Bishops," which will enter its final round in October.
With this "synod", Francis would like to establish a new "synodal" Church. Whoever rejects this - I do so wholeheartedly - is now committing a "sin" against synodality, which on the eve of the "synod" must be atoned for with an act of penance in St. Peter's.
This is - like many things under Francis - utter folly: the Church is Catholic and apostolic, but never, ever, "synodal". And apart from that: no Pope has the full power to invent new sins, not even Francis, who by this way wants to make his political-ecclesial program unassailable. Let's put it bluntly: this is certainly a clever move, but it is also a form of blasphemy.
If we look at the fruits of this pontificate in this context, they are completely different fruits than those of Medjugorje, because the fruits Francis serves us are clearly rotten.
Originally published in German on September 24, 2024 by Marco Tosatti, at https://www.marcotosatti.com/2024/09/24/medjugorje-die-synodal-synode-franziskus-und-die-faulen-fruchte-seines-pontifikats-joachim-heimerl/