Melissa sat me down the other afternoon and started walking me through something she'd been reading about: Medjugorje. Six children in what was then Yugoslavia. Ten secrets. A permanent, indestructible sign that's supposed to appear on a hill. Messages from Our Lady every month for more than forty years.
I've heard the name in Catholic circles for years. I'd never actually sat down to understand it. My wife had. So after our conversation I went digging. Not to advocate and not to debunk — just to lay it out clearly, because if Melissa is asking these questions, other Catholic families are too.
Medjugorje at a Glance
Where Medjugorje Actually Is
A small village in Bosnia and Herzegovina — not Egypt, not the Holy Land. In 1981 it was part of communist Yugoslavia, which is part of what makes what happened next so remarkable.
On June 24, 1981 — the Feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist — two teenage girls walking at the base of a rocky hill called Podbrdo saw a luminous figure of a woman. They ran. Over the next few days six children stabilized as the visionaries: Ivanka, Mirjana, Marija, Ivan, Vicka, and Jakov. They say Our Lady has been appearing ever since, identifying herself as the Queen of Peace.
The Six Visionaries Today
The visionaries are all adults now. Three of them already have all ten secrets. The other three have nine. Several still receive daily apparitions.
The next public message comes out tomorrow — Marija receives it every 25th.
The Ten Secrets
Our Lady has been entrusting the visionaries with ten secrets about future events — some tied to Medjugorje, some to the wider world. The first three are warnings and signs. The remaining seven include chastisements. None have been publicly revealed yet.
A permanent, visible, indestructible sign on Apparition Hill — the exact place where Mary first appeared. Our Lady has said it's meant especially for unbelievers, because those who are already praying are called to convert now, while there's still time.
How a Secret Gets Revealed
Mirjana has chosen a Franciscan priest, Fr. Petar Ljubičić, as the one who will announce each secret. When a secret is about to happen, this is the pattern:
Whether or not you believe Medjugorje is authentic, the idea that you might one day open a news app and see a priest announcing a specific prophesied event with a 72-hour warning is unlike anything else in modern Catholic life.
Can the Chastisements Be Lessened?
Yes, according to Mirjana — at least in part. In interviews over the years she has said the seventh secret has been softened through prayer and fasting. A chastisement cannot be eliminated entirely, but "a part has been removed." The ninth and tenth secrets remain grave.
"You have forgotten that through prayer and fasting you can avert wars and suspend the laws of nature."
— Attributed to Our Lady of Medjugorje
That thread — prayer and fasting as things that actually do something in the physical and spiritual order — runs through every monthly message for forty-five years. If you read nothing else from Medjugorje, read that.
The Five Stones
Named after the five stones David carried against Goliath, these are the core practices Our Lady has asked of every person who takes the messages seriously. They are not theological secrets or new revelations. They are ordinary Catholic practice.
When Melissa was describing these, she offered to send me the list — that's how specific and well-known they are. We've already leaned into some of them in how we practice our faith on the road. Medjugorje didn't invent any of it. It just keeps asking Catholics to actually do it.
What the Vatican Actually Said in 2024
Most Catholics I've talked to don't know about this yet. On September 19, 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a formal note titled "The Queen of Peace," personally approved by Pope Francis. It granted Medjugorje a Nihil Obstat.
The Road to 2024 — A Timeline
Here's what the Nihil Obstat does — and just as importantly, what it doesn't.
Most positive category short of papal declaration. Authorizes public devotion to Mary as Queen of Peace at the shrine. Recognizes the "abundant and widespread fruits" — conversions, vocations, sacraments returned. The faithful are authorized "to give it their adherence in a prudent manner."
Does not declare the apparitions supernatural. Cardinal Fernández asked Pope Francis directly whether he wanted to go further — Francis said "Not at all." The Note even flags some messages as theologically imprecise, calling certain warnings and threats "misleading."
It's a careful thread: affirm the fruits without ruling on the apparitions. Both the pilgrims whose lives were changed and the local bishops who spent decades publicly skeptical can find themselves reflected in the final document.
The Other Side of the Story
It's honest to include this part. The two bishops whose diocese contains Medjugorje — Pavao Žanić and Ratko Perić — were consistently negative on the apparitions for more than three decades. Žanić publicly stated his "moral certitude" that the events were a case of collective hallucination. Perić went further, holding that "it is established that they are not supernatural" — a stronger position than the Vatican formula ever allowed.
Part of this was theological. Part was the century-old jurisdictional fight between the Franciscans and the local diocese (the "Herzegovina Affair"). Both bishops had real concerns about some individual visionaries and about theological content in some messages — concerns the 2024 Note actually echoes.
The current local bishop, Petar Palić, signed off on the 2024 Nihil Obstat. The dispute isn't fully resolved, but it's officially closed.
Medjugorje vs. Fatima
Because this was the first question Melissa asked me to think about — how is this different from Fatima?
| Fatima | Medjugorje | |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1917 | 1981 – ongoing |
| Visionaries | Three shepherd children | Six teens, now adults |
| Secrets | Three, given in a single day | Ten, given progressively |
| Disclosed? | All three, by 2000 | None, as of 2026 |
| Duration | Six months | 45+ years and counting |
| Church status | Fully approved since 1930 | Nihil Obstat (2024); supernatural origin not declared |
Both emphasize the same things: the Rosary, penance, peace, conversion, and warnings about what happens when humanity turns from God. If Fatima was a thunderclap, Medjugorje is a slow drumbeat — still going, still asking the same things.
What Our Family Does With This
We're not going to claim certainty about something the Vatican explicitly refused to rule on. Pope Francis said "not at all" when offered the chance to go further, and I'll take him at his word. But here's what we have taken from Medjugorje:
- The Five Stones get taken seriously. Not because they're novel — but because forty-five years of repeating them is hard to ignore.
- The Rosary gets prayed more deliberately. "With the heart" is better than any meditation app.
- Wednesdays and Fridays are fast days. Not always bread and water, not always perfect. We try.
- Confession is monthly. Wherever we're parked.
- We read the Vatican's own 2024 document rather than the social-media version of it.
- The 25th matters. We check the published message from Marija each month.
Whether Medjugorje turns out to be the greatest Marian intervention since Fatima or something more ordinary, the practices it keeps asking for are the same ones the Church has been asking for since the Council of Trent. There's no downside to taking them seriously.
Resources to Go Deeper
Every link below I've verified and read myself. Start with the primary sources.
Primary Sources
- The Queen of Peace — the Vatican's 2024 DDF Note. Read this first.
- medjugorje.hr — the official parish website.
- Monthly Messages Archive — every 25th-of-the-month message since 1987.
News Coverage of the 2024 Approval
- Vatican News — the official announcement.
- Andrea Tornielli's Editorial — best short explainer.
- The Pillar — serious reporting on the full context.
- USCCB — U.S. bishops' summary.
- National Catholic Register — analysis of the document's careful language.
Background and History
- CNA — What Catholics Should Know — best single-article overview.
- NCR — Where Are the Visionaries Today?
- EWTN Vatican — Church Timeline
- NCR — The Ruini Report Conclusions
- EWTN Library — articles, documentaries, interviews.
- Catholic Answers — The Church's Current Position
Books and Memoirs
- My Heart Will Triumph — Mirjana Soldo. The visionary's own memoir. Melissa started here; if you read one book, read this.
- Medjugorje: The Message — Wayne Weible. Classic longform from a non-Catholic journalist who visited, converted, and spent decades covering it.
- The Hidden Child of Medjugorje — Fr. Petar Ljubičić. The priest to whom Mirjana has entrusted the secrets.
Tools to Actually Live the Five Stones
- USCCB Daily Readings — free, in sync with the liturgical calendar.
- MassTimes.org — find Mass and confession anywhere. Essential on the road.
- Hallow App — guided Rosary, meditations, fasting reminders.
Practical Next Steps
- Read the 2024 Vatican Note directly. Under 30 minutes. It will reshape how you see every headline about Medjugorje.
- Start with one Stone, not all five. Pick the Rosary or Friday fasting. Build from there.
- Approach with prudence, not enthusiasm. Cardinal Fernández used that exact word for a reason.
- Don't let the secrets dominate. Obsessing over them is the opposite of what Our Lady keeps asking for.
- Keep your eyes on the fruits. Vocations, confessions, families praying together. That's what was recognized.
I started this piece because my wife asked me to understand something she'd been praying about, and I didn't have a good answer. I think I do now. Medjugorje is a place where, for more than four decades, the same six people have claimed to hear the same Mother asking for the same things — prayer, fasting, Scripture, confession, the Eucharist — while the world grows louder and more distracted. Whether every apparition is authentic is something the Vatican itself has chosen not to decide. But the call underneath them — the five small stones pressed into the hand of anyone who will listen — is indistinguishable from the call our Church has been making for two thousand years.
So we're going to listen. Tomorrow is the 25th. Melissa and I will read the message together over morning coffee, and then we'll pray a Rosary as a family before school starts. That's as complicated as any of this needs to be.
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