Investigators in Bosnia were called to the scene Tuesday after vandals desecrated a Virgin Mary statue and set fire to a shrine in a southern Bosnian village that draws Roman Catholic pilgrims from around the world.
The village of Medjugorje gained international attention in 1981 when six children and teenagers reported seeing visions of the Madonna on a local hill. The site is located in the wine-producing region of southern Bosnia. Some of those original witnesses, referred to as “seers,” have claimed the visions continued regularly over the decades — some even saying they occur daily — along with messages from Mary.
Photos circulating in local media showed the statue of Our Lady had been painted black on the face and hands. The base of the statue bore an inscription in English reading “Devil in a skirt.” Nearby, a banner was discovered hanging on a fence listing the names of the seers with a message written in Polish that stated: “They are fraudsters, I have proof.”
Just two years ago, the Vatican gave Catholics the go-ahead to continue organizing pilgrimages to Medjugorje. The Vatican’s doctrinal office stopped short of confirming that the reported apparitions were authentic or supernatural in origin, and noted concerns about contradictions found within the messages the alleged visionaries claimed to have received over the years.
However, under updated Vatican guidelines, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith determined that the positive “spiritual fruits” connected to the Medjugorje experience were sufficient to allow the faithful to hold organized pilgrimages and public acts of devotion at the site.
That 2024 ruling set aside years of skepticism from the region’s former diocesan bishops and Vatican experts, and did not address concerns about the commercial interests that have helped transform Medjugorje into a booming religious tourism destination.
