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Are all religions good? Are all religions the same?
[Ljudevit Rupčić, Viktor Nuić, Ancora una volta la verità su Medjugorje (Once again, the truth about Medjugorje), Krešimir, 2003, p. 114; cf. Tomislav Vlašić, Kronika ukazanja u župi Međugorje (Chronicle of the Apparitions of the Parish of Medjugorje), initial unnumbered vol., from 10/1/1981: “1. “Jesu li sve vjere dobre? Jesu li sve vjere iste?”]

 

Father René Laurentin shortens it:

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Question: - Are all religions good? (in Croatian, dobre)?
Response:  - All religions are equal (iste) before God (Parish Chronicle, p. 11)

[René Laurentin, Message et pédagogie de Marie a Medjugorje. Corpus chronologique des messages O.E.I.L., Paris 1988, p. 319, cf. p. 156. English edition: Messages and Teachings of Mary at Medjugorje. Chronological Corpus of the Messages, Riehle Foundation, 1988]

 

 

The message continues as follows:​

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God rules over them just like a sovereign over his kingdom. In the world, all religions are not the same because people have not complied with the commandments of God. They reject and disparage them. 
[Ibid., p. 156]

 

For most Catholics, the response that “all religions are equal before God" is nonsense, to say the least. Medjugorje apologists have therefore tried to run for cover.

 

And so, in June 1987, Laurentin had a conversation with Vicka:

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R. Laurentin. - Who had asked if all religions were good (dobre)?
Vicka. - Someone asked me to ask, but I don't remember who.
R.L. Theologians view the response as a grave error. Is Jesus Christ equal or similar to Muhammad or Buddha? And do these religions provide the Salvation as through Jesus Christ?

Vicka (for whom references to Muhammad or Buddha are Greek) responds by trying to stay out of the fray:

- If you had asked me for an explanation right away, it would have been more clear. After many years, I dare not interpret on my own initiative. I’ll leave that to the theologians. I will pray for them to be enlightened. Our Lady told me that “all religions are equal before God”, that is, everybody is equal before God...
[Ibid., p. 321]

 

As can be seen, after being confronted with the problematic nature of her own response, and after saying that she dare not interpret on her own initiative, she does exactly that — interprets on her own initiative, saying something that, from the logico-linguistic point of view, Bishop Perić calls “utterly absurd” [R. Perić, Međugorske stranputice, in "Službeni vjesnik", 1/2012, p. 100. English translation: The Deviations of Medjugorje].

 

However, this interpretation was first adopted by René Laurentin and subsequently by Ljudevit Rupčić (true extremist of the Medjugorje apparitions), who tried to justify it on historical-environmental grounds.

 

 

Saverio Gaeta introduces Rupčić’s words:

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In the 1980s, when communist Yugoslavia still existed, “in the vernacular of this area, the term 'faith' also meant a people or a nation.”
[Saverio Gaeta, Medjugorje. La vera storia, San Paolo, 2020, p. 110]

 

First, it seems significant that, for several years, no such explanation had ever spontaneously occurred to any of the local apologists.

 

However, let's walk through that hypothesis. As such, where it says “faiths” (or “religions”), we should mean “people (whatever religion they belong to)”. Specifically, in that geographical area, the concept of Catholic would denote Croats, Orthodox would denote Serbs, and Muslim would denote Bosnians.

 

As such, the response Vicka conveys becomes logical and obvious. The problem lies in the fact that if the answer is obvious, the question is also obvious.
And therein lies the key to beginning to understand the vulnerabilities of this theory — in the question, not in the answer.

 

It’s hard to believe that anyone really wanted to ask the question, “Are all people (whatever religion they belong to) equal?”

 

Or shall we say that the question was in regard to religion, but Our Lady misunderstood and responded in regard to people?

 

On the other hand, in light of Rupčić’s (and Vicka’s) interpretive theory, the first part of the question would be understood as, “Are all people (whatever religion they belong to) good?”

 

This is really not very persuasive.

 

But that’s not enough. As can also be seen from Laurentin’s essay, Messages and Teachings of Mary at Medjugorje. Chronological Corpus of the Messages, the question in point was followed by another which was entirely consistent with the first and complementary to a question regarding religions (not people), specifically:

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Are all churches the same?
[Laurentin, Message et pédagogie de Marie a Medjugorje, p. 156; cfr Vlašić, Kronika ukazanja, from 10/1/1981: “2. Jesu li sve crkve iste?”]

 

It’s quite clear that it was, therefore, a single question, articulated according to a very precise logic and in two parts: first regarding the various religions (e.g., Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism) and then regarding the various Christian churches (Catholic, Orthodox, etc.).

 

The funny thing is that the one who formulated the response (i.e., the Gospa, for those who believe in the apparitions and Vicka, for those who do not) blatantly misunderstood the question, replaying:

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In some, one prays to God more. In others, less. That depends on the priests who motivate others to pray. That also depends on the power which they have.
[Ibid.]

 

Bishop Perić commented:

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Nor is there here an answer to the written “ecumenical” question: whether all the churches are identical, that is, whether all the Churches (Catholic, Orthodox, some Protestant), as Christian communities, are identical. The “seers” evidently have not understood it and answer at point-blank, thinking of the churches as buildings, and with their natural and childish eyes see some differences, for example, in “some they pray more to God, in others less” – let’s say, at Medjugorje, at Mostar, at Čapljina, and this in turn depends on the charismatic “directing” and “power” of the priest! 
[Perić, Međugorske stranputice, p. 100]

 

To further understand how weak Ljudevit Rupčić's interpretive theory is, one only needs to look at what his brother, staunch supporter of Medjugorje and fellow Herzegovinian Father Svetozar Kraljević (who had been living in the United States for nine years) published in his 1984 book, The Apparitions of Our Lady at Medjugorje. He was not even touched by such an idea.

 

 

In Chapter XII, entitled Ecumenism, he reports and summarizes two responses from the Gospa (one from October 1 and one from October 7, 1981), combining them as follows:

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God presides over all religions as a king controls his subjects, through his priests and ministers. Mary emphasisized, however, that Jesus Christ is the only mediator of salvation.

[Svetozar Kraljevic, The Apparitions of Our Lady at Medjugorje, Franciscan Herald Press, 1984, p. 95]

 

Moreover, on February 27, 1983, “visionary” Ivanka, when interviewed by Kraljević himself, had expressed herself as follows:

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The Madonna said, basically, religions are similar.

[Ibid., p. 149]
 

 

If we examine the issue with an objective eye and from a historical perspective, the least we can do is to note how the irrefutable macro-ecumenical message of Medjugorje is unprecedented in the history of Catholic mysticism.

 

 

In short, since these are not immutable heavenly truths, it seems clear that what the “visionaries" report comes from and is derived from environmental influences.

 

We will now see further proof of this.

 

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*****

 

Saverio Gaeta also presents an alternative argument in defense which, in his eyes, would justify the message without having to apply Rupčić’s interpretive theory:

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In any case, it’s worth recalling that Our Lady also made similar statements in Kibeho, Rwanda, where the apparitions began in November 1981, a few months after Medjugorje, that were officially approved by the diocesan bishop on June 29, 2001. “As for the various religions, don't worry. In God’s eyes there is but one religion…”

[Gaeta, Medjugorje, p. 110]
 

 

In fact, Saverio Gaeta’s observation provides further evidence that, in Medjugorje as in Kibeho, the “visionaries” add their specific ideas and perceptions to the “apparitions” that were a result of the specific environments in which they lived and in which they were shaped.

 

The priest at the time who was closest to Vicka, namely Father Tomislav Vlašić (see Part 5), joined the Charismatic Renewal movement.

 

 

This is acknowledged by Gaeta himself, who recalls how the then Franciscan had attended the “international Congress of the Catholic Charismatic Movement, held in Rome in early May 1981, just one month before the apparitions of the Queen of Peace” [ibid., p. 25].

 

The Charismatic Renewal movement or Renewal in the Spirit movement (as inspired by the Pentecostalism of American Protestant churches) was born in the United States in the late 1960s. Its proponents are among the most vocal supporters of macro-ecumenism ("Charismatic Renewal is called to fulfill anc ecumenical vocation" [L. J. Suenens, Ecumenism and Charismatic Renewal, Servant Books, 1978, p. 4]).

 

Therefore, the most obvious and natural inference would be that the remarkable response uttered by Vicka (“All religions are equal”) comes from the ideas conveyed to her by Vlašić himself.

 

And how is it that essentially the same thing was said in Kibeho? 

 

In Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, an essay published by Cambridge University, we can read:

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In the Catholic Church, a [similar] charismatic movement, Charismatic Renewal, came to Rwanda from the United States in the 1970s.

[Timothy Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 114]

 

And, indeed, it’s documented that Nathalie Mukamazimpaka, one of the alleged Kibeho visionaries, adhered to Charismatic Renewal, and that at the end of the alleged apparitions (and sometimes even during) both she and the other “visionaries” fell to the ground, as typically happens in the charismatic practice and is known as being “Slain in the Spirit”.

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