A Stop at Medjugorje

While on this week-long trip to Croatia, I spent part of one morning at Medjugorje, Bosnia.  It wasn't on the tour, and the tour-guide added it at the suggestion of one of the folks on the bus. 

So, here's the jest of Medjugorje.  It's a town of maybe two-thousand residents.  It would mostly known for nothing except back in the summer of 1981....six teenagers came to view this apparition (a ghostly-like 'thing')....which they felt was Mary of 'Mary and Joseph' fame.  They ran down the hill, and reported this......a number of the townsfolk came up and felt they saw the apparition as well.  But to be honest, a significant number didn't really see anything.

A legend starts up.  The Catholic Church gets involved, and there's tons of money poured into a church, and outdoor ceremony set-up (room for 5,000 folks to sit).

Today, it's figured that around a million people (from across Europe) come and pray for sick relatives, or drag bad-off friends over to the site.

Down the main drag of town, there's probably twenty-five gift shops set up, with Jesus shirts, Moses statues, crosses, and various memorabilia.  I would take a guess that the shops in town rake in at least quarter-million dollars a week in 'gifts'.

So back to the apparition.  The odds that at least one (maybe several of the six) have a bit of paranoid schizophrenia?  I would suggest that at least one is a 99-percent chance.  If you have a convincing level of it.....then you can probably talk the rest into believing some fantasy with minimum ease. 

But here's the interesting thing.  This one act, has led onto the Catholic Church being involved....pumping money into ceremony area, and having various Bishops supporting the whole story.  The town today?  It makes tons of money off the apparition and the story of the teenagers.

Why is it always Mary or Jesus that is seen, for apparitions?  As you look around at the theme in Europe (mostly Italy, France, and Bosnia), you never have a Elisha figure to appear, or Noah, or Jeremiah, or Balaam.  On some rare occasions.....someone will say they had an apparition of the angel Gabriel, but that's rare.  The angel Raguel?  Yeah.....he's a big zero on the apparition scale.

So I kinda looked at this stop (a mere 30 minutes) and I just shook my head.  It's a tourist magnet, and a bit amusing.  But it's part of the problem in getting onto tour bus operations, and having to stop where they desire.