Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Open letter opposes CDF’s misquotations

In open letter to the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, author Wayne Weible urges the letter currently restricting Medjugorje events called back due to its misquotations of an official Church position paper. The author calls people to pray for CDF to soon withdraw the erroneous document.

Full stop, Your Eminence: Wayne Weible urges Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Prefect of the Vatican's doctrinal office to calls back his restriction letter on Medjugorje, due to the misquotations it contains
Full stop, Your Eminence: Wayne Weible urges Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Prefect of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, to call back restriction letter on Medjugorje, due to the misquotations and misinterpretations it contains

Medjugorje prayer meetings and conferences are being cancelled, and the number of American pilgrims is down due to a letter of restrictions sent at the request of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the doctrinal office of the Church which has demanded cancellation of all arrangements that take the authenticity of the apparitions in Medjugorje “for granted”.
Yet, as disclosed by Medjugorje Today on March 23, the letter is based on misquotations of the Zadar Declaration, a document issued by the bishops of then-Yugoslavia which has constituted the Church’s formal position on the events of Medjugorje since 1991. In an open letter to Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the head of CDF, author Wayne Weible now urges the restriction letter called back “as the only logical and reasonable consequence of the misquotations and the misinterpretations of the Zadar Declaration.”
The recipient of the open letter: Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
The recipient of the open letter: Cardinal Gerhard Müller, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

In his open letter Wayne Weible underlines that CDF’s misquotations of the Zadar Declaration are likely to make the reader think that the Church has already ruled on Medjugorje, and that the ruling was negative. Since this is not the case, Weible concludes his open letter by calling the withdrawal of CDF’s restriction letter “unavoidable”.
CDF’s first misquotation is the omission of the words “so far” from the Zadar Declaration passage in which the Yugoslav bishops stated that “On the basis of studies made so far (our emphasis, ed.), it cannot be affirmed that these matters concern supernatural apparitions or revelations.”

The postman: When all the American bishops received the restriction letter on Medjugorje in October 2013, it was sent to them by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the papal nuncio to the United States who wrote that the acted at the request of Cardinal Müller
The restriction letter on Medjugorje was sent by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the papal nuncio to the United States who wrote that he acted at the request of Cardinal Müller

CDF’s second misquotation of the Yugoslav Bishops is the use of past tense in the alleged quote of this passage from the Zadar Declaration, presented as a quote by CDF as “On the basis of the research that has been done, it is not possible to state that there were (our emphasis, ed.) apparitions of supernatural revelations.”
“It gives the impression that the investigation has been completed and that the final decision is that the apparitions were not supernatural. Yet, quite on the contrary, the Yugoslav bishops ended the Zadar Declaration by declaring they would continue to follow the events of Medjugorje and do so to its conclusion” Wayne Weible writes in his open letter to Cardinal Müller.
Weible, the author of 10 books on the events of Medjugorje, further calls to mind the 1996 statement by then-Vatican Press Office spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls who said that “You cannot say people cannot go there until it has been proven false. This has not been said, so anyone can go (to Medjugorje, ed.) if they want.”

Joaquin Navarro-Valls
Joaquin Navarro-Valls

The Vatican has never retracted this statement, and Wayne Weible now contrasts it to the effects of CDF’s restriction letter which has had scheduled talks and public apparitions to the Medjugorje visionaries cancelled since CDF circulated the letter to all the American bishops on October 21st 2013:
“Your Eminence, this self-contradiction in itself clearly needs to be corrected: On the one hand, according to the statement of Mr. Navarro-Valls, the faithful are permitted to go to Medjugorje where the alleged visionaries are giving talks that always took the authenticity of their experiences “for granted”. While, on the other hand, according to the letter of October 21, 2013, the same faithful are not permitted to listen to the same talks given by the same visionaries, when these talks are given outside of Medjugorje. These two positions cannot be intellectually reconciled” Wayne Weible writes in his open letter.

Wayne Weible
Wayne Weible

“I respectfully urge the CDF to acknowledge the errors in the statement sent to the American bishops – and to call back the statement as the only logical and reasonable consequence of the misquotations and the misinterpretations of the Zadar Declaration contained within the statement” he concludes.
“Throughout the 24 years of its existence, the Zadar Declaration was never used to impose restrictions on events related to Medjugorje. Loyally used and quoted correctly, it cannot be used for this purpose. Therefore, calling back the statement sent to the American Bishops would appear to be unavoidable.”

Cardinal Gerhard Müller
Cardinal Gerhard Müller

Wayne Weible explains that he has written his open letter to counteract what the letter calls “the unjust damage (CDF’s restriction letter) has done to Medjugorje and the credibility of the alleged visionaries”, and to clear up a currently prevailing confusion:
“I felt called to bring this matter to the attention of the CDF because of the severe damage it has done here in the United States in the past 18 months, in that so many people who have gained so much from the alleged apparitions are now questioning its validity” Wayne Weible tells Medjugorje Today.

Wayne Weible
Wayne Weible
The author invites and urges people to pray for fruits to come from the open letter to Cardinal Müller. Wayne Weible stresses that everyone can make a difference:
”First and most importantly, pray that the CDF would immediately correct the errors in the letter by recalling it” he tells Medjugorje Today.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

The open letter has been sent certified to Cardinal Müller. The only other direct recipient, also certified, is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria, a CDF member who both visited Medjugorje and hosted public apparitions to visionaries Ivan Dragicevic and Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti in his cathedral.
from Spirit Daily

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