Pilgrims to Medjugorje still find peace there, sometimes more

Published: 2006-06-16

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The first reports that Mary appeared to local children in Medjugorje occurred 25 years ago, but the village still draws flocks of pilgrims from around the world. Several Americans who visited there recently found the experience exceeded their expectations. "You just sink into peace," is how Loretta Fleming of northern Virginia described the feeling she had merely from being in Medjugorje, in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina. She went in August 2005 with a group of people from the East Coast. "I went with the idea of it being like a retreat," she told Catholic News Service. "It would be an opportunity to sit, relax and pray. I found it to be much more than that." A member of Queen of the Apostles Parish in Alexandria, Va., who works on public policy for the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, Fleming said she was prompted to go after reading "The Miracle Detective" by Randall Sullivan. The book looks into a variety of reported miracles and apparitions. Much of it focuses on the alleged apparitions of Mary to a group of people in Medjugorje that began in June 1981, when the six were teens or children. The Catholic Church remains cautious about the authenticity of the events.

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