Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, said this of Medjugorje:
“If I was an opponent of Medjugorje I’d have to close down my seminary since almost all the candidates have received their call to the priesthood through Medjugorje!â€
Cardinal Schonborn was a graduate student under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI, and he was also close to Pope John Paul II. He came to know Medjugorje through those in his diocese who had experienced conversion there and started prayer groups in order to live Our Lady’s messages. He saw that, as he said, most of the vocations to the priesthood in his diocese were coming from those who went to Medjugorje and had an encounter with Our Lady. How coud such fruit come from a bad tree. Like that of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, he urged freedom for Medjugorje rather than oppression.
