Pope John Paul II released the text of the third part of the secret of Fatima the day after Medjugorje celebrated the nineteenth anniversary of the beginning of the apparitions. Cardinal Ratzinger provided a theological commentary to go with John Paul II’s disclosure and gave a strong rationale as to the important place that private revelation has in the life of the faithful. Is it conjecture to say that Cardinal Ratzinger was speaking also on behalf of the Medjugorje apparitions when he wrote these clarifications concerning private revelations? Though the world’s attention was briefly fixed upon the secret of Fatima as it was released for which Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the theological commentary, Medjugorje has been a worldwide phenomenon since it began, with the numbers of pilgrims traveling to it often surpassing the numbers going to the Church’s most visited shrines. What Ratzinger describes as what results from private revelations…help to live more fully the Revelation given to the Church, help in understanding the Gospel and living it better, that the message leads man back to the “definitive public Revelation,â€and that the “inculturation†of the faith takes place in the daily lives of the believers…all can be ascribed to the effects Medjugorje has had in the lives of millions of people.
