During Christmastide, many large Catholic news sources like Zenit and Catholic News Agency shut down completely. Most Catholic bloggers observed a period of reduced posting, avoiding the more controversial subjects, and focusing largely on Christmas related themes. It wasn't that way on all sites. Ministry Values, which does not claim to be a Catholic website, and which seems to exist mainly to promote Medjugorje, released three "hit-jobs" on skeptics and critics of the alleged apparition. These came unprovoked because they focused on works that have been out there for weeks, months, or decades - puzzling indeed was the urgency that they had to come during such a solemn season. On of these was a critical review of a book by Donal Anthony Foley, "Understanding Medjugorje" (shown above), which was published in 2006.
I would not have known about these pieces had they not been sent to me by Steven K. Ryan, the publisher of Ministry Values. He goaded me several times for responses, but I did not bother to follow the links because.... it was Christmastide.
As Mary leads us to Christ, the "gospa" of Medjugorje leads devotees to herself!
The behavior of the Medjugorje devotees of Ministry Values only solidified my critical position on this basis: Mary always leads her devotees to Christ and we would expect this all the more during the solemn season of Christmastide when all eyes should be fixed on the Infant Jesus. In fact, the only thing I could find pertaining to Christmas itself at Ministry Values was a video of Charlie Browns Christmas Speech. While this was a fine, religiously themed cartoon which focused on Our Lord's Nativity, that was all that I could find on the homepage which discussed the solemnity itself.
Donal Foley has decided to respond to the article written by Daniel Klimek of Ministry Values. Klimek has graduated with a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from Yale's Divinity School. He was accepted into the PhD program at Catholic University of America in the School of Theology and Religious Studies. We can only pray that CUA will put him through some remedial courses in Catholicism that he would not have had at Yale - a non-Catholic institution. His writings reveal a need to better understand Catholic ecclesiology, among foundational topics in the faith.
Go read Mr. Foley's : Response to the critical article by Daniel Klimek on Understanding Medjugorje: Heavenly Visions or Religious Illusion?
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The obedient are not held captive by Holy Mother Church; it is the disobedient who are held captive by the world!
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