VATICAN CITY - A mixture of economic and diabolical interests, with the alleged seers and their collaborators directly involved in earnings connected to the highest influx of pilgrims and visitors to the area. And the Devil content to sow discord between the faithful most convinced of the authenticity of the apparitions of Medjugorje and the Church, which from the beginning has been sceptical towards what it has defined several times through the successive Bishops of Mostar as 'a great deception'. Monsignor Andrea Gemma Bishop-Emeritus of Isernia-Venafro, one of the greatest living exorcists, doesn't mince his words: rather than the Blessed Virgin, at Medjugorje there has ppeared so far only rivers of money. A serious accusation, which gives the measure not only of the courage, but of the moral and spiritual stature of the prelate who has agreed to answer the questions of Petrus on such a thorny issue.

So, Excellency, how to define Medjugorje?

It is a phenomenon which is absolutely diabolical, around which revolve many underground interests. Holy Mother Church, the only one able to pronounce, through the mouth of the Bishop of Mostar, has already said publicly, and officially, that the Madonna has never appeared at Medjugorje and that this whole sham is the work of the Demon.

You speak of ‘underground interests’ . . . . Which?

I refer to the 'dung of the Devil', to money, what else? In Medjugorje everything happens in function of money: pilgrimages, lodging houses, sale of trinkets. So much so that abusing the good faith of those poor souls who go there thinking to encounter the Madonna, the false seers have organised themselves financially, have enriched themselves and live a rather comfortable life. Just think, one of them organises directly from America, with a direct economic interest, tens of pilgrimages every year. These don't seem to me to be disinterested persons. Thus, together with those who shore up this noisy deception, they patently have every interest in convincing people that they see and speak with the Virgin Mary.

Monsignor Gemma, is your judgement final? [Is that your final answer?]

Could it be otherwise? These persons who claim to be in contact with Our Lady, but who in reality are inspired solely and exclusively by Satan, are creating tumult and confusion among the faithful for absolutely deplorable interests and advantages. Think also of the disobedience which they have nourished inside the Church: their spiritual guide, a Franciscan friar expelled by the Ordinary and suspended a divinis, continues to administer the Sacraments illicitly. And many priests from all over the world, despite the explicit prohibition of the Holy See, continue to organise and to take part in pilgrimages to Medjugorje. It is a scandal! Behold why I speak of a mixture of interests, personal and diabolical; the false seers and their helpers’ pocket money, and the Devil creates discord between the faithful and the Church. The most obstinate faithful in fact do not listen to the Church which, I repeat, has from the beginning warned of the mendacity of the apparitions of Medjugorje.

And if the alleged seers were really seeing Our Lady?

In reality they would see Satan under one of his disguised forms. Because Satan has every interest in splitting the Church, pitting the two currents of 'pro' and 'anti' Medjugorje. And it would not be something new: Saint Paul himself asserts that the Devil can also appear as an Angel of Light and that he can disguise himself. He did it, for example, with Saint Gemma Galgani. But beyond his travesties, the Evil One has already intervened and I can assure you that it his he who has been inspiring the false seers since the beginning with the lure of easy money.

You don’t really like these seers . . . .

Please! It's enough to see how they conduct themselves: they are disobedient to the Church. They should have retired to private life and instead they continue to propagate their lies for the purpose of lucre, thus playing the Devil's game! My thought goes immediately to Saint Bernadette, the seer of Lourdes: this gentle creature wanted to leave her own life and chose the habit of a religious sister to serve the Lord. Instead, the impostors of Medjugorje continue to live comfortably in the world without manifesting any type of love whatever either for God or the Church.

The supporters of Medjugorje stress that the Holy See has never expressed itself on the subject.

This is another lie! As I pointed out earlier, the Vatican forbade pilgrmages on the part of priests to that place and has already spoken via the mouths of the two successive bishops of Mostar over these years, Monsignor Zanic and Monsignor Peric, with both of whom I spoke personally and who always expressed their doubts to me. Look, neither for Fatima nor Lourdes did it happen that the Holy See expressed itself directly about the Marian apparitions. Why therefore should it have made an exception in this case? The truth is that when the Bishop of Mostar speaks the Church of Christ speaks and it is to him, who speaks with the authority conferred on him by the Vatican (Holy See) that one must listen. So therefore, the Holy See has always expressed itself with the words of the Bishop of Mostar, showing that Medjugorje is a diabolic eceit. But I'll tell you something. You'll see that soon the Vatican will intervene with something explosive to unmask once and for all who is behind this deceit.

The same supporters point out that at Medjugorje every year are recorded great numbers of conversions and miracles . . .

It is a distortion. And then, who counts all these conversions? Look, if a person converts, it is because he or she has a certain predisposition, because he or she knows how to look within, because he or she knows how to receive the gift of the Spirit. The place in which this conversion takes place is all relative. Let us think of Saint Paul: he was converted on the road. So what should we all do? Should we all go out onto the road and wait to be converted? Regarding miracles, I'll tell you a personal anecdote. I owe to the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei the miraculous healing of someone in my family, and yet it has not happened that Our Lady has ever appeared to me at Pompei. Look, to believe, to be healed interiorly and exteriorly, it doesn't happen necessarily that Mary makes herself seen.

Do you know what opinion the Holy Father Benedict XVI has of Medjugorje?

I will limit myself to underlining the fact that it was he, as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who put out two official notes adverse to Medjugorje, such as forbidding priests and religious from going to that place on pilgrimage. He did it . . . .

On the other hand it is said that John Paul II was convinced of the goodness of the apparitions.

A completely unproven fable. I underline that personal opinions are just such and do not represent in any way a magisterial act.

Look up what the exorcist Monsignor Gemma has to say about this supposed "apparition":

somehavehats.typepad.com/…/more-on-medjugo…