In these times of rising unemployment, spare a thought for Father Tomislav Vladic, of Medjugorje in Bosnia, who's just been defrocked by the Pope for being the chief promoter of his town's holy shrine, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared over 40,000 times since 1981 – which by my humble atheistic calculations works out an impressive 3 or 4 times a day.
Of course, normally you'd expect promoting a holy shrine to attract the Holy Father's favour, but unfortunately for Vladic Mary's appearances at Medjugorje have not been verified by the Catholic Church – in the words of the Daily Mail, "three commissions failed to find evidence to support the visionaries' claims".
We all know the Pope loves a good supernatural miracle, but only when it's a real supernatural miracle. With this in mind, the people of Rathkeale in Limerick ought to be careful – as we reported earlier this month, pilgrims have been flocking to a Mary-shaped tree trunk there, but the apparition has not received the approval of the local priest, who told the press:
"The Church's response to phenomena of this type is one of great scepticism. While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition."
Now it's one thing getting a ticking off from a priest, but if the good folk of Limerick aren't careful they'll have the Pope weighing in as he has by defrocking Father Vladic. Although it has taken him 28 years to do anything about that...
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