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Jose Carreras, Franjo Tudjman Join Faithful at Medjugorje
Celebrations in Herzegovina mark the
By Zoran Radosavljevic
A huge police security presence contrasted starkly with the spiritual music soaring from a circular stage in the cathedral in Medjugorje, a village in Croat-controlled southwest Bosnia. Members of the audience attributed the tight security to the presence of President Franjo Tudjman of neighbouring Croatia, who flew in by helicopter from a two-day visit to Turkey.
Alija Izetbegovic, Bosnia's Muslim president, was also invited to the concert, dubbed the "Message of Peace from
Medjugorje," but sent an envoy instead. Tudjman's appearance was for many a further sign of the region's creeping integration with Croatia.
The rugged area known as Herzegovina flies Croatia's flag and uses its currency despite belonging nominally to Bosnia's Croat-Muslim federation, according to the Dayton peace treaty. Some 5,000 spectators gave a standing ovation to Carreras but most seemed more impressed by seeing Tudjman in the flesh and the opportunity to shake hands with him. Herzegovinian Croats are staunch Catholics and nationalists who survived almost 500 years under Turkish Ottoman rule.
They claim, and countless faithful worldwide believe them, that the Virgin Mary appeared before six Croat children in the hills above Medjugorje on June 25, 1981, and sent a message to everyone to pray for peace. Exactly 10 years later, war broke out in then-Yugoslavia after Slovenia and Croatia proclaimed independence from the Serbian-led Balkan federation.
For a while fighting raged near, but never in, Medjugorje which lies only a few kilometres from the Croatian border. News of the 1981 apparition was quickly hushed up by the then Yugoslav Communist regime and the children and a local priest were subjected to police interrogation.
But when apparitions before children reportedly continued and the news broke out, Medjugorje became a magnet for pilgrims untroubled by the fact that the Vatican never officially acknowledged the apparitions. Miraculous healings and sightings of heavenly phenomena have been reported there for 15 years. Marija Pavlovic, 31, says she was one of the children who saw the Virgin Mary in 1981. Although married to an Italian and living in Italy, she returned this month for the anniversary.
Pavlovic claims the Virgin still appears to her and other previous witnesses daily at the same time, wherever they are. |
MEDJUGORJE, Bosnia, June 22 (Reuters) - Spanish superstar tenor Jose Carreras sang a solemn mass to thousands of believers in a Roman Catholic shrine village in Bosnia where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 1981. Accompanied by several orchestras and 12 choirs from Italy, Spain, France, Brazil and the United States, the famous tenor -- also a devout Catholic -- performed on Friday night to mark the 15th anniversary of the apparition.
MEDJUGORJE
Medjugorje Apparitions Information Center
Medjugorje Web Messages, The Visionaries
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