“Tourism was not known at all in this part of the country,” the Tourism Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina recalls in online literature. “In 1981 there were not more than 500 people living in Medjugorje. There were no proper municipal services such as telephone, electricity, water supply, asphalt roads, etc. There were no hotels, restaurants, shops, or coffee bars. It was quite literally in the middle of nowhere.”
Medjugorje Visionary Recalls first Marian Apparition
This paints perhaps a slightly more backward picture of Medjugorje than was really the case. Ivan Dragicevic, then 16, was on his way to a friend’s house to watch a basketball game on TV when he first saw an apparition that he took to be the Virgin Mary on a hill near the village. He recalled the incident during a recent visit to St. Petronille Catholic Church in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, Ill.
“I saw the most beautiful image of Our Lady in normal size,” he told a full house in the church sanctuary. “As soon as I saw that, I immediately ran home.”
The next day, however, he and five other children from the village gathered up enough courage to visit the hill again, where they say they received another vision of Mary, in which she spoke to them for the first time. Thus began a string of daily visions that continues to this day for some of the visionaries, Dragicevic included.
Taking the Medjugorje Message on the Road
From January through May of this year, Dragicevic had appearances like the one in Glen Ellyn scheduled at 32 churches from California to Massachusetts. He is not the only Medjugorje visionary slated to visit the Chicago area this year. Mirjana Soldo will speak April 22 at St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church in Chicago. IHS Pilgrimages, which organizes tours to Medjugorje, is co-hosting the event. Three days later, Soldo will take part in an evangelization conference in St. Charles, Ill., an event sponsored by an organization that arranges tours of Medjugorje.
Although many of the groups promoting tourism to Medjugorje and websites about the apparitions maintain non-profit status, it’s not always readily apparent who benefits from their efforts. None of the pilgrimage or general Medjugorje websites researched for this story and a three-part series on examiner.com offered a breakdown of where their funds go. This lack of transparency has fueled criticism that the people who run these organizations are more interested in cashing in on the Medjugorje phenomenon than spreading God’s word. The visions themselves also have been called into question, since some of the visionaries and their families host pilgrims to Medjugorje. The websites and tour organizations operate without the sanction of the Catholic Church, which has not made a ruling on the Medjugorje apparitions.
Religious Pilgrimages Make Medjugorje a Boom Town
About the only thing certain about Medjugorje, as the government’s tourist bureau notes, is that it is “a different place” today than it was in 1981, when most of the residents toiled hard in tobacco fields and vineyards. “Medjugorje became a real tourist paradise for believers. There are 15,000 beds in hotels and private pensions, many restaurants, souvenirs shops, travel agencies, and professional guides in all major languages. Medjugorje today is a beautiful small town of about 3,000 inhabitants.”
Many of those inhabitants will be happy to show you around – for a small donation.
Dennis D. Jacobs - Dennis D. Jacobs is an award-winning journalist and avid traveler. His byline has appeared in scores of publications, including the St. ...
