Papa Leone XIV invia un visitatore apostolico a Medjugorje
Pope Leo XIV has appointed former Carpi bishop Francesco Cavina as special apostolic visitor to the Marian pilgrimage parish of Medjugorje, tasked with pastoral oversight without ruling on the alleged apparitions.
Pope Leo XIV has sent a special apostolic visitor to Medjugorje, the Bosnian parish that draws around three million pilgrims a year to venerate apparitions of the Virgin Mary whose authenticity the Holy See has never formally recognised. The appointee is Francesco Cavina, emeritus bishop of Carpi, who takes up the post with a mandate to accompany the parish pastorally without pronouncing on whether anything supernatural is taking place there.
According to reporting by La Stampa, the role is designed to give the Pope an inspector on the ground, focused on the practical life of a site where faith, tourism and commerce are closely intertwined. The newspaper described the task as addressing a "marketing of the miracle" that continues to enrich entrepreneurs of the sacred, particularly Italians. The appointment is open-ended but revocable by the Holy See.
Cavina replaces Aldo Cavalli, who turned 80 on 18 October and had been named by Pope Francis in November 2021. The new visitor is charged with following the parish's pastoral life, accompanying pilgrims and supervising the spiritual experience of the sanctuary. Among his responsibilities is the discernment of alleged Marian messages and the authorisation of any decision to publish them, in line with Vatican guidelines.
The appointment does not amount to recognition of the apparitions, which the seers say began in 1981. In September 2024, under Pope Francis, the Vatican granted a nihil obstat to the devotion at Medjugorje, acknowledging positive spiritual fruits but without declaring the apparitions supernatural.
The visitor also faces a long-running dispute inside the local Franciscan community. La Stampa reported that the friars have for decades been in conflict with the bishop of Mostar-Duvno, and that one of them reportedly received episcopal ordination from Old Catholic clergy, while others have been implicated in serious abuses. Restoring order among the local Franciscans is therefore among the unresolved problems Cavina will have to address.
Cavina, born in Imola, studied theology at the Benedetto XV regional seminary in Bologna, obtaining a licence in dogmatic theology in 1981, and later a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University. He served as vice-rector of the Bologna regional seminary, chaplain to young members of Catholic Action, episcopal chancellor, lecturer and judge at the ecclesiastical tribunal of Bologna. From 1996 to 2011 he worked in the Vatican Secretariat of State, in the Section for Relations with States.
Benedict XVI named him bishop of Carpi on 14 November 2011, and he was consecrated on 22 January 2012 by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Months later he faced the earthquake that struck Emilia in May 2012. On 26 June 2019 Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the Carpi see, when he was 64, before the usual retirement age of 75. The decision followed a judicial and media controversy linked to an investigation into alleged vote-buying in Carpi, from which Cavina emerged without charges.
Source: secoloditalia.it
4
