A parish priest goes to Medjugorje "out of curiosity"

Father Alexis de Brébisson has served the parish of La Bellière in Normandy, France, since 2016. During the summer of 2018, he went to the Marian shrine of Medjugorje (Bosnia-Herzegovina) with a group of young people. When he returned, he gave a presentation about his pilgrimage to his parishioners. He said: 

"I had heard about the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in this small town with a population of 2300, a Croatian enclave in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I was a bit skeptical at first, and I wanted to see for myself. I was very surprised by the deep effect it had on people, by the content of the Virgin Mary’s messages, which are permeated by peace, by the search for communion between people, and by the genuine effort of self-examination," he said.

This shrine was established almost 42 years ago, when a group of seven to eight young teenagers from this Croatian village reported encounters with the Virgin Mary. Two of them continue to have daily apparitions of Mary."

Adapted from an article in the newspaper Ouest France on 10/30/2018