Vatican set to rule on reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Bosnian shrine

In 1981, six children and teenagers reported seeing visions of the Madonna on a hill in the village of Medjugorje

Bosnian Roman Catholic women pray on the occasion of the feast of the Assumption in Medjugorje, some 75 miles south of the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, in 2000. Picture: Hidajet Delic/AP

The Vatican is providing its long-awaited assessment on one of the more contested aspects of Roman Catholicism in recent years – the reported “apparitions” of the Virgin Mary in an otherwise unremarkable village in southern Bosnia.

Following nearly 15 years of study, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez, is headlining a news conference on Thursday on what the Vatican called “the spiritual experience of Medjugorje”.