Medjugorje (Croatian: Međugorje) has been the site of reported apparitions of Our Lady of Medjugorje since 24 June 1981. Various officials of the Catholic Church have attempted to discern the validity of these Marian apparitions in order to provide guidance to potential devotees and pilgrims.
When Herzegovina became part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Pope Leo XIII took steps to establish dioceses (1881) and appoint local bishops. This included transferring parishes administered until then by the Franciscans to diocesan clergy. The friars resisted, and in the 1940s Franciscan provinces still controlled 63 of 79 parishes in the dioceses of Vrhbosna and Mostar. In the 1970s, friars in Herzegovina formed an association of priests to encourage popular opposition to diocesan parish takeovers. A 1975 decree by Pope Paul VI, Romanis Pontificibus, ordered that Franciscans to withdraw from most of the parishes in the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno, retaining 30 and leaving 52 to the diocesan clergy. In the 1980s the Franciscans still held 40 parishes under the direction of 80 friars.
In 24 June 1981, six children in the town of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia (today, Bosnia-Herzegovina), said they had seen an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary and that these apparitions were continuing. The village began to attract pilgrims.
On May 16, 2017, the results of a report produced by a Commission established by Pope Benedict XVI and chaired by Cardinal Cardinal Camillo Ruini was released. The Commission voted 13-1 in favor of recognizing the supernatural aspect of the apparitions during the first seven days. In addition, Commission members voted to recommend lifting the Vatican ban on official diocesan and parish pilgrimages to Medjugorje and for turning the town’s parish Church of St. James into a pontifical shrine with Vatican oversight.