(Photo: Virgin Mary statue at reported apparition site, 25 June 2009/Damir Sagolj)

After observing events sceptically for many years, the Vatican may soon issue firmer guidance for Catholics on the claim that the mother of Jesus has been visiting the Balkans, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, head of the bishops' conference in Bosnia, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. That guidance, if it clearly expresses the scepticism the official Church has long shown towards the Medjugorje phenomenon, could deal a serious blow to a site some Catholics see as a "new Lourdes."

"We are now awaiting a new directive on this issue," said Puljic, the Sarajevo archbishop who survived the city's long wartime siege in the 1990s. "I don't think we must wait for a long time, I think it will be this year, but that is not clear... I am going to Rome in November and we must discuss this."

Official Church scepticsm about Medjugorje has become more public in recent months. In June, Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar, the nearest city in Bosnia, warned Catholics against uncritical belief in Medjugorje and issued a series of restrictions on the parish. "Brothers and sisters, let us not act as if these 'apparitions' were recognised and worthy of faith," he said in a sermon (full text here in Italian translation).

Then in July, Pope Benedict defrocked Rev. Tomislav Vlasic, the former "spiritual director" to the six visionaries, after a year-long probe into charges he exaggerated the apparitions and had fathered a child with a nun.

(Photo:About 20,000 Catholic pilgrims in Medjugorje, 24 June 2001/Matko Biljak)

The investigation, according to a Catholic News Service report, focused on alleged "dubious doctrine, the manipulation of consciences, suspect mysticism and disobedience towards legitimately issued orders." One account of his story called him "a modern-day Rasputin with a taste for sex and séances" and another placed the Medjugorje story in the context of anti-communism and Croatian nationalism.

Six children first reported visions of the Virgin Mary in 1981 in a scenario reminiscent of famous apparitions in the French town of Lourdes and Fatima in Portugal. In the following years, the Bosnian village became a major pilgrimage site, giving many visitors a renewed sense of spirituality and locals a steady source of much-needed revenue. It also became the focus of controversy as local Franciscan priests running the site promoted their claims in such open defiance of warnings from the Vatican that 10 of them were expelled from the order and the local bishop called them schismatic.

The 1992-95 Bosnian war disrupted the flow of pilgrims, but with three now middle-aged locals still reporting visions, thousands still flock to the Bosnian town every year. One of the visionaries, Ivan Dragicevic, says on the Medjugorje website that he has received nine out of ten secrets from the Virgin Mary, another element reminiscent of Fatima. He now spends half the year in Medjugorje and the other half in the United States, stopping off in places such as Canada and Peru as well to give lectures on his experiences.

Puljic declined to give his own views on the events of Medjugorje. "People have the right to pray everywhere, including in Medjugorje," he said.

(Photo: Pilgrims pray at reported apparition site, 25 June 2009/Damir Sagolj)

"It is not a sin to pray, it's not a sin to hear confessions, it is not a sin to give penance, this is a good climate. But this phenomena, apparitions or visions, falls to the (Vatican) commission," said the cardinal. "It is a very delicate question."

Do you think Medjugorje represents a miracle or a fraud? What should the Vatican say about it?

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

His Tvrdos Monastery, located in Trebinja in southern Bosnia, produces 500,000 bottles of wine per year and exports it to Serbia, Montenegro and even further afield to Germany, the United States, Switzerland and other countries. "It is a very good business, but it is very difficult,” he said during the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God late last month. "It is good, but it is very difficult because we have wine from Italy, France, Spain.”

(Photo: Bishop Grigorije leads service at Trvdos Monastery, 28 Aug 2009/Adam Tanner)

The Trvdos Monastery also has a minority partnership with a Serbian-American investor who owns 440 hectares of Trebinje land, of which 200 are now vineyards, an unusual tie up between the Church and profit-seeking investor (click here to see that story).

The monastery’s wine, which they sell for six euros a bottle but can retail for 30 euros in a restaurant, was available in ample amount during a late morning feast of fish and vegetarian dishes. Believers from Trebinje, Bosnia’s southernmost town of about 30,000 people, crowded onto benches around long tables to enjoy the meal.

Although other Serbian Orthodox monasteries and churches grow wine (and monks and priests privately say food and wine is one of the few indulgences afforded them), Bishop Grigorije said the Tvrdos operation is the largest.  “Wine, it is very good for people, it is so good,” said the bishop, who as a boy picked grapes in this largely Serbian region of southern Bosnia. “If you drink wine, and you don’t drink too much, you will be so happy and so healthy.”

“If you drink bad wine, you are going to feel bad.  All the southern people, Italians, French, Spanish are so much happier than the Germans, the Czechs, as they are drinking so much wine!”

The Trvdos Monastery wine production came to a halt in the 1990s Bosnian war and restarted a decade ago. Every year they are boosting production by 15,000 bottles and they recently took out about a two million euro loan to buy a series of shiny new Italian Defranceschi 30,000 litre wine storage tanks, Grigorije said. After some time in those tanks the wine goes into hundred-year old barrels to acquire the wine’s hardy, full-bodied flavour.

In grape-growing and wine-making, you have to have a little faith, Grigorije said, because so much depends on uncontrollable factors such as the weather: “The most difficult thing is if we won’t have grapes – it is in the hands of God.”

(Photo: Lunch at Tvrdos Monastery, 28 Aug 2009/Adam Tanner)

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

(Photo: Fr. Janjic with U.S. Vice President Biden at Decani monastery, 21 May 2009/Adam Tanner)

Father Sava Janjic, sometimes called Decani's "cyber monk" because of his embrace of the Internet, warmly welcomed the vice president, who had first visited there in 2001. "This is his second visit to this monastery which is one of the most important Serbian Orthodox sites in Kosovo," Fr. Sava told Reuters in fluent English. "We sincerely believe his visit will help the preservation of Serbian Orthodox heritage in Kosovo and generally help the position of the Serbian people in Kosovo."

However, the diocese overseeing Kosovo, which the church considers the cradle of Serbian Orthodoxy, issued a strong statement condemning the visit. "The U.S. vice president is visiting Kosovo as an independent state, to confirm forceful secession of Serbia's territory and its hand over to Albanian terrorist who were not punished for numerous crimes against Serbian people, Serbian property and Serbian cultural and religious heritage," the diocese said in a statement. "Does Joseph Biden want to confirm with his gesture that Decani is an American base in Kosovo, the same as Camp Bondsteel?"

"The Decani monastery unfortunately has become known for its acts against Serbia's interests, becoming in a sense a base for anti-Serbian acting in Kosovo as confirmed by this visit."

(Photo:Heavily armed U.S. Secret Service agents during Biden visit to Decani, 21 May 2009/Adam Tanner)

The harsh words were the latest as the church seeks to sort out how to deal with Kosovo's declared independence last year. The conservative acting church leader, Metropolitan Amfilohije Radovic, told Reuters in an interview last year that Serbs were treated so poorly in majority Albania Kosovo that future war was inevitable.

Fr. Sava did not want to address the latest controversy publicly, but noted the church leadership, the assembly of bishops meeting in Belgrade, had blessed the visit the day before Biden arrived. His monastery has in the past favoured a more moderate approach that includes dialogue with ethnic Albanian Kosovars, who are mostly Muslim.

Security was tight. In addition to Italian soldiers who normally guard what is the biggest Serbian Orthodox monastic brotherhood worldwide (with 30 monks), many secret service agents accompanied Biden inside the compound. Some heavily armed agents remained on guard as he went inside for talks, although a few took a tour of the church to admire its magnificent frescos.

Biden said he tried to bolster the monks by contrasting the often bitter racial tensions in the United States between blacks and whites when he started his professional career in 1968 and today when he serves as number two to the first black U.S. president barck Obama.

"I told the story to Father (Sava) today. They were down a little bit, they are feeling a little isolated, but wondering whether Europe is going to walk away," Biden told Reuters and a few other reporters in an interview on Thursday night. "It's going to take some time but we've got to stick with it."

(Photo: U.S. officials at Decani church during Biden's visit, 21 May 2009/Adam Tanner)

At the end of his three-day visit to Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, Biden said real integration among ethnic groups in the Balkans could prove even more difficult than it had been to end the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia. "What we are talking about now is real integration, not just the elimination of carnage and brutality, but there is where it really gets hard and it's going to take time," he said. "Things are drastically better than when I was last here, with a long way to go and in a sense the hardest piece to go.

"This is a process ... it's going to take a while," he told reporters covering his visit."

Here's the Reuters TV report on Biden's visit to Kosovo and Serbia:

Here's a YouTube clip showing Decani and Fr. Sava, who calls Kosovo the "Serbian jerusalem."

(Photo: Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric, 27 Jan 2009/ Danilo Krstanovic)

"Barack Obama is one of these most noble goods of our time and our civilisation, that is why I think he is a gift of God," he said. "At the moment we feel a trend to change. Whether this change will be really in practice and life, we need time to see."

Sometimes called one of the world's most liberal grand muftis, Ceric is considered a voice of moderation with an international reputation. He is active in dialogue with other faiths and discussions of how Islam can integrate into European societies.

Bosnia may be the European country where this integration is most evident. The call for prayer from Sarajevo's hundreds of mosques wafts over cafes where alcohol is served in abundance and young couples cuddle in a mix of East and West traditions that has long characterised the capital. Women wearing headscaraves walk in the old quarter alongside others with revealing tank tops and uncovered flowing hair.

Yet the post-Sept. 11, 2001 atmosphere has impacted the image of Muslims everyone, from Bosnia to Indonesia. Ceric blames former U.S. President George W. Bush for fuelling further suspicions by using charged words such as a "crusade" against terrorism. The Republican president "will be remembered for creating a sort of Islamaphonia," said Ceric, who was educated at Al-Azhar University in Cairo before receiving a doctorate at the University of Chicago.

(Photo: Sarajevo women read election posters, 2 Oct 2008/Danilo Krstanovic)

Even with tolerance embraced by Obama, the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are likely still to face stigma, the Grand Mufti said. "We are going to live with Islamaphobia for the rest of our lives, with the same way Jews are living with anti-Semitism from time to time," he said.

We spoke before we knew the news of Obama's interview with Al-Arabiya satellite TV, so I couldn't ask his reaction to hearing an American president say things like "My job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries."

But Ceric was quite positive about the last time he'd heard Obama speak, in the inaugural address last week that mentioned the variety of religions that make up the United States."Barack Obama, he said that the United States is a country of Christians and Muslims, and this is for the first time that we have this kind of a phrase from an American president," said Ceric, 56, who wore an Ottoman-style white turban and pin-striped robe as we spoke in his office. "He has a reason to be happy for being blessed by God to give hope to many people, not only in the United States but around the world, including my people in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

(Photo: President Barack Obama, 27 Jan 2009/Larry Downing)

Bosnia is still struggling politically and economically 13 years after the end of Europe's bloodiest fighting since World War Two, largely along religious and ethnic lines. Political abuse of religious divisions rather than the underlying faiths was to blame, Ceric said. Many Bosniaks, ethnic Slavs who converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, emerged from the 1992-95 fighting that killed 100,000 with stronger links to their faith.

"The experience brought many people back to religion," said Ceric, who speaks fluent English. "When you are faced with death and when you see that humans do not help you and you are left alone for four years in besieged Sarajevo, therefore you cannot live alone, you have to seek some help."

A leader of "A Common Word," a group that has fostered meetings betwen the world's two largest faiths, Muslims and Christians, Ceric participated in several major interfaith conferences last year, including with Pope Benedict at the Vatican in November.

"It was not easy but it was productive because it was open and honest and face to face," he said.

What do you think of Ceric's comments? Would other Muslim leaders say Obama is a "gift of God"?

(Photo: Pope Benedict and Grand Mufti Ceric at Vatican, 6 Nov 2008/Osservatore Romano)

"We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator (Hillary) Clinton and President Clinton at the same time," Michelle Obama said in a fund-raising e-mail. 

"What we didn't expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we've seen recently. We didn't expect misleading accusations that willfully distort Barack's record."

Bill Clinton, 61, the U.S. president from 1993-2001, has taken an increasingly aggressive role in campaigning for his wife, a New York senator who is in a tight fight with Obama for the Democratic nomination. 

Clinton is well-known for his talents on the campaign trail and is popular among many Democrats, even though he was impeached in 1998 by the House following his affair with a White House intern. 

Michelle Obama, 44, has a law degree from Harvard and worked at the University of Chicago Medical Center before her husband, a first-term senator from Illinois, decided to run for president. 

She now gives speeches for the campaign, sometimes introducing Obama, other times appearing with politicians such as Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate. 

"While Senator Clinton has a former president in her corner, I'll put my faith in a movement of a whole lot of people who are ready for change," Michelle Obama said in her letter that sought online contributions of $50.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking (Michelle Obama during a campaign stop in Las Vegas last week.)

Ahead of Saturday's voting in Nevada to choose Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, politicians and broadcast journalists alike have often stumbled by pronouncing a long "A" in the middle.

"It is so nice to be in Ne-VAH-da," Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, told a large, enthusiastic audience in Reno on Friday morning.

The crowd let out an "ooh" of disapproval and the Princeton and Harvard educated spouse quickly realized her error.

"Ne-VAD-a, Ne-VAD-a, Ne-VAD-a!" she said, repeating the locally favored pronunciation a few more times in public penance. "I know how to bounce back from my mistakes."

The southwestern state has never seen so much attention in the U.S. presidential primary process before but this year moved up its voting to early in the state-by-state selection process, bringing many candidates, especially Democrats, into Nevada.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage

-- Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking. Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, introduces him at Rancho High School in Las Vegas, Jan 18