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 at an otherwise unremarkable village in southern Bosnia.

Pope Francis has approved a Catholic spiritual devotion centred in Medjugorje, a town in Bosnia that has been steeped in controversy over whether the Virgin Mary appears to local people, the Vatican said on Thursday.

The Vatican’s doctrine office didn’t declare that the reported apparitions in Medjugorje were authentic or of supernatural origin.

El Vaticano dio luz verde el viernes a que los católicos sigan acudiendo a un poblado bosnio donde varios niños dijeron haber visto visiones de la Virgen María, y dio su sello de aprobación al culto en el lugar,

The Vatican issued a long-awaited note on the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It did not say the apparitions were authentic but acknowledged spiritual fruit.

Vatican gives green light to devotion at Bosnian site in Medjugorje where Virgin Mary is said to have appeared

Catholic worshipers who claim to have seen and spoken to the Virgin Mary at a Bosnian landmark received mixed messages from the Vatican on Thursday after the Church refused to say whether their visions were real — while still supporting worship at the site.