Donal Anthony Foley

“The Papacy attempted to deal with this movement by sending out missionaries, originally Dominicans in 1240, and then Franciscans a century later, in 1340. But it was only in the mid-fifteenth century that the campaign to uproot the heresy began to really bear fruit, and those local Church leaders who refused to recant were forced to emigrate. But despite this, a legacy of Bogomil influence was left in which the local Church was not closely linked to the Papacy, and this was to sow the seeds of future problems.[2]”
― Donal Anthony Foley, Medjugorje Revisited: 30 Years of Visions or Religious Fraud?

“By 1975, the situation had become so serious that the Holy See issued a special decree—Romanis Pontificibus—demanding their obedience on this matter; but the Franciscans continued their resistance, and in consequence were penalized with various disciplinary measures. Hence, at the time of the Medjugorje visions, they were in a state of active disobedience to both the local Bishop and Rome, and clearly this was not a happy portent for the future. But in fairness to the Franciscans, it should be said that they had maintained the Faith in Bosnia-Herzegovina during four hundred years of Muslim persecution, when it was cut off from the mainstream Catholic world, and so it is understandable that a spirit of self-reliance should have developed amongst them. The tragedy was that self-reliance turned into stubbornness, and stubbornness into open disobedience.”
― Donal Anthony Foley, Medjugorje Revisited: 30 Years of Visions or Religious Fraud?