Speaking to reporters on his flight back from a short visit to Sarajevo in Bosnia, Pope Francis was asked about the status of a Vatican investigation into the alleged apparitions.

Pope Francis said a study from a commission headed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini had been delivered to him.

"They did good work, good work," the Pope said.

He went on to say that he had discussed the matter with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller.

The Pope added that he believes the CDF had considered the matter at a regular meeting late last month.

"But, we're at this point of making decisions . . . and then they will be announced . . . but only some guidelines will be given to bishops on the lines they will take," the Pope said.

Six children first reported visions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje in 1981.

Some of the alleged visionaries, now adults, say they still experience apparitions every day and that the Madonna has told them secrets.

In 2013, the CDF told US Catholics they were not allowed to participate in events that would give "credibility" to the claimed apparitions.

During his session with reporters, Pope Francis also made a brief reference to his upcoming encyclical on the environment.

Speaking about young people and their attachment to computers and mobile phones, the Pontiff referred to "relativist, hedonistic, consumeristic" material online.

"And we know that consumerism is a cancer of society and relativism is a cancer of society and of this I'll speak in the coming encyclical that will come out within the month," Francis said.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• Reuters
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: CTV News

They can broadly agree on what factors were involved but ascribing relative importance to a myriad of long-term and more immediate causal factors has kept academics, veterans, and politicians writing and talking for an entire century.

Long-term causes may actually have had a stronger bearing on the systemic causes of the conflict but attention must first focus on the sequence of events that led from Sarajevo to the outbreak of continental war.

Since a coup in 1903, Serbian nationalists had been working towards the creation of a greater Serbia.

The Balkans had been embroiled in two separate wars between 1912 and 1913 and, ever since the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the region had been in a near-permanent state of instability and tension.

Bosnia Herzegovina had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908 and Franz Ferdinand was in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 to inspect Austro-Hungarian troops in the region.

Gavrilo Princip had been part of a team of operatives plotting assassination on 28 June 1914.

Even historians still cannot agree on how the First World War began, writes Conor Mulvagh of the School of History and Archives at University College Dublin.

They can broadly agree on what factors were involved but ascribing relative importance to a myriad of long-term and more immediate causal factors has kept academics, veterans, and politicians writing and talking for an entire century.

Long-term causes may actually have had a stronger bearing on the systemic causes of the conflict but attention must first focus on the sequence of events that led from Sarajevo to the outbreak of continental war.

Since a coup in 1903, Serbian nationalists had been working towards the creation of a greater Serbia.

The Balkans had been embroiled in two separate wars between 1912 and 1913 and, ever since the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the region had been in a near-permanent state of instability and tension.

Bosnia Herzegovina had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908 and Franz Ferdinand was in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 to inspect Austro-Hungarian troops in the region.

Gavrilo Princip had been part of a team of operatives plotting assassination on 28 June 1914. Continue reading

Sources

• RTE News
• Image: Greg Manderson
• See also: A Global Guide to the First World War, an interactive documentary from The Guardian.