The Vatican is set to rule on reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary at a Bosnian shrine

VATICAN CITY (AP) — 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 in an otherwise unremarkable village in southern Bosnia. Following nearly 15 years of study, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, is headlining a news conference Thursday on what the Vatican called “the spiritual experience of Medjugorje.” In 1981, six children and teenagers reported seeing visions of the Madonna on a hill in the village...