Polish Archbishop Henryk Hoser was 78 years old. Pope Francis had sent him to Medjugorje, the small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to accompany the parish community and visiting pilgrims, without entering into questions regarding the Marian apparitions there. Archbishop Hoser said that in Medjugorje, many people come to encounter Jesus through Mary.
Polish Archbishop Henryk Hoser died on Friday, August 13, at the Hospital of the Ministry of Interior in Warsaw, Poland. He was 78 years old. The Polish Bishops’ Conference made the announcement. Since 2018, he had served as Apostolic Visitor to the parish of Medjugorje.
In Medjugorje with a pastoral mission
Pope Francis entrusted him with the task of accompanying, in a “stable and continuous” way, the parish community of this small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the many faithful who go there on pilgrimage and “whose needs require special attention” the Vatican noted. The director of the Holy See Press Office had underlined that this was a sign of the Pope’s care for the pilgrims. Archbishop Hoser was sent to Medjugorje with a strictly pastoral task, without entering into questions regarding the purported Marian apparitions.
Sent to assist the faithful
Archbishop Hoser explained in the past that the Pope “sends us there, where people live, where the faithful gather seeking the light of salvation”; and in Medjugorje pilgrims come from all over the world “to meet someone: to meet God, to meet Christ, to meet His Mother.” “The Marian way,” Hoser said, “is the safest and most certain” because it leads to Jesus, and here the faithful have “as their central focus the Holy Mass, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and frequent reception of the Sacrament of Penance.” It is true “Christocentric” worship. “Medjugorje,” the Apostolic Visitor affirmed, “offers us the time and space of divine grace through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, venerated here with the title of ‘Queen of Peace’. This title is well known through the Litany of Loreto.” And “the world,” he stressed, “is in great need of peace.”, Vatican News reports.
