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 on Thursday gave the green light for Catholics to continue flocking to a southern Bosnian village where children reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary.

Pope Francis has approved a Catholic devotion centered in Medjugorje, Bosnia, recognizing its positive spiritual impact, though not confirming supernatural apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Medjugorje has drawn pilgrims since reported visions in 1981.

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.

While the Vatican did not confirm that the Marian apparitions were real, it recognized that the devotion of the faithful to the site is undeniable.

While it offers no definitive judgment on the supernatural authenticity of the alleged apparitions, the Vatican’s report highlights the abundant good fruits that have come from Medjugorje.

While offering an overall favorable judgment on the Marian apparitions and devotions associated with the Medjugorje phenomenon in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Vatican nevertheless said in a new document released Thursday that some issues still need to be clarified.

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.

In June 1981, six children aged 10 to 16 claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared to them on a hilltop near the town.