After decades, and controversy, the Vatican has authorized public worship at a shrine in Bosnia, where a once tranquil village has become a major pilgrimage site.

The Vatican has given the go-ahead for Catholics to continue visiting a southern Bosnian village where children reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary. The Vatican offered its approval for devotion in one of the most contested aspects of Roman Catholic practice in recent years.

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

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.

Pope Francis has expressed some doubts on the messages, commenting in 2013 on the Virgin Mary’s particularly chatty nature at Medjugorje.