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’s doctrine office didn’t declare that the reported apparitions in Medjugorje were authentic or of supernatural origin.

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 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.

On his flights, Pope Francis always travels with a printed image of the Virgin Mary taped near his window, at the front of the plane. Every week, the permanent special envoy of La Croix at the Vatican takes a behind-the-scenes look at the world's smallest state.

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.