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.

More than 40 million pilgrims from around the world have flocked to the small village named Medjugorje since 1981.

After 40 years of studies, commissions and contradictions, the Vatican finally approved the spiritual devotion of the faithful at the Marian site at Medjugorje, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in a document issued on Thursday.