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 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 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.

Catholic worshipers who claim to have seen and spoken to the Virgin Mary at a Bosnian landmark received mixed messages from the Vatican on Thursday after the Church refused to say whether their visions were real — while still supporting worship at the site.

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.