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This is the first British
edition of a work that narrates the apparitions and messages of the Most Holy
Virgin at Fatima, Portugal, which took place between May and October of 1917.
The work has been widely spread throughout the world with 3.7 million copies in
eighteen languages!
A sceptic, or someone not too
well informed, could ask: What is the relevance of the message of Fatima for
today’s world? Especially now that the third part of the Secret has been
revealed, how can it help us?
In fact, the message of Our Lady
at Fatima is not only the key to understanding the events of the 20th
Century, but also those of the days we now live, as well as those to come.
The Mother of God spoke to three
shepherd children – Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco (the latter two were beatified
on 13 May 2000) – and, through them, to the whole world. Essentially, she asked
them to communicate to the world her profound affliction in face of the impiety
and corruption of mankind. If mankind does not amend its ways, the Most Holy
Virgin added, a terrible chastisement would result.
The 20th century has
come to an end, and we must admit that sinful humanity has not amended its
ways. It is immersed in a tremendous crisis affecting every aspect of life. Moral,
family, social and religious values are all topsy-turvy. To bring about a
change, Our Lady clearly presented an alternative: either conversion or
chastisement.
In the apparition of 13 July
1917, she spoke of a chastisement in the next life. This one will be eternal,
supreme and definitive: the condemning to hell of sinners who die unrepentant.
The Mother of God did not hesitate to show hell to the three seers who were
only ten, nine and seven years of age. This aspect of the Fatima message constituted
the “first Secret” or, more precisely, the first part of the Secret.
The second part – or “second
Secret” – refers to a chastisement in this life. It presents mankind with a
great alternative: if men “do not stop offending God…He is going to punish the
world for its crimes by means of war, hunger, and persecutions of the Church
and of the Holy Father.” War is presented as a chastisement for the sins of
mankind, unless they convert. And Our Lady adds: “God wishes to establish
devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world.”
Mary Most Holy is even more
precise about the punishments. She points out Russia as the scourge: [Russia]
“will spread its errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions
of the Church”.
If the evil effects of communism
are the errors Russia will spread throughout the world, how can we understand
this prophecy in the light of the collapse of the USSR?
The Bolchevik revolution of 1917
put into effect egalitarian doctrines that for over a hundred years had
originated and developed in Western Europe, especially in France. These
doctrines emerged during the apex of the French Revolution with the “conspiracy
of the equals” and became an ideological system with the Communist Manifesto of
1848. They also inspired the Paris Commune of 1871 that killed priests,
profaned churches, and burnt palaces. All these crimes were perpetrated in the
name of an egalitarian utopia.
On 13 July 1917, the day on
which Our Lady solemnly warned about the “errors of Russia”, most of the
Bolcheviks did not think it possible for these doctrines to take hold in
Russia. Lenin had just returned to the country thanks to the powerful support
of the West. In addition, the provisional head of state, Prince Lvov, lulled
the people by affirming that the old empire of the czars would become a
“universal democracy”.
Nevertheless, on 7 November,
against all odds, some few hundred communist militants, reinforced by deserters
and opportunists, took power and established an impious and brutal form of
government. The Bolshevik party immediately began to spread “its errors”
throughout the world, thus confirming the words of the Most Holy Virgin.
Never before had an official
government proposed such an ensemble of aberrations: the implantation of the
most complete egalitarianism and the suppression of private property, divorce
and free love, abortion and contraception, the “rights” of homosexuals, the
“liberation” of the woman, euthanasia, the control of the totalitarian State,
the planning of lifestyles to the smallest detail. All this had as its
objective the eradication of every vestige of religion from souls and the
establishment of an anti-religion: materialism and relativism.
For almost a century, Russia
spread its errors throughout the world like a gigantic aerosol sprayer, even to
the last drop. Today, the spray can might seem empty, but the world has been
contaminated. Our Lady’s prophecy was fulfilled. Most of the errors that in
1917 were only held by communists have now been adopted by the main political
parties of the whole world.
Internationally, these errors
are even considered to be the norm. They are the “errors of Russia” that have
spread throughout the world. And it is most sorrowful to say that they even
have profoundly infiltrated important sectors of the Roman Catholic Church
(*). This brings to mind Pope Paul VI’s famous words referring to the
“process of self-destruction”, and the “smoke of Satan in the temple of God”.
How can we not see that this
ensemble of errors called communism, far from having disappeared, has
profoundly imbued the West without even a shot being fired? Utilising the most
advanced form of revolutionary tactics – at times called counter-culture or
cultural revolution – it systematically destroys Christian tradition, the basis
of our civilisation; it openly fights against upright morals, even undermining
the institution of the family; and finally, it promotes unbridled
egalitarianism by even trying to suppress the principle of private property.
This is a principle that is so essential to safeguard the institution of the
family that it is an integral part of Church teaching and protected by two
Commandments of the Law of God.
Today the world is even more
immersed in sin than at the time of the apparitions in 1917. And the “errors of
Russia” have penetrated the nucleus of social and religious life in the West.
The appeal of Our Lady to do penance was not heeded as it should have been.
Consequently the punishments for the sins of humanity have increased in a
frightful manner. The Second World War and the crimes of nazism, the more than
100 million deaths for which the communist regimes are responsible, the
ever-increasing number of wars, conflicts and religious persecutions are all
evident examples of these punishments. Can one conclude otherwise?
With this world scenario as a
backdrop– in many ways so dramatic – the third part of the Secret of Fatima, or
“third Secret”, was revealed by the Holy See on 26 June 2000.
In summary, the third part is a vision
of an angel brandishing a flaming sword, who threatens the world and who cries
out in a loud voice: penance, penance, penance! Then, the Pope, bishops,
priests, religious, men and women of all states of life, after having passed
through a city in ruins, climb a hill on whose crest is a large cross. There
they are martyred and the blood of the martyrs is gathered up by angels who
sprinkle it over the souls making their way to God.
So not only the harmful “errors
of Russia” will have spread throughout the West and the whole world – having
thus systematically destroyed Christian civilisation – but persecutions will
also multiply, whether bloody or not.
In fact, those who manifest and
profess their adhesion to the perennial principles of Christian morality, the
foundation of a true civilisation, are already being persecuted and will be
more so in the near future.
How? In what way?
Catholic doctors who refuse to
perform an abortion are persecuted and punished by the law. Any Catholic who
professes Church teaching that the homosexual act is a sin against nature is
persecuted and punished by the law. Any Catholic headteacher or teacher who
refuses to include programmes on sexual licentiousness in his school is
persecuted and punished by the law. Any priest who refuses to violate the
secret of confession is persecuted. Any Catholic who, whether meeting in
private or in associations, wants his voice to be heard as a faithful echo of
the Magisterium of the Church is persecuted. And this does not include the many
countries where, even today, the blood of Christians is being shed in
martyrdom.
To avoid, as much as possible,
the terrible consequences of the final unleashing of the chastisements
predicted by Our Lady and to hasten the blessed dawn of the triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary as she promised, we should do what she requested.
What were her requests? They
were: a more fervent devotion to the Mother of God; prayer, especially the
recitation of the rosary; penance, and the practice of the commandments of the
Law of God. Only in this way will the terrible world crisis be resolved. Only
in this way will the conditions be met for true and lasting peace: the peace of
Christ in the Reign of Christ, and more particularly, the peace of Mary in the
Reign of Mary.
In light of the above
considerations, without entering into the controversy of whether or not the
successive Papal consecrations of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
have fulfilled the conditions established by Our Lady for the conversion of
Russia (the nation that must be specifically mentioned in the formula of
consecration), any statement about the promises of Fatima being fulfilled would
demand the greatest circumspection, considering that mankind has not
corresponded to the requests of Our Lady in a fundamental point, that is,
amendment of life.
*
* *
In the preface to the American
edition of this book, Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira wrote: “These
considerations could make certain people sceptical and disdainful. Men without
faith – and their near relations: those with little faith – will smile at what
they consider to be disconcerting oversimplifications, even childish
oversimplifications, of modern problems…. To try to find a solution in the
candid message announced by three illiterate shepherd children seems
ridiculous; possibly even demented.
“I do not deny the great
complexity of today’s problems. Much to the contrary, I believe they are so
complex that human hands cannot resolve them….
“However, I cannot resist the
urge to show my sceptical readers something of the irreplaceable possibilities
religion has to offer. I would like to show them a keyhole through which they
can see the vast horizons religion has to offer.
“Saint Augustine outlines a
truly Christian society, in The City of God, and the benefits thus
derived for the State. ‘[Imagine],’ he writes, ‘an army as the teaching of
Christ orders soldiers to be; let them provide such governors, such husbands,
such wives, such parents, such children, such masters, such servants, such
kings, such judges, and lastly such taxpayers and tax collectors as Christian
teaching admonishes them to be; and then let them dare to say that this
teaching is opposed to the welfare of the State, or, rather, let them even
hesitate to admit that it is the greatest safeguard of the State when
faithfully observed.’ (Epist. 138 ad Marcellinum, Chap. II, no. 15)
“What political, social or
economic school could prevent, without the help of religion, the final demise of
a society that, impelled by the very dynamism of its own unbelief and
corruption, is now transgressing every principle of the City of God described
by Saint Augustine?”
*
* *
I sincerely hope these
reflections, linking the Fatima message to current world events, help the
reader to take better advantage of this serious study on the apparitions and
the message of Our Lady at Fatima.
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