PREFACE - The Approaching Storm And Ultimate Triumph Of The Immaculate Heart

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 20^th 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 20^th 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.

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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?”

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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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