The attempt to thwart the most important single event of the 20th Century.
Rev. Fr. Fabrice Delestre
The May 30, 1998, Portuguese-language edition of the Holy Sees newspaper, the Osservatore Romano, published a long article by Madame Emilia Paola Pacelli, identified as “a specialist in Eastern affairs, and editor of the journal Omnis Terra.” It was headlined: “In the light of Fatima, heading towards the third millennium: Pope Pius XII, father, master and friend of our times.” In this article which, it is probably quite legitimate to assume, reflects the position of the Holy See, it is affirmed that Pope Pius XII carried out “the consecration of the Church and the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942, [see related article, “Alexandrina of Portugal and the Consecration”] and ten years later, the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” In addition, it is said that “on March 25, 1984, Pope John Paul II once again consecrated the human race and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, confirming the act of consecration pronounced in 1982.”
In the July 1999 issue of the official organ of the sanctuary of Fatima, Voz de Fatima, on p.2, Fr. F. Leite repeats the assertion that the consecration of Russia has already taken place:
The consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as Our Lady requested, that is, made by the Holy Father in union with all the bishops of the world, was finally accomplished on March 25, 1984, before the statue of Our Lady that was transported for the occasion from Fatima to Rome. In union with the Holy Father, and at his express request, the bishops of the world accompanied him in an act of such signification.
Sr. Lucy has said several times that this consecration fulfills the desires of Our Lady. In a letter to Walter Noelker, she affirms: “I was asked if the consecration was done in conformity to the request of Our Lady. I answered by saying yes.”1
And Fr. Leite ends his article by stating without a qualm: “Now that the consecration has been made, the conversion of Russia has begun.”
These two authors, then, claim that the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was carried out in due and proper form. Madame Pacelli goes so far as to write that it has been done three times: in 1952, in 1982, and in 1984. But is this really the case? In order to ascertain the truth, we must examine three points: (1) the precise request of Our Lady to Sr. Lucy; (2) the correspondence (conformity) or lack thereof of the three consecrations (of 1952, 1982, and 1984) to Heaven’s demand; and, finally, (3) we must establish that at least one of the aforementioned consecrations has procured to the world the two immense graces that were promised by Our Lady as the effects and signs of the authentic consecration: the grace of Russia’s conversion to the true faith, and the grace of “a period of peace in the world.”
What Kind of Consecration Did the Blessed Virgin Request of Sr. Lucy?
It was during Her third apparition at Fatima, July 13, 1917, that Our Lady spoke for the first time of the “consecration of Russia” by indicating that this act is the sovereign and only efficacious remedy for saving Christendom from very grave errors and very great evils:
… God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. … To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the first Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
By these words, Our Lady very clearly stated and restated the two miraculous graces attached to the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart: the grace of the conversion of Russia, and the grace of a “period of peace” in the world.
Moreover, Our Lady said that She would come to request the consecration of Russia, which means that She would come at the most opportune moment for requesting this consecration. In fact, Our Lady came to visit Lucy at Tuy (Spain) on June 13, 1929, to make of her this request:
The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means. So numerous are the souls which the justice of God condemns for sins committed against Me, that I come to ask for reparation. Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray.2
After she had received this message, Sr. Lucy wrote two letters in May 1930 to Fr. Gonçalves, her confessor, in which she expressed the requests of Heaven, closely associating the devotion of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the consecration of Russia:
The good Lord promises to end the persecution in Russia, if the Holy Father will himself make a solemn act of reparation and consecration of Russia to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, as well as ordering all the bishops of the Catholic world to do the same. The Holy Father must then promise that upon the ending of this persecution he will approve and recommend the practice of the reparatory devotion [of the first Saturdays of the month].3
These words of Our Lady and the letters of Sr. Lucy present the exact form of consecration that Heaven requests: The consecration of Russia must be explicitly mentioned, and not merely the consecration of the world or the human race with some vague and imprecise allusion to Russia4; it must be made by the Holy Father in union with all the bishops of the Catholic world, which means that every bishop must organize and perform in his own diocese, at the same time as the Pope and in union with him, this act of reparation and consecration, unless the Pope should take advantage of a meeting at Rome of all the bishops to carry it out. Sr. Lucy has never excluded the possibility that the consecration might be made in the course of an ecumenical council, for example, while seeming to prefer the first scenario. The thing that matters is the moral and spiritual union of the bishops with the Pope [see related article, “The Objections”]. Lastly, the consecration must be marked by very great solemnity; it must take place in the context of “a solemn and public act of reparation and consecration,” undoubtedly in order to make a powerful impression upon mens minds, and so that the greatest number possible of Catholics can participate in it.
Did the Three Purported Consecrations Fulfill the Conditions Laid Down by Heaven?
1) The consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Pope Pius XII in an Apostolic Letter, addressed to the people of Russia on July 7, 1952.5
In this letter the consecration of Russia was really made, but by the Pope alone without the union of all the bishops of the Catholic world, and without the required solemnity. It was not carried out as part of the “solemn and public act of reparation and consecration” that Sr. Lucy spoke of, but rather on the sly, one might say, on the occasion of the publication of an Apostolic letter which remained unknown by many, and which was quickly forgotten by those who were acquainted with it.
In one of her letters of the summer of 1952 Sr. Lucy wrote these lines concerning the act: “Thank you for the newspaper clipping reporting the consecration of Russia. I am grieved that it still has not been done as Our Lady requested.”6
2) Act of offering and consecration by Pope John Paul II at Fatima, May 13, 1982.
The Pope himself said what he intended to accomplish by this act in the sermon of the Mass that he celebrated the morning of May 13, 1982, at Fatima: “[I intend] to accomplish once more what my predecessors have already done: confide the world to the Mothers heart. …”7
In fact, this act of offering and consecration did not correspond at all to the consecration requested by Our Lady for several reasons: It was a consecration of the world, and not Russia, which was not mentioned once! The act was not made explicitly to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Finally, the union of all the bishops with the Pope had not been required.
Sr. Lucy, moreover, declared to her niece, Maria do Fetal, on August 11, 1982: “I am old, I am 75 years old, and I am getting ready to see God face to face. I have given all my writings to the Holy Church. I shall die in peace. But, if anyone wants my opinion, here it is: the consecration of Russia, as Our Lady requested it, has not been made.” She repeated the exact same thing four days later on August 15 to her old friend Mme. Pestana.
She wrote again along the same lines in the letter she wrote on the occasion of an interview she had on March 19, 1983, with Mgr. Portalupi, Apostolic Nuncio to Portugal:
In the act of offering of May 13, 1982, Russia did not appear unequivocally as the object of the consecration. And each bishop did not organize in his own diocese a public and solemn ceremony of reparation and consecration of Russia. Pope John Paul II simply renewed the consecration of the world made by Pius XII on October 31, 1942. Certain benefits can be hoped for from this consecration of the world, but not the conversion of Russia.8
It is worthwhile dwelling on the conclusion of this text which Sr. Lucy was at pains to give to the Apostolic Nuncio, because the lines are very revealing of the humble simplicity of the seer’s obedience: “The consecration of Russia has not been done as Our Lady requested. I was not able to say so, because I did not have the Holy See’s permission.” This last sentence means that Sr. Lucy is accustomed to see in the men who hold the posts of authority in the Church the representatives of God on earth; she considers, therefore, that she owes them respect and entire submission. That is why it is utterly unrealistic to expect from her a great public declaration asserting that the consecration of Russia has not been made: it would be totally against her sense of religious obedience. She considers simply that she accomplishes her duty completely when she profits from every occasion that presents itself to her to remind the Pope privately, but with constancy and firmness, that the consecration has not been made, as she did, moreover, after the act of May 13, 1982, because she told the Apostolic Nuncio, in this communication of March 19, 1983, that everything that she had affirmed in this interview she had already written to Pope John Paul II.9
3) The renewal, March 25, 1984, on the portico of St. Peters Basilica at Rome, of the act of offering and consecration of 1982.10
Pope John Paul II had announced the renewal of the act of consecration in a letter addressed to all the bishops dated December 8, 1983, which he concluded by saying: “I should be grateful if you would be willing on this day (March 25, 1984) to renew the act at the same time that I do, in the manner in which each of you will deem the most appropriate.”
A few slight modifications were made to the act of 1982; however, it still lacked the essential elements of the requested consecration:
a) It merely involved a renewal of the consecration of the world made by Pope Pius XII in 1942, as a reading of the entire text (which is quite confusing in certain parts!) makes clear. Here are a few excerpts:
… With your love of mother and handmaid of the Lord, embrace our human world which we offer and consecrate to you, in our anxiety for the temporal and eternal fate of men and nations. … We want to unite ourselves to our Redeemer in this consecration for the world and for men. … How deeply we feel the need of this consecration for humanity and for the world, for our contemporary world, in the unity of Christ Himself!. … Confiding to Thee, O Mother, the world, all men and all nations, we confide to You also the very consecration of the world, and we place it in Your maternal heart. [Quite a confused sentence!]
b) Russia was not mentioned a single time in the entire text!
c) Lastly, this act was not made explicitly to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but to “Mary, Mother.”
Moreover, a short while later, the Pope himself explained to Mgr. Cordes, Vice-President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, why he had renounced mentioning Russia by name: he feared “that such words might be interpreted as a provocation by the Soviet rulers”!11
Sr. Lucy had not been mistaken: three days before the consecration, on March 22, 1984, in a reply to Mme. Pestana who had asked her, “Well, Lucy, Sunday the consecration will take place?” she gestured that it would not be, and added, “This consecration cannot have a decisive character.” And when she was listening to Fr. Kondor read the act of March 25, 1984, during a ceremony at the Carmel of Coimbra later in the spring of 1984, her expression changed suddenly: the video recording of the ceremony diffused by the “Vice-Postulation” clearly shows it; her distress was visibly very great!12
Thus, a scrutiny of the acts of consecration of 1952, 1982, and 1984 and the successive declarations or reactions of Sr. Lucy to them allow us to draw this conclusion: The consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as Heaven requested, has never been made!
The Complete Absence in the World of the Two Effects Promised by Our Lady
Another undeniable observation confirms this conclusion: the complete absence in the world of the two precious graces promised by Our Lady as effects and signs of the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.
1) The grace “of a period of peace in the world.”
During the course of a conference in April 1988, at the Institute of Advanced International Studies of Geneva, the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar, declared that the armed conflicts that have erupted since 1945 had caused, by the end of 1986, 17 million dead, of whom 80% were civilians. In four decades of so-called “peaceful co-existence” there have been as many war victims as during the First World War, but with this difference: 80% of the war dead from 1914-1918 were military casualties (13.8 million out of 17 million), while between 1945 and 1986, 80% of the victims were civilians: women, children and old men for the most part.
Mr. Perez de Cuellar added that at the end of 1986 there were 36 armed conflicts throughout the world in which were engaged 5.5 million soldiers from 41 states, or roughly one out of every four states; four of the 36 conflicts had begun between 1945 and 1949; seven during the sixties, and seventeen during the seventies.13
Since this declaration, the situation has not been ameliorated in the least. The Portuguese newspaper 24 Hours in its April 18, 1999, issue published a map of the civil wars that have been going on during the decade of the nineties. They provided the following tally of victims:
| The Sudan: 1,900,000 dead |
| Angola: 1,000,000 dead |
| Rwanda: 1,000,000 dead |
| Tibet: 1,000,000 dead |
| Somalia: 300,000 dead |
| East Timor: 300,000 dead |
| Bosnia: 200,000 dead |
| Algeria: 80,000 dead |
| Sri Lanka: 56,000 dead |
| Chechnya: 40,000 dead |
| Turkey: 37,000 dead |
| The Congo: 10,000 dead |
| N. Ireland: 3,200 dead |
| Sierra Leone: 3,000 dead |
| Total: 5,929,200 dead |
Bear in mind that not all the civil wars of the decade have been included in this roster (notably missing is the tally of all the victims of Communist guerrilla warfare in the countries of Central and South America, e.g. Guatemala, Peru, Colombia, where more than 40 violent deaths per day take place on the average, and also the Communist and Islamic guerrilla warfare in the Philippines). Nor does this table include the tally of victims of war between sovereign states, notably the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict, the on-going conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir: 30,000 dead since 1990 … etc., not to mention the recent events in Kosovo.
How then can one speak of “peace” in the world from 1945 to the present, and a period of “peaceful co-existence” (a nice media euphemism …) after weighing the statistics presented above, all too real.
2) The grace of the conversion of Russia to the true Faith, to the Catholic Faith.
Contrary to what Fr. Leite wrote (see above), this conversion has not even begun to take place, as credible witnesses have testified on returning from voyages to Russia. Lets listen, for example, to what Fr. Hector Muñoz, O.P., (who returned to Argentina after spending three years working to evangelize Russia) wrote in a recent interview with the Argentine weekly Cristo Hoy:
Question: What is the socio-political situation of the Russian people?
Answer: Russia is a land devastated by Marxism, by the centuries which preceded it, and by the brutal and irrational passage to another system. Atheism has penetrated deeply. According to statistics given by the Orthodox priests, not even 2% of their members practice their religion. The political rulers are very much under attack, and with cause. Corruption has reached the level of public scandal; the average salary of an ordinary worker is $84 per month, that of a rural worker just $30, and the pensions of widows are $14 a month. The percentage of marriages ending in divorce in Moscow is 70%, while the overall percentage is 45%, which means that half the families have been wounded.14
In these few lines is described the depth of the drama of 70 years of the implacable rule of Marxism in Russia: Not only has all religious and supernatural life been utterly destroyed, but also the foundations of the natural and social order. Only a miracle of divine mercy, promised as the effect of the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is capable of restoring this society on sound natural and supernatural bases.
This catastrophic reality is even now being aggravated by the political authorities, who are bent on impeding the action of the Catholic Church in Russia. In fact, their law on “religious liberty” adopted in 1997, the work of the neo-communists and the Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow, is a veritable law of persecution against the Catholic Church. The law makes a subtle distinction between “religious organizations” having the status of moral person and enjoying a full legal existence in Russia (four religions are thus recognized: the Russian Orthodox Church, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism), and “religious groups” that do not enjoy the preceding status and of which the situation remains very precarious in the country. The Catholic Church is ranked with these; She is placed on the same level as sects! Consequently, the Church finds Herself deprived for 15 years of (1) the right to teach religion in the public schools, (2) the right to found Her own religious schools, (3) the right to assume the chaplaincy in prisons, hospitals, and retirement houses, (4) the right to import and diffuse religious literature, and (5)the right to be the owner of printing presses and other communications media. In short, this law forbids all Catholic apostolates in Russia.15
Meanwhile, the Vatican continues to pursue its mad policy of ecumenism with the Orthodox and its baneful “Ostpolitik” with the civil authorities, even the neo-communists, of Eastern Europe, as the voyage of the Pope to Romania in May 199916 sadly showed; and all is done in the name of “dialogue,” holy dialogue, but certainly not in the name of the social reign of our Lord Jesus Christ! It is a political drama of illusions and the self-destruction of the Church, a policy purely human without any supernatural vision of things. But it is in order to continue this policy whatever the cost that the Vatican has obstinately refused for so many years to apply to the world the sovereign remedy, one so simple to effect, that Our Lady, always so merciful towards Her children, came from Heaven to give to three little shepherd children of Christendom: the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart by the Pope in union with all the bishops of the world.
Footnotes:
1. The letter to Mr. Walter Noelker is not a genuine letter of Sr. Lucy, but a forgery!
Bro. Francis of Mary of the Angels informs us that in 1989 and 1990, five letters, purportedly by Sr. Lucy, were diffused by the religious authorities of Fatima, in the context of a veritable propaganda and disinformation campaign (the origin of which seems to be several very highly placed personages of the Vatican and the bishopric of Leiria-Fatima) destined to persuade public opinion to believe that the consecration of March 25, 1984 met all the criteria of the consecration demanded by Our Lady.
Well, some of these letters contain crass historical errors: in particular, the two letters to Maria de Belem (dated August 29, 1989) and to Walter Noelker (dated November 8, 1989) speak of a consecration made May 13, 1967, by Pope Paul VI during his visit to Fatima. But Pope Paul VI made no consecration that day, Sr. Lucy knows very well, for she was present. And the hypothesis of a deliberate lie on the part of Sr. Lucy can be completely excluded. Not only is such a hypothesis repugnant to reason, but it is completely contradicted by the life of Lucy, in whom her mother had inculcated, from early childhood, a horror of even the slightest lie, and who, in fact, never lied, preferring to suffer imprisonment and the threat of death with her little cousins, rather than lie by saying that she had not seen the Blessed Virgin (see her Memoirs, the second one).
The only hypothesis that remains is that the letters are “apocryphal,” and critical analysis of the letters themselves reveals it fully: these letters do not contain even the slightest breath of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; they develop rhetorical themes entirely foreign to Sr. Lucy (for instance, a characteristic term of progressivism and Vatican II is “the people of God,” which occurs as many as seven times in the letter to Mr. Noelker, in just 35 lines); finally, they are drafted in a spirit absolutely the opposite of the heart and soul so simple and devoted of Sr. Lucy. (For the explanation of why Sr. Lucy has never denounced these letters publicly, see footnote 8. Moreover, does Sr. Lucy even know of the existence of these letters? It is quite unlikely.)
The following fact also proves that from 1989, there has been disinformation and media manipulation concerning the consecration of 1984: in the first official editions of the Memoirs of Sr. Lucy, the 11th note of the third memoir affirms this:
Have the conditions for the consecration of Russia, and consequently for its conversion, as requested by Heaven, been complied with? Lucy does not seem to think so. Therefore, we are continuing to suffer from the evils of atheistic Communism, a scourge which God uses to punish the world for its sins.
Now, this note still appears in the second edition of the Memoirs published in Italian in May 1988, that is, more than four years after the consecration of 1984! This clearly shows that in 1988, there still had been no letter or word of Sr. Lucy that could be used to change this note and affirm that the 1984 consecration had been the right one! And, what is more, it is evident that Sr. Lucy would not have waited four or five years to inform the authorities of the Church that the consecration had already been made!
Despite this, the note suddenly disappears in the sixth edition of the Memoirs in Portuguese published in March 1990, to be replaced by the following note, which contradicts it:
Sr. Lucy affirms that the consecration made by John Paul II in union with the bishops on March 25, 1984, complied with the request of Our Lady, and was accepted by Heaven. She clarifies the point that a numerical union of all the bishops was not required, as a moral union was enough. The surprising developments that have begun to take place in the Eastern bloc countries in 1989, might they not be the first responses of Heaven to the promise of 1917: “The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me; Russia will be converted and a period of peace will be granted to the world”?
What happened between May 1988 and March 1990? Fr. Caillon gives us the answer: In 1988, “an order came down from Rome, obliging each and all to say and to think: ‘The consecration has been done. As the Pope has done everything in his power, Heaven has deigned to accept his gesture.'”
A historian of the University of Coimbra, in a letter dated January 16, 1991, asked Fr. Kondor to reveal the person to whom Sr. Lucy had declared that the consecration of Russia had been accomplished; and he received this reply dated January 26, 1991:
Rumor has it that the person who affirmed for the first time and publicly that she had heard Sr. Lucy say that the consecration was accepted is one of her cousins, Maria do Fetal. She is a teacher and lives at the Casa Velha, at Fatima; as a relative of Sr. Lucy, she has permission to visit her.
Now, this Maria do Fetal affirmed until June 1989 that Sr. Lucy had told her that the consecration was not done, before suddenly presenting, in January 1990, a new line quite to the liking of the religious authorities of Fatima, who had become, since 1988, the standard-bearers of the maneuver aimed at neutralizing, as far as possible, the realization of the triumph of the Church by the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
It should also be noted that, in his letter, Fr. Kondor presented the “testimony” of this person as being at the origin of “the rumors,” and that, by this new note, he had transformed a simple “rumor” into the affirmation of “an incontestable fact,” reproduced as such by all the mass media, curiously interested in disseminating certain aspects of the Conciliar Church.
See Bro. Francis of Mary of the Angels, Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event. [All subsequent references to this work by Bro. Francis are to the French edition. This work has been translated and published in English, but it was divided into four short books.]
2. Mme. Pacelli does not seem to notice that by affirming that the consecration of Russia has been made three times, she undermines her own credibility in the eyes of knowledgeable readers by acknowledging without meaning to do so that the consecration in due and proper form has never taken place: for Our Lady requested the consecration of Russia, once and for all, to which consecration She attached two immense, specific graces. Our Lady has never spoken of the need for several consecutive consecrations of Russia … The article of Mme. Pacelli, in fact, is part of a disinformation campaign begun in 1988, and, as it is published in the Portuguese edition of the Osservatore Romano, the fact that this campaign originates in Rome itself is confirmed.
3. The reference for these two texts: Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event, Ch.9. [See also English edition, Book III, p. 56.]
4. Sr. Lucy has always affirmed that Our Lady of Fatima never asked for the consecration of the world, but only the “consecration of Russia.” Fr. Humberto Maria Pasquale, S.D.B., who has written several books on Alexandra da Costa (see related article, “Alexandrina of Portugal and the Consecration”) wanted to obtain written confirmation of this important point from the hand of Sr. Lucy herself. Thus he wrote her a letter asking the following question: “Did Our Lady ever speak about the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart?” Sr. Lucy replied to this question in a letter dated April 13, 1980:
Reverend Fr. Humberto, in answer to your question, let me clarify things: Our Lady, at Fatima, in Her request, only referred to the consecration of Russia. In the letter that I wrote to the Holy Father Pius XII, at the suggestion of my confessor, I requested the consecration of the world with explicit mention of Russia.
Reading these lines, it becomes quite clear that the request for the consecration of the world, even with explicit mention of Russia, is not part of the Message of Fatima. If Sr. Lucy presented such a request to Pope Pius XII in a letter of December 2, 1940, it was not as the messenger of Our Lady, but at the suggestion of the Bishop of Gurza, her confessor, who knew that requests thus formulated had already been submitted to Rome, and had a better chance of being granted than the request for the consecration of Russia alone. (See Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event).
5. The complete text of the consecration of 1952 is found in Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event, ch.12, p. 260. [See also English edition, Book III, pp.168-69.]
6. Ibid., ch.13, p. 280. [See also English edition, Book IV, p. 21.]
7. Ibid., ch.16, p. 358. [See also English edition, Book IV, p. 162.]
8. See Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event, ibid., ch.16, p. 360. [See also English edition, Book IV, p. 165.] The words of Sr. Lucy to Maria do Fetal and to Mme. Pestana were obtained directly from the two ladies by Fr. Caillon.
9. It has to be admitted that unscrupulous churchmen have taken advantage of Sr. Lucy’s acute sense of religious obedience, as well as of her situation as a cloistered Carmelite, in order to disseminate forged letters in her name, knowing very well that they run no risk of being denounced.
10. For the complete text of this act of offering and consecration of March 25, 1984, see Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event, ibid., ch.16, pp. 362-363. [See also English edition, Book IV, pp. 168-71.]
11. Ibid.
12. The words of Sr. Lucy to Mme. Pestana were transmitted by this lady in person to Fr. Caillon on March 23, 1984, during a telephone call. See Fatima: Intimate Joy World Event, ibid. p. 361. [See also English edition, Book IV, p. 168.] Mme. Pestana subsequently always continued to affirm the same thing. On September 12, 1986, for instance, she declared to Fr. Caillon, who had come to visit her in Porto: “If you wish, I can swear with my hand on the Bible that the consecration of Russia has not been made.” See Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event, pp. 372-373. [See also English edition, Book IV, p. 188.] The reaction of Sr. Lucy in the Carmel of Coimbra is related on p. 383. [See also English edition, Book IV, pp. 203-204.]
13. The theme of the conference by Mr. Perez de Cuellar was “Living with Conflicts? The Role of the United Nations.” All the statistics cited were published by the French daily Courrier de l’Ouest, Tuesday, April 26, 1988, in the page dedicated to brief international news items.
14. Interview of Bro. Hector Muñoz, O.P., by M. Humberto J. Macchi published in the Argentine weekly Cristo Hoy, No. 30, September 1999, p. 18. In this interview, Bro. Muñoz also speaks about the law of 1997 on religious liberty, and confirms all the points that we make on this law.
Mme. Irina Ilovaisky Giorgi-Alberti, editor of La Pensée russe [Russian Thought], confirms the statements of Bro. Muñoz in the text of her presentation, unfortunately imbued by false ecumenism, at the last synod for European bishops in the fall of 1999. Notably she observes: “In Russia, the number of persons who have encountered Christ is still very limited: the desert of atheism imposed during 70 years is disappearing slowly. Who is this God of whom you speak to us? It is a question that is often asked of us. … The evangelization of Russia represents an undertaking the difficulty of which is unimaginable. It suffices to consider the fact that the number of believers who practice the faith, including all Christian confessions, comes to just 2-3% of the population.” (See the Osservatore Romano, weekly Portuguese edition, No. 44, October 30, 1999, pp.9-10.)
The following statistics on abortion, moreover, give an idea of the amplitude of the spiritual and moral wasteland left by 70 years of Communism: 3.5 million abortions in Russia in 1991, and the same number in 1992, or two abortions for every live birth (Iota Unum, No.239, March 26, 1994 and No.295, May 27, 1995); 15 million abortions are performed in the Eastern bloc countries (statistic given by Jo Asvall, director of the World Health Organization at a conference on women’s health held at Vienna in February 1994, reported in Iota Unum, No.238, March 19, 1994); “The average number of abortions per woman in Europe, if one can believe the statistics of the family planning journal Entre nous, is 6 in Romania, 3.7 in the ex-USSR, 2.2 in Poland, 0.4 in France” (Iota Unum, No.29, February 29, 1995).
15. For further information on this law, see the journal edited by Marc Dem, Iota Unum, “Oecuménisme à la russe,” No.305, September 2, 1995; also, the French journal Monde et Vie, No.620, August 21, 1997, a very interesting article by Mr. Pierre de Villemarest entitled “Les manoeuvres d’Alexis II: le patriarche orthodoxe de Moscou veut marginaliser l’Eglise catholique en Russie,” [“The maneuvers of Alexis II: the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow wants to marginalize the Catholic Church in Russia”]; Marchons droit!, No.80, Oct.-Dec. 1997, and No.81, Jan.-Mar. 1998. The article by Mr. Villemarest informs us that the law sought by the Patriarch of Moscow was approved by 440 out of 450 deputies, and that, when President Boris Yeltsin opposed the law, under pressure from the American Senate, which, in order to defend the interests of Protestant churches, threatened to cut off all financial aid to Russia, he was sustained by just eight Russian deputies! These figures clearly show that Russia is not in the least being converted to the Catholic faith, but, on the contrary, is solidly backing the Orthodox hierarchy!
The words “law prohibiting all Catholic apostolates in Russia” do not exaggerate, and reflect the exact, sad reality of what is currently happening in Russia. Thus the Portuguese review Christus of May 1999, p.64, informs us that on April 1, 1999, the Minister of Justice of the Russian Federation rejected the registration of the Russian branch of the Jesuit Province of Eastern Europe, in virtue of the law of 1997 “on the freedom of conscience and religious associations”:
Three reasons were invoked. Firstly, the Russian branch of the Jesuit province of Eastern Europe was founded by a foreign organization, and the law forbids foreign organizations to found entities or religious associations in Russia. Secondly, the Russian authorities allege that, in its statutes, the Company of Jesus defines itself as a central religious organization, a definition that is improper for Russia, where the law only recognizes as headquarters the organizations that have at least three affiliated associations or entities. Finally, the denomination “Company of Jesus” does not specify the character of the institution from a juridical and organizational point of view, nor the religious group to which it belongs, thus violating the civil code and the decree on sects.
And the same review, Christus, in its June 1999 issue, p.19, reports this under the title “Religious Not Recognized”:
The refusal of the Russian Minister of Justice to register the Company of Jesus has provoked a profound consternation in religious communities throughout the world. It is possible that the Russian authorities will prevent the registration of all the Orders and Congregations of Catholic religious. According to the news service of religious communities, “V.I.D.” the Franciscans and Salesians in Russia have been obliged to find an artifice to continue working. Thus, they have chosen not to enroll as independent Orders, and have taken other means to overcome the thousands of obstacles that the law imposes, like, for example, that of proving a presence in the country for at least fifty years, or that of justifying the existence of three different communities, with at least ten Russian members in each one. …
16. Pope John Paul II’s trip to Romania in May 1999 was heralded by the mass media as a great, historic first, since it was the first time that a Pope has visited a predominantly Orthodox country. It was, in fact, an unmitigated disaster … [See “Romania: Historical Background to Pope John Paul II’s Trip to Romania (May, 1999)” in the December 1999Angelus, an article written by Fr. Delestre.]
Father Delestre is a priest of the Society of St. Pius X, currently stationed at Lisbon and Fatima, Portugal. From this vantage point he has been able to delve deeply into everything pertaining to the great event of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, and especially the requests made by Our Lady.