The Fatima Crusader Issue 132 – Appendix II
A Compendium of Consistent Testimonies Evidencing Sister Lucia Provided Authentic Testimony in the 1980s
Introduction
Having established Sister Lucia’s consistent and firm testimony regarding the Consecration of Russia – not of the world – to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we now consider testimony she provided in the 1980s. These statements oppose the Vatican’s chosen narrative. Therefore, it is unreasonable to think that such statements would have come from an imposter placed by the Vatican. They are, however, completely consistent with all the testimony Sister Lucia provided in the 1940s and 1950s before she was silenced. Given the diversity of witnesses providing this evidence, the only reasonable conclusion is that the source was indeed the true seer of Fatima to whom Our Lady appeared in 1917.
The 132nd Issue of The Fatima Crusader, published in the Spring of 2024, addresses the issue of A ‘Fake’ Sister Lucia? (request your copy at the Fatima.org/shop/). Given the space limitation of the magazine, much relevant evidence could not be included. Therefore, Appendix II and Appendix I, which would fittingly have been included in Chapter 5, are published here.
We encourage the interested reader to peruse Appendix I and our booklet The Fatima Timeline, which provides much information we wish could have been included in Chapter 6 of A ‘Fake’ Sister Lucia? (The Fatima Crusader Issue 132).
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Archbishop Sante Portalupi, Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral (1982)
Pope John Paul II sent Archbishop Sante Portalupi, the Apostolic Nuncio to Portugal, to discuss with Sister Lucia precisely how the consecration planned for May 13, 1982 should be carried out. In this March 21 interview, “Sister Lucia explained,” as reported by Father Pierre Caillon, then head of the Blue Army in France, “that the Pope must choose a date upon which His Holiness commands the bishops of the entire world to make, each in his own Cathedral and at the same time as the Pope, a solemn and public ceremony of Reparation and Consecration of Russia.”[1]
Frère François describes a forceful correction which Bishop do Amaral received from Sister Lucia:
“In the afternoon of Sunday, March 21, Archbishop Portalupi and the Bishop of Leiria, Bishop do Amaral, as well as Dr. Lacerda, were received in the parlor of the Carmel of Coimbra and were able to converse very liberally with Sister Lucia. Bishop do Amaral opened the conversation in affirming: ‘But at last, Sister, Pius XII consecrated the world with a special mention of Russia in 1942, then he consecrated Russia in 1952. All is therefore done. All is finished. Let us remain calm.’ Manifestly, Bishop do Amaral did not wish to ‘bother’ Pope John Paul II with a request for the Consecration of Russia.
“Sister Lucia kept silence while with great energy she was making a gesture of denial. She shook her index finger from right to left. Then she explained how the Pope would have to act in order to satisfy the Divine requirements. She said, ‘In order that the bishops of the world be united to the Pope during the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Pope would have to either convoke all the bishops at Rome or in another place, at Tuy, for example, or indeed order the bishops of the entire world to organize, each one in his own Cathedral, a public and solemn ceremony of reparation and of Consecration of Russia to the holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary.’ Sister Lucia favored this second solution.
“The Pope then should determine ahead of time the day and the hour of this Consecration. Sister Lucia … added that ‘if the Communist governments prevented the Catholic bishops from making the solemn and public ceremonies, those prelates could accomplish the Consecration in small chapels. And if the command of the Pope does not reach some bishops because of the lack of religious liberty, the Good God would understand that, for He wants the moral unanimity of the bishops, and not obligatorily arithmetical totality.’”[2]
Unfortunately, acting on the advice of Bishop do Amaral, Archbishop Portalupi purposely neglected to tell the Pope of Our Lady’s requirement that the world’s bishops participate in the consecration.
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Mrs. Maria Pestana, Maria do Fetal (1982)
“In the days that preceded the pilgrimage of the Pope to Fatima, from May 7 to May 12, 1982, Sister Lucia made a retreat in the Carmel of Fatima. … During those same days, at the beginning of the month of May 1982, Father Caillon began to conduct an inquiry in Portugal in order to know the mind of Sister Lucia on the Consecration which the Pope had decided to accomplish on May 13 at Fatima.
“On May 9, at Porto, Father Caillon met Mrs. Maria Eugenia Pestana de Vasconcelos Costa, then seventy-one years of age. Her family had formerly, in the 20s, paid Lucia’s board in Asilo de Vilar. Mrs. Pestana, friend of the seer for a long time, in that year 1982, was one of the rare privileged ones who still had permission to visit Sister Lucia several times a year at the Carmel of Coimbra. Now on Sunday, May 9, Mrs. Pestana declared to Father Caillon: ‘Do not wait this time for the Consecration of Russia: the world episcopate is not ready.’
“Then on May 12, at Fatima, Father Caillon was met by a niece of Sister Lucia, Maria do Fetal Neves Rosa. She too was formal: ‘Do not expect tomorrow the Consecration of Russia. The world episcopate is not ready.’ Father Caillon concluded from it, ‘Therefore Sister Lucia, even before May 13, had told her friends from Porto and her niece from Fatima not to expect the Consecration of Russia on May 13, 1982, for the world episcopate was not ready. Sister Lucia knew in advance what was going to happen.”[3]
- Archbishop Sante Portalupi (1983)
Archbishop Portalupi was again sent to interview Sister Lucia in anticipation of John Paul II’s March 25, 1984 consecration. He brought with him to this meeting, which took place on March 19, 1983, the same Dr. Lacerda and Father Messias Coelho. (This time he did not invite Bishop Amaral.)
Sister Lucia read aloud to them the following statement which she had prepared:
“In the Act of Offering of May 13, 1982, Russia did not appear clearly 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 has simply renewed the consecration of the world made by Pope Pius XII on October 31, 1942. Of this consecration of the world one may hope for certain good effects, but not the conversion of Russia.” She concluded with the following: “The Consecration of Russia has not been done as Our Lady has requested. I was not able to make this statement before because I did not have the permission of the Holy See.”[4]
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Maria Pestana (1984)
“On February 18, 1984, the Pope made public his letter which he had addressed to all the bishops of the whole world on December 8, 1983, with the purpose of announcing to them that on March 25, 1984, he would renew at Rome the Act of Offering and of consecration pronounced at Fatima May 13, 1982. That letter concluded thus:
“‘The words of the act of consecration and offering which I am sending you enclosed, is the same Act which I pronounced at Fatima on May 13, 1982 with some slight modifications. …’
“In the Carmel of Coimbra, Thursday March 22, they were celebrating the seventy-seventh birthday of Sister Lucia. As each year, she received on that day the visit of Mrs. Maria Eugenia Pestana. Her old friend offered her good wishes, then asked this question: ‘Then Lucia, Sunday is the Consecration?’ Sister Lucia made a negative sign and declared: ‘That consecration cannot have a decisive character.’ Sister Lucia had already read the letter addressed by John Pual II to all the bishops of the world as well as the text of the consecration. She had established that ‘Russia did not appear clearly as being the only object of the consecration.’ She judged therefore that this time, once again, the requirements of Heaven would not be satisfied.”[5]
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Sol de Fatima (1985)
In September 1985, Spain’s chapter of the Blue Army published an interview with Sister Lucia in its official journal, Sol de Fatima:
Question: “John Paul II had invited all the bishops to join in the consecration of Russia, which he was going to make at Fatima on May 13, 1982, and which he was to renew at the end of the Holy Year in Rome on March 25, 1984, before the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Has he not therefore done what was requested at Tuy?”
Sister Lucia: “There was no participation of all the bishops and there was no mention of Russia.”
Question: “So the consecration was not done as requested by Our Lady?”
Sister Lucia: “No. Many bishops attached no importance to this act.”
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Enrique Romero (1987)
As required by Portuguese law, Sister Lucia left her cloister on July 20, 1987, to vote in the national election. Upon her arrival, Argentine journalist Enrique Romero met her and asked her about the Consecration of Russia. She confirmed to him that it had not been done and that unless there was a spiritual turnaround featuring prayer and sacrifice, every nation would fall under a cruel Communist dictatorship.[6]
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Cardinal Bernard Law (1989)[7]
“In that year 1988, … an order came from the Vatican, addressed to the authorities of Fatima, to Sister Lucia, to diverse ecclesiastics, including Father Messias Coelho [who revealed it in the presence of several witnesses] and a French priest very much devoted to Our Lady, ordering everyone to cease pestering the Holy Father with the consecration of Russia. Father Caillon writes: ‘An order came from Rome, obliging everyone to say and think: “The consecration is done. The Pope having done all that he can, Heaven has deigned to agree to his gesture.”’[8]
“John Paul II had forbidden Cardinal Gagnon from going to Coimbra to converse with the seer: ‘Ah no! the Pope had exclaimed. It is not worthwhile… The consecration is done, it is finished. We have done everything there is to do.’[9] Nevertheless, in 1989, the messenger of Our Lady could still express vocally to a Cardinal her thinking on the act of March 25, 1984.
“In fact, in May 1989, Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston, came to Portugal to preside over the liturgical ceremonies of the international pilgrimage, went to the Carmel of Coimbra, and he was able to converse in Spanish and Portuguese with Sister Lucia for twenty minutes. The seer affirmed to him that the consecration of Russia had not yet been accomplished as Our Lady wanted it. ‘The Holy Father speculates that it has been done, done in the best possible way under the circumstances. Done on the narrow road of the collegial consecration that She has demanded and has been wanting? No, that has not been done.’”[10]
ENDNOTES:
[1] Rev. Pierre Caillon, Fidelite Catholique, April, 1983. B.P. 217-56402, Auray Cedex, France, cited in The Fatima Crusader, Issue 13-14, Oct.-Dec., 1983, p. 3.
[2] Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 156-157.
[3] Fr. Pierre Caillon, La Consecration de la Russie aux Tres Saints Coeurs de Jesus et de Marie, ed Tequi 1983, pp. 43-44, cited in Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 157-158.
[4] Reported by Fr. Pierre Caillon in the monthly periodical Fidelite Catholique, B.P. 217-56402. Auray Cedex, France; cited in Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 165-166.
[5] Reported by Mrs. Pestana in a telephone conversation the next day. Fr. Caillon, The Seers of Fatima, January-April 1984, cited in Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 167-168.
[6] Reported in the early August 1987 edition of Para Ti published in Argentina; cited in Father Nicholas Gruner, World Enslavement or Peace … It’s Up To the Pope, Fort Erie, Ontario: The Fatima Crusader, 1989, pp. 212-213; see also “Sister Lucy States: ‘Russia Is Not Yet Properly Consecrated.’”
[7] This citation is drawn from Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 189-190, noting as follows.
[8] “Personal correspondence of the second half of March 1990.”
[9] “… reported by word of mouth by Father Caillon to Frère Michel on September 5, 1986.”
[10] “… Father Philip Bourret, S. J., who accompanied Cardinal Law to Carmel of Coimbra, reported the exact words of the seer to one of our correspondents on December 4, 1990, in the course of a telephone conversation whose transcription is almost entirely reproduced in the CRC, number 269, December, 1990, pages 1-3.”