Editor’s Note: This lengthy article was originally published in The Fatima Crusader, Issue 74, Summer 2003. It is being reprinted here as a series of five much shorter articles. This is Part 2 of 5. [Read Part 1.]
We Must Not Follow the Blind Leaders Who Say You Can Ignore Fatima
Now, if it is true that Fatima is indeed contained in prophecy in Sacred Scripture, we now, living today, most solemnly have very special obligations. For each of us right now may be facing eternal truths that will determine our eternal destiny. We cannot simply put this aside, ignore it or not reflect on it. We cannot simply let others, even so-called experts, decide for us like many did in Our Lord’s time.
The Pharisees were blind and leaders of the blind and both fell into the pit of hell. Let us reflect here for a moment on the parallel with Our Lord’s life. Our Lord’s arrival was foretold in the Old Testament. And the Pharisees of the Old Testament claimed they had the Scriptures, so what need had they to listen to this “ignorant” Carpenter from Nazareth? What they forgot was that their own Scriptures contained prophecies and those prophecies talked about that Carpenter from Nazareth. And so they themselves fulfilled their role as villains in the very prophecies they claimed to be the keepers and masters of. And it’s because they did not really believe God, and they did not believe in the miracles that Jesus did (although they claimed to believe in God), that they were condemned.
The coming of Our Lord was predicted in the Old Testament by many prophets. And Christ came at the time predicted.[3] What He would do; how He would die;[4] many, many facts about Him were predicted.
And although the Pharisees claimed to be faithful to the Scriptures, they themselves were guilty of crucifying Christ. (This is not to ignore that all sinners in some way crucify Christ, but we’re talking now about the physical death of Christ in time, and it was predicted.) The Jewish leaders claimed to have God for their master, but Our Lord said to them, “If you had God for your Father, then you would recognize Me, because I am the image of the Father.” “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30) “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do.” (John 8:44)
And as Saint Padre Pio once said, there are people who, in the name of upholding Scriptures, deny evident miracles in their own time, and they will fall, little by little, from that to denying even the miracles that Christ worked in the Scriptures.
How do these facts concern us here and now? Very simply. If Our Lady’s coming at Fatima is predicted in Sacred Scripture, just as the coming of Christ is predicted in Sacred Scripture, then the biblical prophecy must be believed when it is fulfilled. And the Pharisees’ refusal to believe in Christ when they were given the great miracles He performed, made them guilty.
Their claim to believe Sacred Scriptures as their excuse to refuse to believe the Prophet that God the Father had sent did not excuse them.[5] They died in their sins.
Two Popes Tell Us!
When did Our Lady of Fatima come? When was She predicted in Sacred Scripture?
Well, we have two Popes in the past 37 years telling us that it is Our Lady of Fatima Who is indicated in Chapter 12, verse 1 of the Apocalypse. Both Popes clearly indicate that it is not just Our Lady – and certainly it is Our Lady – but it is not simply Our Lady, it is Our Lady of Fatima Who fulfilled the prophecy that is contained in Chapter 12, verse 1 of the Apocalypse. Now where do we find these statements of the Popes?
We find them, first of all, in the opening paragraph of Paul VI’s encyclical Signum magnum,[6] which translated from the Latin is “Great Sign”; and in Latin, Ch. 12, verse 1 of the Apocalypse starts off, “Signum magnum apparuit in caelo” – that is, “A great sign appeared in the Heavens.” And Paul VI clearly does not define or say that this is absolutely Our Lady of Fatima, but he clearly wants to suggest that it is. This is not to say that the Magisterium has said Our Lady of Fatima is the Woman clothed with the sun. However, Paul VI, in his encyclical, clearly intends to convey that message. It’s very subtly worded, but it is clear that’s what he intends.
Moreover, John Paul II also gave the same indication, and I think even more forcefully, in his sermon at Fatima on May 13, 2000.[7] There, he made the same suggestion, but he was even more definitive about it. It’s most noteworthy that the two Popes who have gone to Fatima have made it their business to suggest, to state, to indicate, that Our Lady of Fatima’s appearance is the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of Chapter 12 of St. John’s book of biblical prophecy.
If it really is the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy, then the argument could be made that it’s not just a public prophetic revelation, which I will explain to you in a moment, but it is, in fact, part of the Deposit of Faith.
A Pope Could Define It!
“Fatima is in the Bible” is a respectable theological position – even if it is not widely held. I do not say that this position is definitive, that would take the true Magisterium, more exactly, the Pope to make a solemn pronouncement intending to bind the whole Catholic Church to this position to make it binding on all Catholics. Nevertheless, up to now, there is no one who can prove that it is not exact and true. Especially when two Popes have very publicly, very clearly indicated – quite possibly on the basis of the full Third Secret, which clearly has not yet been fully released – that Our Lady of Fatima is indeed the fulfillment of this biblical prophecy. I can tell you that those in the Catholic Church who oppose Fatima (and there are many, from modernists, to progressives, to liberals, to conservatives, to even some “traditionalists”) have no arguments against the position that “Fatima is in biblical prophecy”. I have no arguments either.
I would leave the option open for this position, if the Church should ever define it, which she could. In fact, on this very point, the Fifth Lateran Council – which met around the year 1512 – defined that the Pope alone defines on matters of prophetic revelation.[8] Not the Cardinal Secretary of State, not the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but the Pope alone. And we’re talking about the Pope in his official capacity as teacher, not as private theologian.
Some Necessary Clarifications
In this respect, there’s not a large difference between a Pope and a judge. Take the example of a judge. His wife asks him at night, halfway through a murder trial, “Well, is the defendant guilty or innocent?” And the judge could say to his wife in the privacy of his home, “I think he’s guilty.” But that opinion of the judge does not constitute an official statement of the judge. It is his opinion. And the Pope similarly can have opinions about various things going on in the Church. But the expression of those opinions, even in a public place, does not constitute the expression of the Magisterium. It does not, as such, constitute a magisterial definition or statement.
There are certain precise requirements on the part of the Pope for something to be magisterial. I’m not talking only about solemn definitions, but even the exercise of his ordinary and universal Magisterium. That’s a whole other discourse, but it is needed because there’s a lot of confusion on that point today. What I’m getting at is simply that in these matters of prophetic revelation, the Pope is the final, sole judge. But until that time that he pronounces magisterially, we have the right to our own opinions. St. Augustine tells us that “in essentials there must be unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.” And so, we have a right to hold our opinion so long as we hold it sincerely, that is, after having weighed the evidence and done the best to understand what’s at stake.
[Continue reading Part 3.]
END NOTES
[3] Daniel 9:24-26.
[4] Isaias 53:2-12 and other prophecies throughout the Old Testament.
[5] John 3:19-21, John 5:23, John 5:36-47, John 10:24-26.
[6] May 13, 1967.
[7] “According to the divine plan, ‘a woman clothed with the sun’ (Apoc. 12:1) came down from Heaven to this earth to visit the privileged children of the Father. She speaks to them with a mother’s voice and heart: She asks them to offer themselves as victims of reparation, saying that She was ready to lead them safely to God. …
“Later Francisco, one of the three privileged children, exclaimed: ‘We were burning in that light which is God and we were not consumed. What is God like? It is impossible to say. In fact, we will never be able to tell people’. God: a light that burns without consuming. Moses had the same experience when he saw God in the burning bush. …
“‘Another portent appeared in Heaven; behold, a great red dragon’ (Apoc. 12:3). These words from the first reading of the Mass make us think of the great struggle between good and evil, showing how, when man puts God aside, he cannot achieve happiness, but ends up destroying himself. …
“The Message of Fatima is a call to conversion, alerting humanity to have nothing to do with the ‘dragon’ whose ‘tail swept down a third of the stars of Heaven, and cast them to the earth’ (Apoc. 12:4).” From Pope John Paul II’s sermon of May 13, 2000.
[8] Father M. Laffineur, Star on the Mountain, (published with permission of ecclesiastical authority, November 20, 1967, Newtonville, New York) p. 70.