CHAPTER X

«THEY ARE DELAYING THE EXECUTION OF MY REQUEST...»

W

HEN he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Cracow in 1958, Msgr. Karol Wojtyla chose as his episcopal motto Totus tuus, Wholly yours, as though he wished to dedicate himself to the Virgin Mary through a maxim expressing the greatest love, as a disciple of the Cardinal Primate Stefan Wyszynski. But was this what he really wanted? In his heart did he possess the Primate’s ardent devotion? Did he truly share his convictions?

By reporting several significant facts which reveal just how far he diverged from Cardinal Wyszynski, we will gain an insight into his true personality and, even at this stage, into the whole drama of his future pontificate.

In 1958 the Cardinal Primate, with great spirit and intelligence, was busy organising and directing the Great Novena to prepare for the celebration of the millennium of Poland’s baptism. For nine years, from 1957 to 1966, a long Marian tour had wended its way across twenty-seven of the country’s dioceses: a copy of the Black Virgin of Czestochowa, blessed by Pius XII, was welcomed and venerated in all the parishes. Yet Msgr. Wojtyla remained visibly reserved, at least initially, regarding these manifestations of devotion for the Immaculate. «He wasn’t exactly carried away by all of this», reports one of his biographers1. «The Cracow intelligentsia», states André Martin, «had little appetite for Marian devotion of the kind expressed at Jasna Gora.2»

After the Council, the divergences between the Polish bishops widened further. Whereas Msgr. Wojtyla wished to renew the Polish Church by applying the conciliar reform, Cardinal Wyszynski, seeing it gravely menaced by the Communist State, judged this aggiornamento inopportune: «One does not restructure one’s army in the middle of battle», he said3. After having imposed his firm views on the government, the Primate counted on the faith of his people being preserved solely by the grace of God, the tenderness and intercession of the Most Blessed Virgin, the truth of the Christian revelation, Polish traditions and the courage of the faithful4.

While the Cardinal was finalising the preparations for the millennium ceremonies, he came up against reservations and objections. The formula for the national consecration to the Virgin Mary which he solemnly pronounced at Jasna Gora on May 3, 1966, was actually contested within the episcopate: «A fairly sizeable group of bishops, during a conference in Zakopane, raised serious [sic] theological objections against it.5»

What exactly was Msgr. Wojtyla’s position during these debates? Was he the most adamant member of the opposition? We have not succeeded in finding out. But he would subsequently invoke “theological objections” to any consecration to Mary as an excuse for rejecting the request for Russia’s consecration…

In that same year of 1966, the Bishop of Fatima invited Msgr. Wojtyla to join the celebrations for the jubilee of the apparitions at the Cova da Iria. But the future John Paul II declined the invitation: he replied to Msgr. Venancio, on September 5, that it would «not be possible for him to go»6.
 

NUMEROUS REQUESTS ADDRESSED TO JOHN PAUL II

After his election to the sovereign pontificate on October 16, 1978, John Paul II was urged time and time again to fulfil the demands of Our Lady of Fatima.

On November 25, 1978, at the end of his lecture on the theme “What will John Paul II do?” the Abbé de Nantes sent him, from the great hall of the Mutualité, a supplication approved by the two thousand members of the audience that packed it:

«Most Holy Father,

«Gathered for their annual general meeting, the members and sympathisers of the League of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, rallying round their leaders and founder-director, the Abbé de Nantes, after having paid an emotional and fervent homage to Your much loved predecessor Pope John Paul I, beg Your Holiness to accept the expression of their filial respect and their entire confidence and, furthermore, they venture to draw His attention to their humble desire and their lively hope:

«That the Catholic faith and devotion be reawakened and fortified in the Church by the disclosure of the Third Secret of Fatima, eagerly awaited by the faithful since 1960.

«That the earth be preserved from the scourge of a third world war by the consecration of all nations, and particularly and explicitly of Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary – a consecration that Your Holiness alone can perform in union with the episcopal college throughout the world, to the applause of the faithful, who are eager for consecration to Mary, spiritual conversion and universal peace.7»

The Abbé de Nantes received not the least acknowledgement. But this silence was not one of indifference: John Paul II showed himself to be irritated and secretly annoyed when people spoke to him about the Virgin of Fatima’s requests. We soon came to learn this through Father Gabriel, a confessor to several Roman prelates who had direct access to the Pope. For this religious, a Servite of Mary, had handed one of these prelates Father Alonso’s little book Fatima before the Sphinx, published at the beginning of 1979, in order that he might pass it on to the Holy Father. This opuscule presented Our Lady of Fatima’s request concerning Russia, and that nation’s place in the heavenly message. John Paul II reacted violently to this intervention. «The Pope took the thing very badly», Father Gabriel would confide to the Abbé Caillon. «He doesn’t want to hear this spoken of again. He is very much up to date. He knows what he has to do.8»

The directions in which John Paul II was taking his papacy could not be reconciled with the act of consecration and reparation requested by the Virgin Mary.

Let us recall an incident that took place during his pilgrimage to Assisi, three weeks after his election to the See of Peter. One of the faithful heckled him publicly: «Don’t forget the Church of silence!» The Pope responded: «There isn’t a Church of silence any more, as it speaks through my mouth.9» But the months and the years passed without him abandoning his silence: «The word communist», observed the Abbé de Nantes, «is never pronounced by the Pope in the context of persecutions; he only uses it in an ideological context where it can be mentioned favourably.10»

John Paul II saw himself as a disciple of Paul VI and a supporter of his Ostpolitik. On January 24, 1979 he received the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, in a private audience at the Vatican. The Rome-Moscow accord was renewed, in contravention to the orientations clearly set by John Paul I when he chose Cardinal Benelli as Secretary of State in preference to Msgr. Casaroli. This latter, one recalls, had, since 1961, been the promoter and agent of the Vatican’s policy of openness and appeasement towards the communist governments of Eastern Europe.

It is notable that, after the death of Cardinal Villot on March 9, 1979, it was in fact Msgr. Casaroli whom John Paul II appointed as Secretary of State.

Furthermore, he resumed ecumenical dialogue with the leaders of the Eastern schismatic communities, but without envisaging their return to the Catholic Church by their reintegration into the local Churches in union with the Roman See. The Pope forgot about, indeed abandoned, those Catholic Churches of the Eastern rite, which should have served – and one day will serve, at the hour of the long-awaited reunion – as «a providential bridge between the schismatic East and the Roman West». The approach taken by John Paul II was wholly in line with the ecumenism of the Council. «In order to make peace with the enemy», remarked the Abbé de Nantes, «Vatican II did not hesitate to sacrifice its own faithful. The ecumenists deployed all their powers of persuasion to get the “Uniates” willingly to accept the idea of their own necessary immolation for the sake of unity: their Churches would be merged into the schismatic communities upon the latter’s reconciliation with Rome.» John Paul II was keen to establish an entente between Rome and the Orthodox East, feigning ignorance of the fact that «Orthodoxy has always been in the service of political power in Constantinople – whether this be that of the basileus of old or that today of Turkish freemasonry. And in Moscow, after that of the Tsars, that of the Bolsheviks from 1917, the masters of the Kremlin.11»

On September 22, 1979 Cardinal Willebrands of the Secretariat for Unity wrote to the Patriarchate of Moscow: «The Pope has no hesitation in recognising your Russian Orthodox Church as the inheritor of the glorious tradition of Saint Vladimir and the ancient Church of Kiev, a tradition which is at the root of the faith and perseverance of your Christian people.» As for the Eastern rite Churches that had remained Roman Catholic, they were coldly considered to be «inspired by a theology which is no longer that of today»12. One could not conceive of a repudiation more total and more opposed to the «conversion of Russia» so dear to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian pontiffs, Cardinal Joseph Slipyj and his successors, remained indefectibly attached to the Roman See. At their Synod in 1980, they recalled in a solemn declaration the invalid character of the pseudo-synod of Lviv in 1946, held «under the constraint of the Soviet civil authorities and through which our Church was supposed to have broken its blessed union with the Apostolic See of Rome»13.

When the Patriarch of Moscow, Pimen, called upon John Paul II to repudiate the Ukrainian bishops and annul the acts of their 1980 Synod, the Pope submitted to his demands and replied to him on January 24, 1981:

«The Holy See immediately advised all the nunciatures, in those countries where Ukrainian Catholic communities live, that these texts had not been approved and were therefore devoid of any official character. It was also requested that their publication be avoided and, insofar as possible, their distribution. None of the organs of the Holy See has alluded to them. I hope that these clarifications will appease the fears of Your Holiness. The past must not be allowed to compromise what the Lord has achieved between our Churches since the Second Vatican Council.14»

To please Moscow, John Paul II persistently refused to grant the Ukrainian community and its Metropolitans the titles and privileges of a patriarchate, privileges to which they have a right.

The Pope’s cordial relations with the Soviet leaders and his dialogue with the heads of the schismatic communities were irreconcilable with the message of Fatima and its demands. One day, in 1980, John Paul II recognised this, quite spontaneously, while he was in conversation with Cardinal Wyszynski and Msgr. Hnilica. It was during a meal. Msgr. Hnilica declared to him that «the most important thing he had to do during his pontificate was to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with all the bishops»15. The Pope responded that «such a consecration would be seen by the Russians as an interference in their internal affairs, and that this would have political consequences». Therefore he was unable to perform such an act. Furthermore, he objected that «the Pope’s jurisdiction only encompassed the Catholic Church; that the Pope was not the Pope of all men». Cardinal Wyszynski replied that «just as Christ was King of the world, so His vicar had jurisdiction over all men»16. John Paul II retorted that «his predecessors had not seen good to perform this consecration with all the bishops of the world…» And turning towards Msgr. Hnilica, he said to him jocularly: «Go and win all the bishops of the world over to the idea of this consecration for me, and I will perform it with them.»

These words of John Paul II were reported to the directors of the Blue Army who took them at face value. That is why, in the autumn of 1980, they gave the following instructions to the members of their movement:

«We can double our efforts to obtain petitions to the Holy Father for the collegial consecration and to transmit them to Rome through the agency of our own bishops, asking them to join their petitions to ours. There is so much at stake… and so much to do! Let every member of the Blue Army be solicited.

«Petition: To advise the Holy Father that we desire Russia to be solemnly consecrated by His Holiness along with all the bishops of the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we sign below, along with a personal prayer and a promise to fulfil the requests of Our Lady of Fatima for the conversion of sinners and world peace. Signature.17»

The Sovereign Pontiff left these tens of thousands of petitions unanswered.
 

THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT OF MAY 13, 1981:
JOHN PAUL II DEAF TO THE DIVINE WARNING.

There were many other approaches made to John Paul II, notably by Father Joaquin Alonso and Francis Johnston, asking him to give consideration to the message and requests of Our Lady of Fatima.

Finally, on May 7, 1981, after having concelebrated with the Pope in his private chapel in Rome, Fathers Pavlicek and Mikocki, directors of the Rosary Crusade of Reparation, made this request to him: «Holy Father, do something that will help Fatima to be better recognised in the Church.» John Paul II smiled: «But Fatima, the place of pilgrimage, already lies at the heart of the Church.18»

Six days later, for the solemnity of May 13, the Pope sent the pilgrims in Fatima a message so insignificant that it could have been appropriate for any sanctuary:

«Spiritually present, the Holy Father desires to be united, together with you all, to Our Lady, the mother in whom we trust and the mother of the Church, so that we might make our way towards Christ, the lord of human history, and ask that the Holy Spirit come down upon the Church. May Mary be ever closer to each and every man, so that she may lead them to encounter Christ the Redeemer and to turn towards God, rich in mercy. As a pledge of divine grace, he sends to all his apostolic blessing.19»

It was at that time that John Paul II was shot in the stomach. At the public audience of Sunday, May 13, 1981, in Saint Peter’s Square, at 17:20, he was grievously injured by two shots fired by the Turkish terrorist Ali Agca. Taken immediately to the Gemelli hospital, he was operated on by Professor Crucitti, who had rushed over, not «impelled by some mysterious force20», as Msgr. Dziwisz would deceitfully write, but because he had been warned by a nun that the Pope had just been taken there21. The professor noted that none of the vital organs had been harmed by the bullet, and he was able to stem the intra-abdominal venous haemorrhage. Thus John Paul II had the grace and privilege of being extremely well cared for. «“Surgically”», states Professor Crucitti, «he was cured eight days after the assassination attack.22»

Later the Pope would confide to Vittorio Messori: «When I was wounded by my attacker’s bullet, I did not immediately realise that we were celebrating the exact anniversary of the day on which Mary had appeared to the three children of Fatima, in Portugal.23» But the coincidence of dates was so remarkable that he could not ignore it for long. That is why, several days after the attack, he asked to see documents about Fatima. Msgr. Hnilica and Mother Lodovica procured him Father Antonio Maria Martins’ book, Documentos. It was the best work for studying the writings of Sister Lucy. For the majority of the texts, Father Martins presented a photocopy of the original, in parallel with the Portuguese transcription and translations into Italian and Spanish.

John Paul II also wanted to learn the third part of the Secret. On July 18, 1981 Cardinal Seper, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, handed Msgr. Martinez Somalo, Substitute of the Secretariat of State, two envelopes: one containing Sister Lucy’s original text in Portuguese, the other a translation of the Secret into Italian. On the following August 11, Msgr. Martinez returned the two envelopes back to the Archives of the Holy Office24.

That summer, therefore, the Pope for the first time read the text of the Third Secret. But afterwards he did not speak of it publicly.

Nevertheless, his speech of October 14, 1981 devoted to the attack of May 13, a «great divine trial», reveals one of his thoughts and reactions when he read the Secret. He understood that the «Bishop dressed in White» seen in the vision did not refer to himself:

«How many of Peter’s successors in this See of Rome have sealed with the witness of their own lives the witness they gave in the pastoral and teaching service? The sacred liturgy makes this clear when, over the course of the year, it recalls the numerous Sovereign Pontiffs who followed Peter by giving the witness of their blood. It is difficult to talk of this without profound reverence, without inner anxiety. For it is by the sacrifice of those who gave witness to Christ crucified and risen, especially in the first centuries, that the Mystical Body of Christ grew, that the Church was born, that she deepened her influence over souls, and that she consolidated her position in the ancient world, which so often responded to the Good News of the Gospel with bloody persecutions.

«Those who come to Rome to “honour the memory of the Apostles”, those who trace the footsteps of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, should have all this before their eyes. I am an outsider, one who had to remain alive and assume the succession of the See of Rome after so many great Popes, bishops of Rome.25»

“Who had to remain alive”… That is why John Paul II is not “the Pope of the Secret”. Clearly it is not he whom the little shepherds contemplated on July 13, 1917, «half trembling, with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow». Watch the footage of the audience of May 13, 1981 and the photographs of the attack: the Pope is making his way through a jubilant crowd who are cheering him. And then he was not «killed», but wounded. Any identification of John Paul II with «the Bishop dressed in White» is therefore unwarranted.

«The fact is», explains the Abbé de Nantes, «that, after the assassination attempt, Fatima entered into an imaginary world of John Paul II’s own making.26» When he resumed his Wednesday audiences after his recovery, the Pope publicly stated that he owed his protection to a miracle of the Virgin of Fatima. On October 7, 1981 in Saint Peter’s Square, he declared: «Truly, on that day [the previous May 13], I had a sense, in everything that took place, of that extraordinary maternal protection which proved stronger than the deadly projectile.»

To André Frossard he would state: «One handed fired the bullet; another guided it.27»

It was the Abbé de Nantes who was the first to publish, on the day after the attack, a realistic, perspicacious and supernatural analysis of the event. He immediately saw in it a «sign» and a «warning» from Heaven, or, to be more precise, a «formal demand» for the Pope to pay attention to the message of Fatima in order that he might align the orientations of his pontificate with it: «Might it be one last means of grace to bring back this ideologist, sexologist, ecumenist and pacifist Pope to a realist and traditional view of his office as doctor, pastor and head of the Roman Catholic Church? Just as the assassination of his minister Rossi by his very side, in 1848, brought Pius IX back to a correct knowledge of human malice and of God’s Will?28»

In his editorials of the time, the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation constantly commented upon, explained and denounced the thinking and the acts of John Paul II, notably his philosophic doctrine, his ecumenical overtures and his political commitments. In July 1981 he wrote: «On the very day of the attempted assassination in Rome, May 13, on which an extraordinary encounter took place between the Pope, the Virgin of Fatima, and world communism, the socialist Gaston Defferre stated on France-Inter at 7.30 p.m.: “Communism has become the general tendency of the Church.” To attack me because I denounce this fact is firstly ridiculous and secondly pointless. The Catholic Church negotiates with communism wherever it is established, pushes for communism where it is yet to arrive, and holds a friendly dialogue with it wherever it is in the process of seizing power, as amongst ourselves at this present time. Until that mysterious and sudden check of May 13, Pope John Paul II had clearly and continually manifested his connivance with the general tendency of the postconciliar, montinian Church to accept communism as a universal fact, to sympathize, dialogue and cooperate with it on all Catholic-communists fronts […]. At least there is one person in the world who wanted all this to stop. No, I am not talking about ourselves; what power did we have? I am thinking of that august Person to whom the world’s salvation has been entrusted and who had already, on a certain May 13 in 1917, come to give us advance notice of communism as the great satanic abomination of our twentieth century.29»

One can only admire the forcefulness with which the Abbé de Nantes developed his analysis, whilst at the same time spurring his friends on to redouble their prayers for John Paul II:

«The assassination attempt on the Holy Father, on May 13 itself, was it not a sign? from the Blessed Virgin? to bring the Pastor of the sheep back to obedience to Heaven’s wishes as stated at Fatima and re-stated so many times since? Let us pray, for this sign is full of hope and so perfectly adapted! It is through the Pope that the Church will learn the Secret of secrets which will scatter twenty years of deception. It is at the Pope’s call that the Church will turn back from its adulterous fantasies, from its ungodly novelties. It is through the Pope that we ourselves will be delivered from our chains, from our suspensions a divinis and our powerlessness, and that the Catholic Counter-Reformation doctrines of our Phalange will suddenly discover the freedom of being put to their full use. And so, with a holy anger against the evil being committed, with veneration and affection for the Common Father, let us pray more than ever for him, that he may be converted and that – returning to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and proclaiming Their sovereign rights and Their infinite goodness – He may fulfil the requests made by the Virgin of his May 13, and then we will be saved!30»

If John Paul II was not mortally injured on May 13, 1981, it was in order that he might open his heart up to the grace of Fatima and radically modify both his teaching and his style of government in order to accomplish the decisive acts for the salvation of souls, the peace of the world and the victory of Holy Church over the unchained powers of hell.

Scarcely one month after the attempted assassination, John Paul II «entrusted the human family to the maternal protection of the Virgin»31. However, it was «an act of affidamento (offering), not a consecration properly so called»32. The Pope renewed this act on December 8 of the following year. On that day, after the ceremony, Msgr. Hnilica questioned him: «Why only an affidamento and not a consacrazione?

– There are still theologians, replied the Pope, who doubt that a consecration can be made to anyone other than God Himself.33»

One of these theologians was the Abbé René Laurentin, who declared in his preface to the encyclical Redemptoris Mater: «One can only be consecrated to God the Creator, not to a creature, for that would be idolatry.34»

It is worth recalling that the doctrine developed by the apostles of consecration to the Immaculate and of devotion to the Holy Heart of Mary, such as Saints Jean Eudes, Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and Maximilian-Mary Kolbe35, constitutes a decisive response to this objection tirelessly trotted out by the enemies of Fatima. It appears that the Abbé Laurentin has never read Father de Montfort who wrote in the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin: “Now, as Mary is of all creatures the most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows that, of all devotions, the one that most consecrates and conforms a soul to Our Lord is the devotion to the Blessed Virgin, His Holy Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to Mary, the more it will be consecrated to Jesus Christ. It is for this reason that the perfect consecration to Jesus Christ is nothing else than a perfect and entire consecration of oneself to the Most Blessed Virgin, which is the devotion I teach.36»

Moreover, theories against the consecration to the Immaculate are clearly erroneous because they contradict the revelations of Fatima. This reason is sufficient on its own to declare them inadmissible and reprehensible, seeing that, in 1930, the Church pronounced an episcopal judgement that recognised the supernatural character of the apparitions of 1917 and referred to the existence of the Secret37.

Furthermore, in 1942, «when Pius XII consulted the Holy Office regarding the theological possibility of proceeding to consecrate the entire world to the Heart of Mary, he received the reply that there was no theological objection on this head»38.

Laurentin has the effrontery to write: «Pius XII made a distinction between affidamento to Mary and consecration to God.39» He must therefore have forgotten that this Pope accomplished, on October 31, 1942, not an act of offering (affidamento) but an act of consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Pius XII pronounced it in Portuguese as follows: «Ao Vosso Imaculado Coraçao […] confiamos, entregamos, consagramos […] todo a mundo. To Your Immaculate Heart […] we entrust, we offer, we consecrate […] the whole world

Thanks to the teachings of the Abbé de Nantes, our Father Superior and master, we have faith in Our Lady’s prophecy, in Her great Secret of July 13, 1917: «The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me»… A promise that is certain and irrevocable, and which will one day be fulfilled. But let us return to the first years of John Paul II’s papacy.

In 1981, the international campaign of the Blue Army intensified and bore fruit. Several bishops, and particularly the episcopate of the United States, requested the Holy Father on November 18, 1981 to carry out the collegial consecration of Russia40.

However, the Sovereign Pontiff remained no less reserved towards Our Lady of Fatima’s requests. Admittedly, he spoke about the Rosary on October 28, 1981: «I would like, along with you, my brothers and sisters, to examine the simplicity and at the same time the profundity of this prayer to which, in a special manner, the Most Holy Mother invites us, urges us, and encourages us.41»

But why not explicitly mention the request of Our Lady of Fatima, repeated at every one of Her apparitions in 1917, for the daily recitation of the Rosary?
 

SISTER LUCY AND THE ACTS OF OFFERING OF THE WORLD

When the Pope announced on March 7, 1982 at the Angelus, that he would visit Fatima on May 13 next, in order to «thank the Blessed Virgin for having protected him as a mother at the time of the assassination attempt», an immense hope filled the hearts of Our Lady’s devotees. If the Holy Father had decided to make this pilgrimage, was it not in order to satisfy Heaven’s wishes, on the very site of the apparitions? Well might one hope, and numerous souls prayed and made sacrifices for this intention.

Thanks to an intervention of the Abbé Caillon’s, Sister Lucy was soon able to explain Our Lady’s exact requests to one of the Sovereign Pontiff’s representatives. For in Rome, on March 8, the day after the official announcement of John Paul II’s visit to Fatima, the Abbé Caillon had a conversation with the assessor, Msgr. Re, the third highest ranking official in the Secretariat of State.

«If we could be certain», explained this prelate to him, «that it is indeed the Blessed Virgin who is asking the bishops of the entire world to unite themselves to the Pope in order to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we would do it. But it is not clear. We ourselves also have our own archives.

What would the proof have to consist of?» asked the French priest. Msgr. Re simply raised his arms to Heaven.

On Friday, March 12, a further interview took place with the assessor: the Abbé Caillon brought him Father Alonso’s article, published in the book Mary under the Symbol of the Heart, so that he might place before his eyes several texts of Sister Lucy’s. Let us listen to him describing the scene:

«Three times Msgr. Re read five lines and three times three lines. This took him three or four minutes. As soon as he had finished, he pressed a button to ask a secretary to photocopy these six passages. When the secretary returned the book to me, I stood up and, becoming a little animated, I said to Msgr. Re almost in a tone of irritation:

At any rate, Monseigneur, with regard to Fatima, we are not reduced to consulting archives. Lucy is still alive. The Holy Father has complete authority in the Church. He can ask Lucy to copy out these five lines for him on a small piece of paper.

«Msgr. Re, looking rather annoyed, said to me:

That is what we will be doing.

«And it was then that the nuncio to Lisbon, Msgr. Sante Portalupi, received an order to visit Lucy.42»

On March 21, 1982 he visited the Coimbra Carmel, accompanied by the Bishop of Leiria, Msgr. do Amaral, and Mr. Cardoso de Lacerda, the honorary president of the Eucharistic League of Men43. At the very start of the conversation with the seer, Msgr. do Amaral declared:

«But look, Sister, Pius XII consecrated the world with a special mention of Russia in 1942, and then he consecrated Russia in 1952. So everything is done. Everything is complete. Let us set our minds at rest

Sister Lucy kept silent at this, while nevertheless making a vigorous gesture of denial. She waved her index figure from left to right. Then she explained what the Holy Father would have to do to satisfy Heaven’s demands:

«In order for the bishops of the world to be united with him at the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Pope should either summon all the bishops to Rome or to somewhere else, like Tuy for example, or else order the bishops of the entire world to organise, each in his own cathedral, a public and solemn ceremony of reparation and of consecration of Russia to the Most Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.»

This second solution was the one Sister Lucy preferred. The Holy Father would also have to fix in advance the day and the hour of this consecration. The seer remarked that it would be easy for the bishops to perform this consecration at exactly the same moment across the whole of the earth’s surface:

«Some bishops would carry out the consecration during the day, others at night, during a prayer vigil.» She added that «if communist governments prevented Catholic bishops from performing solemn public ceremonies, these prelates would be able to carry out the consecration in small chapels. And if the Pope’s order failed to reach certain bishops owing to their lack of religious freedom, the good God would understand, for He desires the moral unanimity of the bishops», Sister Lucy maintained, «and not necessarily their arithmetical totality

This discussion with the Nuncio lasted two long hours.

In the days preceding John Paul II’s pilgrimage to Fatima, between May 7 and 12, 1982, Sister Lucy made a retreat at the Fatima Carmel. She took part in the community exercises but did not give any parlour conversations. She was busy writing a letter that she hoped to send to the Pope. An extract from that letter would be published eighteen years later when the Third Secret was revealed to the world44.

Early in May 1982, the Abbé Caillon began making enquiries in Portugal to determine what Sister Lucy thought of the consecration that the Pope had decided to carry out on May 13 at Fatima. On May 9, in Porto, he met Mrs. Maria Eugénia Pestana de Vasconcelos Costa, then aged seventy-one. Her family had long ago, in the 20’s, paid for Lucy’s board at the Asilo de Vilar45. Mrs. Pestana, in that year of 1982, was one of those few privileged people who still had permission to visit her at the Coimbra Carmel several times a year. On Sunday, May 9, Mrs. Pestana declared to the Abbé Caillon: «Don’t expect the consecration of Russia at this time; the worldwide episcopate is not ready.» Then on May 12, in Fatima, one of Sister Lucy’s nieces, Maria do Fetal Neves Rosa, said the same thing to the Abbé Caillon. «Therefore», the latter concluded, «prior to May 13, Lucy must have told her friends from Porto and her niece in Fatima that they should not expect the consecration of Russia on May 13, 1982. Lucy knew beforehand where she stood on this matter.46» “The episcopate was not ready”, since Pope John Paul II had not ordered all the bishops of the Catholic world, each in his own diocese, to perform a solemn public ceremony of reparation and of consecration of Russia to the Most Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

As soon as he arrived in the Cova da Iria, on the evening of May 12, John Paul II made his determined refusal to disclose the Third Secret apparent to everyone. He exclaimed in his first speech: «Would you like me to tell you a secret…? It is simple, and it is no longer a secret: “Pray a great deal. Say the Rosary every day.”47» How can one fail to note that «the Pope had buried the Secret by making fun of it»48?

On May 13, at 8 o’clock in the morning, he had a one-to-one meeting with Sister Lucy. During the conversation, which lasted between twenty and twenty-five minutes, Heaven’s messenger was able to hand him her letter and to tell him what she was anxious to let him know9. As for John Paul II, he tried to convince her that it was «neither necessary nor wise to reveal the contents of the Third Secret, seeing that the world would not understand it»50. He evaded the question of the consecration of Russia by saying that he would speak about «all these things» to the bishops at the Synod of 1983…

In his preaching of May 12 and 13, John Paul II interpreted Our Lady’s revelations in accordance with Father Dhanis’ hermeneutic. Not only did he fail to approve the devotion of reparation, but he visibly expressed his disapproval of it. For when he mentioned one of the prayers taught by Our Lady on July 1917, he truncated it. The Pope correctly said: «in reparation for sins», but he left out: «committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary». Meanwhile John Paul II was preaching his personal theology of consecration, that is to say, not consecration to Mary or to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but an offering to God through Mary:

«In the joyous expectation of making all this a complete reality at Holy Mass tomorrow, let us live our pilgrimage to the full, here and now, eucharistically, by offering ourselves to God through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in thanksgiving and open-heartedness; let us offer our sacrifices in union with Christ the Redeemer, and, in a mental prayer of expiation and propitiation, let us repeat: “Lord Jesus, it is for love of Thee, in reparation for sins and for the conversion of sinners.”51»

John Paul II also quoted the prayer of the Angel: «May we – who have been created in His Word the Son, reconciled through the blood of that same Son, made a part of His family, and built, upon the foundation of the Apostles, into the edifice of the Church to become the dwelling of God through the Holy Spirit – may we unceasingly repeat: “My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee”52» The Pope glossed over in silence the second part of this prayer: “I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not trust and do not love Thee.” By failing to quote literally or completely a single sentence of Our Lady or of the Angel of Portugal, the Pope cast suspicion over the entirety of the Fatima revelations.

In his homily of May 13, he let it be understood that his predecessors had already responded to the requests of «the Lady of the message»: «Pius XII wished to consecrate to the Immaculate Heart of Mary the entire human race and especially the peoples of Russia. By this consecration, did he not perhaps satisfy the evangelical eloquence of the call of Fatima?53» So what was the act that he, John Paul II, wished to perform before the final farewell procession? It was this: «To accomplish once more what my predecessors have already done: to entrust the world to the Heart of the Mother.54»

After the ceremony, he insinuated that he had satisfied Heaven’s requests. In the Sanctuary sacristy, after a bishop had congratulated him for having consecrated the world, he replied with a smile, «And Russia too.55» Moreover, on the day after his trip to Portugal, during the audience of May 19, when referring to the “consecration” of May 13, he declared, «I sought to do everything possible in the concrete circumstances to emphasise the collegial unity of the Bishop of Rome with all his brothers in the ministry and episcopal service of the world.56»

Nevertheless, perceptive minds immediately understood that the Pope had neglected and spurned Our Lady’s requests. The Abbé de Nantes demonstrated this implacably in his editorial in the Catholic Counter-Reformation entitled “The Supreme Deception”. John Paul II had simply made a pretence of obeying Our Lady. «The worst of it is that he wanted to delude the good into thinking that he was doing everything that was necessary, everything that was humanly possible, everything that supernatural prudence was inspiring him to do. Meanwhile he was demonstrating to the wicked that he was not taken in by all the fatimist legends, fabrications and hysteria. And that he was not insisting that anyone believe in them, he was not asking anyone to put themselves out in any way.57»

As for Sister Lucy, she observed that, as per Our Lord’s words in the Rianjo revelation of 1931, His ministers were refusing to heed His request and delaying its execution58.

On May 14, 1982 she had a long parlour conversation in the Fatima Carmel with Msgr. Hnilica, Father Sebastian Labo, Don Luigi Bianchi, and the Provincial of the Carmelites59.

«Sister», Don Bianchi asked here, «in his act of offering yesterday, did the Pope truly consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?» With the aid of her finger, Sister Lucy motioned no. Then, with both hands, she traced the shape of the globe of the earth, explaining that, for Our Lady’s request to be fulfilled, each bishop would have to perform in his cathedral a solemn and public consecration. She remarked that Russia had not been the object of the consecration. Yet God wanted «the consecration of Russia and solely of Russia, without any addition»; for «Russia is an immense, well-defined territory, and its conversion will be much remarked, thereby demonstrating what can be obtained through consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.» As Msgr. Hnilica had made a number of attempts, since the election of John Paul II, to get him to fulfil Heaven’s request, Sister Lucy encouraged him to continue his efforts; she told him: «Much remains to be done... Do not waver.» Father Labo observed that «despite her reserve, the seer did not succeed in concealing her affliction. She noted that many Christians and pastors had not welcomed or followed, to the extent necessary, Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance.60»

Here we rediscover an echo of her warnings to Father Fuentes. Let us also recall one of the things she told John Haffert. In July 1981, at a meeting in the Carmel parlour, the founder of the Blue Army had said to her, «It seems that today we do not have great men like Pius X, Saint Benedict and Saint Gregory the Great.» She replied, «We do have great men, but they are not recognised.61»

After May 13, 1982, Dr. Lacerda, clearly discerning that which Heaven was still awaiting from the Holy Father, strongly encouraged the Apostolic Nuncio, Msgr. Portalupi, for almost a year, to visit the seer again. The meeting in the Coimbra Carmel eventually took place on Saturday, March 19, 1983, between 4 p.m. and 6.30 p.m., in the presence of Father Messias Coelho and Doctor Lacerda. «Pope John Paul II», she told them, «simply renewed the consecration of the world performed by Pius XII on October 31, 1942. From this consecration of the world one can expect certain benefits, but not the grace of Russia’s conversion

Sister Lucy stated that everything she was telling them about Our Lady’s request, she had already written to John Paul II.

The seer also spoke of a public conversation on the next day after May 13, 1982, a completely fabricated conversation in which she was supposed to have made statements like «the consecration of Russia is done». She had then found that it was impossible for her to contradict this: «The consecration of Russia was not done as Our Lady requested. I was unable to say this, because I did not have permission from the Holy See.62»
 

THE ACT OF OFFERING OF THE WORLD ON MARCH 25, 1984

Given that Sister Lucy had once more testified to Heaven’s wishes, and that Msgr. Beltritti, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, had recalled them to the bishops of the 1983 Synod63, would John Paul II finally satisfy the divine demands?

On December 8, 1983, he wrote to the bishops of the entire world to inform them of the ceremony that was to take place in Rome, on March 25, 1984, and asked them to «renew» the consecration with him on that day: «The words of the text I am sending you correspond, with slight modifications, to those which I pronounced in Fatima on May 13, 1982.64» Certainly the modifications were slight, if anything rather too slight: the only addition was the mention of the jubilee year of the Redemption.

In the Coimbra Carmel, on Thursday, March 22, 198465, Sister Lucy’s seventy-seventh birthday was being celebrated. As happened every year, on that date she received a visit from Mrs. Pestana. Her old friend wished her a happy birthday and then put this question to her: «So, Lucy, is it the consecration on Sunday?» The seer motioned no and declared, «This consecration cannot have a decisive character.66»

Sister Lucy had already read the letter from John Paul II to all the bishops of the world, as well as the text of the prayer of offering. She had observed that «Russia did not plainly appear as the sole object of the consecration». She judged therefore that, this time once again, Heaven’s demands would not be satisfied.

On March 25, 1984, on the square of Saint Peter’s Basilica, before the statue of Our Lady brought over expressly from the Capelinha, Pope John Paul II pronounced his act of offering. The full text thereof will be found in an appendix to this chapter.

The Pope read it out, adding the following supplication: «Enlighten especially those peoples on behalf of whom You are awaiting our consecration and offering.67»

And in the evening, during the farewell ceremony to Our Lady, he declared that he had wanted to consecrate «all the peoples, particularly those who have such great need of this consecration, those peoples for whom you yourself [the Virgin Mary] await our act of consecration, the act that entrusts them to you»68. In expressing himself thus, the Pope was acknowledging that the Virgin Mary was still awaiting the requested consecration. He was conceding that his act of offering had not responded to Heaven’s request.

Some time afterwards, John Paul II explained to Msgr. Paul Josef Cordes, a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the reason why he had not accomplished the consecration of Russia. To quote him verbatim, he had not referred to that nation explicitly because he was afraid «that his words might be interpreted as a provocation by the Soviet leaders»69. He was also aware that, if he himself were to consecrate Russia, this would infuriate the Orthodox hierarchs of Moscow. A Russian metropolitan told Mrs. Irene Posnoff in no uncertain terms, «The Orthodox don’t need the Pope to entrust themselves to Mary.70» John Paul II sought to keep the peace with the Russian Orthodox leaders, as he was hoping that they would allow him to visit Moscow. Having just returned from a trip to Asia, on May 12, 1984, he declared: «The people of Russia are my brothers; like the Polish people, they are of Slav origin; I understand their language, as it is very similar to my own.» When he was asked whether he would get the chance to visit them, the Holy Father replied, «Everything is possible in the plans of Providence.71»

After the act of offering on March 25, 1984, the principal Fatima experts publicly stated that the collegial consecration of Russia had still not been done. Father Messias Dias Coelho had announced in Mensagem de Fatima, on the eve of March 25, 1984: «Consecration of Russia: will not happen this time either.» Then, on the day after the act of offering, the same Dias Coelho wrote under the pseudonym F. Stein: «We have not achieved the end proposed by the Mother of God»72, for «the prophecy of conversion was restricted to one country, Russia» and, «in the economy of the Fatima message», the consecration of Russia represents «the efficacious and proximate sign» of the conversion of that nation. In no way, therefore, could a consecration of the world be «the signal» of Russia’s conversion!

Father Antonio Maria Martins made a similar affirmation73. In September 1986, at the Fatima Symposium, he whispered in the Abbé Laurentin’s ear that John Paul II would have a providential opportunity in 1988, with the millennial celebration of Russia’s baptism, to effect the consecration of that nation74.

Alas, John Paul II’s heart was in the thrall of other passions, and his mind was wholly absorbed in the realisation of his own great interfaith, globalist and millenarist project. To those who reminded him of Our Lady’s request, he would reply, not without some irritation, «The consecration is done. We renew it every morning.» This was his reply to the Abbé Caillon in April 198575, and to the Superior of the Carmel of the Via del Casaletto, in Rome, on January 26, 198776.

Furthermore, the hierarchy continued to ignore the request of Pontevedra, which is connected to that of Tuy. Father Simonin, who would never allow himself the slightest criticism of H.H. Pope John Paul II, declared himself astonished at this in 1985: «As well as the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Sister Lucy requested, on behalf of the Virgin, the Holy Father’s endorsement of the devotion of the First Saturdays. This, it must be said, has not been fulfilled by any Pope to date.77»
 

JOHN PAUL II TURNS AWAY FROM FATIMA

That which the Abbé de Nantes observed and wrote at the beginning of John Paul II’s papacy still remained highly topical in the mid 80’s, like a clarion call of truth:

«War is in the air just as it was in the 30’s, as evidenced by its red cortège of ominous signs, and the flashpoints that are spontaneously igniting on every side. Do you believe that this time the Pastors of the Church will heed these warnings and remember the Virgin’s message? Absolutely not.»

The Abbé de Nantes then urgently demanded that the Third Secret of Fatima be disclosed to the world, describing it as certainly «terrifying, but also beneficial»: «We are waiting for it, we are clamouring for it, we are losing patience. Give us this Secret before it is too late.» Then, anticipating its content, with remarkable intuition, he continued:

«There is one response we could make here and now, if we were not so blind and foolish. It would be to pray, to do penance, to follow to the letter the requests of the Virgin Mary, all-powerful with the Heart of the Father of Her Divine Son; and at the same time to call upon the whole world – starting with Catholics, and then moving on to separated Christians and all men of good will – to undergo the necessary conversion. To cry out in the streets of our cities, as the Abbé Richard envisages, and rather like Jonah did in Babylon, “Only forty more days and Paris will be destroyed.” Or rather, “Only a few more months, a few more years, and the world will be transformed into an inferno, a charnel house, an extermination camp. A living hell!”

«And we are not talking about a handful of priests in the streets of Paris, who would simply end up in police cells, as the Abbé Richard writes, or, to be more up-to-date, in a psychiatric clinic. But we are talking about all our bishops and priests, making good use of their Lenten pastoral letters and their Sundays sermons. And were are talking about the Pope, writing a luminous encyclical, flashing like the lightning, terrifying as the sword of God’s Word, razor-sharp and trenchant, for the salvation of the earth. In my humble opinion, such action, in the days to come, is the necessary condition of our temporal peace and, of course, of that other peace, the eternal one.

«A necessary condition, but sufficient. Because God is good, slow to anger and swift to mercy, knowing of what we are made. He loves His Church. He expects so little, just an effort, a sign of regret and change… that consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which She has been asking of all the world’s bishops in union with the Sovereign Pontiff – asking in vain, without obtaining it. Let them just do it, and God will allow Himself to be touched! “Russia will be converted and the world will enjoy a period of peace.”

«But I search, I trawl through the many speeches, sermons, allocutions and encyclicals, and I find nothing of the kind. If the Pope does recall the horror of war, the folly of armaments, the dreadful realities of nuclear conflict, it is to advocate disarmament, dialogue with the enemy, renunciation, non-violence, and always this foolish confidence in man, this urgent work of progress, egalitarian distribution and universal love, seen as factors of peace. It is never to repeat the fundamental words of Christ’s Gospel and of the entire holy Catholic tradition: “Unless you do penance, unless you convert, you will all perish.”78»

John Paul II preached neither penance nor devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to which our Heavenly Father has tied the divine gift of peace.

Brother Bruno de Jésus writes: «For what is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary if not devotion to God Himself, so to speak, that divine predilection by virtue of which God only wishes to grant prayers if they are addressed to Him through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Outside of this, there is no salvation. Any prayer not presented through the Immaculate Heart of Mary remains a dead letter. God does not listen, He does not hear.79»

In his encyclical Redemptoris Mater, published on March 25, 1987 to prepare for a Marian Year, John Paul II only once referred to Fatima, and that just as one pilgrimage site among others. He failed to recommend the recitation of the Rosary; in fact the word was entirely absent! It is true that he spoke of “the Heart of Mary of Nazareth”, but he did not use the expression “Immaculate Heart” so evocative of Her illustrious privilege. In the words of the Abbé Laurentin, «John Paul II did not wish to revive the exaggerations of preconciliar times. The Pope quotes at length the restrictive formulas of Lumen gentium: Christ is the “unique Mediator”, according to 1 Tm 2:5-6. “The maternal role of Mary towards men takes nothing away from this unique Mediation of Christ’s, but manifests it.” John Paul II adds the following restrictions of his own: it is a “subordinate” mediation, a “mediation in Christ”. The Pope borrows this formula, without acknowledgement, from the Protestant Hans Asmussen, who had recently come to accept Mary’s Mediation provided it was qualified with the words “in Christ”.80»

The thoughts of John Paul II ran counter to those of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Pope was hoping for a reconciliation between the “separated Churches of East and West”, but yet he did not want to «convert» Russia to Catholicism, as his great millenarist plan was to unite all religions on an equal footing, and to deny the Catholic Church the right to claim any superiority over “the others”. His whole programme corresponded with his fantasy of a world at peace, in which the various religions formed but a single “Movement for the Spiritual Animation of Universal Democracy”, a fantasy symbolised by the meeting he organised at Assisi on October 27, 1986. The violent contradiction existing between God’s wishes revealed at Fatima and the interfaith initiatives for peace organised by His minister John Paul II was made very apparent by a disturbing incident that took place at this very Assisi meeting itself. Here it is, as described by an eyewitness:

«After some young Israelites had handed out olive branches to the participants, and after the Pope’s speech, the ceremony came to an end with the various groups breaking up and everyone leaving in the greatest disorder. It was then, at the bottom of the esplanade where the ceremony had taken place, that, as I was leaving, I saw, lying abandoned on the ground, a processional litter on which Our Lady of Fatima stood above an arrangement of flowers in the form of a white heart bearing the wound, against a backdrop of red flowers. The whole thing was lying there in the grass, lit by a ray of the setting sun.

«I had just three pictures left in my camera. The photographs came out well and are striking. You can see this touching statue against the backdrop of a stormy sky, and the contrast with the previous series of photographs is harrowing, I would even say apocalyptic.» Like the failure of one last attempt by Our Heavenly Mother to save Her children.

«I managed to ascertain, from a few young people who were there, that a procession had approached and that it had been turned back by the security services. But I was unable to learn anything else and I know of no group81 claiming to have staged such a demonstration under the patronage of Our Lady of Fatima, on that day, in Assisi.»

«Here is the incident to make us reflect», commented the Abbé de Nantes, «the heavenly sign on a long cold day, a day without joy, faith or light, when God seemed deaf to the prayers rising up to Him. What was it all about, that day, that place, that concourse of so many people? It was about peace. About obtaining peace for the world. Through whom and by what means? Through all religions and all cults.

«And it was then that came forward the Person who has received from the one true God the gift of peace. She stepped up, She approached, She came to offer the assembly of all religions the gift of Her grace to all those willing to pray to Her and to entreat Her, and through Her to touch the Heart of Her Son, without whom no man, no people can achieve anything. And lo, She was driven back – what a sign! – out of respect for the Chief Rabbi of Rome and the grand Mufti of Mecca, the snake worshippers and the fire worshippers, and the devotees of Buddha whose golden image was seated, for this occasion, above the empty tabernacle of Saint Peter’s Church!

«But look how they proceeded in Assisi! The aim, the supreme desire, of Jesus, is that mankind, the Pope, all the bishops, indeed everyone should open up their hearts to Mary. And in Assisi, the other evening, they threw Her out, turned Her away! They prefer to pray to Buddha and Allah for peace!

«Fatima teaches us that She alone can help us obtain the peace of the world and the end of war. And yet She alone was turned away at Assisi. By a Pope whom She had – he says it himself – saved from death on May 13, 1981, five years earlier. What an irreparable aberration!82»
 

THE TRAVESTY OF OUR LADY’S PROMISES

At the end of the 80’s, the Pope’s cordial relations with the President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, their meetings, notably that of December 1, 1989 at the Vatican, and the messages exchanged between them, all favoured the development of a media campaign that falsified Our Lady’s promises.

We must remember the circumstances of the time. Russia was undergoing profound internal changes thanks to Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika, which were not simply a political manoeuvre to hoodwink the West and lull it to sleep; the Soviet president wanted to free Russian society from the iron collar of the Communist Party and from the structures of the totalitarian State that were suffocating it. These reforms in the Warsaw Pact countries and the ensuing revolutions, along with the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 8, 1989, led to the break up of the Soviet bloc.

Now the directors of the Blue Army started to propagate the idea that the liberalization movement in the countries of the East was linked to the acts of offering of the world accomplished by John Paul II; it was, they said, its supernatural and miraculous fruit! In the United States, Father Fox, editor of the Fatima Family Messenger magazine, launched a press campaign in the autumn of 1989, proclaiming, «The consecration of Russia has been done. The Virgin is satisfied, behold the miracle. The conversion of Russia is under way, for God keeps His word.83» He was supported by senior Roman prelates and by the Bishop of Fatima.

On May 13, 1990, at the Cova da Iria, before five hundred thousand pilgrims – after a speech on “Europe at the hour of perestroika” by Cardinal Meisner, the former Archbishop of Berlin and therefore a... “messenger from the East”! – Msgr. do Amaral declared, «Everything leads us to believe that the consecration sought by Our Lady has been done. Let us stop importuning the Holy Father, who has accomplished everything it was possible for him to do. And he is entitled to think that everything that has happened in such a surprising manner in the East and in Eastern Central Europe – religious liberty recognised by rulers, the institution of the sacred hierarchy, respect for the fundamental rights of the human person – can be attributed to the intervention of Our Lady, a Mother full of solicitude for all men and all peoples.84»

Thus did the Bishop of Fatima substitute for the actual substance of Our Lady’s promises a content that was illusory and in keeping with conciliar humanism. As though the proclamation of religious liberty in Russia could signify the «conversion» of that nation!

«The devil’s minions», observed the Abbé de Nantes, «have succeeded in their perverse ends – well, almost! They have obscured Fatima with Medjugorje85 and other wonders of Satan. Furthermore, in a sacrilegious inversion, while refusing to submit their wills to the Divine Will, which they were tirelessly reminded of by Our Lady’s faithful messenger, they have undertaken to subject the Blessed Virgin Mary to their own accursed wills, and are already proclaiming to the whole world that their “inverted” Lady of Fatima has been working with them and Moscow, and blessing their infernal designs with a great miracle.86»

John Paul II had declined the invitation of the Portuguese episcopate in 1987: he had not gone to the Cova da Iria for the seventieth anniversary of the apparitions. But he had pre-empted the seventy-fifth anniversary by going there on May 13, 1991 to commemorate “the special protection”87 he claimed to have enjoyed ten years earlier, at the time of the attempt on his life on May 13, 1981. In short, John Paul II’s journey was rightly described in the official account as «autobiographical»88.

From the moment of his greeting at the Capelinha, on May 12, 1991, he celebrated the 1989 revolutions with thanksgiving, as though they were connected to his act of March 25, 1984: «Thank you, Heavenly Mother, for the maternal tenderness with which you led the peoples towards freedom.89»

As regards the upheavals taking place in the Warsaw Pact countries, the Abbé de Nantes gave this nuanced judgement:

«To many, the great opening of the East to the West seemed like a miracle and the liberation of the Church of the martyrs and confessors, persecuted for their faith since 1917. Some gave John Paul II the credit for it, and hastened to see (and to get others to see) in it the fulfilment of the promises of Fatima. There can only be one response to this supposition: if perestroika turns out to benefit the Church, then, although this clearly cannot constitute the fulfilment of the Most Blessed Virgin’s promises, seeing that not a single one of Her requests has been heeded let alone honoured, it might at least be a providential event the remote effects of which, doubtless after many trials, might be that very conversion of Russia and that world peace (obtained through the Immaculate Heart of Mary) which, as we know, are soon to end the present nightmare.90»

The hour of the victory of the Immaculate had not yet arrived. During the 90’s, one could observe the fulfilment of the more gloomy forecasts of the Abbé de Nantes. For he had foreseen and announced, from the very first days of John Paul II’s papacy, all the disastrous consequences of his fight for human rights and freedom: «Unless communism reacts violently, this beloved liberty will one day lead Poland into the same licentiousness in which the West is collapsing. It would be entirely fanciful to think that her faith alone will protect her, without any other restraining influence. For once the taste for freedom has overcome the State’s authority and gained a peculiar vigour from its victory over it, will it tolerate the authority of the Church much longer? It would be highly imprudent to think so […]. A people who have the faith can be roused with the slogan of liberty, but never will the idea of liberty restore faith to a world collapsing in impiety.91»

The correctness of his judgement and prognosis no longer needs to be demonstrated. Even the magazine 30 Days, despite being very much of Cardinal Ratzinger’s persuasion, stressed just how chimerical had proven to be the renewal expected in the countries of the East thanks to the wind of liberty blowing through them. Under the title “When Popes are themselves fallible”, Gianni Valente wrote:

«We have clear evidence of the subjectivity of the historical judgements of Popes in those papal declarations motivated, not by postconciliar euphoria, but by the false “ideology of 1989”.» And he went on to quote the encyclical Centesimus annus, «which, in one of its chapters, took the form of a homage to the era of 1989». Yet, «all the politico-social developments in the countries of the East have rapidly killed off the clichéd mythology of 1989»92.

The case of Poland is emblematic: after her “liberation” from communism, she suffered an irremediable religious decline as well as the electoral victories of the erstwhile Communist Party. At the legislative elections of September 23, 2001, the centrist coalition set up by Solidarnosc won no more than six per cent of the vote and consequently failed to secure a single seat in parliament. On the other hand, the Alliance of the Democratic Left, that is to say the party born in 1990 of the metamorphosis of the former communist nomenklatura, gained the majority of the seats. «By preferring security to the adventure of freedom, the country of the Pope killed off the party of the Pope and restored power to the Communist establishment, today co-opted within the European socialist parties.93»

The break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the persecutions against the Orthodox Church did not mark the realisation of the promises of Our Lady of Fatima. The reorganisation of the Latin Catholic Church in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, decreed by John Paul II in 1991, only served to exacerbate the conflict between the Holy See and the Patriarchate of Moscow. The Federation of Russia’s new law on the freedom of conscience and religious associations came into effect on October 1, 1997, despite John Paul II’s request to President Boris Yeltsin and despite the Holy See’s official protest. This law puts the Russian Catholic Church in a very precarious position: every Catholic parish is obliged to enrol annually in an official register, as though it were some kind of sect, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and this enrolment can be arbitrarily cancelled at any moment.

Let us give one significant example of the belligerence and antagonism of the Russian Orthodox leaders against the projects of John Paul II and his representatives. Under the title “Moscow sets its conditions for the Pope’s visit to Russia”, La Croix of October 26, 2001, stated: «On Tuesday a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate informed the Interfax agency that the John Paul II’s visit to Russia would become more likely if the problems currently making his visit impossible were resolved. Moscow wants a formal ban on conversions of the Orthodox to Catholicism and requires the Uniate problem in the Ukraine to be resolved. The Russian Orthodox Church was reacting to a statement made by Msgr. Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the Apostolic Administrator of Moscow, according to which the resistance of Patriarch Alexis II to a visit by the Pope was weakening.»

In the face of these events, let us recall the lesson that Brother Bruno de Jésus would draw from this apparently irremediable opposition between Moscow and Rome: «The struggle between the Virgin and the demon here reaches a crisis point, allowing us a glimpse of its impending outcome. And the crux of the combat is the heart of the Pope. He wants to visit Moscow. The Blessed Virgin wants something very different, namely the conversion of Russia, which Alexis II does not want. Yet it is the Blessed Virgin who will carry the day, nothing can be more certain: Russia will be converted after the Pope has consecrated it to Her Immaculate Heart. For the time being, therefore, the obstacle is not Alexis II, who will be unable to oppose the miracle of Russia’s conversion at the hour of Mary, but John Paul II who seeks to please Alexis II more than the Blessed Virgin, and thus evades the consecration She demands of him.94»

The more we study the gestures and acts of John Paul II during the first twenty years of his papacy, the more we observe how he shirked and side-stepped the wishes of Our Lady of Fatima by a series of delay-tactics and counterfeit consecrations. After the assassination attempt of May 13, 1981, he did not fundamentally change his attitude towards the Fatima revelations. The Abbé de Nantes recognized this with great pain: John Paul II, despite having made a pilgrimage to Fatima, had passed «from a semblance of reverence to an hostility, a struggle, a passion to crush this Event, as well as the prophecies associated with it and the Virgin’s insistent requests, all fiercely quashed, rejected… A mystery, yes! of dissension, a profound mystery, not of Love, but of rivalry and iniquity from which the Church is suffering and dying.95»

 

APPENDIX I

THE ACT OF OFFERING OF MARCH 25, 1984

Here is the full text of the act of offering of the world, pronounced by Pope John Paul II in Rome, on March 25, 1984:

«“We fly to your patronage, O Holy Mother of God.” As we utter the words of this antiphon with which the Church of Christ has prayed for centuries, we find ourselves today before you, O Mother, in the Jubilee Year of our Redemption.

«We find ourselves united with all the pastors of the Church in a particular bond whereby we constitute a body and a college, just as by Christ’s wish the Apostles constituted a body and college with Peter. In the bond of this union, we utter the words of the present Act, in which we wish to include, once more, the Church’s hopes and anxieties for the modern world. Forty years ago, and again ten years later, your servant Pope Pius XII, having before his eyes the painful experiences of the human family, entrusted and consecrated to your Immaculate Heart the whole world, especially the peoples for which by reason of their situation you have particular love and solicitude.

«This world of individuals and nations we too have before our eyes today: the world of the second millennium that is drawing to a close, the modern world, our world! The Church, mindful of the Lord’s words: “Go... and make disciples of all nations... and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:19-20), has, at the Second Vatican Council, given fresh life to her awareness of her mission in this world.

«And therefore, O Mother of individuals and peoples, you who know all their sufferings and their hopes, you who have a mother’s awareness of all the struggles between good and evil, between light and darkness, which afflict the modern world, accept the cry which we, moved by the Holy Spirit, address directly to your Heart. Embrace, with the love of the Mother and Handmaid of the Lord, this human world of ours, which we entrust and consecrate to you, for we are full of concern for the earthly and eternal destiny of individuals and peoples. In a special way we entrust and consecrate to you those individuals and nations which particularly need to be thus entrusted and consecrated. “We fly to your patronage, O Holy Mother of God.” Despise not our petitions in our necessities.

«Behold, as we stand before you, Mother of Christ, before your Immaculate Heart, we desire, together with the whole Church, to unite ourselves with the consecration which, for love of us, your Son made of himself to the Father: “For their sake”, he said, “I consecrate myself that they also may be consecrated in the truth.” (Jn 17:19) We wish to unite ourselves with our Redeemer in this his consecration for the world and for the human race, which, in his divine Heart, has the power to obtain pardon and to secure reparation. The power of this consecration lasts for all time and embraces all individuals, peoples and nations. It overcomes every evil that the spirit of darkness is able to awaken, and has in fact awakened in our times, in the heart of man and in his history. How deeply we feel the need for the consecration of humanity and the world – our modern world – in union with Christ himself! For the redeeming work of Christ must be shared in by the world through the Church. The present year of the Redemption shows this: the special Jubilee of the whole Church. Above all creatures, may you be blessed, you, the Handmaid of the Lord, who in the fullest way obeyed the divine call! Hail to you, who are wholly united to the redeeming consecration of your Son! Mother of the Church! Enlighten the People of God along the paths of faith, hope and love! Enlighten especially the peoples whose consecration and entrustment by us you are awaiting. Help us to live in the truth of the consecration of Christ for the entire human family of the modern world.

«In entrusting to you, O Mother, the world, all individuals and peoples, we also entrust to you this very consecration of the world, placing it in your motherly Heart. Immaculate Heart! Help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future! From famine and war, deliver us. From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us. From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us. From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us. From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us. From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us. From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us. From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us. From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us, deliver us. Accept, O Mother of Christ, this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies. Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit to conquer all sin: individual sin and the “sin of the world”, in all its manifestations. Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the Redemption, the power of merciful Love! May it put a stop to evil! May it transform consciences! May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of Hope!1»

From the convoluted formulas in the fourth paragraph, it becomes apparent that John Paul II did not ultimately effect a true consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, unlike Pius XII who had performed it using plain, simple and truly expressive language: «To Thee, to Thy Immaculate Heart […] we entrust, we offer, we consecrate, not only the Church […] but also the world.2»

Furthermore, this prayer contains ambiguous, debatable and even heterodox propositions. In the fifth paragraph, mention is made of a consecration of Christ «for the world». It is then stated that «the power of this consecration lasts for all time and embraces all individuals, peoples and nations. It overcomes every evil that the spirit of darkness is able to awaken, and has in fact awakened in our times, in the heart of man and in his history». In short, thanks to this consecration of Christ for the world, all men are supposedly saved. So here we rediscover elements of John Paul II’s gnostic doctrine3.

 

APPENDIX II

UNDUE PREJUDICES AGAINST REVELATIONS INCORRECTLY TERMED PRIVATE

In his homily at Fatima on May 13, 1982, Pope John Paul II declared, «The Church has always taught and continues to proclaim that God’s revelation was brought to completion in Jesus Christ, who is the fullness of that revelation, and that “no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of the Lord” (Dei Verbum, no. 4). The Church evaluates and judges private revelations by the criterion of their conformity with that single public Revelation.1»

“Conformity with the Apostolic Revelation” is a traditional criterion in the discernment of spirits. Genuinely divine apparitions, visions and locutions – in short, private revelations which have sometimes taken on a public character, as for example at Fatima on October 13, 1917 – are always consistent and in perfect harmony with the infallible Revelation of the Old and New Testaments.

Nevertheless, certain theologians draw unwarranted conclusions from this principle. They reason as if God were unable, since the death of the last Apostle, to reveal anything new to us, not even the dearest wishes of His Heart for our times.

The Fifth Lateran Council, in its constitution Supremae majestatis of December 19, 1516 concerning preaching, had already issued this warning: «When Our Lord, through some inspiration, reveals future events to certain souls, then, as He proclaimed through the mouth of the Prophet Amos2, do not command prophets not to prophesy, and, as Saint Paul says3, do not quench the Spirit nor despise prophecies. We in no way wish these prophetic revelations to be numbered amongst fables or deceits, nor that their publication be hindered in any wise; for not only would one be quenching the grace of that Spirit by imposing silence on prophets, but one would also be doing a certain injury to the Holy Spirit.4»

However, theologians and members of the Church’s hierarchy have often, alas, despised revelations improperly termed private. That is why the Abbé de Nantes has vigorously criticised their error, as for example in his magisterial lecture pronounced for the celebration of the tricentenary of the Sacred Heart’s message to the King of France: there he examined the reasons put forward by so many pastors to justify their reservations regarding private revelations. Here is a brief account of his lecture, published in the Catholic Counter-Reformation:

«Without question we have the light and strength necessary to confront life’s difficulties at any period, even in the last times, which are predicted to be truly terrible and perilous for everyone. The Christian Revelation, the Catholic sacraments, the teachings and laws of the ecclesiastical magisterium are sufficient.

«But if Jesus Christ sees fit to advise us of His particular wishes in addition, that is to say with added precision and insistence, concerning new matters hitherto dormant or hidden in the Mystery of His Divine Heart, by means of private revelations such as Paray-le-Monial and Fatima, which for my poor head and heart seem to constitute the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of the divine warnings for the great combats of the last times, what are we to do if not to receive them and submit to them with the greatest zeal and the greatest application? Why, in God’s name, should these authentic communications from Heaven remain ignored and vain, discarded, contested and thwarted?»

In the remainder of his lecture, the Abbé de Nantes exposed, in polemical fashion, the unwarranted claims of so many churchmen.

«The main concern of theologians or canon lawyers, and even more (!) of those who deign to consider the question of private revelations, is to subordinate them absolutely and gravely to the Biblical Revelation, to the Revelation that Christ entrusted to the Apostles, defined by the Church as sovereign and plenary. – Absolutely correct!

«Whereupon they pass on to another truth, one that is equally incontestable, yet rather less clear and capable of verification, namely that private revelations may in no way, on no account, add to the deposit of faith or contradict it on any point whatsoever. It is obviously for the ecclesiastical Magisterium to judge these high and difficult questions, not for us others, poor unauthorised apostles that we are. – All well and good…

«From this theologians draw a conclusion which, even now, appears to them to be an adequate response to the enquiries of serious-minded people, i.e. the kind of people who read them (and so much for everyone else!)… Namely that “Public Revelation” is necessary for salvation and, for this reason, is the obligatory object of our faith and its sufficient object. All the rest is (therefore?) gratuitous, optional, obviously inadequate but also uncertain, not to say improbable and even superfluous. In other words, serious people do not speak of such matters. Should they then go on to grant a few precious pages to “particular or private revelations”, it is to say that one should only trust them on the basis of their credibility, that is, on the basis of the scientific demonstration of the reality of the facts, in particular of the miracles that attest their divine origin… and also on the basis of their orthodoxy, in other words, of their theologically established compatibility with the dogmas of the faith. – All doubtless true, certainly. But…

«But lurking behind all this, I have come to detect a kind of claim by theologians to validate God’s interventions in our history by continually appealing to their own personal insights and also, which amounts to much the same thing, to their own conceptions of where the world is headed and its present needs… and all this in aid of preparing and facilitating the appreciation of the Church’s pastors and ultimately of the Sovereign Pontiff, who are the infallible judges in such matters. And so, to add a little more spice to my talk, I put this unusual question: “Does Christ still have the right to intervene (the word says it all: intervene) in the life of His Church and the world, and even to beg His Holy Mother to provide for our needs, be they private, or more general, or even universal… checking up on the work of bishops and popes, who should naturally be only too happy to hand the rudder over to Them in difficult straights?”

«And I formulated this accusation, admittedly in a slightly playful manner… addressed to all and sundry: “You, the Authorities, the Princes of the Church, do you have a proper respect for these interventions from Heaven in matters over which you have customary responsibility… or do you not sometimes, not to say frequently or even constantly, conceive some irritation with them, as though they were an intrusion, a disruption in your management of Affairs?” All the more so since it is your job to examine whether the thing is real and whether it comes from Heaven, and since this scientific, canonical and dogmatic investigation is an ideal way to understand the inner message, its very signification and the intention it reveals, thus giving you great freedom to contest its validity… checking up on the work of its divine Author!5»

The accusation made by the Abbé de Nantes was only too justified, seeing that the principles enunciated by John Paul II in his homily of May 13, 1982 permitted the voice of Sister Lucy herself to be circumsribed and stifled, as we are going to see in the following chapters.
 


Endnotes

(1) Alain Virconcelet, Jean-Paul II, Julliard, 1994, p. 215.
(2) André Martin, La Pologne défend son âme, Saint-Paul, 1977, p. 17 sq.
(3) Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, S. S. Jean-Paul II et l’histoire cachée de notre époque, Plon, 1996, p. 96.
(4) Cf. “Wyszinski dit non”, CRC no. 136, December 1978, p. 17 sq.
(5) Hansjakob Stehle, “La Pologne tourmentée fête son millenaire”, Études, June 1966, p. 799.
(6) Cf. Januario dos Santos, A Mensagem de Fatima e os Papas, Janisan, 1986, p. 136.
(7) CRC no. 136, p. 26.
(8) The Abbé Caillon related this intervention in his lectures on the history of Fatima.
(9) Bernard Lecomte, La vérité l’emportera toujours sur le mensonge, 1991, Lattès, p. 95.
(10) CRC no. 193, October 1983, p. 11. Note that at Vatican II Msgr. Wojtyla opposed the condemnation of Communism; cf. Bernstein and Politi, op. cit., p. 93.
(11) CRC no. 169, September 1981, p. 1-2.
(12) D. C., 1979, p. 975.
(13) Quoted in CRC no. 170, October 1981, p. 2.
(14) Ibid.
(15) On November 10, 1982, Msgr. Hnilica reported to our correspondent in Rome the substance of this conversation with John Paul II.
(16) In fact, contrary to statements made by Laurentin and theologians enamoured of the conciliar religion of the cult of man, there is no dogmatic difficulty in the Pope and the bishops consecrating schismatic Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, without any participation by its natural ecclesial and political authorities. The Virgin Mary’s sovereignty over the entire world no longer requires to be demonstrated: «The consecration of the human race to Our Lady carried out by Pope Pius XII on October 31, 1942 and renewed by so many of the faithful», observed J. Thomas, «proclaims the inviolable rights of Mary over all that exists, of Mary Queen and Sovereign alongside Christ, King and Lord, of Mary Mediatrix alongside Christ the Mediator. It exalts the true queenship of Mary, Her universal queenship, conferring on it a social character like that of Christ’s; it recognises the Gloriosa Regina mundi, the glorious Queen of the world – as mentioned in the Office of Our Lady of the Rosary –, Her victories and the reign of love of Her Immaculate Heart.» (“Le dogme et le culte du Coeur Immaculé de Marie”, L’Ami du clergé, November 18, 1948, p. 708)
(17) Soul magazine, November-December 1980.
(18) Father Benno Mikocki, Caminhos para a paz, in Actas do I encontro internacional sobre a pastoral de Fatima, Santuario de Fatima, 1993, p. 248.
(19) Januario dos Santos, op. cit., p. 141.
(20) Lecture given by Msgr. Stanislaw Dziwisz on May 13, 2001. L’Osservatore Romano, French edition, May 29, 2001, p. 5.
(21) André Frossard dialogue avec Jean-Paul II. N’ayez pas peur! Laffont, 1982, p. 349.
(22) Ibid., p. 352, 357.
(23) Quoted in CRC no. 307, November 1994, p. 28.
(24) Cf. Msgr. Tarcisio Bertone, Le message de Fatima, D. C., 2000, p. 672.
(25) D. C., 1981, p. 966.
(26) CRC no. 372, November-December 2000, p. 23.
(27) Quoted in the Livre d’accusation à notre Saint Père le pape Jean-Paul II, CRC, 1983, p. 126.
(28) “L’attentat contre le Pape: Pourquoi?” Supplement to the CRC no. 165, May 13, 1981.
(29) “Claque communiste chinoise”, CRC no. 167, July 1981, p. 1.
(30) Lettres à nos amis, no. 39, June 29, 1981.
(31) Act of offering, June 7, 1981, D. C., 1981, p. 621-622.
(32) Joseph de Sainte-Marie, “Réflexions sur un acte de consécration”, Marianum XLIV, 1982, p. 115.
(33) This reply of John Paul II’s was reported by Msgr. Hnilica to our correspondent in Rome on November 10, 1982.
(34) Published by Centurion, p. VIII.
(35) How zealously Saint Maximilian-Mary Kolbe exhorted his sons to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate! «Let us act in such a manner that our consecration to the Immaculate becomes more and more total.» (November 6, 1937, Entretiens spirituels inédits, Lethielleux, 1974, p. 152) «Every soul that gives itself unrestrictedly to the Immaculate thereby testifies that is in Her and through Her that it desires to find the Lord Jesus and through Jesus come to God the Father.» (June 20, 1937, ibid., p. 55) «Be assured that he who belongs to the Immaculate will never be lost, but that the more he belongs to Her, the more he will belong to Jesus and to the Father.» (November 10, 1935, ibid., p. 86)
(36) No. 120.
(37) Documentaçao critica de Fatima, vol. 2: Processo canonico diocesano, Santuario de Fatima, 1999, p. 269. Note that the Bishop of Fatima had already learned of the request for the consecration of Russia when he published his judgement in 1930. Toute la vérité sur Fatima, vol. 2, p. 335.
(38) Fernando Leite, Voz da Fatima, no. 841, October 13, 1992.
(39) Stella maris, January 1993, p. 22.
(40) L’Homme nouveau, February 7, 1982.
(41) D. C., 1981, p. 1064.
(42) Letter from the Abbé Caillon to John Haffert, November 27, 1982. Archives of the Little Brothers of the Sacred Heart, Fatima collection.
(43) We know several details about this interview between Sister Lucy and the nuncio thanks to the account given by Dr. Lacerda to the Abbé Caillon over the summer of 1982. Furthermore, consulted in December 1982 by John Haffert, the seer replied that the account presented in the Abbé Caillon’s letter of November 27, 1982, was correct.
(44) We have only quoted the opening sentences of this extract, which appeared to us to express Lucy’s thinking as Our Lady’s messenger. Cf. supra, p. 24.
(45) The Pestana de Vasconcelos family, from the city of Porto, were a highly generous family and on friendly terms with Msgr. da Silva, the Bishop of Leiria. When she left for Tuy, on October 24, 1925, Lucy had been accompanied to the station by the grandmother of Maria Eugénia Pestana, whose husband was one of the founders of the Catholic Circle of Porto. Mrs. Eugénia Pestana died on December 27, 2001, at the age of ninety.
(46) Caillon, La consécration de la Russie aux très Saints Coeurs de Jésus et de Marie, Téqui, 1983, p. 43-44.
(47) “Salutation à la Capelinha”, May 12, 1982. Januario dos Santos, op. cit., p. 152.
(48) Georges de Nantes, “L’imposture suprême”, CRC no. 178, June 1982, p. 2.
(49) Sister Lucy warned her niece, Sister Maria Ines, about this, who accompanied her in Fatima on that day of May 13, 1982.
(50) Sister Lucy reported these words of John Paul II to Cardinal Oddi in May 1985. Cf. the critical analysis of Cardinal Oddi’s testimony, CRC no. 268, October 1990, p. 15.
(51) “Salutation à la Capelinha”. Januario dos Santos, op. cit., p. 153.
(52) Ibid., p. 149.
(53) Homily of May 13, 1982, D. C., 1982, p. 540-542.
(54) Ibid.
(55) Letter of the Abbé Caillon to Brother Michel de la Sainte Trinité, July 29, 1982; cf. also L’Osservatore Romano, Italian edition, May 8, 1991, p. 6.
(56) D. C., 1982, p. 615.
(57) CRC no. 178, June 1982, p. 2.
(58) Toute la vérité sur Fatima, vol. 2, p. 344.
(59) On November 10, 1982 Msgr. Hnilica presented to our correspondent in Rome an account of his conversation on May 14, 1982 with Sister Lucy. In addition, the Abbé Caillon reported the testimony of Don Bianchi in his letter to John Haffert of November 27, 1982.
(60) Sebastian Labo, L’attentat contre le Pape, Parvis, 1984, p. 239.
(61) John Haffert, Dear bishop! A.M.I., 1982, p. 48. John Haffert reported Sister Lucy’s words as follows: «We do have great leaders but they are not recognized
(62) Caillon, “Le 13 mai 1982, que s’est-il passé au juste à Fatima?” Stella maris, no. 170, June 1983; Ephemerides marilogicae, 1983, p. 461-462.
(63) Caillon, “Pourquoi renouveler l’acte de consécration?” Famille chrétienne no. 323, March 22, 1984.
(64) D. C., 1984, p. 286.
(65) Sister Lucy’s close friends and family traditionally celebrate her birthday in the Carmel parlour on March 22, but she was born on March 28.
(66) Mrs. Pestana informed the Abbé Caillon of this reply in a telephone conversation on the following day, March 23. The Abbé Caillon advised Brother Michel de la Sainte Trinité of it in a letter dated March 30, 1984. Archives of the Little Brothers of the Sacred Heart, Fatima collection.
(67) Osservatore Romano, French edition, March 27, 1984, p. 3.
(68) Ibid., April 10, 1984, p. 5.
(69) “Perché il Papa non ha nominato la Russia”, Madre di Dio, June 1985, p. 7.
(70) Lettre du foyer oriental chrétien, March 1983, p. 7.
(71) Voz da Fatima, June 13, 1984.
(72) Mensagem de Fatima, no. 157, March 1984; no. 158, May 1984.
(73) Martins, Fatima e o Coraçao de Maria, Loyola, 1984, p. 101-102.
(74) Letter of the Abbé Caillon to Brother Michel, September 29, 1986.
(75) Cf. the letter of the Abbé Caillon to Cardinal Ratzinger, January 1, 1988.
(76) Mensagem de Fatima, no. 169, April 1987, p. 7.
(77) “Les étapes de la réalisation des demandes de Fatima”, Pour l’unité, January 1985.
(78) CRC no. 151, March 1980, p. 9-10.
(79) Résurrection no. 10, October 2001, p. 2.
(80) “Marie, Mère du Rédempteur”, Chrétiens Magazine, March-April 1987, p. 12. Preface to Redemptoris Mater, Centurion, 1987, p. 3.
(81) It was a group of Calabrian pilgrims.
(82) CRC no. 228, December 1986, p. 10-11.
(83) “Notre-Dame de Fatima trahie”, CRC no. 259, December 1989, p. 1-10.
(84) Voz da Fatima, June 13, 1990, p. 7.
(85) Ever since the first of Medjugorje’s apparitions in 1981, the Abbé de Nantes understood that it was «an extravaganza of Satan’s to make us forget Fatima» (lecture of October 5, 1981). Brother Michel de la Sainte Trinité published an historical and theological demonstration of this in his book Medjugorgje en toute vérité, CRC, 1991, 519 pages.
(86) “Les trois blancheurs, souillées, noircies, occultées par Jean-Paul II”, CRC no. 264, May 1990, p. 2.
(87) Speech of May 10, 1991. Osservatore Romano, French edition, May 21, 1991, p. 5.
(88) Acta Diurna, May 19, 1991.
(89) Osservatore Romano, French edition, May 28, 1991, p. 7.
(90) CRC no. 266, July 1990, p. 5.
(91) CRC no. 135, November 1978, p. 4.
(92) 30 Days, French edition, September 1996, p. 56.
(93) Roberto de Mattei, Correspondance européenne, October 31, 2001, p. 3.
(94) Résurrection no. 11, November 2001, p. 8.
(95) CRC no. 307, November 1994, p. 27.
 

Appendix I

(1) D. C., 1984, p. 287.
(2) Toute la vérité sur Fatima, vol. 2, p. 513.
(3) Cf. Georges de Nantes, “L’hérésiarque”, CRC no. 230, February 1987, p. 1-12; “L’Église aux quatre chemins”, CRC no. 273, May 1991, p. 5-16.
 

Appendix II

(1) D. C., 1982, p. 540. On the status and authority of revelations improperly termed private, cf. supra, Introduction; infra, p. 512 sq. Toute la vérité sur Fatima, vol. 1, p. 30 sq. Medjugorje en toute vérité, CRC, 1991, p. 195 sq. and 219 sq.
(2) «In truth, the Lord Yahweh does nothing without first revealing His plans to His servants the prophets.» (Am 3:7)
(3) 1 Th 5:19.
(4) Quoted by the Abbé Félix Bourdier, Discernement des faux mystiques et des faux prophètes, 2nd edition, Vidauban, 1974, p. 50.
(5) CRC no. 256, August-September 1989, p. 22.