New "Norms" With One Principal Purpose: To Disparage Our Lady's Fatima Message

The Era of Revelation closed with the death of Saint John the Evangelist in the early part of the Second Century. All of Holy Mother Church's formal dogmatic pronouncements made under the direction and inspiration of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, since that time have been based on what had been revealed, both by means of Apostolic Tradition and Sacred Scripture, prior to the death of Saint John, who had laid his head on Our Blessed Lord and Saviour's breast at the Last Supper and who was the only Apostle at the foot of the Cross the next day, Good Friday. This does not mean, however, that private revelations given to various saints, although not, strictly speaking in the dogmatic sense, necessary for salvation, are to be dismissed or denigrated  or to be considered as lacking supernatural origin.

Each of the following Catholic practices or devotions is based on private revelations:

1. The Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel given by Our Lady to Saint Simon Stock.

2. The Holy Rosary given to Saint Dominic de Guzman by Our Lady.

3. Our Lady appeared to the Venerable Juan Diego in December of 1531, instructing him to tell Bishop [then Administrator Fray] Juan de Zumarraga to build a church in her honor, which request was honor when Juan Diego presented the Castilian roses that Bishop Zumarraga wanted as proof of the apparition, revealing also the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on his tilma in the process.

3. Devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, revealed by Our Lord to Saint Gertrude and Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, who was given the message to institute the devotion of the Nine First Fridays.

4. The Miraculous Medal that Our Lady instructed Saint Catherine Laboure to have struck.

5. The Green Scapular that Our Lady revealed to Sister Justine Bisqueyburo, starting on September 8, 1840.

6. Promotion of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially through the Five First Saturdays, requested by Our Lady in the Cova da Iria in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. Pope Pius XII placed the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the universal calendar of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church in 1942 as a direct result of the Fatima apparitions.

Although it is possible for one to save his soul without believing in Our Lady's Fatima Message or without fulfilling the requests she made in the Cova da Iria to Lucia dos Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto, it would be very foolish to reject the great Mercy of Our Lord Himself represented by His sending His own Most Blessed Mother to earth a number of times since the beginning of the Nineteenth Century (Saint Catherine Laboure, Sister Christine Bisqueyburo, Melanie Calvert and Maximim Giraud, Saint Bernadette Soubirous, at Pontmain, Pellevoisin, Knock, Fatima, Banneaux, Beauraing). To dismiss Our Lady's Fatima Message on the grounds that it is but a private revelation makes it incongruous for any priest to justify keeping devotions to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on the First Friday of the month as these devotions are based entirely on the private revelations given by Our Lord to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. The Rosary itself is based on a private revelation to Saint Dominic de Guzman, the founder of the Order of Preachers.

Indeed, Holy Mother Church has instituted feast days in honor of these private revelations, including, of course, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on July 16. It was none other than Pope John XXII who gave papal approbation to the promises associated with the Brown Scapular:

In the night between the 15th and 16th of July of the year 1251, the gracious Queen of Carmel confirmed to her sons [the Carmelites] by a mysterious sign the right of citizenship she had obtained for them in their newly adopted countries [of the West]; as mistress and mother of the entire religious state she conferred upon them with her queenly hands the scapular, hitherto the distinctive garb of the greatest and most ancient family of the West. O giving St. Simon Stock this badge, ennobled by contact with her sacred fingers, the Mother of God said to him: 'Whosoever shall die in this habit shall not suffer eternal flames.' But not against hell fire alone was the all-powerful intercession of the Blessed Mother to be felt by those who should wear the scapular. In 1316, when every holy soul was imploring heaven to put a period to that long and disastrous widowhood of the Church, which followed in the death of Clement V, the Queen of Saints appeared to James d'Euse, whom the world was soon to hail as John XXII; she foretold to him his approaching elevation to the Sovereign Pontificate, and at the same time recommended him to publish the privilege she had obtained from her Divine Son for her children of Carmel--viz., a speedily deliverance from purgatory. 'I, their Mother, will graciously go down to them on the Saturday after their death, and all whom I find in purgatory I will deliver and will bring to the mountain of life eternal.' These are the words of our Lord herself, quoted by John XII in the Bull which he published for the purpose of making known the privilege and which was called the Sabbatine Bull on account of the day chosen by the glorious benefactress for the exercise of her mercy.

We are aware of the attempts made to nullify the authenticity of these heavenly concessions; but our extremely limited time will not allow us to follow up these worthless struggles in all their endless details. The attack of the chief assailant, the too famous Lounoy, was condemned by the Apostolic See, and after, as well as before, these contradictions, the Roman Pontiffs confirmed, as much as need be, by their supreme authority, the substance and even the letter of the precious promises. The reader may find in special works the enumeration of the many indulgences with which the Popes have, time after time, enriched the Carmelite family, as if earth would vie with heaven in favouring it. The munificence of Mary, the pious gratitude of her sons for the hospitality given them by the West, and lastly, the authority of St. Peter's successors, soon made these spiritual riches accessible to all Christians, by the instruction of the Confraternity of the holy Scapular, the members whereof participate in the merits and privileges of the whole Carmelite Order. Who shall tell the graces, often miraculous, obtained through this humble garb? Who could count the faithful now enrolled in the holy militia? When Benedict XIII, in the eighteenth century, extended the feast of July 16 to the whole Church, he did but give an official sanction to the universality already gained by the cultus of the Queen of Carmel. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.) 

We must not never disparage the approved private revelations of the Queen of Mercy to help us erring sinners fight off the ravages of sin in our daily lives and to help us to be truly repentant for our sins as we endeavor to cooperate with the graces won for us by her Divine Son on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through her loving hands to amend our lives and to live penitentially in reparation for our sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. It is no accident that Our Lady appeared clothed as the Queen of Mount Carmel in her last apparition to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in the Grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, France, on July 16, 1858, or that she appeared clothed as that same Heavenly Queen in the last of the apparitions that were seen by Lucia dos Santos during the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, on October 13, 1917. We must embrace this approved private revelations and recognize them as mercies that Our Lady has pleaded for us from her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Indeed, these mercies have been extended to us in this Age of Mary, starting with Our Lady's apparitions, starting on July 18, 1830, to Saint Catherine Laboure in the convent of the Daughters of Charity on the Rue de Bac in Paris, France, that gave us, as a result of the apparition on November 27, 1830, the Miraculous Medal, which converted the Catholic-hating Jew Alphonse Ratisbonne on January 20, 1842. It was in that same convent of the Daughters of Charity on the Rue de Bac that Our Lady appeared to Sister Justine Bisqueyburo on September 8, 1840, to give to her the Green Scapular the salvation most specifically of non-Catholics and fallen away Catholics.

According to Victor Manuel Fernandez, however, what he thinks is the Catholic Church but is in fact her counterfeit ape can never state that a particular private revelation is of supernatural origin, only that the phenomenon contains nothing opposed to Faith and Morals, a direct contradiction of the fact that Holy Mother Church has instituted the following feasts in direct response to requests from Heaven and/or events deemed to be of supernatural origin.

1. The Feast of the Apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11.
2. The Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel, April 26 (found in the Missa Pro Alioquis Locis part of the missal).
3. The Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which will be celebrated this year on Friday, June 7, 2024.
4. The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16.
5. The Feast of Our Lady of the Snow, August 5, which prompted the construction of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major on the Esquiline Hill in Rome after Our Lady appeared separately to Pope Liberius and a married couple.
6. The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, August 22.
7. The Feast of Our Lady of La Salette, September 19.
8. The Feast of Our Lady of Mercy (Ransom), September 24.
9. The Feast of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, October 7.
10. The Feast of Miraculous Medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary, November 27.
11. The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12 (although not on the General Roman Calendar, it is included in Masses specific to the United States of America).

Rationalists such as Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Victor Manuel Fernandez, however, feel compelled to disparage the supernatural origins of approved private revelations. While noting that it is true that some Catholics have made treated a devotion to a certain apparition as more important than the Holy Faith itself, it is also true such excesses can never detract from the Church’s ability to discern an apparition’s supernatural origins, something that the apologist for all things lavender, Fernandez, believes does not belong to his religious sect to declare:

To prevent any further delays in the resolution of a specific case involving an event of alleged supernatural origin, the Dicastery recently proposed to the Holy Father the idea of concluding the discernment process not with a declaration of “de supernaturalitate” but with a “Nihil obstat,” which would allow the Bishop to draw pastoral benefit from the spiritual phenomenon. The idea of concluding with a declaration of “Nihil obstat” was reached after assessing the various spiritual and pastoral fruits of the event and finding no substantial negative elements in it. The Holy Father considered this proposal to be a “right solution.”

New Aspects

Based on the factors mentioned above, with the new Norms, we are proposing a procedure that is different from the past but is also richer as it involves six possible prudential conclusions that can guide pastoral work surrounding events of alleged supernatural origin (cf. I, pars. 17-22). These six possible determinations allow the Dicastery and the Bishops to handle in a suitable manner the issues that arise in connection with the diverse cases they encounter.

As a rule, these potential conclusions do not include the possibility of declaring that the phenomenon under discernment is of supernatural origin—that is, affirming with moral certainty that it originates from a decision willed by God in a direct way. Instead, as Pope Benedict XVI explained, granting a Nihil obstat simply indicates that the faithful “are authorized to give [the phenomenon] their adhesion in a prudent manner.” Since a Nihil obstat does not declare the events in question to be supernatural, it becomes even more apparent—as Pope Benedict XVI also said—how the phenomenon is only “a help which is proffered, but its use is not obligatory.”^[5] At the same time, this response naturally leaves open the possibility that, in monitoring how the devotion develops, a different response may be required in the future.

Moreover, it should be noted that reaching a declaration affirming the “supernaturalness” of an event, by its very nature, not only requires a suitable amount of time to carry out the analysis but it can also lead to the possibility that a judgment of “supernatural” today might become a judgment of “not supernatural” years later—and precisely this has happened. An example worth recalling is a case involving alleged apparitions from the 1950s. In 1956, the Bishop issued a final judgment of “not supernatural,” and the following year, the Holy Office approved the Bishop’s decision. Then, the approval of that veneration was sought again. In 1974, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared the alleged apparitions to be “constat de non supernaturalitate.” Thereafter, in 1996, the local Bishop positively recognized the devotion, and in 2002, another Bishop from the same place recognized the “supernatural origin” of the apparitions, leading to the spread of the devotion to other countries. Finally, in 2020, at the request of the Congregation, a new Bishop reiterated the Congregation’s earlier “negative judgment,” requiring the cessation of any public disclosures regarding the alleged apparitions and revelations. Thus, it took about seventy excruciating years to bring the whole matter to a conclusion.

Today, we have come to the conviction that such complicated situations, which create confusion among the faithful, should always be avoided. This can be accomplished by ensuring a quicker and clearer involvement of this Dicastery and by preventing the impression that the discernment process would be directed toward a declaration of “supernaturalness” (which carries high expectations, anxieties, and even pressures). Instead, as a rule, such declarations of “supernaturalness” are replaced either by a Nihil obstat, which authorizes positive pastoral work, or by another determination that is suited to the specific situation. (Norme del Dicastero per la Dottrina della Fede per procedere nel discernimento di presunti fenomeni soprannaturali.)

Significantly, Fernandez referred to a 2000 “interpretation” of Our Lady’s Fatima apparitions as containing nothing “contrary to faith and morals”:

More recently, in reference to Fatima, the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explained that ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation highlights that “the message contains nothing contrary to faith or morals” (26 June 2000). (Norme del Dicastero per la Dottrina della Fede per procedere nel discernimento di presunti fenomeni soprannaturali.)

The late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was a rationalist who did not believe in the supernatural origin of approved private revelations. His "interpretation” explained that something previously thought to be of supernatural origin might have originated as an interior “illumination” on the part of Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their cousin, Sister Lucia dos Santos:

Brothers and sisters, in listening to these innocent and profound mystical confidences of the shepherd children, one might look at them with a touch of envy for what they were able to see, or with the disappointed resignation of someone who was not so fortunate, yet still demands to see. To such persons, the Pope says, as does Jesus: “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mk 12:24). The Scriptures invite us to believe: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn 20:29), but God, who is more deeply present to me than I am to myself (cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11) – has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses. For this to happen, we must cultivate an interior watchfulness of the heart which, for most of the time, we do not possess on account of the powerful pressure exerted by outside realities and the images and concerns which fill our soul (cf. Theological Commentary on The Message of Fatima, 2000). Yes! God can come to us, and show himself to the eyes of our heart.

Moreover, that Light deep within the shepherd children, which comes from the future of God, is the same Light which was manifested in the fullness of time and came for us all: the Son of God made man. (Homily at the Purported Mass on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima.)

It is very significant that the late antipope emeritus cited his own Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message from ten years previously as he meant to convey, albeit in the obscurantist manner of a Modernist, that the Faith is purely a matter of the senses (no room for the intellect here) and that the three shepherd children had a "Light deep within them" that caused them to "see" Our Lady interiorly, meaning, of course, that she was not truly physically visible to the eyes of their bodies. And that is leaving aside the phrase "the future of God" as no true pope has ever spoken in such a absurd manner. A Catholic can speak about the future possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. One possessed of a Catholic mind does speak of the "future of God" as He is without beginning or end.

How did the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message connect with Ratzinger/Benedict's words in 2010 to justify a conclusion that he does not believe that Our Lady really appeared physically before the eyes of Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos? Consider this passage from that Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message:

Before undertaking an interpretation of the message of Fatima, we must still attempt briefly to offer some clarification of their anthropological (psychological) character. In this field, theological anthropology distinguishes three forms of perception or “vision”: vision with the senses, and hence exterior bodily perception, interior perception, and spiritual vision (visio sensibilis - imaginativa - intellectualis). It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. But the same can be very easily shown with regard to other visions, especially since not everybody present saw them, but only the “visionaries”. It is also clear that it is not a matter of a “vision” in the mind, without images, as occurs at the higher levels of mysticism. Therefore we are dealing with the middle category, interior perception. For the visionary, this perception certainly has the force of a presence, equivalent for that person to an external manifestation to the senses.   

Interior vision does not mean fantasy, which would be no more than an expression of the subjective imagination. It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. The person is led beyond pure exteriority and is touched by deeper dimensions of reality, which become visible to him. Perhaps this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired. “On the lips of children and of babes you have found praise”, replies Jesus with a phrase of Psalm 8 (v. 3) to the criticism of the High Priests and elders, who had judged the children's cries of “hosanna” inappropriate (cf. Mt 21:16).   

“Interior vision” is not fantasy but, as we have said, a true and valid means of verification. But it also has its limitations. Even in exterior vision the subjective element is always present. We do not see the pure object, but it comes to us through the filter of our senses, which carry out a work of translation. This is still more evident in the case of interior vision, especially when it involves realities which in themselves transcend our horizon. The subject, the visionary, is still more powerfully involved. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of representation and consciousness available to him. In the case of interior vision, the process of translation is even more extensive than in exterior vision, for the subject shares in an essential way in the formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.) 

In other words, just as Modernists contend that Faith itself is a matter of interior consciousness that comes from within so do they believe that seers such as Saint Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos have had real but necessarily "subjective" experiences that have no actual visible, spatial reality with the eyes of the body.

It is important to examine the connection between the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message of twelve years ago and the "homily" given on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima on May 13, 2010.

First, Ratzinger/Benedict made the point in 2010 that the three shepherd children of Fatima were able to "see" Our Lady because they had "these innocent and profound mystical confidences," meaning that the children had to have pure, innocent souls to see interiorly what they thought they had seen with their eyes. This corresponds exactly to what he wrote ten years previously, that "this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior powers of perception are still not impaired."

My friends, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not believe that Our Lady physically appeared before the physical eyes of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia. He dismissed the Fatima apparitions as an "interior vision" that were designed to move us closer to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and have nothing at all to do with apostasy in the ranks of those who believe themselves to be Catholics or, Heaven forfend, the consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart by a true pope with all of the world's bishops.

Ratzinger/Benedict did not believe triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that he referred to gratuitously in 2010 had  anything at all to do with the consecration of Russia or the conversion of souls to the true Faith, Catholicism.

Why did Ratzinger/Benedict make reference to that triumph, therefore?

Because it made life easier for those in communities attached to the since suppressed Summorum Pontificum motu proprio to bask in the false reassurance that their false "pontiff" is a partisan of the Fatima Message. One cannot believe in a request of a message that conflicts with good relations with those in Russia, whether it be the Communists of yore (and the present day, of course) or the Orthodox at the present time.

If what happened at Fatima was but a mere "interior vision," then why did each of the children, when being examined by ecclesiastical authorities, give identical testimony as to what they saw with the physical eyes of their bodies? Each had the identical "inner vision"? Logic has never been Ratzinger/Benedict's long suit as his rejection of Thomism (both Thomistic Philosophy and Thomistic Theology) has opened up to grow from young adulthood into an old man, who is now a "retired" antipope, who has lived in a world of contradiction, paradox and ambiguity which makes it almost impossible for to him to see the fallacies in what he presents as "explanations" of the Faith and the events associated with It.

Second, Ratzinger/Benedict said in 2010 that God "has the power to come to us, particularly through our inner senses, so that the soul can receive the gentle touch of a reality which is beyond the senses and which enables us to reach what is not accessible or visible to the senses." This corresponds with his statement of ten years previously:

It is clear that in the visions of Lourdes, Fatima and other places it is not a question of normal exterior perception of the senses: the images and forms which are seen are not located spatially, as is the case for example with a tree or a house. This is perfectly obvious, for instance, as regards the vision of hell (described in the first part of the Fatima “secret”) or even the vision described in the third part of the “secret”. . . .

It means rather that the soul is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true “objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts which fill the soul. (Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message.) 

Why is it "perfectly obvious" that the images and forms seen, to cite the false "pope's own example, by the fourteen year-old Bernadette Soubirous and Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia "are not located spatially"?

Our Lady did not actually part the earth and show Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia a vision of Hell that they saw with their own eyes? This was merely an "interior" vision vision of theirs that did not really happen in time and space?

The buds on holm oak tree over which Our Lady hovered as she physically appeared to Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia did not change their appearance as seen by eyewitnesses who came to watch them? They were all suffering from mass delusion when they saw the following things?

The second apparition - June 13, 1917

Preceding the second apparition, the seers once again saw a great brilliance, which they called lightning, but which was really the glare of the approaching light. Some of the approximately fifty spectators who had come to the place noticed that the light of the sun became dimmer during the first few minutes of the conversation. Others said that the top of the budding holm oak bent down, as if under the weight of something, a moment before Lucia spoke. During Our Lady's conversation with the seers, some of the bystanders heard a whispering, like the humming of a bee.

When this vision ceased, the Lady, still surrounded by the light that she radiated, rose from the little tree and glided toward the east until she disappeared completely. Several persons who were closer noticed that the buds at the top of the holm oak were bent in the same direction, as if they had been drawn by the Lady's clothes. They returned to their usual position only some hours later.

The third apparition - July 13, 1917

Mr. Marto, father of Jacinta and Francisco, says that when the third apparition began, a little grayish cloud hovered over the holm oak, the sunlight diminished, and a cool breeze blew over the mountain range, even though it was the height of summer. He also heard something that sounded like flies inside an empty jug.

The fourth apparition - August 19, 1917

On 13 August, the day the fourth apparition was to take place, the seers could not go to Cova da Iria, as they had been abducted by the mayor of Vila Nova de Ourém, who wanted to force the secret from them. The children held fast.

At Cova da Iria, thunder followed by lightning was heard at the usual time. The spectators noticed a small white cloud that hovered over the holm oak for a few minutes. Phenomena of coloration were observed on the faces of the people, the clothing, the trees, and the ground. Our Lady had certainly come, but she had not found the seers.

The fifth apparition – September 13, 1917

A crowd estimated at twenty thousand observed atmospheric phenomena similar to those of the previous apparitions: the sudden cooling of the air, a dimming of the sun to the point where the stars could be seen, and a rain resembling iridescent petals or snowflakes that disappeared before touching the ground. This time, a luminous globe was noticed which moved slowly and majestically through the sky from east to west and, at the end of the apparition, in the opposite direction. The seers saw a light, and, immediately following this, they saw Our Lady over the holm oak. 

All of this did not happen? The crowd did not see what they reported? Were they having "interior visions"? Preposterous.

What about the Miracle of the Sun on October 13, 1917, ninety-eight years ago today?

Was the following report from a reporter for O Seculo, Avelino de Almeida, who had written pieces that were scathing in their criticism of the children's claims to have seen Our Lady, making up the following story that he wrote about what happened in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, on October 13, 1917?

One could see the immense multitude turn towards the sun, which appeared free from clouds and at its zenith. It looked like a plaque of dull silver and it was possible to look at it without the least discomfort. It might have been an eclipse which was taking place. But at that moment a great shout went up and one could hear the spectators nearest at hand shouting: "A miracle! A miracle!" Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was Biblical as they stood bareheaded, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws - the sun "danced" according to the typical expression of the people.

People then began to ask each other what they had seen. The great majority admitted to having seen the trembling and dancing of the sun; others affirmed that they saw the face of the Blessed Virgin; others, again, swore that the sun whirled on itself like a giant Catherine wheel and that it lowered itself to the earth as if to burn it with its rays. Some said they saw it change colors successively. (The Miracle of the Sun.)

Is the testimony below about what happened on October 13, 1917, bogus?

From dawn, our reporter relates, visibly impressed by that calm courage, groups looming up again, intrepid individuals who pass through, without stopping for a moment, the small town, whose silence is broken by the chant of hymns intoned by feminine voices in harmony which contrasts with the roughness of the men... The sun rises, but the aspect of the sky is threatening. Some black clouds accumulate, precisely from the Fatima side. Nothing however holds back the pilgrims who, from all roads and by all means of locomotion, flock in that direction... Some small bells on a chain tinkle; we see here and there a cart decorated with palms. However, the festive atmosphere is discreet; the general manner is grave, the order perfect ... Towards ten o’clock, the sky is covered completely and a heavy rain begins to fall. The downpour, whipped by a bitter wind, beating against the face, inundates the gravel roads, and pierces to the bone those who did not take the precaution of carrying an umbrella or some other means of protection from the bad weather. But no one becomes impatient nor gives up following the road

Whereas «the low and heavy sky had a very dark color, laden with moisture, released an abundant and long lasting rain,» during the time of the apparition, the rain stopped totally. Abruptly the sky cleared: «The sun triumphantly pierced the thick bed of clouds hiding it until then, and shone intensely.» (Dr. Almeida Garrett).

This abrupt change of weather took all the eyewitnesses by surprise: «It was a day of heavy and continuous rain. But a few minutes before the miracle, it stopped raining.» (Alfredo da Silva Santos) 

«Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw the whole multitude spread out in that vast space at my feet ... turn their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around, too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight ... It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled, nor dim. At Fatima, it kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky, with a sharp edge, like a large gaming table. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina.» (Dr. Almeida Garrett). 

«And then we witnessed a unique spectacle, the reporter of "O Seculo" remarked in similar vein, an incredible spectacle, unbelievable if you did not witness it. From above the road ... We see the immense crowd turn towards the sun, which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It looked like a plate of dull silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. One might say that an eclipse had occurred.» (Article of October 15, 1917) «The people could look at the sun as we look at the moon.» (Maria do Carmo)

Suddenly, the heavenly body began to tremble, to shake with abrupt movements, and finally to turn on itself at a dizzying speed while throwing out rays of light, all colors of the rainbow: «The sun turned like a fire wheel, taking on all the colors of the rainbow.» (Maria do Carmo) «It appeared like a globe of snow turning on itself.» (Father Lourenço) «The pearl-like disc had a giddy motion. This was not the twinkling of a star in all its brilliance. It turned on itself with impetuous speed.» (Dr. Almeida Garrett) «At a certain moment, the sun stopped and then began again to dance, to spin; it stopped again, and began again to dance.» (Ti Marto) It is indeed therefore a triple "dance of the sun" which thousands of witnesses affirm, having contemplated it for several minutes. 

  «The sun took on all the colors of the rainbow. Everything assumed those same colors: our faces, our clothes, the earth itself.» (Maria do Carmo) «A light, whose colors changed from one moment to the next, was reflected on the people and on things», notes Dr. Pereira Gens.

       «We suddenly heard a clamor, relates Almeida Garrett, like a cry of anguish of that entire crowd. The sun, in fact, keeping its rapid movement of rotation, seemed to free itself from the firmament and blood-red, to plunge towards the earth, threatening to crush us with its fiery mass. Those were some terrifying seconds.» «I saw the sun turn and it seemed to descend. It was like a bicycle wheel.» (John Carreira) «The sun began to dance and, at a certain moment, it appeared to detach itself from the firmament and to rush forward on us, like a fire wheel.» (Alfredo da Silva Santos) «I saw it perfectly descending as if it came to crash on the earth. It seemed to detach itself from the sky and rush toward us. It maintained itself at a short distance above our heads; but that sort of attack was of very short duration ... It seemed very near the people and it continued to turn in the opposite direction.» (Maria do Carmo) «From those thousands of mouths, relates the engineer Mario Godinho, I heard shouts of joy and love to the Most Holy Virgin. And then I believed. I had the certainty of not having been the victim of a suggestion. I had seen the sun as I would never see it again.»

Everyone Had Dry Clothes

       A last astonishing fact: all those people, who were for the most part soaked to the bone, verified with joy and amazement that they were dry. The fact is attested to in the canonical process.

The Vision of the Solar Prodigy at a Distance

       A marvelous thing, the phenomenon could be admired from beyond Fatima. And even, some perfectly credible witnesses, who were very far away from the Cova da Iria, related having seen the unprecedented spectacle of the dance of the sun, exactly like the thousands of pilgrims gathered around the holm-oak.

In the small village of Alburitel, situated eighteen or nineteen kilometers from Fatima, the whole town was able to enjoy the vision of the solar prodigy. The testimony frequently quoted is that of Father Inacio Lourenço, because it is the most detailed. But what he relates having seen, all the good villagers, questioned by the investigators, confirmed seeing it in exactly the same way. 

       «In October, I will perform a miracle,» Our Lady had sovereignly declared on July 13. And on October 13, it was at Her efficacious gesture that the marvelous "dance of the sun" began: «Then, opening Her hands, She made them reflect on the sun, and as She rose, the reflection of Her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.»

Thus, the magnificent miracle, it is She Who promised it, Who announced it three months in advance, and at Her gesture the miracle was fulfilled. That is the reply of the Queen of Heaven to the instant supplication of Her shepherd: «I would like to ask You to tell us Who You are, and to perform a miracle so that all may believe that You are appearing to us.» A response surpassing all expectations and one of such magnitude, of such splendor, that no one would dare to dream it possible.

The witnesses of the event were indeed innumerable, their testimonies agree and we are flooded with the documents they have left us.

In the first place, the numerous accounts conveyed appeared at once in the Portuguese press. It is noteworthy that the first to provide testimony were the anticlerical reporters. The three articles of Avelino de Almeida, the one of October 13, immediately before the event, the other of October 15, edited at Vila Nova de Ourem on the evening of the 13th, and a third article of October 29, merit a special mention. In spite of the jeering tone and Voltarian irony which inspire in part the first article, in spite of the expected anticlerical tones which still appear in the article of the 15th. These texts from a reporter of talent, one who besides, is honest and conscientious, are historical documents of prime importance5. But he was not the only one to relate the facts, for other reporters were present at the Cova da Iria.

Next there were the official investigations. In November, 1917, at the request of Bishop de Lima Vidal, who was then directing the diocese of Lisbon, the Parish Priest of Fatima led his investigation and questioned several witnesses of the parish. Unfortunately, he transcribed only... four depositions!

The investigations of the historians fortunately compensated for those negligences of the official investigators. Since Father Formigao, who obtained from Dr. José Maria de Almeida Garrett, professor at the Faculty of Sciences of Coimbra, a very thorough account, the most scientific report in our possession6, all the top historians went to question the witnesses. Father da Fonseca, in order to verify the points disputed by Father Dhanis; Father De Marchi, Canon Barthas, Father Dias Coelho and Father Richard.

In 1977, to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the last apparition, it was still possible to assemble in Fatima more than thirty persons who had been present at the solar prodigy and who could reveal their memories.

Thanks to those numerous testimonies, it is possible to reconstruct a precise running commentary, allowing us to relive, hour by hour and minute by minute, this decisive day, assuredly one of the most important in the history of the world. (The Miracle of the Sun.)  

Did it not actually rain?

Were not the thousands of people assembled soaked to the bone with rain water?

Was not the ground beneath them muddy with puddles of water aplenty?

Were not the clothes of those people made completely try in an instant after the Miracle of the Sun?

Was not the ground beneath made them dry as though it had never rained?

For Ratzinger/Benedict XVI to have contended that the Fatima seers had a "interior vision" of the "senses" that were not "located spatially" was to discount all of this evidence as so much nonsense, unworthy of even being mentioned during his first pilgrimage to Fatima fourteen years ago as what he believed himself to be, a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, the very Vicar of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on earth. It is he who is deluded, not the people who reported as one, with one voice, if you will, the experiences recounted above.

The conciliarists have made war upon Our Lady's Fatima Message and her Third Secret, seeking to turn Our Lady into a witness in behalf of concilairism, precisely because they do not want to admit that that Third Secret deals with their own very apostasy as they deceive souls and blaspheme Our Lady and her own chosen souls such as Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos. It is that simple.

Moreover, Our Lady showed hell to Lucis dos Santos and she warned them this is where poor sinners ago after death:

I want you to come here on the thirteenth day of the coming month, and to continue to say five decades of the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain the peace of the world and the end of the war. For She alone will be able to help.”

Lucia said, “I wish to ask you to tell us who you are, and to perform a miracle so that everyone will believe that your have appeared to us!”

“Continue to come here every month,” answered the Lady. “In October I will tell you who I am and what I wish, and will perform a miracle that everyone will have to believe.”

Here Lucia thought of some requests that various people had asked her to present. “I don't remember just what they were,” she wrote in 1941. But it is believed that one of them was the cure of Maria Carreira's crippled son; and the Lady is said to have answered that she would not cure him, but would give him a means of livelihood if he would say his Rosary every day. What Lucia now recalls is her insistence on the daily use of the beads to gain graces during the year.

“Sacrifice yourselves for sinner,” she repeated, “and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice:

“O Jesus, it is for your love, for the conversion of sinners and in reparations for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.'”

As the Lady spoke the last words, she opened her lovely hands as before, and poured down from them the revealing and penetrating radiance that had warmed the hearts of the children on the previous occasions. But this time it seemed to pass into the earth, disclosing beneath – and these are Lucia's words, written in 1941 – a sea of fire; and plunged in this fire the demons and the souls, as if they were red-hot coals, transparent and black or bronze-colored, with human forms, which floated about in the conflagration, borne by the flames which issued from it with clouds of smoke, falling on all side as sparks fall in great conflagration – without weight or equilibrium, among shrieks and groans of sorrow and despair which horrify and cause to shudder with fear.

“The devils were distinguished by horrible and loathsome form of animals frightful and unknown, but transparent like black coals that have turned red-hot. (Memoir IV, also III, in almost the same words.)

The children were so frightened that they would have died, they felt, if they had not been told they were all going to heaven. After gazing in fascinated horror at the gruesome spectacle which not even Saint Teresa has described more fearfully, they raised their eyes as if in desperate appeal to the Lady who stood gazing down on them with somber tenderness.

“You see hell, where the souls of poor sinners go,” she said at length. (William Thomas Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima, published originally by the Macmillan Company, New York, New York, 1947, and republished in 1990 by Image Book, Doubleday, A Division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, pp. 80-81.)

The vision of hell that Our Lady showed Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco should terrify us all, and, again, it is not a coincidence that they were given on July 13 as it is on this date that, in addition to Pope Saint Anacletus, whose feast is celebrated universally in the General Roman Calendar of the Catholic Church, the Roman Martyrology includes two Prophets, Joel and Esdras.

The Prophet Joel warned about the fate of unrepentant sinners that Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco had seen suffering in hell:         

[11] Break forth, and come, all ye nations, from round about, and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong ones to fall down. [12] Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about. [13] Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied. [14] Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction. [15] The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining.

[16] And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. [17] And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall pass through it no more. [18] And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns. [19] Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land. [20] And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation. (Joel 3:11-20.)

Bishop Richard Challoner explained that that the fountain that “shall come forth of the house of the Lord” is the fountain of grace in the Church Militant, and of glory in the Church Triumphant, meaning that we have the means, Sanctifying Grace, in the Church Militant to save our souls and thus become members of the Church Triumphant after bearing our crosses with courage and patience. Bishop Challoner also reminded us that the spiritual Jerusalem is the Catholic Church, not, as many Protestants and Zionist Catholics believe, the earthly Jerusalem of the Zionist State of Israel:

[18] "A fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord": Viz., the fountain of grace in the church militant, and of glory in the church triumphant: which shall water the torrent or valley of thorns, that is, the souls that before, like barren ground brought forth nothing but thorns; or that were afflicted with the thorns of crosses and tribulations.

[20] "And Jerusalem": That is, the spiritual Jerusalem, viz., the church of Christ. (Challoner Commentary, Duoay-Rheims Bible.)

Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri referred to the Valley of Josaphat, mentioned by the Prophet Joel, in a sermon about the General Judgment.

7. “The judgment sat, and the books were opened.” (Dan. vii. 10.) The books of conscience are opened, and the judgment commences. The Apostle says, that the Lord “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness.” (1 Cor. iv. 5.) And, by the mouth of his prophet, Jesus Christ has said: “I will search Jerusalem with lamps.” (Soph. i. 12.) The light of the lamp reveals all that is hidden.

8. “A judgment,” says St. Chrysostom, “terrible to sinners, but desirable and sweet to the just.” (Hom. iii. de Dav.) The last judgment shall fill sinners with terror, but will be a source of joy and sweetness to the elect; for God will then give praise to each one according to his works. (1 Cor. iv. 5.) The Apostle tells us that on that day the just will be raised above the clouds to be united to the angels, and to increase the number of those who pay homage to the Lord. “We shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air.” (I Thess. iv. 16.)

9. Worldlings now regard as fools the saints who led mortified and humble lives; but then they shall confess their own folly, and say: "We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints." (Wis. v. 4, 5.) In this world, the rich and the noble are called happy; but true happiness consists in a life of sanctity. Rejoice, ye souls who live in tribulation;”our sorrow shall be turned into joy." (John xvi. 20.) In the valley of Josaphat you shall be seated on thrones of glory.

10. But the reprobate, like goats destined for the slaughter, shall be placed on the left, to await their last condemnation. ”Judicii tempus," says St. Chrysostom, ”misericordiam non recipit." On the day of judgment there is no hope of mercy for poor sinners. “Magna," says St. Augustine, "jam est poena peccati, metum et memoriam divini perdidisse judicii." (Serm. xx. de Temp.) The greatest punishment of sin in those who live in enmity with God, is to lose the fear and remembrance of the divine judgment. Continue, continue, says the Apostle, to live obstinately in sin; but in proportion to your obstinacy, you shall have accumulated for the day of judgment a treasure of the wrath of God “But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart , thou treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath” (Rom ii. 5)

11. Then sinners will not be able to hide themselves but, with insufferable pain, they shall be compelled to appear in judgment. "To lie hid” says St. Anselm, “will be impossible to appear will be intolerable." The devils will perform their office of accusers, and as St. Augustine says, will say to the Judge: “Most just God, declare him to be mine, who was unwilling to be yours. ” The witnesses against the wicked shall be first, their own conscience. "Their conscience bearing witness to them, ”(Rom. ii. 15); secondly, the very walls of the house in which they sinned shall cry out against them”The stone shall cry out of the wall," (Hab. ii 11); thirdly, the Judge himself will say "I am the judge and the witness, saith the Lord." (Jer. xxix 23 ) Hence, according to St. Augustine, "He who is now the witness of .your life, shall be the judge of your cause. ” (Lib. x. de Chord., c. ii.) To Christians particularly he will say: "Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida; for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes”(Matt. xi. 21.) Christians, he will say, if the graces which I have bestowed on you had been given to the Turks or to the Pagans, they would have done penance for their sins; but you have ceased to sin only with your death. He shall then manifest to all men their most hidden crimes. "I will discover thy shame to thy face. ” (Nahum iii. 5.) He will expose to view all their secret impurities, injustices, and cruelties. ”I will set all thy abominations against thee”(Ezech. vii. 3.) Each of the damned shall carry his sins written on his forehead.

12. What excuses can save the wicked on that day? Ah! they can offer no excuses. ”All iniquity shall stop her mouth." (Ps. cvi. 42.) Their very sins shall close the mouth of the reprobate, so that they will not have courage to excuse themselves. They shall pronounce their own condemnation.

Third Point. Sentence of the elect, and of the reprobate

13. St. Bernard says, that the sentence of the elect, and their destiny to eternal glory, shall be first declared, that the pains of the reprobate may be increased by the sight of what they lost. ”Prius pronunciabitur sententia electis ut acrius (reprobi) doleant videntes quid amiserunt." (Ser. viii., in Ps. xc.) Jesus Christ, then, shall first turn to the elect, and with a serene countenance shall say: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ”(Matt. xxv. 34.) He will then bless all the tears shed through sorrow for their sins, and all their good works, their prayers, mortifications, and communions; above all, he will bless for them the pains of his passion and the blood shed for their salvation. And, after these benedictions, the elect, singing alleluias, shall enter Paradise to praise and love God eternity.

14. The Judge shall then turn to the reprobate, and shall pronounce the sentence of their condemnation in these words . ”Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire." (Matt. xxv. 41 ) They shall then be forever accursed, separated from God, and sent to burn for ever in the fire of hell. “And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just into life everlasting. ” (Matt. xxv. 46.)

15. After this sentence, the wicked shall, according to St. Ephrem, be compelled to take leave for ever of their relatives, of Paradise, of the saints, and of Mary the divine Mother. "Farewell, ye just! Farewell, O cross I Farewell, Paradise! Farewell, fathers and brothers: we shall never see you again! Farewell, O Mary, mother of God!” (St. Eph. de variis serm. inf.) Then a great pit shall open in the middle of the valley: the unhappy damned shall be cast into it, and shall see those doors shut which shall never again be opened. O accursed sin! to what a miserable end will you one day conduct so many souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. O unhappy souls! for whom is prepared such a melancholy end. But, brethren, have confidence. Jesus Christ is now a Father, and not judge. He is ready to pardon all who repent. Let us then instantly ask pardon from him. (On the General Judgment: Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori.)

Catholics must always keep in mind the reality of the Particular Judgment and that of the General Judgment. The Fatima seers saw the endless suffering of the sous in hell, resolving then and there to intensify their sufferings and sacrifices so that sinners in this life would be converted before death and avoid the fate of the souls they saw enduring torments that will never end.

William Thomas Walsh alluded made an allusion to Saint Teresa of Avila’s vision of hell, which, though not as frightful as what Our Lady had shown hell to be, is sobering in its own right:

Finally, her visions were tested and approved as genuine by many learned and spiritual persons. “Some will say,” adds Father Ribera rather quaintly, “that she is a woman. Yes, but before God there are no men or women, but only creatures.”

Teresa had good reason now to believe that she was safe. Having passed every test she was ready for whatever God wished her to do. What was it to be?

The answer seems to have come to her by a process of reasoning that began with a vision of hell, the description of which is one of the most vivid passages of her Autobiography:

“After a long time, in which the Lord had given me many of the favors I have described, and others very great, I was one day in prayer when I found myself, without knowing how, in a state where I seemed to be in the middle of hell. I understood that the Lord wished me to see where the place which the demons had prepared for me, and which I merited by my sins. This I could never forget. The entrance seemed to me like an alley very long and straight, sort of an oven very low and dark and narrow. The ground seemed to me of a water like mud, very filthy and of pestilential odor and many vile reptiles in it. On the side there was a concavity placed in a wall, like a cupboard, where I saw myself shut up very tightly. All this was delightful to behold in comparison to what I felt there. This that I have said would be hard to exaggerate.

“I wouldn't know how even to begin to exaggerate this, not could it be understood; but I felt a fire in my soul, which I don't understand how to say what it is like. The most unbearable bodily pains, and I have suffered very grievous ones in this life, and as the doctors say, the worst that can happen here-- all is nothing in comparison with the agonizing of the soul, a sense of constraint, a stifling, an anguish so keen, and with a sorrow so abandoned and afflicted, that I don't know how to describe it. For to say it is as if the soul were being always pulled up by the roots, is little, for that is as if someone else were putting end to our life; but here it is the soul herself that seems to cutting herself to pieces. The fact is that I don't know how to express that interior fire, and that despair over such very heavy torments and pains. I did not see who have them to me, but I felt myself burn and crumble into pieces, as it seemed to me; and I say that that interior fire and desperation is the worst.

“Being in such a pestilential place, so helpless even to hope for consolation, there was no sitting down, or lying down, or any room at all, although they had put me in this as in a hole made in the wall; for those walls, which are frightful to look upon, tightened themselves, and everything was suffocating, there was no light, but everywhere the blackest darkness. I not understand how it can be that without any light everything can be seen that is painful to look upon . . .  I don't know how it was, but I understood it to be a great favor, and that the Lord wished me to see with my own eyes the place from which His mercy had save me? All the torments she had ever read or imagined about hell were nothing to what she then felt; they were like mere pictures compared to reality itself. “And being burned here is very little in comparison to that fire there.

“It left me so frightened that even now, as I write about it almost six years later, the natural warmth leaves my body, here where I am. And so I don't remember any times since that I have had trouble or pain, without thinking that everything that can be suffered here is nothing, and so it rather seems to me that we complain without cause. And so I say again that it was one of the greatest favors the Lord has done for me, for it has been of much help to me, not only in losing my fear of tribulations and contradictions in this life, but in giving me strength to endure them and to give thanks to the Lord who delivered me, as it now seems to me, from evils so everlasting and terrible.”

As Teresa reflected upon the experience afterwards, she began to think of all the miserable souls who had gone there, and were going there and would go there. This thought filled her with grief, and with a burning desire to save them from such a fate, as she herself had been saved. “From then on I had the greatest sorrow for the many souls that condemn themselves to hell, especially those Lutherans, for they were already members of the Church by baptism, and . . . I thought that to save even one of them form such very grievous torments I would endure many deaths very joyfully.” (William Thomas Walsh, Saint Teresa of Avila, published originally by The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 144, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers in 1987, pp. 169-171. By the way, every Catholic should have—and read—every single book written by William Thomas Walsh.)

Saint Teresa of Avila’s mystical experience of hell was very similar to the vision of hell shown to Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia on July 13, 1917. Saint Teresa was more resolved to suffer all things to save souls from hell after she had experienced its pains, and she was particularly concerned about the fate of Lutherans, and Saint Teresa used the term “Lutherans” to refer to all Protestants as it was, after all, Martin Luther who started the Protestant Revolution within her own lifetime.

In these latter times, though, Our Lady explained to the Fatima children that it was to save poor sinners from hell that she wanted devotion to her Immaculate Heart to be instituted, thus providing each of us with an additional help to convert poor sinners and that we ourselves could avoid the pains of eternal hellfire. It is no accident that Our Lady appeared on October 13, 1917, clothed in the garment of Carmel just two days before the feast day of a daughter of Carmel, Saint Teresa of Avila, who had herself suffered to keep sinners from going to hell.

The concept of a God Who punishes those who die in a state of final impenitence is foreign to the minds of the Modernists within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which is one of the reasons they have worked overtime to deconstruct and demystify Our Lady’s Fatima Message, and it is one of the principal reasons why Victor Manuel Fernandez issued his instruction about private revelations.

In this regard, therefore, it should be remembered that Annibale Bugnini and his cohort liturgical of revolutionaries made sure to eliminate all references to a God Who judges sinners and to the existence of eternal punishment from most of the collects of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical travesty. Indeed, it was just last year, in 2023, that the president of the conciliar Mariology academy said that messages speaking of hell and eternal punishment are one of the signs of the inauthenticity of private revelations even if they had been approved by Holy Mother Church:

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The president of the Pontifical International Marian Academy (PAMI) has stated that a newly formed group inside the academy will judge any alleged Marian “apparitions which speak of the punishments from God” to be “absolutely false,” raising questions about what advice he will give to the world’s bishops. 

On April 15, 2023, a new body was established within the PAMI, which is set to provide key training and guidance to Catholic bishops on how to respond to alleged Marian apparitions. Reportedly it is a direct response to requests from bishops themselves for assistance dealing with alleged Marian phenomena. (Vatican Mariologist suggests apparitions about God's punishment are 'false' despite past approval.)

This is, of course, very understandable given the currently reigning figure of Antichrist on the conciliar seat of apostasy has made it clear that those who “love” (adulterers, fornicators, sodomites, the “transgendered, et al.) are in no jeopardy of losing their souls for all eternity in hell. The conciliar revolutionaries have thus made war upon Our Lady’s Fatima Message precisely because it singes their own consciences with warnings about the fate of those choose to wallow in their sins, including those that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Hardened sinners must invent false concepts of God to reaffirm them in their essential “goodness” as they presume upon the mercies of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Holy Trinity.

Why have the conciliar authorities sought to make war upon Our Lady’s Fatima Message to the extent of introducing a fake Sister Lucy in 1967, not revealing the Third Secret of Fatima in 1960 as Our Lady requested and then suppressed that message and replaced it with a false one in 2000?

The answer is clear: Our Lady’s Fatima Message condemns conciliarism and the conciliar revolutionaries.

Admitting that I am agnostic as to whether the following account of the Third Secret is real and legitimate, I would like to pose the following question to my readers?

What if the account below, as has been reported on the anti-sedevacantist Tradition in Action website, accurate? Would this not explain the antipathy of the unholy trio--Joseph Ratzinger-Angelo Sodano-Tarcisio Bertone--who worked so mightily to "reinvent" the Fatima Message and to misrepresent its Third Secret?

Tuy September 1, 1944 or April 1, 1944
JMJ

Now I am going to reveal the third fragment of the secret: This part is the apostasy in the Church!

Our Lady showed us the individual who I describe as the 'holy Father' in front of a multitude that was cheering him.

But there was a difference from a true holy Father, his devilish gaze, this one had the gaze of evil.

Then, after some moments we saw the same Pope entering a Church, but this Church was the Church of hell; there is no way to describe the ugliness of that place. It looked like a gray cement fortress with broken angles and windows similar to eyes; it had a beak in the roof of the building.

Next, we raised our eyes to Our Lady who said to us: You saw the apostasy in the Church; this letter can be opened by the holy Father, but it must be announced after Pius XII and before 1960.

In the kingdom of John Paul II the cornerstone of Peter’s grave must be removed and transferred to Fatima.

Because the dogma of the faith is not conserved in Rome, its authority will be removed and delivered to Fatima.

The cathedral of Rome must be destroyed and a new one built in Fatima.

If 69 weeks after this order is announced, Rome continues its abomination, the city will be destroyed.

Our Lady told us that this is written,[in] Daniel 9:24-25 and Matthew 21:42-44 (Alleged Third Secret of Fatima.) 

I do not know whether this is the true Third Secret. All I do know with certainty is that there are some, including the late Mario Luigi "Cardinal" Ciappi, O.P., who had read the Third Secret and stated that it did indeed deal with apostasy:

[Journalist Antonio] Socci also notes that Cardinal Ratzinger had said in 2000 that the Vatican interpretation was merely hypothesis and not the official interpretation, but now Cardinal Bertone “demands to impose it as the official version.”

Socci goes on to note various facts that support the thesis of two texts of the Secret: one published in 2000 and another yet unpublished:

• the evidence that the Secret was written on one sheet of paper;

• the evidence that the size of the paper was about 9x14 cm contained in an envelope about 12x18 cm;

• the evidence that the Secret consists of only 20–25 lines of text;

• the evidence from Paris Match magazine, from Sister Pasqualina, the confidential assistant of Pope Pius XII; and from Msgr. Capovilla, personal secretary to Pope John XXIII who said the Secret was held in a desk in the Pope’s apartment, which conflicts with the 2000 commentary that claims it was stored at the Holy Office.

"Bertone does not answer these testimonies in his book”, says Socci.  The Prelate merely says “the cinematographic reconstructions of the envelope hidden in the desk of the Pope are pure fantasies,” but provides no evidence except his own testimony.

Bertone goes on to ridicule the idea that the Secret speaks of “apostasy” in the Church.

Socci responds, “I don’t talk about apostasy, but Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Ciappi did.”  (“In the Third Secret, it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.” – Ciappi)

More hints that the Third Secret speaks of an apostasy in the Church, notes Socci, are found in Sister Lucy’s 1957 interview with Father Fuentes, and in two statements of Cardinal Ratzinger. Bertone vs. Socci  (Those who you who read the Italian language can access the May 12, 2007, article in Libero at: Enrico Baccarini - SUL "QUARTO SEGRETO" C'È ANCORA DA INDAGARE di ...)

What?

Ratzinger contradicted himself?

No, really?

Yes, really. He did it all of the time.

The apostasy of conciliarism was on display in Portugal fourteen years ago as since deceased Ratzinger/Benedict not only endorsed the Portuguese Revolution of 1910 and praised the "separation of Church and State" despite the fact that Pope Saint Pius X had condemned both in Iamdudum, May 24, 1911 (see Mocking Pope Saint Pius X and Our Lady of Fatima) and as he said once again that the Catholic Church had to "search for truth," a false belief that is shared completely by Jorge Mario Bergoglio:

Precisely so as “to place the modern world in contact with the life-giving and perennial energies of the Gospel” (John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Humanae Salutis, 3), the Second Vatican Council was convened. There the Church, on the basis of a renewed awareness of the Catholic tradition, took seriously and discerned, transformed and overcame the fundamental critiques that gave rise to the modern world, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. In this way the Church herself accepted and refashioned the best of the requirements of modernity by transcending them on the one hand, and on the other by avoiding their errors and dead ends. The Council laid the foundation for an authentic Catholic renewal and for a new civilization – “the civilization of love” – as an evangelical service to man and society.

Dear friends, the Church considers that her most important mission in today’s culture is to keep alive the search for truth, and consequently for God; to bring people to look beyond penultimate realities and to seek those that are ultimate. I invite you to deepen your knowledge of God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ for our complete fulfilment. Produce beautiful things, but above all make your lives places of beauty. May Our Lady of Belém intercede for you, she who has been venerated down through the centuries by navigators, and is venerated today by the navigators of Goodness, Truth and Beauty. (Meeting with the world of culture in the Cultural Center of Belém.) 

This was the talk of Antichrist.

Did the "Second" Vatican Council represent a "renewed awareness of the Catholic tradition"?

Did it "accept and refashion the best of the requirements of modernity by transcending them on the one hand, and on the other by avoiding their errors and dead ends?”

Did the "Second" Vatican Council lay the "foundation for an authentic Catholic renewal and for a new civilization--'the civilization of love'--as an evangelical service to man and society"?

Is not Modernity opposed to the Social Reign of Christ the King and the separation of Church and State? So are the conciliarists.

Is not Protestantism opposed to the Social Reign of Christ the King and the separation of Church and State? So are the conciliarists.

Do not the lords of Modernity embrace religious liberty?

So do the conciliarists.

Do not Protestants believe that it is necessary to "search for the truth"?

So do the conciliarists.

While, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899, Holy Mother Church rejects nothing that is good and true in the world, she wants everyone in the world to subordinate all of their activities to the Deposit of Faith and to undertake them for the honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, it is nevertheless true that the Catholic Church does not have to "search for truth." (See Living In A World Of Needless Searches.) She is sacred repository of the Deposit of Faith.

This madness of "searching for truth" is quintessential Modernism as assessed and condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907:

The chief stimulus of the evolution of worship consists in the need of accommodation to the manners and customs of peoples, as well as the need of availing itself of the value which certain acts have acquired by usage. Finally, evolution in the Church itself is fed by the need of adapting itself to historical conditions and of harmonizing itself with existing forms of society. Such is their view with regard to each. And here, before proceeding further, We wish to draw attention to this whole theory of necessities or needs, for beyond all that we have seen, it is, as it were, the base and foundation of that famous method which they describe as historical.

27. Although evolution is urged on by needs or necessities, yet, if controlled by these alone, it would easily overstep the boundaries of tradition, and thus, separated from its primitive vital principle, would make for ruin instead of progress. Hence, by those who study more closely the ideas of the Modernists, evolution is described as a resultant from the conflict of two forces, one of them tending towards progress, the other towards conservation. The conserving force exists in the Church and is found in tradition; tradition is represented by religious authority, and this both by right and in fact. By right, for it is in the very nature of authority to protect tradition: and in fact, since authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life, feels hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress. The progressive force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs, lies in the individual consciences and works in them -- especially in such of them as are in more close and intimate contact with life. Already we observe, Venerable Brethren, the introduction of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity the factor of progress in the Church. Now it is by a species of covenant and compromise between these two forces of conservation and progress, that is to say between authority and individual consciences, that changes and advances take place. The individual consciences, or some of them, act on the collective conscience, which brings pressure to bear on the depositories of authority to make terms and to keep to them. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

"By right, for it is in the very nature of authority to protect tradition: and in fact, since authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life, feels hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress."

Does Jorge Mario believe this?

"Now it is by a species of covenant and compromise between these two forces of conservation and progress, that is to say between authority and individual consciences, that changes and advances take place. The individual consciences, or some of them, act on the collective conscience, which brings pressure to bear on the depositories of authority to make terms and to keep to them."

Is this an accurate description of what Ratzinger/Benedict called his "hermeneutic of continuity"?

Absolutely.

Indeed, while warning the conciliar "bishops" of Portugal in 2010 that the various "movements" (Cursillo, "Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Focolare, Regnum Christi, Opus Dei, the Neocatechumenal Way, et al.) have tended to stray away from the direction of the conciliar "hierarchy" when it is offered to them, Ratzinger/Benedict also praised them for possessing a "charism" that is identical to the Modernist spirit of "progress" condemned by Pope Saint Pius X:

In this regard, I confess to you the pleasant surprise that I had in making contact with the movements and the new ecclesial communities. Watching them, I had the joy and the grace to see how, at a moment of weariness in the Church, at a time when we were hearing about "the winter of the Church", the Holy Spirit was creating a new springtime, awakening in young people and adults alike the joy of being Christian, of living in the Church, which is the living Body of Christ. Thanks to their charisms, the radicality of the Gospel, the objective contents of the faith, the living flow of her tradition, are all being communicated in a persuasive way and welcomed as a personal experience, as adherence in freedom to the present event of Christ. (Benedict XVI's Address to Bishops.)

New springtime?

Personal experience?

Modernism.

Perhaps it would be useful to recall how the Chapel of the Apparitions in Fatima was desecrated by the prayers offered by Hindu “priests” to their devils eighteen years ago, that is, on May 5, 2004: 

"All the invocations of the pagans are hateful to God because all their gods are devils."

Saint Francis Xavier wrote these words to Saint Ignatius about the pagan religion of Hinduism. Francis Xavier, writing from India at the time, merely restates the truth from the infallible Sacred Scriptures: "The gods of the Gentiles are devils". (Psalm 95:5)

Yet on May 5, 2004 — the Feast of Pope Saint Pius V — the Little Chapel of the Apparitions at Fatima was allowed to be used for a pagan Hindu ceremony. This Little Chapel (also called the Capelinha) is built on the site where Our Blessed Mother appeared to the 3 children of Fatima in 1917.

News of the Hindu worship service at Fatima was broadcast on May 5 on SIC, a national television station in Portugal. CFN spoke with two people in Portugal, independent from one another, who saw the televised newscast. The May 22 Portugal News also reported on the event.

According to the broadcast, a busload of Hindus were allowed to commandeer the sanctuary inside the Fatima Capelinha and to use the Catholic altar for their rituals. The SIC newscaster said, "This is an unprecedented unique moment in the history of the shrine. The Hindu priest, or Sha Tri, prays on the altar the Shaniti Pa, the prayer for peace."

The outrage occurred with the blessing of Shrine Rector Msgr. Guerra. No one may use the Capelinha without Rector Guerra’s permission.

The Hindus wore traditional garb, a Hindu "priest" in traditional Hindu vestments led the ceremony that consisted in the offering of flowers and food. This would seem to indicate that the Hindus performed their pagan puja, a ritual in which the offering of flowers and food is central.

After the Hindu worship service at the Catholic altar, the Hindus were escorted by Fatima authorities to see a model of the huge, round-shaped modernistic shrine at Fatima now under construction, a fifty million dollar eyesore that will blot the landscape of Our Lady’s apparitions.

One of the Hindus is reported to have said that they go to Fatima because there are many gods, and the gods have wives and companions who will bring good luck. This is a blasphemy against the Queen of Heaven as it places Our Blessed Mother on the same level as some sort of "wife" of a false god.

Thus, the Hindus did not even come to Fatima to learn of, or take part in, Catholic prayer. Rather, they folded the holy event of Fatima into their own superstitions and pagan myths.

These Hindus are said to be from Lisbon, where they have a Hindu temple and a community of a couple hundred. The SIC broadcast showed the Hindus’ house of worship that contained the many statues of their gods and goddesses.

It is reported that pilgrims who witnessed the event at Fatima were scandalized, but Shrine Rector Guerra defended the use of the Marian Shrine for pagan worship.

Appearing on Portuguese television, Guerra regurgitated the long-discredited, ecumenical slogan that different religions should concentrate on what we have in common and not on what separates us. He also said that all religions are good because they all lead us to God. As reported in previous issues of Catholic Family News, the principle that "all religions lead to God" is nothing more than one of Freemasonry’s fundamental tenets. The French Freemason, Yves Marsaudon wrote, "One can say that ecumenism is the legitimate son of Freemasonry". (John Vennari, Catholic Family News. See also: Shrine Rector Attempts to Justify Hindu Prayer Service at Fatima ) 

The effort on the part of the conciliar revolutionaries to deconstruct Our Lady's Fatima Message is, sadly, part of a larger effort to deconstruct the Catholic Church's Marian doctrine to make it conform to the dictates of a new theology for a new and, of course, false (pseudo) religion, conciliarism, that dates back to the proximate origins of this false religion (that was, after all, several centuries in the making) at the "Second" Vatican Council.

A reader who desired anonymity, wrote to me in 2009 kindly transcribed the following passage from a book written by a sedeplenist priest about the extent to which the "Second" Vatican Council altered the Catholic Church's teaching on Our Lady, making not one reference at all to her Most Holy Rosary:

The views and ecumenical plans of Our Lord for our century, clearly revealed at Fatima, do not agree at all with the ecumenism of Vatican II.  The revelations at Fatima teach us that God wants first to save and convert Orthodox Russia through the double mediation of His Most Holy Mother and of the hierarchy of His unique and true Church.  When the Pope and bishops accomplish the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the church will demonstrate her communion in faith with the orthodox, since in the East the dogma of the Mediation of the Queen of Heaven is very much rooted in tradition.

Now, according to the promises of Heaven, it is through that act of faith in Mary, the Mediatrix, it is through that appeal or the Catholic hierarchy to the all-powerful Mediation of the Immaculate Virgin which will have obtained the grace of conversion of the Russian Orthodox people, that is their return en masse to the unique cradle of Christ, an event truly unheard of, incomparable miracle which will provoke the wonder of all the schismatics and heretics of the whole world and soon their conversion.

At the Council, while extolling Congarian ecumenism, the Church has undertaken another road. Vatican II has neither hoped for nor even conceived of the return of the lost souls to the bosom of the unique Church of Christ, but it has recommended seeking Christian unity in an egalitarian reconciliation with the schismatic and heretical sects. To make peace with the opponent, to lead a dialogue filled with esteem at first with the leaders of heretical and Protestant communities, renouncing everything which could create obstacles and mutual understanding, was supposed to lead the Council Fathers to joyfully sacrifice the Catholic faith. Did not Paul VI him self say: “We do not wish to make our faith a reason for controversy with our separated brothers”? (Speech, Sept. 29, 1963)

The dogmatic surrender of the Council and its outrages to the Immaculate Mediatrix were the fruits of that fatal ecumenism. It is then not surprising that the only Bishop, as far as we know, who demanded the Consecration of Russia in the Council aula, Bishop Mingo of Monreale in Sicily, alto fought for the definition of the dogma of Mary Mediatrix, and against Congarian ecumenism. (see Acts of Vatican II)

THE PUBLIC VENERATION OF OUR LADY FORLORN AND LESSENED

Several Bishops were alarmed at seeing the Council totally neglect devotion to Our Lady. “We know from an authorized source, Father Luis Cerdeira, O.P., writes that during the drafting of the paragraph number 67 of Lumen Gentium, some experts and some Council Fathers insisted that they invoke “ex professo” devotion to the Rosary by one of these expressions or their equivalent: ‘Utpote Rosarium,’ ‘verbi Gratia Rosarium.’”

In fact, in the course of the second session, Bishop Rendeiro expressed “the desire that the Holy Council condescend to clarify the intelligence of the Church, exalting and recommending to priests and the faithful that form of devotion which is expressed by the Marian Rosary”. For “we hear in the choir of theologians and liturgists, he noted in his written observation, some discordant voices. There are to be found one or the other who, giving in to the excess of a kind of ‘hyperliturgyism’, affirm that it is necessary to put aside public prayer, especially the recitation of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that truly liturgical devotion suffices.”

During the third session, in the name of 113 Bishops, Cardinal Cerejeira requested in writing the following amendment: “That to the words ‘practices and exercises of piety’ (from paragraph number 67 of Lumen Gentium) be added: ‘among which the Rosary is conspicuous’, in such a way that it should read: ‘practices and exercises of piety, among which the Rosary is conspicuous’.”

In support of his request, Cardinal Cerejeira advanced five reasons at the same time theological and pastoral. It is noteworthy, nevertheless, and how much to be regretted(!) that neither Bishop Rendeiro, the Portuguese Bishop of Faro, nor the Patriarch of Lisbon referred to the Revelations of Fatima to justify their petition. Finally the commission which prepared the chapter on the Blessed Virgin Mary judged that “the Council should not designate any devotion in particular”. The result is that in the Acts of Vatican II the Rosary is not mentioned.

As far as we know, in the course of the sessions of Vatican II, not a Bishop, not even a Portuguese prelate, rose once in the Council aula to entreat the Fathers to embrace and recommend the reparatory devotion to the Immaculate Heart, in conformity with the Divine Wishes. It is bewildering to declare that no prelate dared to break the apparent and deadly unanimity of Vatican II. All the Bishops finally adhered to its minimized doctrine on the Most Blessed Virgin. When on November 18, 1964, the definitive text concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary allegedly revised in the light of the votes juxta modum, was submitted to the vote, only twenty-three Fathers voted against it.

And none of those opponents created a stir. Yet, according to the message of Fatima, there is hardly a more unpardonable crime for our Savior than to scorn His Holy Mother and to outrage Her Immaculate Heart, which is the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost. In her interview with Father Fuentes, Sister Lucy herself presented that sin as “blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which will never be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the next.”(Mt. 12:31-32). That cowardice of all the hierarchy of the Church should not be without a bearing on the chastisement announced in the third part of the Secret.

The liturgical reform which followed the Council lessened the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The motu proprio of February 19, 1969, suppressed from the Roman Missal numerous feasts such as the Holy Name of Mary, Our Lady of Mercy, and the Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Visitation has been put on May 31, in place of the Queenship of Mary, while the Feast of “Mary Mediatrix of All Graces”, celebrated previously that same day, has disappeared definitely from the Roman Missal.

Pius XII had partially answered the request of Sister Lucy in extending the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the whole world, under the rite of second class. The New Ordo only makes a simple commemoration which is optional on the Saturday after the second Sunday after Pentecost. This feast is then without a proper Mass and Office, and it passes after the ferial, after ordinary feasts of the Saints and obligatory commemorations. That optional commemoration will therefore be omitted as soon as there is another commemoration in concurrence. Father Alonso writes, “Sister Lucy has undoubtedly suffered a great deal intimately from the new liturgy reform. They have not respected a venerable tradition which had established itself gradually throughout the centuries around the specific liturgical significance of the feast of the Heart of Mary. Neither have they respected nor followed an inspiration from Heaven which manifested itself with all the guarantees of the Church, in knowing that devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a necessity for the Church of our time. That Heart presents itself with all its value of eschatological hope, and at least in the new liturgy reform, that hope has been hidden.” (Frère François de Marie des Anges Fatima: Intimate Joy, World Event, Tragedy and Triumph, Book Four, Immaculate Heart Publications, 1994, English translation edition, pp. 107-111.)

Obviously, Father Francois de Marie des Anges did not understand that the Catholic Church cannot be responsible for denigrating the Blessed Virgin Mary in any way. He did, however, provide a very good account of the extent to which true bishops refused to defend the honor of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary and the devotion to her Immaculate Heart, which she herself said that her Divine Son wanted to be promoted as one of the two last remedies to save souls from the fires of Hell in these last days. Every bishop who knew that what was happening at the "Second" Vatican Council was offensive to God and His Most Blessed Mother but who refused to speak out in their defense is guilty, objectively speaking, of helping to bring about  the following that has devastated souls and helped to contribute to the worsening of the state of the world-at-large as a result:

1. Warfare on Dogmatic Truth
2. New Theology
3. New Mass
4. New Rosary
5. New Catechism
6. New Raccolta
7. New Code of Canon Law
8. New Roman Missal
9. New G.I.R.M.
10. New Ecclesiology
11. Episcopal Collegiality
12. False Ecumenism
13. Episcopal Synodality
14. Religious Liberty
15. Separation of Church and State
16. New Fraternity
17. New Sacraments
18. New Canonization Process
19. Environmentalism
20. Feminism
21. Socialism
22. New Scriptural Interpretations
23. New One World Church
24. New Religion
25. New World Order
26. Pacifism
27. New Morality
28. New Pastoral Theology
29. New Teaching on Marriage
30. Indemnification of Adulterers, Fornicators, and Sodomites

Mind you, this is a very non-inclusive list!

Moreover, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has given his unquestioned support for the "movements," which he believes should be left alone by the Roman dicasteries to let the "spirit" lead them according to their particular "charisms."

In the face of this effort to deconstruct the Fatima Message so as to deflect attention from conciliarism's apostasies and errors we must be ever steadfast in its promotion. Our Lady gave Saint Dominic de Guzman her Most Holy Rosary in 1208 to be the chief weapon, after the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself, against the Albigenses heresy. It remains Heaven's chief weapon to help us combat the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil in our own lives as well as to win the conversion of apostates, infidels, schismatics, and heretics to the true Faith.

Thus, the new conciliar instruction on private revelations is based not upon a legitimate concern for separating the wheat from the chaff or to prevent a particular apparition from becoming the sole focus of one’s interior life but upon a new, rationalist religion that has no place for the supernatural but plenty of place for those who are unrepentant sinners as well as those who promote baby-killing, depopulation, sodomy, globalism and Marxism in the name of “serving the poor,” promoting “fraternity,” and protecting “human rights.”

Today is the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity and the Commemoration of the First Sunday after Pentecost.

Saint Michael the Archangel, who proclaimed himself to be the Angel of Portugal when he appeared to Lucia dos Santos and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, three times in 1916 to preparing these young souls for the apparitions of the very Mother of God a year later. He taught them several prayers, including two that have been combined and are referred by many as the Fatima Prayer in honor of the Most Blessed Trinity and for the conversion of poor sinners:

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee.

Most Holy Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifferences whereby He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.

This is a prayer we should pray every day of our lives as we live as Catholics for the honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinty by being consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will indeed triumph in the end, and the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Victor Manuel Fernandez will be vanquished as enemies of the Most Holy Trinity and of the sanctification and salvation of souls.

Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.