by
Thomas A. Droleskey
This article could just as easily be entitled as follows: "Denying Our Lady's Fatima Message While Seeming to Affirm It." That is, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has continued his subtle denial that Our Lady appeared physically in front of the very wide open eyes of Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos from May 13, 1917, to October 13, 1917. He did this in the
Theological Commentary that was issued by him when he was the prefect of the conciliar Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith on June 26, 2000, in conjunction with the supposed publication of the Third Secret of Fatima. He did this once again in the past several days.
As Mayor Frank Skeffington, the character played by the late Spencer Tracy in The Last Hurrah (which was based upon the novel written by the late Edwin O'Connor), said to his principal foe, a banker, Normal Cass, Sr. (played by Basil Rathbone), whom he was blackmailing by threatening to name Cass's obviously queer son as fire commissioner in order to extort from him loans to subsidize more housing for low income families, "Let's go down to cases." Yes, let's not waste any time with the preliminaries. Let's get down to cases.
It is not that terribly difficult to decipher the Modernism in the printed works and spoken words of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. There are times when he speaks plainly, openly defying the immutable teaching of the Catholic Church (such as on the nature of dogmatic truth, an area explored in both The Great Facade and The Devil's Final Battle, both of which were written by hard-core anti-sedevacantists) and religious liberty and separation of Church and State and his rejection of what he calls disparagingly the "ecumenism of the return." There are other times when he, in the mode of the Modernists of the early Twentieth Century and in the mode of the neo-Modernists of his own New Theology, is more obscure and apparently opaque so as to give the appearance of orthodoxy and traditional Catholic piety. This is, of course, straight from the Modernist playbook, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:
Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all but fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.
Once indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better mind, and to this end We first of all treated them with kindness as Our children, then with severity; and at last We have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. It is known to you, Venerable Brethren, how unavailing have been Our efforts. For a moment they have bowed their head, only to lift it more arrogantly than before. If it were a matter which concerned them alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it; but the security of the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore We must interrupt a silence which it would be criminal to prolong, that We may point out to the whole Church, as they really are, men who are badly disguised.
It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast. . . .
This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people, they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers.
As I have noted on many other occasions on this site, Joseph Ratzinger is using his time as "Benedict XVI" to give "papal" approbation to his own apostate views concerning the Faith. He is merely reworking his writing from the years after the "Second" Vatican Council" into his Wednesday general audience addresses and his "encyclical letters" and speeches and "homilies" so that they will so obscure authentic Catholic teaching in the minds of those Catholics who are paying any attention to what he writes and says that they will be uncertain about anything taught by Holy Mother Church from time immemorial prior to 1958 that conflicts with the "new springtime of the 'church'" that will produce a "civilization of love" (a phrase used by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II throughout his false "pontificate" and mocked roundly--and rightly--in The Great Facade). It is no accident at all that Ratzinger/Benedict referred to the "civilization of love" and "fraternal solidarity" repeatedly during his pilgrimage to Portugal as he means to continue his earnest, diligent effort to turn Our Lady's Fatima Message entirely on its head and to make the Mother of God a witness for the New Theology and conciliarism.
To wit, Ratzinger/Benedict works in references to "New Theology" pioneers in his addresses and speeches. His "encyclical letters," which have become for him, much in the manner of Wojtyla/John Paul II, a source of almost incessant, incestuous self-referencing (lest any of you smart alecks out there point out the number of my own articles cited on this site, I will remind the smartie-pants brigade that I only reference those articles because they provide ready access to new readers to various papal encyclical letters that they might not be able to find on their own, thank you very much), are replete with the opaqueness that is the language of "conciliarspeak" that comes from classical Modernism by way of the "New Theology." Spe Salvi, November 30, 2007, is based to a large extent on the "work," such as it is, of Henri de Lubac. (For a wonderful and easily understandable exposition of the "New Theology," including the work of de Lubac, please see Mr. John Vennari's A Short Catechism of the New Theology.)
It with this in mind that one must understand how Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has denied that Our Lady actually appeared in the Cova da Iria ninety-three years ago while seeming to affirm the Fatima Message that he has perverted as a vessel into which he can pour conciliarism's slogans and apostasies.
How was this done? Thank you for asking.
Consider these words, spoken by Ratzinger/Benedict yesterday, May 13, 2010, Ascension Thursday, on the Esplanade in front of the Shrine of the Most Holy Trinity in Fatima, Portugal:
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 false "pontiff" cited his own Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message from ten years ago as he is conveying, albeit in the obscurantist manner of a Modernism, 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 does the Theological Commentary on the Fatima Message connect with Ratzinger/Benedict's words yesterday 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 others, 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 ten years ago and the "homily" given on the Esplanade of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima yesterday.
First, Ratzinger/Benedict made the point yesterday 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 ago, 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 does not believe that Our Lady physically appeared before the physical eyes of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia. He has dismissed the Fatima apparitions as an "interior vision" that are 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 does not believe triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary that he referred to gratuitously yesterday has nothing 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 makes life easier for those in the Motu communities and for Bishop Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X as they 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 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 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 yesterday 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 ago:
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 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? 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.
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A photograph of part of the 70,000 witnesses as they are actually
observing the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13, 1917. |
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 believe that the Fatima seers had a "interior vision" of the "senses" that were not "located spatially" is to discount all of this evidence as so much nonsense, unworthy of even being mentioned during his first pilgrimage to Fatima as what he believes 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 once 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.
Admitting that I chased down and did not do adequate fact-checking about that telescope on Mount Graham in Arizona, admitting also 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 have work 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 does it all of the time.
The apostasy of conciliarism was on display in Portugal as 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:"
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 is the talk of Antichrist.
Does 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.
"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 Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believe this? No.
"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 calls his "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity"? Absolutely.
Indeed, while warning the conciliar "bishops" of Portugal yesterday that the various "movements" (Cursillo, "Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Focolare, Regnum Christi, Opus Dei, the Neocatechumenal Way, et al.) as he has long believed some of these "movements" 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.
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 and infidels and schismatics and heretics to the true Faith.
We are dealing with forces at present that are preternatural. We are not going to "will" ourselves out of the apostasies of the moment. While a given article here and there might help one or two souls now and again, we have to recognize that any and all efforts, whether spoken or written, to combat the apostasies of the day, will come to nothing if they are not undergirded by the rock solid foundation of assisting at the daily offering of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, offered by priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to its false shepherds, profound Eucharistic piety, and deep, tender devotion to the Mother of God by means of Total Consecration to her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart and by the reverent praying of her Most Holy Rosary each and every day without fail.
Our efforts to form our own families so as to keep them unspotted by the world and unspotted by the apostasies of conciliarism will come to nothing if we fail to remember the promises of Sacred Heart of Jesus revealed to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and thus fail to keep the Nine First Fridays.
Our efforts to seek the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King are fruitless if we do not keep the Five First Saturdays, spending at least fifteen minutes in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament as we truly meditate upon the mysteries contained in Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary.
Our efforts to convince others that the "modern church" is not the Catholic Church will be less effective if we do not accuse ourselves on a regular (weekly) basis in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, resolving after we have received Absolution from an alter Christus acting in persona Christi to live more penitentially, giving all of our sufferings and those of the Church Militant on earth to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We must, however, be people who are on fire for our love of the Rosary, which Our Lady stressed in Fatima is a principal means to save our own souls and to help to convert other poor sinners and thus to save them from the fires of Hell that she had shown to Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia on July 13, 1917. Our Lady told Francisco that he would have to pray many Rosaries to get to Heaven. Francisco Marto, mind you! And we must convince more and more of our friends and acquaintances to pray the Rosary. Our Lady wants this. So does her Divine Son.
Consider these words of Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, contained in The Secret of the Rosary:
Later on, when these trials were over, thanks to the mercy of God, our Lady told Blessed Alan[de la Roche] to revive the former Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Blessed Alan was one of the Dominican Fathers at the monastery at Dinan, in Brittany. He was an eminent theologian and a famous preacher. Our Lady chose him because, since the Confraternity had originally been started in that province, it was fitting that a Dominican from the same province should have the honour of re-establishing it.
Blessed Alan began this great work in 1460, after a special warning from our Lord. This is how he received that urgent message, as he himself tells it:
One day when he was offering Mass, our Lord, who wished to spur him on to preach the holy Rosary, spoke to him in the Sacred Host. "How can you crucify me again so soon?" Jesus said. "What did you say, Lord?" asked Blessed Alan, horrified. "You crucified me once before by your sins," answered Jesus, "and I would willingly be crucified again rather than have my Father offended by the sins you used to commit. You are crucifying me again now because you have all the learning and understanding that you need to preach my Mother's Rosary, and you are not doing it. If you only did that, you could teach many souls the right path and lead them away from sin. But you are not doing it, and so you yourself are guilty of the sins that they commit."
This terrible reproach made Blessed Alan solemnly resolve to preach the Rosary unceasingly.
Our Lady also said to him one day to inspire him to preach the Rosary more and more, "You were a great sinner in your youth, but I obtained the grace of your conversion from my Son. Had such a thing been possible, I would have liked to have gone through all kinds of suffering to save you, because converted sinners are a glory to me. And I would have done that also to make you worthy of preaching my Rosary far and wide."
Saint Dominic appeared to Blessed Alan as well and told him of the great results of his ministry: he had preached the Rosary unceasingly, his sermons had borne great fruit and many people had been converted during his missions.
He said to Blessed Alan, "See what wonderful results I have had through preaching the Rosary. You and all who love our Lady ought to do the same so that, by means of this holy practice of the Rosary, you may draw all people to the real science of the virtues."
Briefly, then, this is the history of how Saint Dominic established the holy Rosary and of how Blessed Alan de la Roche restored it.
From the time Saint Dominic established the devotion to the holy Rosary up to the time when Blessed Alan de la Roche reestablished it in 1460, it has always been called the Psalter of Jesus and Mary. This is because it has the same number of Hail Marys as there are psalms in the Book of the Psalms of David. Since simple and uneducated people are not able to say the Psalms of David, the Rosary is held to be just as fruitful for them as David's Psalter is for others.
Ever since Blessed Alan de la Roche re-established this devotion, the voice of the people, which is the voice of God, gave it the name of the Rosary, which means "crown of roses." That is to say that every time people say the Rosary devoutly they place on the heads of Jesus and Mary 153 white roses and sixteen red roses. Being heavenly flowers, these roses will never fade or lose their beauty.
Our Lady has approved and confirmed this name of the Rosary; she has revealed to several people that each time they say a Hail Mary they are giving her a beautiful rose, and that each complete Rosary makes her a crown of roses.
So the complete Rosary is a large crown of roses and each chaplet of five decades is a little wreath of flowers or a little crown of heavenly roses which we place on the heads of Jesus and Mary. The rose is the queen of flowers, and so the Rosary is the rose of devotions and the most important one.
The Secret of the Rosary
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI mentioned the Rosary, including, of course, the "luminous mysteries," precisely once during this pilgrimage to Portugal. Once. Even unlike his conciliar predecessor, the very man who deconstructed the Rosary, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, who did preach about the Rosary quite a lot, Ratzinger/Benedict does not do so unceasingly. He rarely mentions it at all. He did so in only one talk during his visit to Portugal, after he had led a recitation of the Rosary. His words were perfunctory, having nothing of beauty or fervor of those found in Pope Leo XIII's many encyclical letters on the Rosary (see
Adiutricem,
Augustissimae Virginis Mariae,
Diuturni Temporis,
Fidentem Piumque Animum,
Iucunda Semper Expectatione,
Laetitiae Sanctae,
Magnae Dei Matris,
Octobri Mense,
Superiore Anno, Supremi Apostolatus Officio, and
Vi E Ben Noto).
The practice of praying the Rosary was lost between the time of the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Centuries. Our Lady gave the Rosary to Saint Dominic, who used it to crush the Albigenses heresy. She told Father Alan de la Roche to re-establish the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary in the year 1460, just one hundred one years before the Battle of Lepanto. Why is the Rosary so forgotten in the mind and heart of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who made reference to the Rosary in just one of fifteen talks while in Portugal, of all places? Portugal.
Ratzinger/Benedict made no exhortation to the young people to pray the Rosary when speaking before them. He made no such exhortation in his address on culture. He made no reference to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary in any of the three public Novus Ordo services at which he presided during his four day stay in Portugal. Although he invoked the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima during his pilgrimage, Ratzinger/Benedict made it appear as though the daily recitation of the Rosary is not at all necessary to personal sanctity and social order. He continued this right up until he left the country, making no reference to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary upon departing Portugal earlier today, speaking once again about "fraternal solidarity" and "cohesion" as the foundation of social order and "harmony":
To all the Portuguese, whether Catholic or not, to the men and women who live here, whether they were born here or elsewhere, I extend my greetings at this moment of leave-taking. May you live in increasing harmony with one another, a pre-requisite for genuine cohesion and the only way to address the challenges before you with shared responsibility. May this glorious nation continue to manifest greatness of spirit, a profound sense of God and an openness to solidarity, governed by principles and values imbued with Christian humanism. In Fatima I prayed for the whole world, asking that the future may see an increase in fraternity and solidarity, greater mutual respect and renewed trust and confidence in God, our heavenly Father. (Farewell Ceremony at the International Airport.)
Oughtn't those who are not Catholic to be exhorted to be Catholic? Is not Catholicism the one and only foundation of personal and social order? Not in the Modernist mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who is the embodiment of the antithesis of one papal pronouncement after another, including the three that follow:
Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi Di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)
Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
Fraternal solidarity? Pope Saint Pius X mocked that slogan roundly in Notre Charge Apostolique:
Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart. No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness.
By separating fraternity from Christian charity thus understood, Democracy, far from being a progress, would mean a disastrous step backwards for civilization. If, as We desire with all Our heart, the highest possible peak of well being for society and its members is to be attained through fraternity or, as it is also called, universal solidarity, all minds must be united in the knowledge of Truth, all wills united in morality, and all hearts in the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ. But this union is attainable only by Catholic charity, and that is why Catholic charity alone can lead the people in the march of progress towards the ideal civilization.
What did Pope Leo XIII recommend to combat the evils of society? Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary:
But men of carnal mind, who love nothing but themselves, allow their thoughts to grovel upon things of earth until they are unable to lift them to that which is higher. For, far from using the goods of time as a help towards securing those which are eternal, they lose sight altogether of the world which is to come, and sink to the lowest depths of degradation. We may doubt if God could inflict upon man a more terrible punishment than to allow him to waste his whole life in the pursuit of earthly pleasures, and in forgetfulness of the happiness which alone lasts for ever.
It is from this danger that they will be happily rescued, who, in the pious practice of the Rosary, are wont, by frequent and fervent prayer, to keep before their minds the glorious mysteries. These mysteries are the means by which in the soul of a Christian a most clear light is shed upon the good things, hidden to sense, but visible to faith, "which God has prepared for those who love Him." From them we learn that death is not an annihilation which ends all things, but merely a migration and passage from life to life. By them we are taught that the path to Heaven lies open to all men, and as we behold Christ ascending thither, we recall the sweet words of His promise, "I go to prepare a place for you." By them we are reminded that a time will come when "God will wipe away every tear from our eyes," and that "neither mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow, shall be any more," and that "We shall be always with the Lord," and "like to the Lord, for we shall see Him as He is," and "drink of the torrent of His delight," as "fellow-citizens of the saints," in the blessed companionship of our glorious Queen and Mother. Dwelling upon such a prospect, our hearts are kindled with desire, and we exclaim, in the words of a great saint, "How vile grows the earth when I look up to heaven!" Then, too, shall we feel the solace of the assurance "that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. iv., 17).
Here alone we discover the true relation between time and eternity, between our life on earth and our life in heaven; and it is thus alone that are formed strong and noble characters. When such characters can be counted in large numbers, the dignity and well-being of society are assured. All that is beautiful, good, and true will flourish in the measure of its conformity to Him who is of all beauty, goodness, and truth the first Principle and the Eternal Source.
These considerations will explain what We have already laid down concerning the fruitful advantages which are to be derived from the use of the Rosary, and the healing power which this devotion possesses for the evils of the age and the fatal sores of society. These advantages, as we may readily conceive, will be secured in a higher and fuller measure by those who band themselves together in the sacred Confraternity of the Rosary, and who are thus more than others united by a special and brotherly bond of devotion to the Most Holy Virgin. In this Confraternity, approved by the Roman Pontiffs, and enriched by them with indulgences and privileges, they possess their own rule and government, hold their meetings at stated times, and are provided with ample means of leading a holy life and of laboring for the good of the community. They are, are so to speak, the battalions who fight the battle of Christ, armed with His Sacred Mysteries, and under the banner and guidance of the Heavenly Queen. How faithfully her intercession is exercised in response to their prayers, processions, and solemnities is written in the whole experience of the Church not less than in the splendor of the victory of Lepanto. (Pope Leo XIII, Laetitiae Sanctae, September 8, 1893.)
We are in a figurative Battle of Lepanto at present, dealing with preternatural forces that appear to vastly outnumber those who have chosen, despite their own sins and failings, to remain faithful to the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church and have rejected such abominations as the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and the "luminous mysteries." (how do the 150 Psalms fit into the the number 200?; what, as a reader reminded me, is "one third" of a Rosary consisting of 200 Hail Marys; Sixty-six point six; got it?) and the new ecclesiology and ecumenism and religious liberty and separation of Church and State. We are hated by our own former friends and colleagues and by many of members of our own families. None of this matters if we care to unite ourselves to the Mercies of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, giving each Rosary we pray to the Sacred Heart through the Immaculate Heart of Mary as her consecrated slaves.
Although we should note with sadness the ceaseless (and ceaselessly clumsy and transparent) efforts of the conciliar revolutionaries to deconstruct Our Lady's Fatima Message, we must never be discouraged or disconsolate. Never. We are Catholics, not brooding or sappy sentimentalists. The final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We can plant the seeds for this victory by our daily fidelity to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. And, my friends, praying the Rosary is not being inert or passive in the midst of our state of apostasy and betrayal!
We must make sure not to be in league with the Mayor of Ourem, Portugal, Artur de Oliveira Santos, who held the Fatima children captive in August of 1913, and those who are in league with him in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, who hold all truth captive, including that of the Fatima Message, in order to promote their lies. As we seek refuge from the conciliar revolutionaries in the catacombs with true bishops and true priests, may we always prove ourselves to belong to God by praying and propagating the Most Holy Rosary of His Most Blessed Mother.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death. Amen.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
Novena to the Holy Ghost begins today and ends next Saturday, May 22, 2010, the Vigil of Pentecost.
Appendix
Material from The Devil's Final Battle on the Deconstruction of Our Lady's Fatima Message
It is this part of the Third Secret that causes the conciliar revolutionaries to undertake their clumsy and sometimes transparent efforts to replicate within the walls of the Vatican, which is now conciliar-occupied territory, what the Artur de Oliveira Santos did in Ourem: silence the Fatima Message once and for all. Consider these passage from The Devil's Fatima Battle, edited by Father Paul Kramer, published by Good Counsel Publications in 2002:
First, as Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano is literally the most powerful figure in the Church today, given the reorganization of the Roman Curia under Pope Paul VI; and, as such, Cardinal Sodano is the de facto rule of the daily affairs of the Church, especially given the failing health of the Supreme Pontiff.
Second, owing to the same curial reforms of Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Sodano stands at the head of every Vatican dicastery, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which (when it was called the Holy Office) was formerly headed by the Pope.
Third, it is Cardinal Sodano who has dictated what we have called the Party Line on Fatima: i.e., the falsehood that he Message of Fatima, including the Third Secret, belongs entirely to the past., and that no one may request any longer the Consecration of Russia. We know this because:
-
it was Cardinal Sodano, not the Pope, who announced to the world on May 13, 2000 that the Third Secret would be revealed, but only after a "commentary" had been prepared by the CDF, which, again, is subordinated to him, and
-
it was Cardinal Sodano's "interpretation" of the Third Secret that was cited no fewer than four times in the CDF's commentary The Message of Fatima (TMF).
Fourth, Cardinal Sodano, as the de facto ruler of daily Church affairs, has vigorously enforced the new orientation of the Church in the manner of Fatima We know this because,
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Cardinal Sodano took control of the "interpretation" of the Third Secret and its false reduction to a thing of the past, along with the rest of the Fatima Message.
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One day after the publication of TMF, Cardinal Sodano pointedly demonstrated his adherence to the new orientation by inviting Mikhail Gorbachev, the pro-abortion, ex-Soviet dictator, to the Vatican for a bogus "press conference" (no questions allowed), during which Cardinal Sodano, Gorbachev and Cardinal Silvestrini sat together to heap praise on a key element of the new orientation, developed by Cardinal Sodano's predecessor, Cardinal Cassaroli, namely, Ostpolitik, under which the Church "dialogues" with Communist regimes rather than opposing them, and observes diplomatic silence in the face of Communist persecution of the Church
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Cardinal Sodano's representative, Cardinal Cassidy, negotiated the Balamand Declaration (1993) which declares that the return of the Orthodox to Rome is "outdated ecclesiology"--as is, therefore, (according to Cardinal Sodano) the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith called for by Our Lady of Fatima. . . .
The Devil's Final Battle also discussed the role played by Joseph Ratzinger in deconstructing and misinterpreting the Third Secret of Fatima:
First, Cardinal Ratzinger, in his capacity as head of the CDF, has on innumerable occasions stated his commitment to the new orientation of the Church, which he described as "demolition of bastions" in a book published after he had become head of the CDF.
Second, in accordance with this "demolition of bastions", Cardinal Ratzinger has openly declared his view that Blessed Pius IX and St. Pius X were "one-sided" in their solemn, infallible condemnation of liberalism, and that their teaching was "countered" by Vatican II. He further declares that the Catholic Church no loner seeks to convert all the Protestants and schismatics, and that it is no right to "absorb" their "churches and ecclesial communities," but must make a place for them in a "unity of diversity"--a view that is obviously irreconcilable with the consecration and conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith. Cardinal Ratzinger's view is, to say the least, suspect of heresy.
Third, one of the "bastions" Cardinal Ratzinger has sought to "demolish" is the traditional Catholic understanding of the Message of Fatima.
Fourth, Cardinal Ratzinger sought to demolish the bastion of Fatima in TMF, which he published under the control of Cardinal Sodano.
Fifth, TMF attempts to destroy the authentic Catholic prophetic content of the Message by the following exegetical frauds:
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Cardinal Ratzinger removed the words "in the end" from the Virgin's prophecy "In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph."
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Cardinal Ratzinger also cropped the immediately following words from the Fatima prophecy: "The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and it will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
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Having deliberately tampered with the words of the Mother of God, Cardinal Ratzinger then declared that the (predicted future) Triumph of the Immaculate Heart means only Mary's fiat, 2,000 years ago, in consenting to be the Mother of the Redeemer.
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Cardinal Ratzinger thus deliberately ignored the Virgin's prophecy of four future events surrounding the consecration and conversion of Russia, and deliberately reduced them all to one event--Her fiat in 1 B.C.
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Concerning devotion to the Immaculate Heart, which Our Lady of Fatima announced that God wills to establish in the world, Cardinal Ratzinger dared to say that devotion to the one and only Immaculate Heart of Mary means nothing more than following Mary's example by achieving an "immaculate heart" of one's own, through "interior unity" with God.
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By means of this grotesque and blasphemous "interpretation," Cardinal Ratzinger debases the Mother of God Herself in order to sever any link between devotion to the Immaculate Heart in the world, and Our Lady of Fatima's call for the conversion of Russia to the Catholic religion, which must precede true devotion to the Immaculate Heart in that nation since the Russian Orthodox religion does not recognize the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
Sixth, Cardinal Ratzinger, following Cardinal Sodano's Party Line, stated in TMF that "we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: ...the events to which the third part of the 'secret' of Fatima refers now seem part of the past", and (according to Cardinal Sodano's "interpretation") that the Third Secret culminated with the failed assassination attempt in 1981.
Seventh, in adopting the Sodano Party Line on the Third Secret, Cardinal Ratzinger flatly contradicted his own testimony in 1984--three years after the assassination attempt--that the Third Secret is a "religious prophecy" concerning "dangers to the faith and the life of the Christian, and therefore the world", on which occasion Cardinal Ratzinger made no suggestion that the Secret pertained to the 1981 assassination attempt or any other past event.
Eighth, in furtherance of the Party Line, Cardinal Ratzinger went out of his way to criticize Father Nicholas Gruner at the press conference of June 26, 2000, advising the world press that Father Gruner "must be submissive to the Magisterium" and accept the alleged 1984 consecration of the world as a consecration of Russia. That is, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, Father Gruner must submit to Cardinal Sodano's Party Line. Cardinal Ratzinger's claim is false because there has been no binding, authoritative pronouncement of the Magisterium--not the Pope, not a Council, not the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.
Ninth, in sum, Cardinal Ratzinger, carrying out the Party Line, deliberately used his position as head of the CDF to lend the false appearance of theological weight and validity to a shameless "deconstruction" of the Message of Fatima--an effort so blatant that even the Los Angeles Times sub-headlined its coverage of TMF and the June 26, 2000 press conference as follows: "The Vatican's Top Theologian Gently Debunks a Nun's Account of Her 1917 Vision that Fueled Decades of Speculation." (The Devil's Final Battle, pp. 230-233)
The Devil's Final Battle discusses additional questions about the conciliar Vatican's party line about the The Third Secret of Fatima on pp. 284-285:
June 26, 2000 - At a press conference, the Vatican publishes a text it claims is the entire Third Secret. The text describes a vision in which the Pope (a "bishop in white") is killed by a band of solders who shoot him down while he is kneeling at the foot of a large wooden cross atop a hill, after having traversed a half-ruined city filled with corpses. The execution of the Pope is followed by the execution of many bishops, priests and laity.
Questions abound. (See article by Andrew Cesanek in The Fatima Crusader, Issue No. 64.) Among those questions is why the published vision contains no words of Our Lady, even though, when it announced suppression of the Secret in 1960, the Vatican itself referred to "the words which Our Lady confided to the children as a secret." The vision fails to mention the words which clearly follow. "In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc."--the phrase Sister Lucy included in her fourth memoir as part of the integral text of the Third Secret of Fatima. The phrase concerning the dogma of the Faith in Portugal is mysteriously demoted to a footnote in the Vatican commentary on the Secret, where it is ignored by both Cardinal Ratzinger and Msgr. Bertone, the co-authors of the commentary.
Cardinal Ratzinger's portion of the commentary specifically states that he and Msgr. Bertone are following the "interpretation" given by Cardinal Sodano: i.e., that the Message of Fatima, and the Third Secret in Particular, relates entirely to events which now belong to the past. Accordingly, Cardinal Ratzinger claims that the Pope's escape from death in 1981 is what is depicted in the vision of the Pope being killed. Even the secular media recognize the falsity of this interpretation.
The published text of the vision contains none of the elements described by Cardinal Ratzinger in his mysteriously censored 1984 interview in Jesus magazine. The published vision says nothing about "dangers threatening the Faith and the life of the Christian and therefore of the world", nothing about "the importance of end times", nothing about what is contained "in many other Marian apparition" approved by the Church and nothing about prophecies "announced in Scripture". Further, while Cardinal Ratzinger said in 1984 that the Third Secret contains "religious prophecy:"--a statement he made three years after the attempt on the Pope's life--he will now claim that there is no prophecy, but only a description of past events, culminating in the 1981 assassination attempt.
Further, Cardinal Ratzinger's commentary scandalizes the faithful by claiming that the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is nothing more than love conquering bombs and guns, and that devotion to the Immaculate Heart means nothing more than each person doing God's will and thus acquiring an 'immaculate heart" of his or her own. The conversion of Russia to Catholicism and the spreading of devotion to the one unique Immaculate Heart of Mary throughout the world are not even mentioned in Cardinal Ratzinger's commentary.
Dr. David Allen White summarized the contents of The Devil's Final Battle as follows in a 2002 book review that was published in Catholic Family News:
More than the Vatican’s "top theologian" were involved in this public insult to the Catholic faithful, and public insult to the Mother of God. One of the glories of the new book is that it names and thoroughly explores the roles played by each of the four prelates who are quite rightfully lined up as an anti-Fatima cabal. They are Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone and Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos. These prelates have colluded to stifle the Mother of God, to silence Sister Lucy, to obscure the Message of Fatima and to promote a new Church that stands in opposition to all of Catholic Tradition. They deserve to be exposed; they should be forced to answer to the Catholic faithful even before they stand before their Maker and are made to answer to Him. Their opposition puts both world peace and millions of souls in peril.