Editor’s note: as with our SSPX Debate, we will consider submissions on this topic from multiple perspectives within the Traditionalist view point, according to our editorial stance.
False hopes are more dangerous than fears.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
As tensions escalate between Russia and the United States over war in Ukraine, heated opinion among traditional Catholics is split fairly evenly on whether the latest Fatima Consecration finally fulfilled the request proclaimed by Our Lady in 1917, and again in 1929.
The only way to answer this question definitively is to 1) compare what happened on March 25, 2022, to 2) the requirements heaven has outlined for over a century.
So firstly, what did Francis do? He consecrated the Church and the world with a special mention of Russia (and Ukraine). And many bishops joined him.
Secondly, what have Our Lady and Our Lord actually asked for?
On June 13, 1929, Mary reappeared to Lucia Dos Santos, now a nun in a Spanish convent, telling her:
The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means. So numerous are the souls which the justice of God condemns for sins committed against Me, that I come to ask for reparation. Sacrifice yourself for this intention and pray.
One prominent discrepancy we can see straight away between what happened, and what was requested, is that the Consecration of 2022 included the Church and the world (and Ukraine)—not Russia exclusively.
What does heaven think about this? Miraculously, we actually have an answer.
In the Fall of 1940, Poland and France had been devastated by Nazi forces and Britain agonized under the Blitz – week after week of German bombardment. Attempts to persuade Pope Pius XII to consecrate Russia were to no avail, perhaps because he feared offending Stalin, a staunch ally of Hitler at that moment. It was Russia, in fact, that had supplied the oil, the rubber, and the steel that fed the Nazi war machine.
Sister Lucia’s superiors instructed her to write to the Pope herself and to “adjust” the message of Fatima to fit the current situation. As Sister Lucia writes, on October 22, 1940:
I received a letter from Father J. B. G. and the Bishop of Gurza telling me to write to His Holiness… With this purpose in view, I spent two hours on my knees before Our Lord exposed in the Blessed Sacrament: ‘Pray for the Holy Father, sacrifice yourself so that his courage does not succumb under the bitterness that oppresses him. The tribulation will continue and augment. I will punish the nations for their crimes by war, famine and persecution of My Church and this will weigh especially upon My Vicar on earth. His Holiness will obtain an abbreviation of these days of tribulation [World War II] if he takes heed of My wishes by proclaiming the Act of Consecration of the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special mention of Russia.’”[1]
Against all odds, exactly two years later Pius XII did just that. In a lengthy address over Vatican Radio, Pius prayed:
To You, to Your Immaculate Heart, We as common father of the great Christian family, as Vicar of Him to Whom was given all power in Heaven and earth, and from Whom we receive the charge of so many souls redeemed by His Precious Blood and which people the whole earth; to You, to Your Immaculate Heart in this tragic hour of human history, we confide, we consecrate, we deliver, not only Holy Church, the Mystical Body of Your Jesus which bleeds and suffers in so many parts and is in so much tribulation, but also the whole world, torn by mortal discord, burning in the fires of hate, victim of its own iniquity…
To peoples separated by error and discord, namely, those who profess to You singular devotion where there was no house that did not display Your holy icon, today hidden perhaps until better days, give them peace, and lead them again to the only flock of Christ under the true and only Shepherd!
Even though the above reference to Russia was oblique, Our Lord, true to his word, accepted the 1942 Consecration and hastened the end of World War II. Within days, the Allies celebrated their first victory over the Nazis at the Battle of El Alemain in Egypt. And over the next three months the Russians definitively broke the German war effort by their grueling victory at Stalingrad. Two and a half years later the war ended, Germany was defeated.
The lesson for us, however, is that an act of Consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special (oblique) mention of Russia, did not fulfill Our Lady of Fatima’s request. Russia did NOT convert to Catholicism. Rather, she spread her Marxist errors to millions in China, North Korea, North Vietnam and all of Eastern Europe! The world did not experience Mary’s promised period of peace, or the Triumph of Her Immaculate Heart.
Even after Our Lord accepted Pope Pius XII’s consecration and shortened the war, Sr. Lucia still kept promulgating the Consecration of Russia as Our Lady of Fatima originally asked.
On July 15, 1946, in an interview with William Thomas Walsh at the end of the book Our Lady of Fatima (1947), pg. 226, Sister Lucia declared:
What Our Lady wants is for the Holy Father and all the Bishops to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, in a special ceremony. If this consecration is made, the Blessed Virgin will convert Russia and peace will reign in the world. Otherwise, Russia will spread her errors throughout the world.
Professor Walsh reports: “Lucy made it plain that Our Lady did not ask for the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart. What She demanded specifically was the consecration of Russia.”
Sr. Lucia in a letter to Walsh in 1947:
The Holy Father has already consecrated Russia, including it in the consecration of the world, but it has not been done in the form indicated by Our Lady: I do not know whether Our Lady accepts it, done this way, as complying with her promises.
In the book, Vision of Fatima, (1948), page 80; Father Thomas McGlynn interviewed Sister Lucy in 1947 and she was emphatic at correcting consecration of the world to read consecration of Russia. “No!,” Sister Lucy said. “Not the world! Russia, Russia!”
“Do you think that Our Lady’s request has been complied with?” asked Fr. McGlynn’s translator.
“As Our Lady made it, no,” she answered. “Whether Our Lady accepted the consecration made in 1942, as fulfilling her wish, I do not know.”
The same answer was given to the Dutch Monforte Father Huberto Iongen, in his interviews of 3 and 4 February 1946. Having asked her the question: “Did not (Our Lady) speak of the Consecration of the world?” her response was “No.”
In the book Il Pellegrinaggio Della Meraviglie, published under the auspices of the Italian Episcopate (Rome 1960, page 440) a little-known revelation of Our Lady of Fatima to Sister Lucy is recounted.
The Virgin Mary appeared to Sister Lucy in May 1952 and said:
Make it known to the Holy Father that I am always awaiting the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart. Without the Consecration, Russia will not be able to convert, nor will the world have peace.
Because the consecration of Russia on March 25, 2022 was merely a consecration which followed the form of Pius XII, and we know that Our Lady asked for a further consecration of Russia after Pius XII, we cannot have any reasonable hope that this new consecration was valid according to heaven.
Photo credit: Diane Montagna.
[1] Father Antonio Maria, S.J. Fatima, Documentos, (Porto, 1976), p. 467.
