Fatima: Worthy of belief vs Required

[Mrchatsworth]

Actually I do believe in Fatima and I wouldn’t react badly to someone voicing the do not. In fact I would be immensely curious about someone’s doubts about Fatima.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

It’s fine to say “It’s on them” when you’re secure enough that you wouldn’t even be asking the question on here that OP did. Not everybody is to that level of saying different strokes for different folks.

That’s fair. I just want to make it clear to the OP that if a particular private revelation doesn’t resonate with him, it’s not a dirty little secret he needs to hide or be ashamed of. Obviously he should still be tactful and not deride it to people who do believe in it, but he doesn’t have to feel like he’s committing thoughtcrime.

If he takes the position that Fatima wasn’t what it’s claimed to be, then he’s perfectly within the left and right limits of the Church. As are people who take the opposite position, of course.

 

[commenter]

‘Ecclesiastical approval “essentially means that its message contains nothing contrary to faith and morals.”’
2012 guidelines issued by CDF

Assessment of a private revelation is not so much evaluation of a meteorological event in the past, or accuracy of predictions, etc. It’s about the potential affect on believers in the present, and going forward.

I think posters are taking one private revelation out of context as if every Catholic must take a stand on this one, (and not all the other approved ones?) and justify their “doubts”.

Fatima is an extra help, like a hymn at Mass, which should not demand our direct attention but points our attention somewhere else. When people start focusing too directly at a given hymn, or private revelation, it’s a problem.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Actually I do believe in Fatima and I wouldn’t react badly to someone voicing the do not. In fact I would be immensely curious about someone’s doubts about Fatima.

I wouldn’t react badly to it either, unless like I said they were tactless in how they brought it up. Like if someone mentions they just got back from Fatima and it was wonderful, don’t respond with, “Well, I don’t believe in that Fatima bunk. You should forget about that and read Scripture instead like I do.”
Or derailing threads on here where someone who believes in Fatima asks a question and people make off-topic posts annnouncing, “I don’t believe in Fatima, I think it’s all fake.”

I have to admit I’m not very interested in why someone doesn’t believe in it. It’s not a required belief so it’s not something I would be doing apologetics to defend, unlike a dogma where if someone said they didn’t believe then we would want to show them why their unbelief was in error. So to me it’s a waste of my time to explore why someone doesn’t believe in a non-required belief. But I don’t mind if people tell me they don’t believe. I do know a lot of people at church who would react in horror though.

 

[Mrchatsworth]

While one can reject Fatima or other private revelations, canonizations are infallible. So, I’d love to hear the rationale if someone who rejects one but not the other.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

While one can reject Fatima or other private revelations, canonizations are infallible. So, I’d love to hear the rationale if someone who rejects one but not the other.

I think the best arguments for that are

1. Approved private revelation doesn’t tell us anything that’s not already in public revelation, as someone said above. The Church recognizes this and does not compel people to believe in private revelations.
2. People, such as Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto, aren’t canonized for having private revelations. Many visionaries of approved private revelations don’t even have a sainthood cause and are highly unlikely to ever have one. So the two things don’t have anything to do with each other.
3. Most private revelations are approved (or not) by the local bishop who is not subject to any sort of “papal infallibility” because he’s not the Pope.

 

[TMC]

You don’t have to believe anything in particular about Fatima.

Many Catholics have long lists of things that they think they “have to believe” which are not actually required belief (or sometimes not even Church teaching at all). For whatever reason, Fatima is one that generates a lot of emotion in some people, even leading some to accuse good fellow Catholics of lack of faith (or something similar) if they don’t share their views, which is unfortunate for many reasons.

 

[commenter]

Fatima is one that generates a lot of emotion in some people, even leading some to accuse good fellow Catholics of lack of faith (or something similar) if they don’t share their views, which is unfortunate for many reasons.

This could be one “rationale” for those who require such, as to why other people aren’t into Fatima. Some People assess Fatima not for 1917 data but for 2020 data, fruits of the devotion in 2020.

This may vary from place to place. Hopefully in your area there are people in Fatima devotion who also encourage Adoration, pro life, spiritual and corporal works of Mercy, and obedience to our bishops.

Some times you need to shut off the internet to clarify.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Hopefully in your area there are people in Fatima devotion who also encourage Adoration, pro life, spiritual and corporal works of Mercy, and obedience to our bishops.

Literally every person I know who is “into” Fatima (and usually “into” several other apparitions as well, most of which aren’t approved so can’t really be discussed here) also is “into” Adoration, pro-life, and spiritual works of mercy. They may also be into some corporal works of mercy like contributing to baby supplies drives and making casseroles for the elderly. “Obedience to our bishops” varies depending on whether their bishop is conservative and also loves Fatima and Mary devotions, or whether he is seen as a progressive.

Basically, Fatima devotees tend to be somewhere between moderate and traditional. Rejecting Fatima is sometimes seen as being “liberal” or “progressive” (in the bad sense of both words), partly because the church during the 60s, 70s and 80s tended to reject Fatima, Marian devotion, and supernatural aspects of Catholicism generally, and this is seen as going hand in hand with laxity, liturgical abuse, and sinfulness.