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peary
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The latest ‘one’ to go around that I heard is the Pope on pilgrimage at Medjugorje as the last resort to fend off a terrible persecution in that part of the world.
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KyivAndrew
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Shoshana, I think pnewton is exactly right. I am quite familiar with the story of Fatima from still childhood when we used to do rosary crusades during Soviet times for Russia’s conversion. Since that time my aunt has given me a lot of copies of Fr. Gruner’s Fatima Crusader magazine even though I don’t wish them and have tried to get her to not believe solely in Fr. Gruner’s assessments. I recall once watching Gruner’s T.V. show quite some time back and, if memory serves me, Gruner arguing that Mikhail Gorbachev in effect controlled the Vatican during HH John Paul the Second’s reign because both were brother Slavs. I almost fell out of my chair.
I don’t think it healthy for the Church if disobedience comes front and center and we become supremely a Church of Apparitions. For instance, Christopher Ferrara in The Secret writes:
In view of these facts and circumstances, Socci has best summed up the approach any Catholic should take to the Message of Fatima: “The Fatima event has been received on the part of the Church – which in general is very cautious concerning supernatural phenomena – a recognition that has no equal in Christian history …It is really impossible – after all this – to continue to speak of ‘private revelation’ and of the relative importance of the Message.” It is not only impossible but completely irrational to dismiss the Fatima message, and the Third Secret in particular, as a “private revelation”. Any reasonable Catholic, and even a non-Catholic inclined to believe in supernatural phenomenon, should be prepared to agree the Message of Fatima is in a category by itself.
(pg. 14 of Ferrara’s The Secret Still Hidden)
Now that is Ferrara. Shoshana, do you agree that Fatima has no equal in Christian history and that it is irrational to consider it “private revelation” as the Vatican and clearly Catholic teaching have maintained towards all recognized apparitions? Do you honestly believe the fruits are good if one finds oneself arguing and second-guessing the Pope and Mother Church? How is this healthy?
Please do not get upset because I realize when someone accepts such a message so completely sometimes a disagreement seems to throw Catholic brother and sisterhood out the window and breaks the Body of Christ on earth, the Church to which we all belong. I think some here are simply asking for patience, acceptance, and TRUST in the Pope and Mother Church. Is this too much to ask?
May God Bless You!
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Earnest_Bunbury
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Absolutely. This denotes a lack of faith and a denial of the very principles that make up the Church.
There can be no new revelations. If the Church is in error then Jesus’ admonition that the gates of hell would not prevail is wrong as the faithful have no one left but themselves to believe. This is an untenable denial of a major part of our faith.
How many have made a mockery of the faith by asserting just what is being bandied about so frivolously on these pages and lost most if not all of their faith in God? Papal infallibility is that which makes the faith worthy of assent, makes assent compulsory even when not fully grasped, and is that which makes “faith” what it is, a movement of the will, and not “gnostic”, which is what all this seems to be turning into by the correct “knowledge” required to discern what God has revealed.
Cardinal Newman said that “ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt”. These posters seem to turn one doubt into ten thousand heresies.
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Convert66
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Does fidelity to the Church require that one not even question what is happening in the Vatican? Did not even Popes say that there were dangers inside the sanctuary?
During the Arian heresy, well, after it had been settled actually, Arianism returned and for a period of about 60 years the Church was lurching towards Arian uniformity (Newman says that at one point up to 90% of Bishops were Arian).
If there are modernist and postmodernist dangers in the heirarchy (and who could doubt this post-Vatican II, and after so many warnings from Popes and theologians) prudence requires the laity to question for the sake of Truth, so that we are on the side of the Holy Spirit and not on the side of scoundrels (also not unprecedented in the history of the Church).
Blinders are not the answer any more than dissension. Wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
:twocents:
During the Arian heresy, well, after it had been settled actually, Arianism returned and for a period of about 60 years the Church was lurching towards Arian uniformity (Newman says that at one point up to 90% of Bishops were Arian).
If there are modernist and postmodernist dangers in the heirarchy (and who could doubt this post-Vatican II, and after so many warnings from Popes and theologians) prudence requires the laity to question for the sake of Truth, so that we are on the side of the Holy Spirit and not on the side of scoundrels (also not unprecedented in the history of the Church).
Blinders are not the answer any more than dissension. Wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
:twocents:
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pnewton
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My corallary to Godwin’s Law rises its head again. In a nutshell, let me explain why this is not a good analogy. Arianism dealt with a dogma central to all of Christendom, something vital to our Faith. Fatima is a private revelation one does not need to even concern oneself with, much less go to battle with the Vatican over.
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Convert66
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Well, I am certainly in no position to “do battle” with the Vatican even if I were so inclined. And if I were inclined, I’d repent. I trust the HS after all. And as far as your comparison I also agree with that. It isn’t the same, which is why whether or not there is more to the 3rd secret, it really is tangential. That doesn’t mean we should not be alert, however. If the Church can tolerate dissension over Abortion which is far more vital, we should take note that there are at least significant elements of heterodoxy in the Church and be diligent.
All my best . . .
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Albizzi
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PNewton,
I guess you didn’t read what I said previously.
Fatima apparitions are far beyond what the Church calls “private revelation” because of the Miracle of the sun . This miracle is the Seal of God that warrants that the Fatima’s messages aren’t optional for us to believe. This miracle is unprecedented. Even in Jesus times, God didn’t perform such a prodigious event.
Otherwise, why didn’t the Church classify the biblical prophecies as “private revelations” too? Each sunday we hear Scripture’s excerpts from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel or John’s Apocalypse that the Church asks us to believe. These prophecies aren’t “optional” so far as I know.
I don’t understand why we got a lot of prophets in the Old Testament, and no further ones in the New Testament, except John.
There are no “conspiration theories”: All that we want is the Truth. When a serious and well documented journalist like is Socci (he was well known as such in the Vatican before his last book) clearly demonstrates with strong arguments that we didn’t get the whole stuff of the 3rd Secret, the faithfuls (since the post VATII era is a time of dialogue) are in the right to ask questions even if these are embarassing for the Vatican (and yes they are whereas no answer is given). Why so much discussions long ago with the Jews, the Muslims, the other Christian Churches, and only a hermetical and despising silence with some respectful, obedient, zealous, fervent and pious catholic faithfuls who dare to ask some clarifications?
Asking for the Truth never is a waste of time because, like Socci says, “the Truth will set you free”…
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Albizzi
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For my part, I find hard to swallow that the Church is silently tolerating (when not encouraging) so much dissent between faithfuls and high ranked clerics on crucial issues such as abortion, stem cells, cloning, same sex unions, priests celibacy, womens ordinations, etc… as if these were part of a “normal” dialogue inside the Church while in the same time blocking any “dialogue” on the Fatima issue.
Strange indeed…
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Albizzi
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Why “go to battle”? Only a respectful and fair dialogue is begged.
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Shoshana
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You should have heard Father John Corapi preach against these very same bishops and priests on Assumption Saturday. They will have to answer for this. This constitutes also the warnings of our Lady.
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Shoshana
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Code:
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pnewton
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Heck, I know that! I sincerely apologize for making that remark after quoting you. It was not intended to be directed to you. I should have started another post but was being lazy. I meant it as a general admonition to keep all this conspiracy stuff and even legitimate, recognized information on Fatima in perspective.
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pnewton
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Where in the Bible do you find that solar miracles raise the level of revelation to Scripture? Where has the Church said this? Where has God said that this is His seal? The Church has said:
From the CCC:
One can accept the message of Fatima because the Church has approved of it. It’s legitimacy is rooted in the legitimacy of the Church and the Chair of Peter, not the other way around, solar abnormalities note withstanding.
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Shoshana
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- In September-October 1940, the visionary’s confessors promise to make another approach to the Holy Father to propose a request held more accountable by hum, that is the consecration of the world (with a special mention of Russia) that has already been advanced by other parties. On October 22, Lucia receives the approval of the lord for this request, but He reveals to her that this solemn act will not accomplish the promise of Fatima (the conversion of Russia and peace), but a more limited grace: ‘His Holiness will obtain an abbreviation of these days of tribulations.’ (As certain proof, the visionary indicated the special protection that the Madonna accords to Portugal.) P186
- Unfortunately, the letter to the Pope from Sister Lucia will be distorted by Bishop da Silva, although it arrives at its destination. Two years later, on October 31, 1942, the Pope will finally perform this consecration of the Church and of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Sister Lucia, pleased by this, nevertheless makes it known that it was not the consecration of the Madonna of Fatima had requested to obtain the conversion and peace: ‘The good Lord has already shown me His contentment with the act performed by the Holy Father and many bishops, although it was incomplete according to His desire. In return, He promises to end the war soon. The conversion of Russia (however) is not for now.’ P187
- It is necessary to keep in mind that the Pope was exerting every effort to avoid the church being drawn into the conflict. There were in particular strong German pressures and threats, transmitted through the Italian fascists regime, because the Holy See had taken a position in favor of the war against the USSR. There was even ‘the risk that Hitler had already actuated his plan to invade the Vatican in 1941’ while in 1943 ‘the danger of an invasion of the Vatican by the Nazis and the consequent deportation of Pius XII was anything but remote.’ (Angelozzi Garibaqldi, Pius XII, Hitler and Mussolini, pp192-194). All of this makes understandable the pope’s fear that a ‘consecration of Russia’ could be considered politically as an alignment with Nazi-Fascism, perhaps because of fear of the threats. And the decision of the pope to proceed with a ‘consecration of the world’ must be read in this historical context. P187
- In fact there was the impression of a sudden reversal of fate; and—in keeping with what has been indicated—the war soon ended, although one could not call ‘peace’ that which began in 1945, with half of Europe ending up in Soviet hands, and the communist nightmare, and the beginning of the ‘Cold War’ that so many historians have described as ‘the Third World War’. Within the expiration of 15 years from 1945, besides the communist occupation of Eastern Europe there had followed the Communist conquest of China, with the horror that attended it, the Korean War, the bloody repressions in the eastern countries (for example the invasion of Hungary in 1956), the Cuban revolution with the missile crisis and the beginning of the war in Vietnam. P188
- Peace, in fact—true peace, with the conversion of Russia—was the promise that was linked at Fatima to the solemn consecration of FRussia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Sister Lucia, while happy with that ‘incomplete act’ of the pope which was destined to shorten the war, now turned to sadly asking that the requests that the Madonna had confided to her be heeded. P188
- The popes have believed more in heir diplomats than in the promises of Jesus and Mary. Despite what some might superficially believe, Fatima is not a case of conflict between charism and institutions, but the contrary: Fatima is an authentic exaltation of the papacy (and therefore of Catholicism) because it shows the immense power the Lord has truly given to His vicar on earth. Except that Fatima also shows the human limits (and in certain historic cases the inadequacy) of the one who holds that ministry (limits evident in Peter himself) and exercises it with insufficient faith in the present operation of Christ, who guides and sustains His Church. P189
- The post-war period indeed realized precisely what the Madonna had predicted (‘Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and revolutions’) and could have been averted: the worldwide expansion of Soviet Communism and the disappearance in the night of half of Christian Europe through persecution. P189
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Shoshana
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- In the face of all these signs (Pope Pius XII saw himself, as a sole witness, the sun spinning, the miracle of the sun, and wrote it in his diary., AND the apparition of the Virgin at the Three Fountains, Rome to an anticlerical and protestant Bruno Cornacchiola—an extraordinary event entirely centered on the Papacy and personally followed by the Pope) it was expected that the ‘Pope of Fatima’ would finally heed the requests of the Madonna. In October 1951 Sister Lucia , through Father Wetter, the rector of the ‘Russicum’, was able to remind the pope that ‘What Our Lady of Fatima requested has not yet been done.’ In may 1952, the Madonna again appeared to Sister Lucia and exhorted her: ‘Make known to the holy Father that I am still awaiting the consecration of Russia ti my Immaculate Heart. Without this consecration, Russia will not be able to convert, nor will the world have peace.’ In the following month of June, Sister lucia cause dot arrive in Rome an umpteenth appeal. P191
- On July 7, 1952, he will publish an Apostolic Letter to the people of Russia, Sacro vergente *anno. *In it—heeding also many requests received from behind the Iron Curtain—he will finally consecrate Russia (named openly) to the immaculate Heart of Mary. It was, however, yet again an incomplete act which did not take into account of what the Madonna had demanded. P191
- Because of this the promise of Fatima—the conversion of Russia and peace to the world—is not realized. Nevertheless, one can discern historically that yet again Heaven accepted this solemn act by the Pope and, as with the consecration of 1942, accorded the church and ot the world exceptional graces and benefits. P192
- John 23 inaugurated the Council in October 1962 with a discourse that remains celebrated for its infelicitous irony concerning the children of Fatima: ‘To us it seems necessary to disagree with the prophets of doom who are forever forecasting calamity, almost as if the world’s end is imminent.’ Evidently, Roncalli felt that his ‘prophetic spirit’ was much more acute than that of the ‘Queen of prophets.’ In fact, he announced a splendid springtime for the church, and we have seen that a dark and and freezing winter arrived. P197
- In that solemn discourse Pope Roncalli added: ‘The church today prefers to use the arms of mercy instead of the arms of severity’ and to give ‘teachings rather than condemnations.’ He then affirmed: ‘Not that there are lacking false doctrines, opinions, and dangerous concepts…] but …] not it seems that men are of themselves inclined to condemn then.’ (Allocution at the opening of Vatican Council II, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, October 11, 1962). Apart from the ‘prophetic talent’ that pope Roncalli here demonstrates (shortly thereafter 1968 will explode, and the entire world will become drunk with terrifying ideologies), taking these words of the Pope literally one would deduce that there is no longer any need of the church as Mother and Teacher. P197
- The message of Fatima evidently was felt to be profoundly embarrassing by one who was preparing to agree to what he thought to be a masterpiece of diplomacy and ecumenism: a pact with the Kremlin to have two Russian Orthodox observers at the Council, guaranteeing to that regime, in exchange, the Council would not formulate any condemnation of Communism or the Soviet system… Beyond the judgment ( the worst possible) that one must give to this compromise of the ‘moral liberty’ of the Catholic church and of the Council itself, and moreover in return for a mess of pottage (two Orthodox observers well-chosen and controlled by the KGB) one remains horrified in the face of a Council—what is more a ‘pastoral’ council, and this one occupied with the historical reality of the church—that pronounces itself on everything, but does not proffer a single word on the ideology of a regime that since 1917 had realized (and was still realizing in those years) on a planetary scale the most intense and bloody work of eradication, extermination, and persecution of the church in its bimillenial history,’ Pius XII was attacked furiously for years , because according to the critics, he did not formulate clear and public condemnations of Nazism during the war (which is, however, untrue). But John 23 has received only applause for having contracted this ‘silence’ with the Kremlin. How is this explained? P198
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Victorious
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Pope Pius XII kept a diary? The man worked like a slave. When did he have time to keep a diary?
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missal
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My response here: If you have read any of the Old Testament Scriptures, you will find that over and over and over again did God send prophets and they were exiled, murdered, persecuted, and God continued to give them more chances till finally in “KINGS” you see the Jewish tribes being conquered because their hearts have “grown cold” they wanted to do their own thing…
Was God being thwarted? I don’t think so. The Jewish people remained in captivity
many times until they turned to God again…
Doesn’t that sound familiar today?
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peary
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Victorious
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Look, all that we really need to know came out 2,000 years ago. Not getting the message and not living by the message are two different things.
What’s needed here is some clarity of thought.
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Albizzi
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PNewton,
Where in the Bible do you read there was so a great miracle like the sun dancing, spinning, changing its colors before 70000 witnesses? I never said that the Church reckoned it as the Seal of God. But when I am taught by the Fatima kids that our Lady, 3 months before, prophesied the exact day and hour of this event, I personnally feel OBLIGED to believe so because our Lady added immediately : “SO THAT ALL MAY BELIEVE” . Is that clear? If you stubbornly deny to believe, you are free… since your believe only one thing: That’s private revelation, I am not obliged to believe.
The day you will see a Cross in the sky like Sr Faustina (recently made saint by JPII) prophesied, will you say: “Nothing new, that’s private revelation, I am not obliged to believe”:
*Before I come as the just judge, I am coming first as the King of Mercy. Before the day of justice arrives, there will be given to people a sign in the heavens of this sort: All light in the heavens will be extinguished, and there will be great darkness over the whole earth. Then the sign of the cross will be seen in the sky, and from the openings where the hands and the feet of the Saviour were nailed will come forth great lights which will light up the earth for a period of time. This will take place shortly before the last day.Christ child, to Sister Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938), Cracow (Poland), no date. 320:1] *
The Miracle of the Sun is treated as “solar abnormalities” by the CCC? I guess this is in its post VAT II issue… in the string of the usual downplaying of Fatima.
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