A World View Based
on Fatima

This edited transcript of a speech given at the Fatima: World Peace 2000 conference, October 1999 helps us better understand the real background to the full Fatima Secret.

Today is October 13, 1999, the 82nd anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in Fatima on October 13, 1917. This miracle had been predicted three months earlier, on July 13, 1917. At that time, Lucy of Fatima appealed to Our Lady:

“I should like to ask You to tell us who You are, and to work a miracle so that everyone will believe that Your Grace has appeared to us.”

Our Lady answered,

“Continue to come here every month. In October, I will say who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle so that all might see in order to believe."

And on October 13, 1917, 82 years ago today, 70,000 people witnessed the great Miracle of the Sun. 70,000 people saw the sun dance in the sky, and then plummet toward the earth. These witnesses, including Jacinta’s father, Ti Marto, tell us they were terrified. He said “The sun ... began to move and dance until it seemed that it was being detached from the sky and was falling on us. It was a terrible moment.”

According to the witnesses, the miracle lasted about 8 minutes. And after the sun “returned to its place in the sky”, the ground, which before the miracle had been saturated due to an all-night driving rain, was dry. Likewise, the clothes of those who had been standing all day in the rain before the miracle, were completely dry.

During the great Miracle of the Sun, witnesses say that they could look directly at the sun without it blinding them or hurting their eyes in any way.

In this century, Our Lady worked for us one of the most astonishing miracles of all time — a public miracle predicted three months in advance, and witnessed by 70,000 people. This miracle was even reported in the liberal, anti-clerical, Masonic newspaper, O Seculo.

Part of the 70,000 witnesses of the October 13, 1917 Miracle of the Sun

The newspaper report from October 15, 1917, said:

“We saw the huge crowd turn toward the sun which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It resembled a flat plate of silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. We would say that it produced an eclipse. Then a tremendous cry rang out and the crowd nearest us were heard to shout: ‘Miracle!... Miracle!... Marvel!... Marvel!...’ Before the dazed eyes of the people, whose attitude transported us to biblical times, and who, dumbfounded, heads uncovered, contemplated the blue of the sky, the sun trembled, it made strange and abrupt movements, outside of all cosmic laws, ‘the sun danced’, according to the typical expression of the peasants.”

This by far has been the greatest public miracle that has been worked by Heaven since Our Lord founded His one true Catholic Church.

Hence, I think we can say that the magnitude of this miracle corresponds to the magnitude and to the importance of the Message that Our Lady gave at Fatima. And just the way that this miracle, especially with the sun dancing in the sky and then plummeting toward the earth, was so spectacular that it was impossible to take your eyes off of it; likewise, the Fatima Message itself is of such magnitude, such importance, such centrality, that I believe Our Lady was telling us through this miracle, that we must never, ever, take our eyes off of Fatima, never take our eyes off of Her Message, never allow ourselves to be distracted from Her Message in any way whatsoever.

That is why this presentation is titled “A World View Based on Fatima.” Our Lady came to Fatima at the beginning of this century, one of the most godless of all centuries. The world is now steeped, not just in paganism, but in a post-Christian paganism, which is far worse than the pre-Christian paganism. Pre-Christian paganism had not heard of Christ. But post-Christian paganism has heard the message of Christ and has rejected Him and His one true Church. Thus, it is in a state far worse than the ancient paganism that was ignorant of Christ.

The Message of Fatima has to be central to our Catholic life, central to our world view. I believe that everything that Our Lady did at Fatima shows us that we must base our entire world view on the Message of Fatima and on nothing else that would conflict with it in any way.

I stress this because for many, devotion to Our Lady of Fatima is not central. It is often off to the side, on the periphery. It’s kind of like devotion to St. Rita, or devotion to Saint Jude, or devotion to Saint Anthony. It’s considered a very good and helpful extra to our spiritual life, but it’s only a side-devotion, only of secondary importance that we don’t take seriously enough.

Our Lady’s visitations at Fatima have given us the basis for an entire world view — a world view that is not outmoded, not outdated. And this world view based on the Fatima Message can never be “updated” to mean something other than what it originally meant; nor can it be downplayed or changed or eclipsed by the superstition of aggiornamento. Nothing that happened in this century can ever outshine in importance the Message that Our Lady gave at Fatima.

And the Fatima Message is nothing more than an urgent restatement of the traditional teaching of the Church, and a restatement of the urgent need for reparation, with special implications to our times.