Fatima vs. the “Spirit of Assisi”

So, in conclusion, I believe that Heaven wants the Message of Our Lady of Fatima to be central to our world view. Anything that happens in the Church or in the world, we will judge as good or bad, adequate or inadequate, on the basis of whether it is in conformity with Our Lady’s words at Fatima or not.

At Fatima, She reinforced key doctrines of the Faith, and She focused on those points of doctrine that divide us from non-Catholics, to demonstrate that Truth is most important. She also instructed us, especially through the Five First Saturdays, and in conformity to the revelations given at Lourdes, La Salette and to Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre, of the need to get on our knees and make reparation for the sins of men, particularly for the sins against Faith that are part and parcel of non-Catholic creeds, especially in regard to Her Immaculate Heart.

She did not teach any new doctrine, nor any modernized understanding of doctrine that would cause us to reinterpret Catholic teaching any way differently from the way it has been taught for 2,000 years.

She told us that world peace will come only by obeying Her request of the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, not by Catholics joining with false religions in inter-religious prayers for peace — religions which She claims are blaspheming Her by their disbelief. In fact, and this is sad to say, at the great prayer-meeting at Assisi in 1986, when Catholics prayed in public with false religions for the cause of peace, the Holy Rosary was not prayed at all. This despite the fact that the Rosary is the specific prayer given by Our Lady as a condition for peace. Likewise, on that day, the Immaculate Heart of Mary was neither honored nor invoked.

This is a radical departure from the plan given by Our Lady. In fact, I believe these inter-religious assemblies will not only fail to produce any good fruit, but may actually be a cause for great chastisement. And I say this not on my own authority, but on the authority of one of the most eminent Cardinals of the 20th Century, the great Cardinal Mercier of Belgium.

In 1918, just one year after the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, the great Cardinal Mercier stated that the First World War was actually a punishment for the crime of men placing the one true religion on the same level as false creeds (which is precisely what these new pan-religious meetings do, in stark contradiction to 2,000 years of Catholic teaching). In a 1918 pastoral letter entitled “The Lesson of Events,” Cardinal Mercier said,

“In the name of the Gospel, and in the light of the Encyclicals of the last four Popes, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius X, I do not hesitate to affirm that this indifference to religions which puts on the same level the religion of divine origin and the religions invented by men in order to include them in the same scepticism is the blasphemy which calls down chastisement on society far more than the sins of individuals and families.”⁴

Hence, we see that Cardinal Mercier’s statements are in perfect continuity with the consistent teaching of the Popes throughout the centuries, and in perfect harmony with a world view based on Fatima.

So I will close with what I said earlier. Just the way that the great Miracle of October 13, 1917 — 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 we must never take our eyes off of Fatima, never take our eyes off of Our Lady’s, and never allow ourselves to be distracted from Her in any way whatsoever.

1. Vatican I, Session III, Chap. IV, Faith and Reason.



2. Scalan, The Holy Man of Tours (Tan Books), p. 122.



3. P. Janvier, Life of Sister Saint-Pierre with an approbation by Most Rev. Charles Colet, Archbishop of Tours, (John Murphy & Co, Baltimore, 1884) p. 114.
   
   
4. Quote taken from The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism by Father Denis Fahey (Regina Publications, June, 1943), p. 36. Footnoted as cited from Cardinal Mercier’s Pastoral Letter, 1918, The Lesson of Events.