That even if you, yourself, might doubt the effectiveness of this Consecration, there would be nothing to lose and everything to gain from the Pope and bishops performing it?

Precisely such a Consecration is prescribed in what is commonly known as the Message of Fatima.

The Message of Fatima was authenticated by God through His spectacular public miracle, witnessed by 70,000 people. It was reported in newspapers around the world, including the New York Times. Warner Brothers even made a movie based on the events at Fatima called The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.

Among the apparitions approved by the Catholic Church are the appearances of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal from May-October in 1917. Pope Benedict XVI refers to them  as the “most prophetic revelations of the 20th Century”.

Even many non-Catholics are aware that the Message of Fatima was approved by the Catholic Church as worthy of belief.

The Church’s approval is  given only after thorough investigation, and only if there is compelling evidence of authenticity.

It was during these appearances that the Virgin Mary confided the Message of Fatima to three children, Lucia dos Santos and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto. Sister Lucia died on February 13, 2005. Her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco, died in 1919 and 1920 shortly after the apparitions — precisely as predicted in the apparitions themselves.

As the Church Goes
So Goes the World

The hypothetical man on the street would be surprised to learn that the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 and the public scandal wracking the Catholic Church regarding certain members of the clergy,  are closely related events. The relation becomes apparent when the two events are viewed through the prism of the Message of Fatima. It is often said, that as the Church goes, so goes the world. That, in essence, is what the Mother of God cautioned when She came to Fatima, 90 years ago.

Since that time Our Lady’s prophetic warnings of various chastisements, if the Message were not heeded, have all been realized, save one: the annihilation of various nations, which the Virgin of Fatima warned would be the ultimate temporal consequence in this world for failing to honor Her requests in time. The predicted loss of millions of souls to the depths of hell is, of course, infinitely worse than even these great temporal calamities.

One of Our Lady’s requests was that the Pope and the Catholic bishops of the world conduct a solemn public Consecration (that is, to set aside, to dedicate in a religious ceremony for a sacred purpose) of one nation — Russia — to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in return for which She promised (among other things) that the world would be granted an era of true and abiding peace.

Fatima is Authentic and Imposes an Obligation

The Fatima apparitions have been deemed authentic by a series of Popes and are now officially commemorated in the Roman Missal (the basic book of Catholic worship) by the decree of Pope John Paul II.

As a further testament to the authenticity of the Message of Fatima, Pope John Paul II beatified Jacinta and Francisco, declaring them to have lived lives of exemplary virtue — so much so, that they are deemed blessed of the Lord and worthy of veneration by the whole Church. In fact, during his sermon at Fatima on May 13, 1982 — on which occasion he attributed his escape from death during the assassination attempt exactly one year prior to the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima — the Pope declared that the Message of Fatima “imposes an obligation” on the Church.

As Pope John Paul II himself had recognized, the astounding events at Fatima were not some useless spectacle. God does not engage in useless spectacles. Those events confirmed the authenticity of the Message beyond a shadow of a doubt — even among the atheists and others who were public skeptics prior to the miracle.

Fatima — a World Event

At Fatima, the Mother of God came to earth with our present circumstances clearly in mind, and with the solicitude of a mother, She offered us a way out — the way chosen by God Himself for our time. That being the case, one cannot understand the state of the Church and the world today without understanding what occurred at Fatima. Indeed, even Newsweek magazine ran a cover story on the Virgin Mary, discussing events in Russia with reference to the Fatima apparitions. Quite simply, Fatima is a world event.

And yet, in what must be seen as a mystery of iniquity, the Virgin Mary’s simple requests remain unfulfilled due to conscious decisions by some of the highest-ranking prelates in the Catholic Church. We will demonstrate how these men have advised the Pope not to consecrate Russia by name. The result, just as She predicted, is an ever-deepening crisis in the Catholic Church and throughout the world, accompanied by an ever growing sense, even among non-believers, that we are witnessing the beginning of an apocalypse.

Why a Consecration
of Russia?

Why, the reader might ask, should God place such importance on the Consecration of Russia?

The answer, of course, is that God’s ways are not our ways, and it is not for us to question God’s ordinances as given through His prophets, no matter how strange they may seem to human wisdom.

The Bible offers an enlightening example in this regard. The Fourth Book of Kings tells the story of Naaman (see Chapter 5:1-15), the leader of the Syrian army, who went to the prophet Eliseus in Israel to seek a miraculous cure for his leprosy. Without actually meeting him, Eliseus sent Naaman instructions to bathe seven times in the river Jordan, in order to be cured. Naaman was indignant that Eliseus did not come to administer his cure personally. Merely bathing in the Jordan, he felt, could not possibly be any better than bathing in one of Syria’s fine rivers. Rejecting the prophet’s instructions as trivial, Naaman prepared to depart; however, his advisers dissuaded him. They argued that if the prophet had asked him to perform some arduous feat to be cured, Naaman would have done it unquestionably. So why not simply do the seemingly mundane task that had been asked instead? In effect, they said to him: What have you got to lose? Naaman agreed to give it a try on this basis and, sure enough, on his seventh washing in the Jordan, his leprosy disappeared.

A Strong Parallel

There is a striking parallel between this miraculous Biblical event and the attitude now being taken by certain Church officials regarding the Consecration of Russia. Like Naaman, these officials seem unable to believe that something as simple as a Consecration of Russia could deliver a benefit as momentous as genuine world peace. However, unlike Naaman’s advisers, they are telling their leader — in this case, the Pope — that he need not follow the prophet’s advice to the letter. And it appears they are so stubbornly unrepentant in their view of the matter that they will not even allow the remedy to be tried, despite repeated appeals over many decades from millions of the faithful, including thousands in the Catholic clergy.

Opposition to the
Fatima Request

This strange campaign by many (including high-ranking) Catholic churchmen to obstruct fulfillment of the Virgin’s request seems to be motivated by the ecclesial equivalent of political correctness — the desire to avoid giving offense to non-Catholic parties, and to not set back “ecumenical dialogue.” The attitude of these prelates toward Fatima is also in keeping with a massive effort to “update” the Catholic Church ever since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in order to make the Church, more “open” to the world. The current condition of the Church, after forty years of this experiment, reflects the post-conciliar effort to impose a sort of politically correct revision of Catholicism in place of the old faith.

If the Message of Fatima is truly a heavenly prophecy for our time, then these reformist prelates bear a large part of the responsibility for the ecclesial crisis and the world crisis that we are all forced to endure, even presuming that they have acted with the very best of intentions. To those who say that to speak of a campaign against Fatima by Catholic churchmen themselves is scandalous, we can only reply with the words of the Virgin Herself:

“If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.”¹

Russia has not converted. Russia’s errors, including the holocaust of “legalized” abortion, have spread throughout the world. The first country to “legalize” abortion in the world was Russia, in the 1920's.

There is no peace. And today even non-believers live in fear of the annihilation of nations. To echo the words of Pope St. Gregory the Great, “it is better that scandal arise than that the truth be suppressed.” — especially when, as in this case, the truth could avert global disaster and the loss of millions of more souls to eternal damnation.

At any rate, our presentation here ought to make it apparent to any objective ob- server that there is only one reasonable answer to the same question put to Naaman by his far more prudent advisers: “What is there to lose by simply doing exactly what God’s prophet has specified?” Nothing!

What does the Bible say about PEACE?

The Bible tells us that a time will come when mankind will make war no more. In the Old Testament, the prophets tell us that mankind will turn their swords into plowshares. That is, they will recycle their instruments of war such as missiles, tanks, bombs, guns, and biological weapons and turn them into instruments for producing food. 

The Bible also tells us: The lion will lie down with the lamb. And the lamb will not be hurt. A child will put his hand into the adder’s nest and the child will not be hurt.    Cont'd on page 28

“God wills to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If My requests are granted, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”