by Father Paul Kramer, B.Ph., S.T.B., M.Div., S.T.L.(Cand.)

        An article by Cindy Wooden of the Catholic News Service, which appeared in the Canadian paper The Catholic Register on November 18, 2001, reports about a book recently published by the Fatima seer, the Carmelite Sister Lucy dos Santos. The article makes statements that are seriously in error.

        The article mentions that the book "includes a chapter on the Fatima message’s appeal for ‘devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary’ (while) it does not mention Mary’s request that Russia and the world be consecrated to Her ..."

        Our Lady of Fatima never asked for the consecration of the world but specifically and only Russia. In an interview published in L’Osservatore Romano on May 12, 1982, Father Pasquale, a well-known Salesian priest who had known Sister Lucy since 1939 and who had received 157 letters from her prior to May 1982, reveals to the world that Sister Lucy clearly and emphatically told him that Our Lady of Fatima never asked for the consecration of the world but only the Consecration of Russia. To quote directly from Father Pasquale’s above-mentioned article,

        "At a certain moment I said to her: ‘Sister, I should like to ask you a question. If you cannot answer me, let it be! But if you can answer it, I would be most grateful to you, for you to clear up a point for me which does not appear clear to many people ... Has Our Lady ever spoken to you about the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart?’ - ‘No, Father Umberto! Never! At the Cova da Iria in 1917, Our Lady had promised: I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia ... to prevent the spreading of her errors throughout the world, wars among several nations, persecutions against the Church ... In 1929, at Tuy, as She had promised, Our Lady came back to tell me that the moment had come to ask the Holy Father for the consecration of that country (Russia)’ ..."

        Father Pasquale also published a photographically-reproduced copy of a handwritten note by Sister Lucy (shown below) attesting to their conversation on this point.

        Here is the translation of Sister Lucy’s handwritten note:

"Reverend Father Umberto,
In replying to your question, I will clarify:
Our Lady of Fatima, in Her request, referred only to the Consecration of Russia ...
Coimbra 13 IV-1980"
(signed) Sister Lucy

        The erroneous reference in the CNS article to the consecration of "Russia and the world" creates the impression that an act of consecration of the world that would implicitly include Russia would fulfill the request.

        Sister Lucy made her formal statements to the Apostolic Nuncio to Portugal, Archbishop Sante Portalupi, on March 21, 1982 and again on March 19, 1983 that Russia must be specified as the object of the consecration and that all of the Catholic bishops must participate.

        The CNS article further alleges that "Pope John Paul II presided over the act of consecration in 1984, and Sister Lucy said it was done in the way Mary requested." There is, in fact, no credible evidence that Sister Lucy has ever said that the consecration was done as Our Lady requested, and the journalist’s claim that Sister Lucy says that the Consecration of Russia is already done is not substantiated by any alleged evidence either - it is simply manifestly without foundation. We notice that the journalist dares not cite her sources for making such a claim. The only "evidence" ever trotted out by Archbishop Bertone is the incredible quotation from a letter purported to be from Sister Lucy, back in 1989, to an unidentified recipient, and no references or texts of this letter are ever provided. This evidence of Sister Lucy’s statement is as credible as the other infamous statement of Archbishop Bertone at that infamous press conference of June 26, 2000, wherein he stated, "The decision of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to make public the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima brings to an end a period of history marked by tragic human lust for power and evil."

        Archbishop Bertone visited Sister Lucy on April 27, 2000; he did not report her to have made any such statement. The Holy Father spoke with Sister Lucy on May 13, 2000, and he did not make any such report either.

        In Sister Lucy’s interviews with Enrique Romero in 1987, and with Sol de Fatima in 1985, Sister Lucy stated unequivocally that the Consecration of Russia requested by Our Lady of Fatima has not yet been accomplished.

        The article goes on to say that "the ‘Third Secret’ speaks of the suffering of the Church and specifically of the ‘bishop in white,’ whom Pope John Paul has said referred to himself." (emphasis mine)

        Cardinal Sodano has insinuated this, and so has Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Bertone, but the Pope has made no statement, neither unofficial nor magisterial, interpreting the Third Secret in this manner.

        The article does mention the title of the book, The appeals of the Message of Fatima, but the author of the article does not seem to think it strange that a book with that title makes no mention of the fact that Our Lady Herself appealed in God’s name for the Consecration of Russia, promising the conversion of Russia and world peace by means of that Consecration.

        Why would Sister Lucy write a book about Our Lady’s requests and leave that one out? She has, of course, already given the answer in the aforementioned statement to the Apostolic Nuncio to Portugal.

        When answering the question why she had not stated earlier that the consecration was not yet done, Sister Lucy answered, "I did not have the authorization of the Holy See." If it were her opinion that the Consecration of Russia has already been done, she would surely have permission to say that.

        But it is precisely because she is not willing to make such a false statement that she is still under order of silence, and thus we still have no verifiably authentic statement in which she states, for the record, that the consecration requested by Our Lady of Fatima has been done.

        This Sister Lucy will do only when the conditions she specified in her formal statements to the Nuncio on March 21, 1982 and again on March 19, 1983 will have been fulfilled.

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