Church and World
Pope Francis Entrusted the World to Our Lady of Fatima
Within the context of the Year of Faith and on the occasion of the Marian Days, October 12-13, 2013, the Pilgrim Virgin statue of Our Lady of Fatima was transported by way of exception from Portugal to the Vatican. On Saturday afternoon, October 12, this statue of Our Lady of the Rosary, which ordinarily is found in the little Chapel of the Apparitions in Fatima, was exposed to the veneration of the faithful on Saint Peter’s Square. Then it was taken to the Marian shrine of the Divine Love, about six miles south of Rome, where pilgrims could venerate it throughout the night. Pope Francis spoke in a video message, associating “all those who are joining us from the Marian shrines of Lourdes, Nazareth, Lujan, Vailankanni, Guadalupe, Akita, Nairobi, Banneux, Czestochowa and Marian Valley”…“united with all of you in praying the Holy Rosary and in Eucharistic Adoration, under the watchful eyes of the Virgin Mary.”
On the morning of October 13, Pope Francis presided at a Mass on Saint Peter’s Square, before the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, in the presence of more than 100,000 persons. At the end of the ceremony, the Pope recited the “Act of Entrustment to Mary”:
“O Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima, with renewed gratitude for your maternal presence, we unite our voices to those of all the generations that call you blessed….Receive with motherly benevolence this act of entrustment that we confidently make to you today, before this image of you that is so dear to us. We are sure that each one of us is precious in your sight and that of all that is in our hearts, nothing is foreign to you….Keep our life safe in your arms; bless and strengthen every desire for good; revive and nourish our faith; sustain and enlighten our hope; stir up and animate our charity; guide us all on the path of holiness.”
In Rome, Vatican Radio clarified, officials insist that this gesture of the pope is not strictly speaking a “consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” as the Fatima Shrine announced on its website. Abp. Rino Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, which organized these Marian Days, explained that there was a “very intense theological debate” about the meaning of the term “consecration,” but that it had been abandoned by John Paul II after his Encyclical Redemptoris Mater (March 1987). Previously, according to Vatican Radio, in May 1982 in Fatima, and then in March 1984 at the Vatican, the Polish pope had publicly pronounced acts of consecration of the world to the Virgin Mary.
After his election on March 13 of this year, Pope Francis had asked Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, then Patriarch of Lisbon, for his pontificate to be consecrated to Our Lady of Fatima. The consecration took place on May 13, during the Mass for the 96th anniversary of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to the three shepherd children of Fatima in 1917. (Cf. DICI, No. 274, April 26, 2013).
Reminder: The message of Our Lady to the three children at the Cova da Iria, in Fatima, includes three secrets, the first of which declared: “You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.”
The second secret said: “To prevent this [cf. the first secret], I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. 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 of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”
During a holy hour on the night of Tuesday, June 13, 1929, in Tuy, Our Lady said to Sister Lucy: “The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the Bishops in the world, to make the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.” And in August 1931, Our Lord Jesus Christ revealed to Sister Lucy, who was convalescing in Rianjo: “They did not wish to heed My request!…Like the King of France they will repent of it, and they will do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread its errors in the world, provoking wars and persecutions against the Church. The Holy Father will have much to suffer.”
On October 31, 1942, Pius XII consecrated the Church and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in a radio address, then solemnly on December 8, 1942. “Since he was uninformed about the revelations that Sister Lucy had had in Tuy and about her original letter of October 24, 1940, it was difficult for the Holy Father [Pius XII] to know that there were two requests and that the request of Our Lady had to be fulfilled in union with the bishops of the whole world” (Joseph de Belfont, Mystères et vérités cachées du troisième secret de Fatima [Mysteries and hidden truths of the third secret of Fatima], Éditions Lanore, p. 93). “Pius XII therefore responded to the request that he had known about since 1936…for the consecration of the world; he thus obtained the end of the war. He still had to respond to the second, which he only gradually learned about” (ibid., p. 94). On May 4, 1944, in view of the results that had been obtained, Pius XII declared August 22 (Octave of the Assumption) the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as a commemoration, he explained, of the consecration of December 8, 1942. On July 7, 1952, Pius XII issued an Apostolic Letter Sacro Vergente Anno, consecrating “all the peoples of Russia” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but without the bishops of the whole world as the Blessed Virgin had requested.
John Paul II, “in union with all the pastors of the Church by that special bond that makes us constitute a body and a college,” pronounced on May 13, 1982, during his journey to Fatima, these words: “O Mother of all men and women, and of all peoples, …accept the cry which we…address directly to your Heart. Embrace…this human world of ours, which we entrust and consecrate to you....In a special way we entrust and consecrate to you those individuals and nations which particularly need to be thus entrusted and consecrated” (ibid., pp. 160-161). On March 25, 1984, the bishops were invited to join the pope for a consecration in which Russia was not mentioned by name.
Appeal for the Filipino Typhoon Yolanda victims
The Society of St. Pius X of the District of Asia is making a world-wide appeal on behalf of the victims for the recent super-typhoon Yolanda that has just hit the Philippines last Nov. 7-9, 2013.
Described as the worst typhoon known in history, with winds reaching 330 km per hour [in excess of 200 mph], it has had the same devastating effects as the tsunami of 2004. The island of Leyte, in particular, and its capital city of Tacloban have been the worst hit.
The number of dead caused by this typhoon is estimated today at over 10,000, and is still growing by the hour. All the houses of this city have been severely damaged or are gone.
The Society of St. Pius X too has been directly affected: we have lost our Tacloban chapel and the missionary car, stationed at the chapel; many of our faithful have lost their houses. We do not yet know if some of our faithful have died in the disaster due to a complete breakdown in communications.
Please come to their help! This historical typhoon has come just weeks after a 7.2 earthquake hit the Philippines, with its epicenter on the island of Bohol. One of our priests lost his parents’ house as a result of this quake. This appeal is made on the feast of the great St. Martin who did come to the rescue of a poor man in need.
You can help in many ways:
First by your prayers! That all those who have been affected may have the patience and fortitude to bear this heavy cross. That the others may have great charity and liberality to come to their rescue.
Then by your donations. For these, you can either go through the various districts and chapels of the Society of St. Pius X world-wide (who will in turn pass it on to us), or send the funds directly to us in one of our various bank accounts.
NOTE: In whatever way you send funds, please mention clearly: “For the Typhoon Victims.”
Also, if you send a cheque to one of these accounts, please also inform us by email, if possible.
Australia: Please make cheques to “The Society of St. Pius X” in AUD and send to: The Asian Missions, c/o 20 Robin Crescent, WOY WOY, NSW 2256 , Australia. USA: Please make cheques payable to “SSPX Foreign Mission Trust – Asia” (tax deductible) in USD and send to: Regina Coeli House, 11485 N. Farley Road, Platte City, MO 64079, USA. UK: Please make cheques payable to “The Society of St. Pius X” in GBP and send to: The Asian Missions, c/o 5 Fox Lane, Leicester LE1 1WT, U.K. France: Please make cheques payable to “ACIM” (tax deductible) and send to: Dr. Jean Pierre Dickès, 2 route d’Equilhen 62360 St Etienne au Mont. All Other Countries: Please make cheques payable to “SSPX” in any currency and send to either: Priesterbruderschaft St.Pius X, Menzingen, 6313, Switzerland; or: St. Pius X Priory, 286 Upper Thomson Road, Singapore 574402 (Tel.:[65] 6459 0792, Fax [65] 6451 4920); or write to us for bank details: Email: district@sspxasia.com.
With the assurance of our prayers and the deep gratitude of the victims. “Amen I say to you: as long as you did for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it to Me” (Mt. 25:40).
Report of Bishop Fellay’s Lecture at the Angelus Press Conference in Kansas City (USA)
Bishop Fellay, SSPX Superior General, gave an extensive lecture on Saturday, October 12, during the Angelus Press Conference, that focused on the Third Secret of Fatima and its apparent prediction of both a material chastisement and a great crisis in the Church.
We thank Mr. John Vennari for allowing us to publish his report from Catholic Family News.
“The situation of the Church is a real disaster, and the present pope is making it 10,000 times worse.”
This is what Bishop Bernard Fellay said in an address at the Angelus Press Conference, the weekend of October 11-13 in Kansas City. This report will highlight some of the more dramatic aspects of the bishop’s Saturday conference.
Bishop Fellay quoted in detail Sister Lucy, those who have read the Third Secret, and those who have knowledge of the Secret. He noted that Sister Lucia said that if we want to know the contents of the Third Secret, read Chapters 8 through 13 of the Apocalypse. (Details of the Third Secret will be contained in the upcoming November edition of Catholic Family News.)
Sister Lucia’s reference to Chapters 8 through 13 of the Apocalypse is particularly chilling, since the end of Chapter 13 speaks of the coming of Antichrist.
Bishop Fellay noted that Pope St. Pius X said at the beginning of his pontificate that the “son of perdition” may already be on the earth. He also noted that the original prayer to St. Michael of Pope Leo XIII mentions that Satan aims to establish his seat in Rome.
The bishop quoted Cardinal Luigi Ciapi, the Papal Theologian of all the Popes from Pius XII to John Paul II, who said, “In the Third Secret we read among other things that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top.”
He also spent a good bit of time on the famous and dramatic 1957 interview of Fr. Fuentes with Sister Lucia, in which she reiterated that “various nations will disappear from the face of the earth,” and that “the devil will do all in his power to overcome souls consecrated to God.”
Since the ministers of God are struck with this confusion and disorder, the faithful are left to fend for themselves for their own salvation. The help that should be provided by Churchmen is not there. This is “the greatest tragedy you can ever imagine for the Church.”
The times are very serious. We have to be serious about our salvation, “and to do this we are deprived of a very important element, which is the support of the [Church] authorities. What a tragedy.”
He spoke of Sister Lucia’s comforting words that God has given two last remedies for us: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
Rome-SSPX
Bishop Fellay alluded to the 2012 difficulties between SSPX and Rome:
“When we see what is happening now [under Pope Francis] we thank God, we thank God, we have been preserved from any kind of agreement from last year. And we may say that one of the fruits of the [Rosary] Crusade we did is that we have been preserved from such a misfortune. Thank God. It is not that we don’t want to be Catholics—of course we want to be Catholics and we are Catholics, and we have a right to be recognized as Catholics; but we are not going to jeopardize our treasures for that. Of course not.”
He continued, “To imagine that some people continue to pretend we are decided [still] to get an agreement with Rome. Poor people. I really challenge them to prove they mean. They pretend that I think something else from what I do. They are not in my head.”
As for the discussions with Rome:
“Any kind of direction for recognition ended when they gave me the document to sign on June 13, 2012. That very day I told them, ‘This document I cannot accept.’ I told them from the start in September of the previous year that we cannot accept this ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ because it is not true, it is not real. It is against the reality. So we do not accept it. The Council is not in continuity with Tradition. It’s not. So when Pope Benedict requested that we accept that the Second Vatican Council is an integral part of Tradition, we say, ‘Sorry, that’s not the reality, so we’re not going to sign it. We’re not going to recognize that.’
“The same for the Mass. They want us to recognize not only that the [New] Mass is valid provided it is celebrated correctly, etc., but that it is licit. I told them: we don’t use that word. It’s a bit messy; our faithful have enough [confusion] regarding the validity, so we tell them, ‘The New Mass is bad, it is evil,’ and they understand that. Period!”
Of course the Roman authorities “were not very happy with that.”
“It has never been our intention to pretend either that the Council would be considered as good, or the New Mass would be ‘legitimate.’
“The [April 15, 2012] text we presented to Rome was a very, shall we say, delicate text that was supposed to be understood correctly; it was supposed to be read with a big principle which was leading the whole thing. This big principle was no novelty in the Church: ‘The Holy Ghost has not been promised to St. Peter and his Successor in such a way that through a new revelation the Pope would teach something new, but under His help, the Pope would saintly conserve and faithfully transmit the deposit of the Faith.’ It belongs to the definition of infallibility [from Vatican I]. That was the principle, the base of the whole document, which excludes from the start any kind of novelty.
“And so to take any kind of sentences from the text without this principle is just to take sentences that have never been our thinking and our life. These phrases in themselves are ambiguous, so to take away the ambiguity we wanted to put [in] this principle [from Vatican I]. Unfortunately, maybe that was too subtle and that’s why we withdrew that text, because it was not clear enough as it was written.
“So it is very clear, our principle is always the same: to stay faithful! We have received a treasure. This treasure does not ‘belong’ to us. We have received this treasure and we have to hand it to the next generation. And what is requested from us is faithfulness, fidelity. We do not have the right to jeopardize these treasures. These are the treasures we have in our hands and we are not going to jeopardize them.”
Pope Francis
Bishop Fellay returned to Sister Lucia’s 1957 statement that the Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart are the two last remedies God has given to mankind.
He said that there is “definitely a ‘material’ chastisement of the world in sight. There is something big in front of us. How? When? I have no idea. But if you put everything together, it is clear that God has had enough of the sins of man.”
He then spoke of those sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance, such as abortion, and the sins against nature, which was an allusion to the unnatural ‘redefinition’ of marriage and related sins. He also spoke of what appears to be a coming persecution of Christians.
“What do we do? Don’t panic, because panic is of no use at all. What you need to do is your job—your daily duty. That is the best way to prepare.”
He continued to say that we are in “very scary times,” but we are not helpless. He noted that “the situation of the Church is a real disaster. And the present Pope is making it 10,000 times worse.”
“In the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, I said, ‘The crisis in the Church will continue, but the Pope is trying to put on the brakes.’ It’s as if to say, the Church will continue to fall, but with a parachute. And with the beginning of this [Pope Francis] pontificate, I say, ‘He cuts the strings, and he put a [downward] rocket.’
“If the present pope continues in the way he started, he is going to divide the Church. He’s exploding everything. So people will say: ‘It is impossible that’s he’s the pope; we refuse him…’ [I say] ‘Wait, consider him as pope, but don’t follow him.’ He’s provoking anger. Many people will be discouraged by what people in the Church do” and will be tempted to “throw it all away.”
But, he reminded, God is “much, much bigger than we are. God is able to have the Church continue” and even can work through these imperfect ministers. “But once again,” he repeats, “don’t follow them. Follow them when they say the truth, but when they tell you rubbish, you don’t” follow them on those points. “Any obedience to be true must be related to God. When I say I obey a person” he should be a “mirror of God.” But “when the mirror is contrary to God, it is no longer a mirror; then I don’t follow him.”
Bishop Fellay noted that we cannot simply obey the present Popes without question, because then we would destroy ourselves, we would endanger our faith.
Following the warning of Sister Lucia, Pope Leo XIII and Pius X, Bishop Fellay further warned that we may be entering into the time of Antichrist, but we cannot know how far off in the future this may be.
Excerpts from the Sermon of Bishop Fellay in Kansas City, Missouri, on October 13, 2013
Bishop Fellay demonstrates how Pope Francis is a “genuine Modernist” through quotes of the Holy Father, while exhorting the faithful to redouble their prayers, particularly through the Rosary.
We present some extracts of the sermon given by Bishop Bernard Fellay (SSPX Superior General) during the solemn Pontifical Mass given on Sunday, October 13 at St. Vincent de Paul’s Church in Kansas City, Missouri, for the Angelus Press Conference. We thank Mr. John Vennari for his assistance.
Bishop Fellay amplified a few points regarding Fatima, the Secret, the 2012 SSPX relations with Rome, and then spoke of some of the many grave problems with Pope Francis.
“From the start, we have the impression that we have something wrong with this Pope. From the start, he wanted to distinguish himself to be different from anybody else.”
We must look, said the bishop, at what is his vision of the Church, his vision of the Council, and what is his plan. It was around the time of World Youth Day, late July of this year, that Francis began an avalanche of talks, interviews, phone calls, etc.
“We may not have the entire picture at this point, [but] we have enough to be scared to death.”
Contradictory Statements of the Pope
As is typical of the Modernist, as Pius X warned in Pascendi, the Modernist will sometimes speak in a heretical fashion, and then speak in an orthodox manner. Bishop Fellay gave the example of one of these contradictions: He spoke of the interview in early October that Pope Francis conducted with the atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari in Rome’s La Repubblica wherein Francis appears to promote a dangerous relativism:
“Scalfari: Your Holiness, is there a single vision of the Good? And who decides what it is?
“Pope Francis: Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.
“Scalfari: Your Holiness, you wrote that in your letter to me. ‘The conscience is autonomous,’ you said, ‘and everyone must obey his conscience.’ I think that’s one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope.
“Pope Francis: And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”
With a good deal of emotion, Bishop Fellay said of the Pope’s response: “That’s really not Catholic! Because whatever I think has absolutely no value if it does not fit with reality. The first reality is God!…God is the unique goodness and the reference for everything which is good!…We have a conscience, but it will only lead us to heaven if our conscience is a mirror of God.” The conscience must be formed according to God’s law. “So to pretend that anyone can follow his own idea is just rubbish,” said Fellay, “It has nothing to do with Catholic teaching. It is absolute relativism.”
A few days after this, however, Pope Francis spoke of the necessity of fighting the devil, the final battle with the devil, that nobody can fight the devil half way, and that we must fight relativism. Francis said the opposite of what he said to La Repubblica. “He said the contrary of what he just said!”
What is the vision of Pope Francis on Vatican II?
Bishop Fellay says that Pope Francis “takes it for granted that the Council was a bright success. What was the main theme of the Council? To re-read the Faith in light of modern culture,” you could say, “to incarnate the Gospel in the modern world.” Francis “is very happy with this…” and believes “the Council brought forth many good fruits. The first example he gives is liturgy—the reformed liturgy. That is the beautiful fruit of the Council. That’s what he says. And he’s very happy with it.”
Francis tells us “this re-reading of the Gospel within the modern culture is irreversible, so we will not go back. How do you want us to be in agreement with him? We are in front of a major fight.”
Pope Francis and the Mass
About the liturgy and the old Mass, Francis speaks of “Vetus Ordo” (Old Order). Francis believes that Pope Benedict probably helped restore the traditional Latin Mass as a prudential act for those who still hold to it. “But don’t expect Francis to come back to the old Mass… Maybe he will ‘indulge’ it [let us celebrate it unmolested]. God knows.”
But Francis “sees there is a problem with this old Mass, because there are people who ideologize this Mass. Guess at whom he is aiming? I don’t need to say much. So what is going to happen with us?… What I see: there is quite an obsession in him about those people who look to the past. Listen to the Pope’s words:
“Pope Francis: What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its exploitation.…If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life.”
Bishop Fellay continues, “The impression we have in the present Pope is that he has a zeal for the ‘more or less,’ for the ‘about’; and he wants at all cost to escape what is too clear and too certain. But the Faith is like that because God is like that. Well, that’s not what he thinks.”
Another troubling quote from Pope Francis:
“If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt.”
Bishop Fellay exclaims in response: “What Gospel does he have? Which Bible does he have to say such things. It’s horrible. What has this to do with the Gospel? With the Catholic Faith? That’s pure Modernism, my dear brethren. We have in front of us a genuine Modernist....
“How much time will be needed for people with authority in the Church to stand up and say, ‘By no means!’ [will we accept this new teaching]. I really hope and pray this will happen. But that means an enormous division in the Church.” Francis also tells us he is a greater admirer of the ultra-liberal Jesuit Cardinal Martini (now deceased). Martini wrote a book calling for a total revolution in the Church. “And that is what Francis wants. And he told us the eight cardinals he chose to help him ‘reform’ the Church think like him!”
Bishop Fellay says that Pope Francis claims that “very little has been done in this direction.” This is astounding, the bishop notes, because ecumenism has launched untold disaster upon the Church, leading Catholic nations to apostasy. “Yet the present Pope says, ‘Very little, almost nothing has been done in this direction,’ and: ‘But I have the humility and the ambition to do it!’ ”
Stick to Tradition and to the Rosary!
Bishop Fellay says as part of his summing up: “The mystery of the shadow on the Church has never been so great! We are in front of very hard times. Don’t have any illusions. And it is clear the only solution is to stick to what we have; to keep it, to not let it go by any means…
“Pope St. Pius X said that it was the essence of any Catholic to stick to the past, that in this sense, every Catholic is traditional! The present Pope says exactly the contrary: ‘Forget about the past; throw yourself into the uncertainty of the future.’
“Definitely we need the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What we are experiencing is the Secret of Fatima. We know what we have to do: pray, pray, pray, and penance, penance, penance; to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the means given to us precisely in these hard times…and to pray the Rosary.
“Be certain, the next [Rosary] Crusade is not far off. Go to the Rosary… Pray it every day. We live in very dangerous times for the Faith, and we need this heavenly protection which is promised, granted, let us just take it!…Let us grow in the intimacy with the Virgin Mary and God!”
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