Let me clarify. I appreciate private revelations not only the ones that are approved by the Church for the entire Church's consideration, edification and piety, but also those that are intended just for the individual who has it as long as the revelation is consistent with what the Church actually teaches in the Deposit of Faith.
I am fascinated by private revelations and I believe over the course of my almost 64 years I have experienced a few for my own personal spiritual needs and for the good of the Church I serve in any particular locality.
However, the Church does not require us to believe in these private revelations as a direct dictation to the one having it. In fact we can be as skeptical as we would like but non judgmental about those who accept these.
I like them, but I don't go too far with them and certainly I don't want to split hairs about what someone who has had a private revelation demands in specific terms of what the pope or any bishop should do.
So in this context I worry that Cardinal Burke goes too far and is splitting hairs about Fatima and what is required of the pope in consecrating Russia by name to the Immaculate Heart.
What do you think of Cardinal Burke's concern about Russia being consecrated explicitly to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
This is from the Wanderer:
Cardinal Burke Repeats:
Russia Must Be Consecrated Explicitly to the Immaculate Heart
by Christopher A. Ferrara
August 8, 2017
In an exclusive interview with The Wanderer,
Cardinal Raymond Burke has once again called for the explicit
consecration of Russia, by name, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as Our
Lady of Fatima requested the better part of a century ago (1929) after
promising Sister Lucia at Fatima exactly a century ago (1917) that She
would return to make that request when “the moment has come.”In the course of the interview, in which the Cardinal also discussed the “final battle” over marriage and family now underway within the Church, as well as in civil society, the Cardinal was asked the following question concerning the allegation that Sister Lucia confirmed that the ceremony performed by John Paul II on March 25, 1984, from which any mention of Russia was deliberately omitted, somehow sufficed to fulfill the request for consecration of the very place not mentioned:
“Q. According to Documents on Fátima… Sr. Lucia wrote on August 29, 1989 that Pope St. John Paul II’s consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 1984 fulfilled Our Lady’s request. At the Rome Life Forum about three months ago, you urged the Catholic faithful to ‘work for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’ What does the consecration you are calling for entail; is it more than the Pope simply naming Russia explicitly?”First of all, as for the claim that Lucia “wrote” in 1989 that a 1984 ceremony deliberately failing to name Russia was a consecration of Russia, The Fatima Center’s article “Chronology of a Cover-Up” explains:
“In September of 1985, in an interview in Sol de Fatima magazine (published by the Blue Army in Spain), Sr. Lucia confirmed that the consecration still had not been done, because the 1984 ceremony did not mention Russia, and the world’s Catholic bishops did not participate. Later in the year, Cardinal Edouard Gagnon acknowledged in another interview that the consecration had still not been done as requested. He later objected to having his remarks published, though he did not deny making them….Moreover, no one disputes that Sister Lucia insisted that the failed 1982 ceremony also conducted by John Paul II, which likewise failed to mention Russia or enlist the world’s bishops, did not fulfill Our Lady’s request. Indeed, no less than L’Osservatore Romano published the following testimony by Lucia’s priestly friend and confidant Father Umberto Maria Pasquale, S.D.B. on May 12, 1982, some two months after the 1982 ceremony:
“For many years, Sr. Lucia’s cousin, Maria do Fetal, publicly quoted Sr. Lucia as saying the consecration had not been done. Maria do Fetal continued to maintain this position until mid-1989, when she suddenly reversed herself, in accordance with the Vatican “instruction” revealed by Fr. Coelho.”
“I wanted to clarify the question of the Consecration of Russia, in having recourse to the source. On August 5, 1978, in the Carmel of Coimbra, I had a lengthy interview with the seer of Fatima, Sister Lucy. 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)’...”So, what changed between the time of the first failed ceremony in 1982 and the second in 1984? Nothing, except the abrupt reversal dubiously attributed to Sister Lucia, who never once was allowed to address the public directly on the matter.
At any rate, in answer to The Wanderer’s question about whether the Consecration entails “more than the Pope simply naming Russia explicitly,” Cardinal Burke gave this telling explanation:
“It is exactly that; it is as simple as that, namely, to fulfill Our Lady’s request exactly as she asked for it. There is no question that Pope St. John Paul II was keenly aware of the seriousness of the situation, of the need to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He intended precisely to do that on March 25, 1984. For my part, I believe he would have done it explicitly except at that time it was argued that in order to promote a friendlier relationship with the Eastern Bloc countries, the name of Russia should not be mentioned in particular.
“I believe it was the Holy Father’s intention — that he did, in fact, consecrate Russia. However, it is also my belief that, given the situation in which we find ourselves today, the consecration of Russia must be done explicitly, exactly as Our Lady requested (while in no way denying John Paul’s intention to include Russia when he consecrated the world to her Immaculate Heart). My intent is not to level accusations against anyone, but rather in response to the present time which is so grave to urge the need to carry out what Our Lady asked exactly as she asked it.
“To repeat, the consecration I called for is in no way to call into question what Sr. Lucia said about St. John Paul II fulfilling what Our Lady asked for. It is simply to respond to that request one more time and consecrate Russia in an explicit way. At the same time, it is the right and duty of the faithful to ask Pope Francis to do this consecration….”With all due respect to the Cardinal, while confirming what is obvious — that a consecration of Russia needs to mention Russia rather than deliberately failing to mention it — he appears to be trying to have it both ways: that John Paul’s intention to consecrate Russia sufficed, according to the alleged remark by Sister Lucia (contradicted by her own published testimony), but that Russia should nonetheless be consecrated by name. That is akin to declaring that the removal of a gall bladder sufficed for an emergency appendectomy, because the nurse said so, but that the appendix should be removed just in case.
Think of the Consecration of Russia as the ecclesial equivalent of an emergency appendectomy, urgently needed to prevent a fatal poisoning of the entire body of the Church, which no reasonable observer of the ecclesial scene can deny is being threatened at this very moment. That the Consecration will finally take place is certain, for the Church is indefectible and the divine will cannot be thwarted but only (by God’s permissive will) impeded for a time by human perversity. What is not certain is how much agony the Church will have to suffer before the divine remedy is, at long last, applied.
22 comments:
First, The Wanderer is trash.
Second, "CAN ONE BECOME A "PRIVATE REVELATION" FUNDAMENTALIST AND PLACE TOO MUCH EMPHASIS AS A CATHOLIC ON THINGS APOCALYPTIC AS FUNDAMENTALIST PROTESTANTS PLACE ON SCRIPTURE?"
Yes.
What does it mean to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
I thought Sr. Lucia said this "requirement" was fulfilled, but too late to stop the spread of Russia's errors.
Would Russia's errors now be the teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church that contradict those of the Catholic Church, considering that Russia is becoming much more Christian than the West is?
At my traditional parish (in union with Rome)we pray this as an intention of the rosary before all Sunday masses. Cardinal Burke is 100 % correct, and our priests back him up totally.
August 29, 1989: Sr. Lucia affirms in correspondence that the consecration "has been accomplished" and that "God will keep His word." (Fatima Consecration - Chronology, EWTN)
The errors, in 1917, were those of Bolshevism. I would like to think that countless prayers, offered after countless Masses, contributed to the fall of atheistic Communism in Russia in 1991, although Vatican II was useless in this regard - it effectively put condemnation of Communism out of the agenda, and removed the Leonine prayers from the Mass.
Why pick on Russia? The Orthodox, prickly at the best of times, are simply going to see it as another example of Roman arrogance.
I have sat through many talks on Fatima and find the whole phenomenon unconvincing and disturbing, despite the ardour of its advocates. Why did not the BVM appear to Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov (aka Lenin) and convince him of the error of his ways? It would have saved a lot of grief. There have been many saints and mystics who have had private revelations, but the idea that in the modern era Our Lord should send his Blessed Mother to impart new knowledge to peasant children, and in the case of Fatima, scare the living daylights out of them with a vision of hell, sounds pathological to me.
I wouldn't go anywhere near Lourdes, either, and for similar reasons. I was brought up in the era of sentimental, picture-postcard, heart-on-sleeve popular devotional Catholicism, which even as a small child I found effeminate and off-putting. That's why I am passionate about the Mass, about the liturgy generally, about the history of the Church and in short about a Catholicism with those attributes which in vernacular parlance are likened to round objects.
That is why most performances of the vernacular Mass, with their touchy-feely sentimentality, their maudlin and musically worthless songs, their drippy subjectivism, their manifest ignorance about what liturgy is really for - quite literally turn my stomach. I would avoid them even in articulo mortis (or especially in articulo mortis).
Well, in 1917 we had the Russian Revolution---as in the rise of Communism. That ended in Russia about a quarter century ago, though Communism regretfully hangs on in North Korea, Cuba and China. And I'm not sure what Russia is today---fascist? I would not associate it with democracy.
The prize for least convincing Marian apparitions has to go to Mount Melleray in Co. Waterford, where the Blessed Mother made a series of appearances to locals just after pub closing time.
Mary's proclamations at Melleray aren't as interesting as the Fatima ones: just "the world must behave", "my message is peace and prayer", and most importantly, "tell the people that the water is blessed". When I visited, you could buy 4-pint bottles to take it away in (Irish mammies get through an awful lot of holy water).
The website is worth a visit: http://www.melleray.com/
Does the U.S. now need consecration at least as much as Russia does? Actually, religious spirituality having historically been intrinsic to the Russian character, I wonder whether the 1917 Fatima call for the consecration of Russia was directed specifically at Bolshevist communism so, that with the fall of the Soviet Union and the apparent resurgence of Orthodoxy, the Fatima consecration is now a moot point.
James
Don't forget Knock - my father was a devout Irish Catholic but he always maintained that the locals had been at the poteen.
When I visited the Holy Water was literally on tap. Presumably some priest had blessed the municipal waterworks.
"Beginning in the 1960s a woman in Bayside, NY (Brooklyn Diocese), Veronica Lueken, reported apparitions of Our Lady, Our Lord and St. Therese. She attracted a following, which came to the grounds where the New York World's Fair had been held in 1964. There there were alleged phenomena, claimed miraculous healings and a constant stream of new revelations, including a new title for Mary, "Our Lady of the Roses, Help of Mothers". Eventually the Bayside apparitions were judged not supernatural by the Bishop of Brooklyn,..."
There are some that elevate private apparitions to near dogma, as if without it, one is a bad Catholic, or on a one-way ticket to hell.
So, yes, there can be this kind of attitude. Everything we need for our salvation is present in the Church. There doesn't need to be some kind of gnostic approach where there's some kind of secret knowledge to the Faith.
"Why pick on Russia? The Orthodox, prickly at the best of times, are simply going to see it as another example of Roman arrogance."
John, This is very much true, in my own conversations, there's very much a thought of the arrogance of Rome so to speak. (And more often times than not, I find myself agreeing with them)....it would have made a lot more sense to appear directly to Lenin, Stalin and convert them directly.
As if there aren't treasures from the East that aren't worthy of use. It seems to me Russia being an Orthodox nation, would be more open to Akathists, and the prayer rule of the Theotokos. (Two things I do myself)...while I'm sure a special edication to the Thotokos wouldn't hurt, I'd much rather the US or NK be consecrated first ;).
The Fatima Apparitions, on the surface, appear to be merely a "private revelation", but the Miracle of the Sun and its more than 70,000 witnesses changed that.
The alleged confirmation of Sister Lucia that the consecration had been fulfilled is bogus. IN 1957, she told a priest investigating the causes of sainthood for her cousins that the consecration was not fulfilled. In 1959, a phony report from Coimbra tried to discredit Sr. Lucia's words, but it was later proven that the priest, Fr. Fuentes, WAS telling the truth. Sr. Lucia was forbidden to speak about the 3rd Secret to any public source, insuring that she would have no control or say in what was disseminated publicly. In 1967, she begged for the opportunity to speak with Paul VI when he visited Fatima and was denied that privilege by the pope. In 1982, John Paul II consecrated THE WORLD (not Russia, as asked) to Mary's Immaculate heart. In 1982, Soul Magazine published a phony interview with Sr. Lucia (who was officially silenced) claiming that she affirmed the consecration was sufficient. In 1987, while outside the monastery to vote, Sr. Lucia told a journalist that the consecration WAS NOT DONE. In 1989, the Vatican instructed Sr. Lucia to contradict herself and say that the consecration HAD been done. Soon after, typewritten notes (Lucia preferred to write by hand) began to appear where she affirmed the consecration. Later, handwriting experts examined her alleged signature and declared it a forgery.
The fact is, Pope John XXIII, good man that he was, read the secret in 1960 and put it away, choosing instead to follow a different path. The fruits of that path have nearly destroyed the Church.
The "conversion" of Russia is a hollow claim. Most Russian orthodox bishops, at least by the time the communist government fell, were operatives of the KGB, the same organization that gave us Putin. Russia leads the world in abortion rates, suicide rates and is a hotbed of organized crime.
Fatima's message lines up with the warnings of La Salette and Akita. In fact, Pope Benedict basically said that the messages of Akita are the same as Fatima's 3rd secret. If that is true, we have little to laugh about and MUCH to repent of.
Cardinal Burke is spot on. The St. Gallen Mafia elected their man. Can you imagine how different the Church and the WORLD would be if the Cardinals had elected Burke? Instead, we are living the permanent 1970's with no end in sight. But take heart. In the end Mary's Immaculate Heart WILL triumph.
Bee here:
I've always wondered why the Pope and Bishops did not publicly and in unison consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary back in 1929 or soon after. Even if they didn't actually believe the apparitions of Fatima, it doesn't seem like a bad idea given the goings on in Russia at the time. Was it too much of a political hot potato? Would it have seemed a direct confrontation with Russia and did they fear Stalin might react with violence? Would it have been such a bad thing to decry what the Communists had done and were doing in Russia and the surrounding territories? Did the Church have no confidence in the truth, or faith in God's protection and support?
I am left wondering if the problem was that even in 1929 the Church already had too many modernistic bishops and cardinals, and these were not against the ideology (Marxism) that was operating in Russia, and perhaps believed themselves to be far too sophisticated to believe the absurd visions of pious and overwrought children. So did the consecration not happen because of a lack of will to uphold the Catholic Faith, in spite of the required Oath Against Modernism, and denounce atheistic Communism?
Any ideas or answers to my questions?
God bless,
Bee
Bee, think what was going on not only in Russia (USSR) and the rest of Europe, especially eastern Europe in 1929. A lot of it was cultural with the riff with the Russian Orthodox being cynically exploited by the Bolsheviks to consolidate the famous Russian xenophobia even if religion was ready to be cast down the well with the Romanovs. This would culminate ten years later, symbolically, in a film 'Alexander Nevski' that emphasized the rejection of the Catholic Church and its role supporting German invaders 700 years earlier. Such ancient grudges are part of daily life for many people from the Balkans eastward.
A Catholic is not required to believe in private revelations. In approving private revelations, the Church is saying they are worthy of belief. In order for a private revelation to be approved, it must be thoroughly investigated and nothing can be found in it that contradicts Church teaching. Not many have met the criteria for approval. The Church goes to great lengths to investigate apparitions. The Church has rejected most of the apparitions and private revelations it has investigated. A well known case in point is the apparitions at Medugorje, located in the former Yugoslavia. In the intervening 30-plus years, successive bishops in the diocese there have ruled that it cannot be confirmed that the claimed apparitions are supernatural in origin. A bishop is considered to speak for the Church when it concerns occurrences of this nature occurring in the diocese he governs and over which he has authority.
One significant point to consider is that all the recipients of the more well-known revelations are canonized saints, and this official recognition of those who in their earthly life exhibited an exceptional degree of holiness is considered to be an infallible pronouncement by the Church. This lends confirmation the truthfulness of what has been revealed, and that it in no way violates the teaching of the Church to believe in what has been revealed.
" ...the idea that in the modern era Our Lord should send his Blessed Mother to impart new knowledge to peasant children, and in the case of Fatima, scare the living daylights out of them with a vision of hell, sounds pathological to me."
Perhaps the idea that God, the Creator of all, would be born in a stable and live a life of poverty is equally pathological?
Perhaps the idea of a man like Job, decimated by bad circumstances, would praise the name of God in his afflictions, is also pathological?
Maybe the notion of so many prophets, who were not the greatest or most influential of men, in fact, men who were despised by the "wise" of their times--perhaps the notion of God calling such people is also pathological?
Or the case of the Maid of Orleans, who so many today insist was clearly schizophrenic, daring to insist that God had called her to save France--maybe THAT was the pathology you speak of?
How utterly vain it is for any of us to presume to dismiss anything we find questionable on the grounds that "God wouldn't do that" when scriptures and history have so many examples of just how God DOES work. Who are WE to think we can know the mind of God?
It was puzzling to many of those of the time who were told of or read the Fatima messages that Russia was mentioned at all, since it was considered,at least officially, to be Christian country(the Bolshevik revolution had yet to occur). This must have given pause to the doubting observer of the time since this was being revealed by uneducated peasant children who knew almost nothing of what was going on beyond their little village. Fatima was prophetic, not only in predicting a much greater Second World War and when it would begin, but also the rise of atheistic Communism. The Blessed Virgin said that "Russia will spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church.' The Communists in Russia implemented all kinds of policies which worked against the family(including the legalization of abortion) Their errors have indeed spread throughout the world and continue to effect us today
George: Thank you! I completely forgot to point that out. Lenin was not yet the leader of Russia at the time of the apparitions. Czar Nicholas had resigned and Russia was forming a parliamentary government which ended up being led by Alexander Kerensky. In fact, the children, upon hearing the word "Russia" didn't even know what Russia was and mistakenly thought it might be a woman's name!
Yes, it would make far more sense if the Blessed Mother would have appeared to Lenin and stopped him. That way, she wouldn't have to later warn Stalin about starving all those Ukrainians. Then she could have later appeared to Hitler and warned him too. She surely should have stopped Mao from his butchery in China. And of course, why she didn't bother appearing to Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot is anyone's guess. Che Gueverra and Castro certainly would have benefitted by an apparition.
Doggone it! Why doesn't the Blessed Mother listen to us and do our bidding? If only heaved did things OUR way!
George: Thank you! I completely forgot to point that out. Lenin was not yet the leader of Russia at the time of the apparitions. Czar Nicholas had resigned and Russia was forming a parliamentary government which ended up being led by Alexander Kerensky. In fact, the children, upon hearing the word "Russia" didn't even know what Russia was and mistakenly thought it might be a woman's name!
Yes, it would make far more sense if the Blessed Mother would have appeared to Lenin and stopped him. That way, she wouldn't have to later warn Stalin about starving all those Ukrainians. Then she could have later appeared to Hitler and warned him too. She surely should have stopped Mao from his butchery in China. And of course, why she didn't bother appearing to Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot is anyone's guess. Che Gueverra and Castro certainly would have benefitted by an apparition.
Doggone it! Why doesn't the Blessed Mother listen to us and do our bidding? If only heaven did things OUR way!
Anonymous @ 7:38
In the case of the Maid of Orleans it is difficult to accept that God should favour the dynastic claims of one Catholic monarch over another. Her canonization was political - the Holy See was desperate to appease the anti-clerical Third Republic and in the aftermath of France's sacrifice in the First World War this was an opportune moment.
Her execution for heresy was also politically motivated. Shakespeare paints an unflattering picture of la Pucelle which is no doubt unfair but which serves as an antidote to the hagiography.
Did God intervene to ensure the defeat of the Spanish Armada? The Protestants certainly thought so. Was the Christian victory at Lepanto due to the intervention of Our Lady? Now, that's a lot more credible.
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