What Is Happening in Fatima?

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By Delia Gallagher

ROME, JAN. 1, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Controversy has broken out over the construction of a new building near the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal.

Several Web sites devoted to news about Fatima have expressed outrage at the possibility that the new building might be used for interreligious purposes.

"Fatima to Become Inter-faith Shrine" headlined the Nov. 1 online dispatch of English-language Portugal News.

In the report, the rector of the shrine, Monsignor Luciano Gomes Paulo Guerra, says, "The future of Fatima, or the adoration of God and his mother at this holy shrine, must pass through the creation of a shrine where different religions can mingle."

The head of the Leiria-Fatima Diocese, Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, faxed me a three-page statement written in Portuguese (I had it unofficially translated) by the rector of the shrine, dated Dec. 28.

The letter resumes the news published by Portugal News, including Monsignor Guerra's statement that the shrine would become a place "where different religions can mingle."

According to the letter, the rector has been inundated by correspondence due to this "sensationalist news."

The rector clarifies: "God willing, a religious space, will begin to be constructed very shortly, and though it is the presumption of some journalists that it will resemble a stadium, it will in fact be a church, with seating for 9,000; it will be exclusively destined to be a place of Catholic worship, located not next to the current basilica, but between the Cruz Alta and a national road and, when opportune, ... can receive pilgrims of other convictions who wish to fraternally partake in our way of prayer."

Regarding the controversy surrounding the building, the rector mentions specifically Father Nicholas Gruner, a Canadian priest who runs The Fatima Crusader, a quarterly newsletter.

"It is our conviction," says Monsignor Guerra, "that the article in Portugal News has been guided by some members of the group led by Father Gruner, a priest who finds himself in an irregular canonical situation, who persists in his crusade in favor of the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, according to the secret of Fatima (although it has been said and re-said that this consecration has already occurred) and who distributed pamphlets during our October conference against the realization and intentions of the conference."

Father Gruner was suspended "a divinis" by the Vatican in 1996 -- meaning he is relieved of his priestly functions, primarily administering the sacraments. He continues to take a critical stance toward John Paul II's vision of ecumenism, as evidenced by a 2000 document called, "We Resist You to Your Face" -- the You referring to the Pope.

The conference to which Father Guerra refers was held Oct. 10-12 and sponsored by the Sanctuary of Fatima, entitled, "The Present of Man -- The Future of God: The Place of Sanctuaries in Relation to the Sacred."

Conferees included Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, patriarch of Lisbon; Bishop Silva; Father Jacques Dupuis, professor of theology at Rome's Gregorian University; and Monsignor Guerra.

On the third day of the conference the floor was opened to representatives of Hindu, Buddhist, Judaic and Islamic religions. Orthodox and Anglican representatives also spoke.

During the conference no mention was made of the construction of a new shrine.

When I recently spoke to Archbishop Fitzgerald in Rome, he said he was surprised that the news of the building had caused such consternation.

"As far as I know, there are no plans that the building is designed specifically for inter-faith purposes," the archbishop said. "We recognize that Fatima is a place of pilgrimage for many religions." But he added that the shrine nonetheless retains its Catholic identity.

"It was the Pope himself who said in Assisi in October 1986 that we are all pilgrims together," continued Archbishop Fitzgerald. "As I said at the conference in Fatima, we must learn to journey together, for if we drift apart we do ourselves harm, but if we walk together we can help one another to reach the goal that God has set for us."

Monsignor Guerra's statement concurs with Archbishop Fitzgerald's sentiments, as most of it is taken up with an explanation of the importance of interreligious dialogue.

The rector of the shrine contends that the Fatima apparitions were exhortations to ecumenical dialogue. His statement says that the Virgin Mary knew that her choice of the site in Portugal would one day be understood as a deliberate association with the daughter of the Islamic prophet Mohammed (whose name was Fatima).

Monsignor Guerra further suggests that in the Fatima apparitions there are "at least two implicit calls to the exercise of the spirit of dialogue with persons of other convictions."

In the first and third apparitions, he said, the Angel of Peace lies prostrate on the ground in prayer. In the third apparition, Communion under the species of bread is given to the oldest seer, while the two younger, Francisco and Jacinta, receive Communion for the first time under the species of the wine.

Since the practice of receiving Communion under both species has fallen out of wide use in the Latin-rite Catholic Church, but not in the Orthodox Churches, "the message of the Angel of Peace contains an exhortation to ecumenical dialogue with those Churches separated from Rome for a thousand years," writes Monsignor Guerra.

The angel's prostration in prayer "has connotations for any religious confession," and recalls that "all human beings are God's creatures and loved by him, and that with such prayer we can maintain serious contact with other religions, such as agnostics and even atheists."

What started out as a debate over a building seems to mask a larger question of the ecumenical work of the Catholic Church as a whole, and Fatima in particular.

Father Gruner is quoted as saying, "The Fatima message is specifically directed at the Catholic Church." Monsignor Guerra would probably concur.

The question remains, however, just what the Church is called to do with that message.

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Thought I'd post the text of John Vennari's response to Zenit at your link in #9.

I don't know who officially runs Zenit, but I've always assumed it was a branch of Opus Dei.

Statement from John Vennari on Zenit's Fatima Report

January 2, 2004: Zenit news posted on January 1 the article "What is Happening in Fatima?" in which the alleged plan to turn Fatima into an Interfaith Shrine was discussed. The article contained various falsehoods that call for an immediate response.

Reporter Delia Gallagher says that Zenit received a three-page fax from Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva dated December 28, in which the Shrine Rector at Fatima alleged that Father Nicholas Gruner was responsible for the original November 1 Portugal News report "Fatima to Become an Interfaith Shrine".

"It is our conviction", said Fatima Shrine Rector Msgr. Guerra, "that the article in Portugal News has been guided by some members of the group led by Father Nicholas Gruner".

Msgr. Guerra's assumption is completely false. I can state categorically that Father Gruner has absolutely no connection with Portugal News and is no way responsible for the November 1 report.

I attended the Fatima Interfaith Congress at the request of Father Gruner's organization and filed my own report on Father Gruner's web page "Fatima to Become and Interfaith Shrine? An Account from One Who Was There". It was also published in the journal of which I am editor, Catholic Family News.

In that report, I quote the Portugal News article, and I also quote a local newspaper from Fatima, Noticias de Fatima, that ran the headline "Sanctuary for Various Creeds" But absolutely no one from Father Gruner's organization had anything to do with the articles appearing in the two above-mentioned journals.

Zenit also claimed that Father Gruner was involved with the "We Resist You to the Face" statement. This is not true. The Resistance statement was a collaboration between Atila Sinke Guimaraes, Michael Matt, Marian Horvat and myself. Father Gruner did not know of or read the "We Resist You to the Face" statement until after it was first published in the May 30, 2000 issue of The Remnant.

It is also interesting that Zenit was able to receive a response from Fatima authorities, whereas other Catholic reporters were not. Christopher Ferrara, on behalf of The Remnant, contacted the Shrine to pose questions about Fatima's new pan-religious initiative and asking Msgr. Guerra to confirm or deny the quotations attributed to him in Portugal News and Noticias de Fatima. Msgr. Guerra did not respond to Mr. Ferrara's e-mail of November 10, nor to his fax of November 23, nor did anyone else from the Shrine. The reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that the Monsignor does not deny the quotations attributed to him, nor did he deny them in his statement to Zenit.

What is clear from the Zenit report, however, is that Fatima is now committed to the post-Conciliar pan-religious initiative. Msgr. Guerra contents that "the Fatima apparitions were exhortation to interreligious dialogue" This is preposterous since the ecumenism practiced since the Council contradicts 2000 years of Catholic teaching and practice.

It is worth noting that Inside the Vatican's December 2003 issue publishes the whole of Mortalium animos in running columns beneath its own extensive story on the Fatima Shrine controversy.

In this encyclical, Pope Pius XI wrote that the Holy See has "always forbidden" Catholics to take part in interreligious assemblies. Pius rightly insisted, "unity can only arise from one teaching authority, one law of belief, one faith of Christians." Pius also wrote that the "fair and alluring words" of the pan-religious orientation "cloak a most deadly error subversive to the Catholic Faith".

Msgr. Guerra is the same man who applauded Father Jacques Dupuis, a modernist speaker who said at the recent Fatima Congress, "There is no need to invoke here that horrible text from the Council of Florence," thus exhorting the audience to reject defined dogma of the Church. It is little wonder that Msgr. Guerra attempts to subvert the Fatima Message to his distorted, pan-religious vision.

A fuller commentary on this Zenit report will be published in the February, 2004 Catholic Family News.

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