A "slam-dunk" beatification for the last of the Fatima visionaries

In most cases, processes for beatification involve some degree of uncertainty, since one never knows quite how it will go. Every now and then, however, there's a slam-dunk candidate for whom it's only a matter of time. Such was the case with Mother Teresa when she died in 1997, and such is the case again this week with Carmelite Sr. Maria Lucia of Jesus and of the Sacred Heart, better known as Lucia dos Santos, the last of the three visionaries of Fatima, who died last Sunday.

Lucia passed away on the 13th of the month, the same day in May 1917 that, according to the Fatima tradition, the Virgin Mary began appearing to three small children in this remote site in Portugal. It's a spot named after the wife of Ali, the cousin of the prophet Muhammed, and hence a reminder of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula. (In some Koranic schools, especially in Shi'ite circles where devotion to Fatima is strong, it's long been believed that Mary, who is also venerated in the Koran, didn't come to Fatima for Christians at all, but for the Muslims).

The other two seers of Fatima, Francisco and Jacinta, died in 1919 and 1920, respectively, and were beatified by John Paul II in 2000. Lucia, however, entered a Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal, in 1948, where she lived ever since. From there, she handed over to Vatican officials the "Third Secret" of Fatima, a vision of a bishop in white and a hail of gunfire which John Paul II interpreted as a reference to the assassination attempt against him on May 13, 1981, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. The pope's delegate for Sr. Lucia's funeral, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, who had long meetings with Lucia when he was the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has said that there are no more major revelations waiting in her monastic cell to be disclosed.

There's no question that John Paul II feels a special connection with the Fatima devotion, and with Lucia. It was Fatima where Mary referred to "the errors that Russia will spread in the world," taken by most Catholics as a reference to Soviet Communism. In keeping with Mary's request at Fatima that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, the pope performed a consecration of the whole world at Fatima in 1982, on the anniversary of the assassination attempt. There followed concern that the pope did not do this in concert with the rest of the bishops, as Mary had asked. Hence on March 25, 1984, John Paul repeated the consecration in a ceremony in St. Peter's Square, after having sent letters to all the world's Catholic and Orthodox bishops asking them to join him. The statue of the Virgin from Fatima was brought to Rome for the occasion. Though the pope's text did not specifically mention Russia, at least one observer, the bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Alberto Cosme do Amaral, said the pope paused at one point and quietly added "Russia" under his breath. Afterwards, Sr. Lucia apparently told the apostolic nuncio in Portugal that Mary had accepted the consecration, a fact that, in the pope's mind, is not without significance in explaining subsequent events, including the collapse of the Berlin Wall and eventually the Soviet system.

John Paul also credits the Virgin of Fatima with saving his life on May 13, 1981, believing that the flight path of a bullet launched from Mehmet Ali Agca's gun was altered in order to preserve him in office. Without descending into too much pop psychology, this undoubtedly helps to explain why resignation is essentially unthinkable for John Paul -- he believes that his pontificate is part of a much larger cosmic drama, and God and the Virgin are watching. It's up to them, not him, to decide when the time has come.

Of course, to believe that Mary saved the pope's life on May 13, 1981, logically raises the question of why she allowed him to be shot in the first place. His closest aide, personal secretary Archishop Stanislaw Dsizwsz, in a rare public lecture in Poland in 2002 supplied the answer. The pope's blood had to be spilled, Dsizwsz argued, in order to augment his witness against bloodshed in the world, above all with respect to abortion. It has always impressed John Paul and Dsizwsz that the Italian left had scheduled a major abortion rights rally in Rome the evening of May 13, 1981, which was cancelled out of respect for the fallen pope.

If time and health permit, there's no doubt John Paul would like to be the pope who beatifies Sr. Lucia.

Incidentally, Portugal is presently in the middle of national elections, and the center-right government, which most polls project to lose, has declared a "stop" to campaigning out of respect for her funeral. That has triggered charges of political opportunism not only from the center-left opposition, but also from church spokespersons in Lisbon, who say they doubt the "sincerity" of the gesture.

More on the consecration of Russia and John Paul II's view of his near-death experience.

CAUSE OF SEER'S DEATH IS DETAILED ALONG WITH HER WARNINGS OF BATTLE WITH DEVIL AND GREAT DARKNESS AMIDST PRIESTHOOD

Fatima seer Lucia de Jesus dos Santos succumbed to heart and respiratory failure after declining in December, according to a source at Fatima who is close to the situation. From then on it was downhill until the famous nun, known for seeing the Most Holy Mother in 1917, died February 13 of what appeared to be congestive heart failure.

Really, of course, it was the simpler verdict of old age. Sister Lucia would have been 98 on March 22, an incredibly able nun who always sought to lead a hidden life, rarely appearing in public, except with Popes at major Fatima events, such as the beatification of her cousins and fellow seers, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, in 2000. For years she did menial tasks, refused to stray beyond the cloister grate, and sang in the convent choir.

It was Sister Lucia who remained as the sole survivor of what will stand as among the most famous apparitions in history, along with Guadalupe and Lourdes.

"A humble person, she recollected herself in prayer whenever she could," said Bishop Albino Cleto of Coimbra. "She was always available to people who requested an interview but shied away from contacts that spelled publicity or protocol. She was a true Carmelite."

"Sister Lucia inspired confidence because of the peace in which she lived," added Bishop João Alves, the retired head of the Coimbra Diocese, according to the Ecclesia agency. "A peace that resided in faith and a constant union with God."

The Pope said he has been sustained by her daily prayers. "I remember with emotion the various meetings I had with her and the bonds of spiritual friendship that intensified with the passing of time," John Paul said. "I always felt supported by the daily gift of her prayers, especially in difficult moments of trial and suffering," he added in a message to Bishop Cleto.

It was last December that the nun stopped eating normally and grew progressively weak, remaining in bed for the following two months. The source said she was never hospitalized because she was "very well attended," including by a female doctor on the premises in Coimbra, Portugal, where Lucia spent decades in the Carmelite cloister.

Indications are that apparitions or visions of the Blessed Mother occurred to the nun on at least an occasional basis for many years after the famous 1917 appearances at Cova da Iria in Fatima -- both at Coimbra and during earlier stays in Spain.

Controversies over the famed Fatima secret and the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary continue, with those who believe the consecration was not carried out still arguing that it wasn't while the Vatican has noted that in a recent interview, Sister Lucia -- who repeatedly requested an end to the controversy -- said the 1984 consecration of the world, and implicitly Russia, to her Immaculate Heart was accepted by the Virgin Mary and led to a "period of peace" due to the collapse of Communism in the U.S.S.R., which at the time had thousands of nuclear missiles poised to strike targets across the world (and which, while at peace with the U.S. since the 1980s, remains a potential threat).

The fall of Communism, Sister Lucia said in the early 1990s, was a "triumph" of the Immaculate Heart.

But that hardly softened Lucia's prophetic view of the world and the future, which may be in as serious a state as during the initial apparitions. Sister Lucia once said that the world was in the throes of a "diabolical disorientation" and that the devil was "in the mood" for a final confrontation.

Lucia said her two cousins always saw the Blessed Mother as sad because of the offenses of mankind and the punishments that consequently threatened.

God would chastise the world, she fretted as mankind neared the 1960s, and it would be "terrible."

Whether that concern -- whether the specific chastisement she saw -- still holds true or was a worry attached to the rise of atomic weapons in the subsequent Sixties is fodder for interpretation. At least for a "period," the Russian threat has been dismantled.

But there are now other, equally pressing concerns, as well as the questions. Will that "period of peace" last? And what may now come?

As one author and Fatima expert Frere Michel de la Sainte pointed out, Lucia was "not talking about the 'end of the world' properly speaking, which is identified with the return of Christ in glory for the last judgment. This indicates only that we are entering the last great period of the world's history, without being able to judge how long it will last."

There are now secrets from sites such as Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina that are expected to unfold in the near future -- secrets that are more numerous than those from Fatima and by all indications at least as serious as the three Lucia related.

"Father," Sister Lucia once said in reported conversations with a Mexican named Augustine Fuentes, "the Most Holy Virgin did not tell me that we are in the last times of the world but she made me understand this for three reasons. The first reason is because she told me that the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat. Hence from now on we must choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil."

Lucia prophetically indicated that the intense part of the struggle would focus on consecrated souls. She made that prediction in 1957 -- as it turns out, the period during which the current sex-abuse crisis had its germination. Such was also forecast in a recent book the seer wrote.

"The devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God because in this way, the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them," she said on December 26, 1957, with chilling prescience.

"That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls," she told Fuentes. "The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of laypeople and thereby lead them to final impenitence."

Her main mission, Sister Lucia said, was to indicate to everyone not so much earthly chastisement as the danger of losing one's soul for eternity. The devil does his best, she warned, to distract people from prayer and take away the love for it. "We shall be saved together," she said, "or we shall be damned together."

There were always indications that Lucia was especially concerned about the loss of faith in Europe -- although, as predicted at Fatima, her homeland of Portugal has remained faithful.

The devil, she lamented, had focused his assault against the Rosary, which she described as the prayer, after the holy liturgy itself, "most apt for preserving the faith in souls."

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart would be key, said the famous nun, and that consists of considering the Blessed Mother as the "seat of mercy, of goodness, and of pardon and as the certain door by which we are to enter Heaven."

"There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary," she reassured. "With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls."

n 1967, although Sister Lucia is still under a code of silence, her memoirs are published. In them, she reiterates the 1929 message she received from Our Lady regarding the direct command for the Pope and bishops to consecrate Russia. This reiteration indicates that Sister Lucia does not consider any previous consecrations to have been an answer to the Fatima requirement, including Paul VI's consecration to the world in 1964. With this reminder, a huge campaign is initiated at the grass roots level for the Vatican to consecrate Russia as directed. Implicitly, this shows that the Catholic populous does not consider the consecrations performed by Pius XII or Paul VI to have been an answer to Fatima, and that they implicitly mistrust the way the Vatican is handling this most significant revelation from heaven.

Perhaps taken aback by Sister Lucia's dismissal of his 1964 consecration of the world, on May 13, 1967, Paul VI visits Fatima. While there, Sister Lucia pleads with him to release the Third Secret, but he dismisses her plea and tells her to take her concern to her bishop.

Shortly after this, in 1969-1970, Sister Lucia writes a series of letters which state that the Third Secret includes remarks on the present crisis in the Church. To one priest she writes:

I see by your letter that you are preoccupied by the disorientation of our time. It is sad, in fact, that so many persons let themselves be dominated by the diabolical wave that is sweeping the world and that they are blinded to the point of being incapable of seeing error! The principle fault is that they have abandoned prayer, they have in this way become estranged from God, and without God, everything is lacking. The devil is very cunning and looks for our weak points in order to attack us. If we are not diligent and careful to obtain from God strength, we shall fall, for our age is very wicked and we are weak. Only the strength of God can keep us on our feet.

To a friend she writes:

Let people say the Rosary every day, Our Lady has repeated that in all of Her apparitions, as if to fortify us in these times of diabolical disorientation, in order that we not let ourselves be deceived by false doctrines...Unfortunately, in religions matters the people for the most part are ignorant and allow themselves to be led wherever they are taken. Hence, the great responsibility of the one who has the duty of leading them...It is a diabolical disorientation that is invading the world, deceiving souls! It is necessary to stand up to the devil.

On September 16, 1970, she writes to another friend:

...The fact is that the devil has succeeded in bringing in evil under the appearance of good, and the blind are beginning to lead others...This is like the Lord told us in His Gospel, and souls allow themselves to be taken in. Gladly I sacrifice myself and offer God my life for peace in His Church, for priest and for all consecrated souls, especially for those who are so deceived and misguided.

After this, Fatima does not become an issue at the Vatican until 1978 when John Paul II is elected Pope. In 1980, Cardinal Josyf Slipyj sponsors a campaign that amasses three million signatures for the direct and immediate consecration of Russia. The petition is then sent to the Vatican.

On March 21, 1982, Sister Lucy meets with the Papal nuncio and another bishop. She reiterates the exact requirements for the consecration of Russia. After the meeting, the bishop accompanying the nuncio tells him that it is not necessary to mention to the Pope that the bishops of the world are required to participate in the consecration.

On May 12, 1982, the papal newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, contains an article by Fr. Umberto Maria Pasquale concerning his conversation with Sister Lucia and the letter she wrote to him regarding the consecration of Russia. Fr. Pasquale is significant to this issue because he had known Sister Lucia since 1939. Up to 1982, he received 157 personal letters from her. The newspaper article reveals that Sister Lucy told Fr. Pasquale that Our Lady never asked for the consecration of the world, but only the consecration of Russia. Here are Fr. Pasquale's own words:

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 [Spain], as She 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)..."

To make sure of what Sister Lucy was saying, and seeking documentation of her earthshattering statement, Fr. Pasquale asked her to make the same reply to him in a letter. On April 13, 1980, Fr. Pasquale received a written response from Sister Lucia. The photographic copy (left) is her actual handwriting. Translated, the note reads: "Reverend Father Umberto, In reply 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] Sr. Lucia."

On May 13, 1982, (the day after the L'Osservatore Romano article), John Paul II consecrates the world during his visit to Fatima, without mentioning Russia by name and without the bishops of the world participating. [This is the same type of consecration Pius XII performed on July 7, 1952 but which the Church never recognized as a valid consecration of Russia].

Then on May 19, 1982, a most revealing statement comes from the Pope. In L'Osservatore Romano he states that he purposely did not consecrate Russia, adding that he had "tried to do everything possible in the concrete circumstances." Although it is difficult to know what he meant by "concrete circumstances," we can, perhaps, deduce a few things from his statement:

(1) the Pope inadvertently admits that no prior consecration performed by any prior pope, including his May 13, 1982 consecration, has fulfilled the requirements of the revelation of Fatima;

(2) the Pope knows that Russia, singly and specifically, must be consecrated in order to precisely fulfill the requirements of Fatima, but for some reason he decided not to do it;

(3) the Pope is prepared to accept the consequences, for himself and the world, for not consecrating Russia as commanded.

As for the meaning of the cryptic phrase, "concrete circumstances," the Pope may possibly be referring to two things:

(1) that he is following the precedent set by his predecessors, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, and Vatican II which sought to generate friendly ties with Russia rather than single them out as the major cause of evil in the world;

(2) that the vast majority of bishops in the world would not cooperate with him, in any case, to single out Russia for consecration. "Concrete" most likely refers to a force of will by an opposing party, something hard and immovable. There is nothing more immovable than the force of will of the bishops of the world, who, in large part, have written off Fatima as a relic of the past, and possibly even a hallucination of Sister Lucia. Cardinal Ratzinger, as noted earlier, made the latter suggestion in one of his most recent assessments of Sister Lucia.

On November 26, 1987, Cardinal Stickler confirmed the meaning of "concrete circumstances" by revealing that the consecration had not been performed because the Pope lacks the support of the bishops, for, he is quoted as saying, "they do not obey him." Later in 1989 it will be revealed that only 350 bishops, which is less than 20% of all the world's bishops, will agree to participating in a consecration of Russia. This is in spite of more than one million signatures from around the world given to the Vatican requesting the consecration of Russia.

Perhaps not realizing the startling implication of the May 19, 1982 admission that the pope did not consecrate Russia, Soul Magazine, a publication of the renowned Blue Army, states in its July/August 1982 edition that an interview with Sister Lucia reveals that she believes the consecration of Russia was performed by the Pope on May 13, 1982. The Blue Army report will later be found fraudulent, but upon hearing it initially, Sister Lucia strenuously denied that the consecration of Russia had been accomplished. When in 1983 she is asked to make her views public, Sister Lucia states to Fr. Joseph de Sainte Marie that she must have "official permission from the Vatican" before she can declare it.

Then, on March 19, 1983, John Paul II requests that Sister Lucia meet with the Papal nuncio, Archbishop Portalupi and Fr. Messias Coelho. Not surprisingly, Sister Lucia reiterates that the consecration was not performed as specified, since Russia was not named as the single object of consecration, and the world's bishops did not participate. She states:

In the act of offering of Mary 13, 1982, Russia did not appear as being the object of the consecration. And each bishop did not organize in his own diocese a public and solemn ceremony of reparation and consecration of Russia. Pope John Paul II simply renewed the consecration of the world executed by Pius XII on October 31, 1942. From this consecration we can expect some benefits, but not the conversion of Russia.

On March 25, 1984, following the mistake of Pius XII, and knowing, by his own admission (cited above) that Russia must be named in the consecration, John Paul II, following the advice of Cardinal Casaroli who cites "diplomatic reasons," decides to eliminate the word "Russia" and replace it with the word "world." It is important to note that Cardinal Casaroli, along with Cardinal Montini (Pope Paul VI), were the principal architects of Ostpolitik, the Vatican policy toward communist Russia adopted in the 1960s, a policy which resolutely decided not to denounce atheism or Marxism. This will become more significant when on June 27, 2000 (the day after the Vatican's release of The Message of Fatima) the memoirs of Cardinal Casaroli, which had recently been posthumously published, were shown to Mikhail Gorbachev upon invitation by Cardinals Sodano and Silvestrini at a Vatican press conference. To many this was confirmation that on June 26, 2000 the Vatican was attempting to bury the Fatima revelations in order to inaugurate the long-awaited Vatican-Russian alliance put in place forty years prior.

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