Pope Benedict to deliver 'intense' message during Fatima visit

EWTN News ^ | 5/5/2010

[markomalley]

"Fatima is a particularly significant place for this Pope," said Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi on Tuesday, noting that it was also a destination for two former Popes. The Holy Father has a thorough knowledge of the history of the Marian sanctuary, he added.

Fr. Lombardi held a press conference at the Vatican to prepare the media for the Pope's next trip out of the Vatican. He will be visiting Portugal from May 11-14.

The spokesman referred to the Pope's stop in Fatima on May 13 as the highlight and "heart" of the upcoming four-day trip to Portugal, according to Vatican Radio. But, he pointed out, Benedict XVI will not be the first Pope to visit the Marian shrine.

Two other Pontiffs have been to Fatima. In 1967, the sanctuary hosted Paul VI, and John Paul II visited in 1982, 1991 and 2000, at which time the visionaries Jacinta and Francesco were beatified.

The Portuguese shrine is not unfamiliar to Pope Benedict, since as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger extensively studied the message of Fatima. Fr. Lombardi said on Tuesday that the Pope has been involved with history of the Marian sanctuary in a "very deep, personal way."

It was him, for example, who was called upon to give a theological perspective when the third secret of Fatima was made public in 2000.

The Vatican spokesman said that the Holy Father will also deliver an intense message during his Fatima visit. Upon his arrival at the sanctuary on May 12, he will remember John Paul II and the 29th anniversary of the assassination attempt that nearly took his life on May 13, 1981.

This visit marks the Holy Father's 15th Apostolic Journey abroad in his five years and is his first to Portugal as Pope.

During today's general audience, the Holy Father greeted the people of Portugal in their language, telling them that he will be there this coming weekend at the invitation of the president of the nation and the episcopal conference.

He said he was "happy to be able to visit the 'land of Holy Mary'" on the 10th anniversary of the beatification of the shepherd children.

According to Portuguese press reports, local police are planning for a cumulative total of 450,000 people at the celebrations in Lisbon, Fatima and Portugal during the four-day visit.

[Campion]

The “dancing sun” aspect was clearly a common larger [medium in some respects] UFO craft blotting out the sun and performing other typical maneuvers in the incident.

Clearly? Well, sure, except that 70,000 people saw it and (a) didn't describe seeing a "craft" of any kind; and (b) didn't describe anything "blotting out the sun"; and (c) saw the sun, not a "craft" piloted by "critters," appear to move around the sky.

So, yeah, if you just ignore all of the eyewitness accounts, it was clearly a UFO. Or maybe it was Obama, visiting from the future, in Air Force One.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

In Portugal, pope will address spiritual and political challenges
May 5, 2010

The statue of Our Lady of Fatima is seen in the Chapel of Apparitions at Fatima in this 2005 file photo. (CNS/Paul Haring)

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's four-day visit to Portugal will focus on spiritual, political and economic questions seen as crucial for the country and the rest of modern Europe.

The May 11-14 trip is first of all a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Fatima, where three young shepherd children had visions of Mary in 1917. In the pope's view, Mary's appearances in human history are an important sign for the church and the world, a much-needed invitation to conversion.

On a political level, the German pontiff will visit Portugal at a time when cultural change is challenging the country's Catholic identity. Most specifically, the country appears poised to legalize same-sex marriage, but on a broader level, church leaders are concerned about erosion of traditional moral values, especially among the young.

Finally, the pope's visit coincides with an economic downturn in Portugal that has threatened to make it the next crisis zone in the European Union. The pope will have an opportunity to revisit one of his favorite themes: European unity built solely on financial interests is bound to fail.

The schedule in Portugal is a demanding one for the 83-year-old pope, with 17 major events and at least 11 speeches. His busiest day, May 12, will include separate meetings in Lisbon with cultural leaders and Prime Minister Jose Socrates, followed by a helicopter trip to Fatima for events that will last well into the night.

On May 13, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the pope will celebrate Mass outside the shrine and afterward go inside to visit the tombs of the three shepherd visionaries. His visit marks the 10th anniversary of the beatification of two of the seers, Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

There has been speculation that during the visit that the pope may announce the future beatification of Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, the only one of the Fatima visionaries to survive to adulthood. She died in 2005 and two years ago the pope lifted the normal five-year waiting period to begin her canonization process.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's top doctrinal official, the pope was often a voice of caution when it came to apparitions and supernatural messages. In 2000, however, he played a central role when the Vatican published the so-called third secret of Fatima; Cardinal Ratzinger said the secret, written down by Sister Lucia after Mary's appearances, made sense as a symbolic prophecy of the church's 20th-century struggles against evil political systems.

The future pope at that time described such apparitions as "interior visions" that were not mere fantasy and that reflected Mary's continuing role in the church: that of intervening in support of the saving mission of her son. These are typically fleeting appearances to humble people, he said, and they rely on powerful symbolic images and language rather than "lengthy speeches."

In Fatima, the pope is expected to talk about the relevance of such visions in modern society. He will also pray for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who believed that Mary had saved his life after he was shot May 13, 1981 -- the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

Pope Benedict will begin his visit in Lisbon, the capital, where he will be welcomed by President Anibal Cavaco Silva, who will later host the pope for private talks. Silva, a Catholic, is in a tough political spot. He must decide by May 19 whether to veto a same-sex marriage bill approved by lawmakers in February.

The pope has made it clear that he sees such legislation as part of Europe's moral unraveling and as an attack on the natural order of creation. Speaking to diplomats in January, he denounced "laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes."

Portuguese Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Socrates, say they have enough votes to override a presidential veto on the same-sex marriage law.

About 90 percent of Portugal's population professes Catholicism, but the church's declining influence in public policy was seen in 2007, when abortion was legalized. The country's dropping birth rate, one of the lowest in the world, also worries church leaders.

Portuguese bishops are looking to the pope to help the church reclaim its rightful voice in the public arena and to fire up the troops -- the church's pastoral workers. In one important and somewhat unusual encounter, the pope will address Catholics who work in the church's social programs, offering him a chance to preach his message that Christianity is essentially love of God and love of neighbor, expressed in concrete actions.

Portugal's economic problems have already triggered austerity measures and a series of strikes, as well as resentment over the expected dip in the standard of living. The larger questions being raised in Greece, Portugal and Spain concern the future of the European Union itself.

Pope Benedict has long maintained that Europe's newfound unity will not survive on economics alone. He has also criticized the trend toward denying the Judeo-Christian roots of European culture.

As the pope said in 2007: "One cannot think about building a 'common European home' ignoring the identity of the people of our continent. In fact, it is a matter of a historical, cultural and moral identity, even more than a geographical, economic and political one."

If, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, the recent economic woes have placed the future of the European Union at stake, one can expect the pope to weigh in at this critical juncture.

[metmom]

If the pope, at that time, really believed that it was the virgin, who was he or any mortal for that matter not to follow her orders to the letter.

Exactly.

That makes no sense.

[Quix]

Normally, am happy to try and reason with folks. It sometimes helps if I'm fully awake and, on the other end of the day, not overly tired.

1. I accepted Fatima as more or less true most of the decades of my life.

2. No, I did not see any percentage of Fatima being true as a wholesale affirmation of the whole Vatican Institution and all it's dogma etc. . . . to put it politely.

3. Because . . . God is incredibly merciful and often meets folks where they are in spite of our silly notions and practices. Sometimes, that may appear to affirm all manner of hideous hogwash when it does not, really. It's "just" God being incredibly merciful in this or that or a few ways--regardless.

4. Satan persistently mixes truth and half-truths with lies. In terms of the Scripture about Jesus being Lord--one Pastor I had taught that the verse meant that no one can say that Jesus is Lord of THEIR lives but by Holy Spirit.

And, we have:

Acts 16:16-18 (King James Version)

16And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:

17The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.

18And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.

5. It seems to me, that in context, verse 16 could easily be construed as asserting that Jesus was Lord.

6. It seems to me, that the verse you cited must mean that no human mortal can say that Jesus is Lord of their life except by Holy Spirit or that no human mortal can say that Jesus is THE LORD except Holy Spirit has convincingly affirmed them of that and they have joined Holy Spirit's confirmation of that with their faith to affirm it as a reality in their life and in the universe in general.

7. We know in another passage:

Acts 19:13 THE MESSAGE VERS
Some itinerant Jewish exorcists who happened to be in town at the time tried their hand at what they assumed to be Paul's "game." They pronounced the name of the Master Jesus over victims of evil spirits, saying, "I command you by the Jesus preached by Paul!" The seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were trying to do this on a man when the evil spirit talked back: "I know Jesus and I've heard of Paul, but who are you?" Then the possessed man went berserk—jumped the exorcists, beat them up, and tore off their clothes. Naked and bloody, they got away as best they could.

8. Certainly it is clear that evil forces know full well who Jesus is. Throughout the NT Jesus silenced demonized folks lest they affirm who He was out of God's timing or out or place.

9. I think the bit about God putting the millstone around His own neck is . . . nonsense on the face of it. It is akin to atheists saying that since all things were created by God, God is the author of evil.

10. I have not examined the whole of the Fatima record in terms of EVERY DETAIL and what parts I'd take as authentic representations of fact and which I would not be so eager to do that on.

11. However, assuming that your initial quote was accurate, it is not beyond my understanding of Scripture for evil forces to use such an opening to begin a seduction of a populace in that era and that place. The higher priority for those forces would have been to be seen as kosher, Christian, Roman Catholic etc. Those forces would have had the LONG term goal in mind--particularly the goal of cementing millions of people to the notion that such forces dispensed Gospel truth--when they were actually deviating ONLY SUFFICIENTLY to result in a horrible trap many decades hence.

12. By telling a very RELIGIOUS, more or less Christian population what they already knew--namely that

. . . calling on Jesus for their salvation; (2) teaching people that the world is due for chastisement because of its sins (and giving specific signs portending some of those chastisements); and (3) teaching people that hell is real and fearful . . .

.

13. Would quite likely convince that populace . . . and evidently millions besides . . . that the forces involved were Godly and spoke total truth. What better way to set a RELIGIOUS or spiritual populace up for subtle seduction--particularly over a considerable to lengthy period of time?

14. Again, Fatima being true had no real bearing, to me, on the validity of the whole Vatican Institution and still doesn't. As I've noted, GOD IS INCREDIBLY MERCIFUL in spite of a LOT of our silly notions and practices.

15. ACTUALLY, the messages of Fatima have paralleled a long list of such messages from UFO critters in varous formats, venues, charicterizations, details etc.

16. If one compiles a lot of them together, few of them agree on varying details of varying significance.

17. However, most of them speak of the world headed for chastisement; a NEW AGE; a NEW WORLD ORDER once the 'evil' has been expunged, dealt with, wiped clean, overcome, obliterated, buried under volcanic and other chaos etc. etc. etc.

18. Certainly Scripture agrees.

19. However, SCRIPTURE ALSO NOTES that the END TIMES DECEPTION WILL BE SO GREAT THAT IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, THE VERY ELECT OF GOD, BELIEVERS THEMSELVES WOULD BELIEVE THE LIE.

20. I think Christians of all stripes minimize that hazard out of their own pride . . . personal pride and pride in their own IN-GROUP and their reference IN-GROUP'S DOGMA.

21. ONE of the distortions--subtle to not so subtle--of Fatima is that MARY IS THE DEITY FIGURE GIVING INSTRUCTIONS, PROMISING TO SAVE THE WORLD--IF--IF--THE WORLD COMPLIES WITH HER INSTRUCTIONS, SHE IS THE MAJOR ACTING-IN-CHARGE-PERSONAGE ON THE SCENE--NOT JESUS. It's not even an obviously kosher angel from The Lord's Presence as occurs so much in the Old and New Testaments--speaking of JESUS being in charge and actively involved in Saving the world.

NO! It's this caricatured Mary personage and her drawing the world to focus on HER HEART.

!!!DANGER!!!
!WILL ROBINSON!
!!!DANGER!!!

22. It is MARY'S 'IMMACULATE HEART' that is an emphasis--NOT JESUS' BLOOD, NOR EVEN SCRIPTURE.

There is also an emphasis on RITUALS ASSOCIATED PRIMARILY WITH MARY.

!!!DANGER!!!
!WILL ROBINSON!
!!!DANGER!!!

The pseudo-REDEMPTIVE ELEMENT offered to the world is:

A FOCUS ON
THE
[purported]
IMMACULATE
HEART
[not even of Jesus but]
OF
MARY

Galatians 1:6
[ The Message ] I can't believe your fickleness—how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing a variant message! It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head. Let me be blunt: If one of us—even if an angel from heaven!—were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed. I said it once; I'll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials [REGARDLESS of related DRAMATIC SOUND & LIGHT SHOWS; MASS HYPNOSIS TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGIES; regardless of the presence of a personage purporting to be Mary--IF ANYONE OR ANYTHING], preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed.

THAT'S A PRETTY HUGE DEVIATION FROM THE GOSPEL FOCUS.

May God have mercy on us and protect us from ANY deviation from our focus on CHRIST ALONE, CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED, THE REDEMPTIVE BLOOD OF JESUS.

[Quix]

THAT'S NOT HOW SUCH THINGS READ, TO ME:

p50
4 - "By becoming Mother of God, Mary belongs to the order of hypostatic union; hence SHE PARTICIPATES------>IN<-------the INFINITE SANCTITY of GOD."

p43
1 - "Hail Mary, beloved daughter of the Father, Mother of the Divine Son, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, complement of the most august Trinity!"

p46
7 - "Mary is the dawn of God because, just as the dawn marks the end of darkness and the beginning of day, so Mary indicates the end of vices and the beginning of virtue."
.
[Qx: I guess Christ's conquering on The Cross and HIS conquering trip to hell were unncessary?]

9 - God loved Mary so much that He gave her the keys to His heart. 'No one can go to God without Mary drawing him.'
.
[Qx: I guess Holy Spirit has been relegated to a 'Walter Mitty' role as spouse of Mary? That's SOME POWER to cancel & take over HOLY SPIRIT'S role to draw men to God!]

5 - "She desired the safety of everyone, went in search of it, and obtained it; it was also through her that this salvation was wrought."
.
[QX: What an unnecessary waste of precious Blood and suffering on THE CROSS!!!/sar]

p47
10 - "As Noah's Ark saved all the animals that entered it, so Mary saves all the souls that entrust themselves to her care."

--from John Ferraro's TEN SERIES OF MEDITATIONS ON THE MYSTERIES OF THE ROSARY

[Judith Anne]

Kind of tough to ignore three pages of big blue .... stuff.

[johngrace]

VERY GOOD POINTS! I THINK THE CAUTION THEY HAVE AS A CHRISTIAN TURNS INTO PARANOIA BECAUSE IT JUST DOES NOT COMPUTE TO WHAT THEY PERCIEVED TO BE THEIR CHRISTIAN WORLD VIEW OF THE SCRIPTURES AND CHURCH. THE REAL VISIONS DECLARE CHRIST CAME IN THE FLESH AND UPHOLD CHRIST IN THE GOSPELS. I LEFT THE CHURCH FOR 5 YEARS BUT REALIZED THE TRUTH BEHIND THESE VISIONS AND OTHER TRUTHS. DURING THESE YEARS I WOULD GO TO CHRISTIAN BOOKSTORES AND THEY WOULD HAVE FOXES BOOK OF MATYRS AND WHORE OF BABLYON NONSENSE BOOKS GALORE WHICH ARE SO MALICIOUSLY FRAUDULENT HALF TRUTHS THAT THE NAIVE WOULD BELIEVE. NOW I REMEMBER THIS PARANOIA WHICH THEY THINK IS CAUTION. WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO IS THERE ARE EXPLICIT AND WHAT IS NOT DIRECTLY EXPRESSED THEOLOGY IN THE SCRIPTURES. FIRST CAME THE CHURCH THEN THE REST THE COUNCILS AND BIBLE. ALSO WOULD THERE NOT BE A CARETAKERS OF THE CHURCH THAT HAVE CONTINUED TO DECIDE RIGHT RULE OF LIVING AS CHRISTIANS. ONLY ONE MAIN BRANCH FOR 2000 YEARS CLAIMS THIS! ITS THE OLDEST ORGANIZATION IN THE WORLD WOULD NOT GOD GUIDE IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD. THE CHURCH THAT WROTE THE BOOK. I ‘LL GO BY THE AUTHORS OF THE BOOK ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. NOW SWIMMING THE TIBER. YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD PAPIST!

[Quix]

That depends on which sources you read.

Good, solid research into original documents as well as eye-witness testimony has indicated something else quite different from many eyewitness observers . . .

essentially . . .

a CRAFT . . . the descriptions of which match identically

thousands of other descriptions of UFO’s over the centuries and particularly in this one.

[johngrace]

He can’t understand the love poetry for our Mother. He doesn’t understand that some writing is not official. You know private revelation from public revelation. He goes to personal commentaries as official. Interjects everywhere. Do you remember this in LUKE 1:17And he will go on before the Lord, in the SPIRIT and POWER of ELIJAH, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Now what if you put the spirit of Mary as same. GEE whose spirit is it. Hello! could be the Holy Spirit!! What paranoia!!

[Quix]

NOPE. Some folks make detecting

UNMITIGATED UNBIBLICAL NONSENSE

super easy.

[Quix]

I see someone else has a copy of the Vatican Rubber Dictionary.

[johngrace]

Also in that verse is a good point for the unity of the Holy Spirit in the believer. The Angel is saying that its the spirit of Elijah so can Mary or anyone who is in the Holy Spirit use that as a personal pronoun to mean that they are in the Holy Spirit? Weeellll if the Angel in scripture can say it!!! HHHMMM God is allowing it! Because it is another way of saying the Truth. You know what we say in Mass, In Him With HIm IN the UNITY Of the HOLY SPIRIT. Praise JESUS AND HAIL MARY INDEED!!! Your Friendly Neighborhood Papist still swimming the Tiber come on in the waters just grand!

[Dr. Eckleburg]

He can’t understand the love poetry for our Mother

1) Speaking as a mother, "love poetry" sounds pretty creepy when directed at a mother by anyone but her husband. Maybe this peculiar inclination is why is seems so easy for Roman Catholics to slavishly call fellow sinners "Father" when the Bible tells us not to. Or to overlook the pederasty among its priests because it perverts what "mother" and "father" and "love" all mean. Blind sublimation is never good.

2) She's NOT your mother.

[wagglebee]

She's NOT your mother.

No, the Blessed Mother is not YOUR mother.

[wagglebee]

You should know by now that there is no way that God can possibly produce the Miracle of the Sun, there must be a more "biblical" explanation.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Don't take my word for it. Believe Jesus Christ.

"Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?

And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!

For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." -- Matthew 12:48-50

Repeating the same errors over and over does not turn them into truth. RCs can believe Mary is their mother till Judgment Day, and it still will be a foul and dangerous lie which detracts from the glory that is due the Triune God alone.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Amen.

"An infallible and unmistakable sign by which we can distinguish a heretic, a man of false doctrine, an enemy of God, from one of God's true friends is that the heretic and the hardened sinner show nothing but contempt and indifference for our Lady. He endeavours by word and example, openly or insidiously - sometimes under specious pretexts - to belittle the love and veneration shown to her."

TREATISE ON TRUE DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN
St. Louis de Montfort

[Dr. Eckleburg]

one can expect the pope to weigh in at this critical juncture.

God forbid. Let us pray Ratzinger's last foray into world politics, his communist manifesto on the need for a "global authority," is his last.

Stick to what you think you know, Joe.

[wagglebee]

Don't take my word for it. Believe Jesus Christ.

"Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!

For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." -- Matthew 12:48-50

As I was saying, she is not YOUR mother.

RCs can believe Mary is their mother till Judgment Day,

I'm shocked that Calvinists even speak of Judgment Day, I thought in Calvin's Cosmic Lottery one was either among the elect or they weren't.

it still will be a foul and dangerous lie which detracts from the glory that is due the Triune God alone.

Like modern-say spy movies, the foul and dangerous lie has an acronym: TULIP.

[Quix]

INDEED.

Her Mother stint in the flesh is long over . . . and the children she is reportedly teaching in Heaven are a finite number.