By Timothy Fitzpatrick
December 5, 2025 Anno Domini
The October Revolution of 1917 was the official commencement of Communism, but the ideological movements leading up to this horrible system were decades, perhaps even centuries, in the making.
Communism should not have come as a huge surprise to most people attuned to world events. The writings of Communist architects Karl Marx and Frederic Engels were widely available and the press had been covering the development of socialist movements in Europe during the latter half of the 19th century. The Roman Catholic Church even weighed in on the raging debate of competing economic theories with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891, some 26 years before the bloody revolution of October.
Yet, the apparition known as the Lady of Fatima—believed by many to be the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ (even though the apparition never identified itself as Mary but only as “the lady”)—would wait until after Communism had been established before warning the Church and the world.
What good is a warning from “Our Lady of Fatima” about the “errors of Russia” spreading around the world if it wasn’t publicly available until decades after it was allegedly uttered and Communism entrenched in the world? Fatima’s child seer Lucia, who apparently had no experience as an ascetic and whose own mother doubted her claims, didn’t reveal the lady’s warning until after the Second World War—long after Communism had already been well established in Eastern Europe, Asia, and on its way westward. Wouldn’t it have made sense for the warning to come before the advent of Communism or, at the latest, shortly after the October Revolution? At that point, the warning seems to serve only as a reference point to which the prognosticator can boast, “see, I was right”. It doesn’t appear to serve any other purpose. If the Lady’s warning were truly of God, if wouldn’t have been possible for the apparent divine message to have been hindered or delayed by the actions of men, Lucia included. Yet, Lucia did delay this message reaching the world. Does it really matter why? Does it matter if Lucia was possibly replaced by an impostor later in her life? No. None of that matters. The warning became of no use by the time it was revealed. By that time, the trajectory of international Communism was visible to all, especially to those in the West. What a waste of a good apparition to tell the world of something it could already easily predict on its own. Furthermore, Lenin and Stalin had been open about their plans for world Communism. The apparition’s delayed warning was no spoiler.
Another suspicious aspect of the apparition’s warning is its failure to have also called for the consecration of Red China—the second, equally dangerous pillar of Communist power in the world. The apparition called on only Russia to be consecrated in order to bring world peace. Evidently, the apparition would have us believe that with Russia out of the way, Red China, the Fabian socialists in the West, and the socialists of the Middle East would have surrendered their Communism and a Communist-free utopia would have ensued. Of course, this is all assuming that consecrations by men of the Church, the Pope are guaranteed to work. I suppose free will doesn’t come into play at all. The Fatimists would have us believe that consecration is a guarantee, regardless of the consent and intentions of the to-be consecrated. It’s like some magical formula where the participants (Russia) merely serve as instruments of the magic.
The apparition’s warning that the “errors of Russia” would spread unless the nation was consecrated to her is peculiar. Firstly, I want to point out that the Fatima apparition made a conditional prophecy (do what I say and no bad stuff will happen) that is incompatible with Holy Scripture, specifically St. John’s Apocalypse, which warns of an unconditional apostasy (bad stuff inevitable, sorry). Secondly, if we take the apparition’s meaning of “errors” to mean Communism, which I think most accept as the most logical meaning, then why did the apparition follow it up with “of Russia” when Imperial Russia had been enveloped by the Soviet monolith known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR-CCCP)? Fatimists may dismiss this as semantical, but why should we expect inaccuracy from God? Has God not been absolutely accurate through His prophets? For example, God’s prophets warned us of the prerequisites for the coming of the Messiah using the Seventy Weeks prophecy (from the Book of Daniel), which God allotted exactly 490 years with which to rebuild Jerusalem in preparation for the Messiah. I could offer a defense of the apparition’s choice of words by arguing that Imperial Russia had been heavily infiltrated by Freemasonry and the occult and, therefore; Communism was only one in a list of errors dating centuries back in Russia’s thousand-year history. However, officially, Imperial Rome was a Christian nation, although of the Eastern Orthodox strain. One could respond that Eastern Orthodoxy was yet another one of these Russian “errors”, but Eastern Orthodoxy was not exclusive to Russia. The official seat of Eastern Orthodoxy has been in Constantinople and remains there to this day. Eastern Orthodoxy did not originate in Russia and cannot be labelled a Russia error. What are we to make of the apparition’s choice of words? Is Lucia’s recollection of the lady’s words even accurate? Memory tends to fade over time and Jactina died as a child, so she is not available to corroborate Lucia’s testimony, and Jacinta’s brother (who also died as a young child) couldn’t even hear the apparition but only see it.
Fatimists will defend their position by arguing that the only reason the lady of Fatima has not brought in her era of peace (a narrative with millenarianist tendencies) is because no pope has yet consecrated Russia to the lady’s immaculate heart. But this is false. Four popes—Pius XII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and most recently, Francis—have all consecrated Russia to Mary in some form or another. Yet, “Russia’s errors” have not abated and Communism is taking over more and more of the globe day by day. Fatimists will then move the goalposts and argue that those popes weren’t specific enough in their consecrations, and that’s why Communism hasn’t been stopped. I guess Pius XII’s, “we consecrate all the peoples of Russia to the same Immaculate Heart” is not specific enough for them. When that excuse fails, Fatimists will often appeal to a form of sedevacantism (the belief that the Catholic Church has been or is currently without a valid pope) to explain why the popes’ consecrations were invalid or why the current self-professed pope won’t consecrate Russia. It’s an anti-pope plot, they say, to hinder “our Lady”. Many of these Fatimists are not sedevacantists technically speaking (although most actual sedevacantists seem to be ardent proponents of Fatima), but the Fatimists will temporarily endorse it merely to defend the Fatima narrative. The reason Fatimists move the goalposts and abandon their own ecclesiology is because their objective isn’t truth. Their objective is to defend the Fatima narrative, truth be damned. Most sedevacantists agree that Pius XII was a valid pope, so the Fatimist rejection of his consecration of Russia doesn’t really hold water. They are forced to admit that the consecrations did nothing to stop Communism and the lady of Fatima is a false prophetess (obviously not the Blessed Virgin Mary).
There are some Fatimists, yet, who believe that Pope John Paul II legitimately consecrated Russia or at least came close to, and they credit him for the (fake) collapse of Communism in 1991 (some even seem to credit Pius XII’s consecration for the death of Stalin). This is probably the most dangerous position, because this kind of Fatimist is under the delusion that Soviet Communism fell and that, consequently, Russia is about to convert to Catholicism and is evinced by its so called turn to Christianity and national conservatism (neither of which is actually true). If Russia is to lead the world into the anti-Christ, one-world Communist system, like it appears they will do, without God’s grace, these Fatimists will be duped.