Russian historian admits Fatima is preventing the Vatican from being objective about Russia
@ Bernd Wustneck/dpa/Global Look Press
10 OCTOBER 2023
The Catholic Church knows the divine secret of Russia
Living in one way or another in the projection of the Fatima revelations about Russia, it is very difficult for the episcopate of the Catholic Church to wish for its collapse or to recognize its history and culture as a “mistake.”
writer, historian
Against the backdrop of anti-Russian hysteria, which seemingly united the overwhelming majority of representatives of the political elite of the West, the Catholic Church, one of the most important spiritual and power institutions of the Western world, time after time declares its special position and categorically refuses to join in the defamation of Russian history and culture.
This state of affairs may be surprising, especially considering that the Roman See has a large flock in Western Ukraine, and among Ukrainian Catholics and Uniates there are the most notorious nationalists. Part of the Uniate clergy and episcopate supported UNA-UNSO* (an organization banned in Russia) and welcomed the arrival of the Germans. In the USSR, the Uniates, in turn, were banned and driven deep underground.
But the Vatican, on the contrary, not only sharply distances itself from Russophobic slogans, but is also in no hurry to repeat mantras about “Russian aggression” and “crimes of the regime.” Pope Francis spoke of “NATO barking at Russia's door” as one of the main causes of the conflict. He, and many Catholic priests after him, never tire of repeating their love for great Russian literature and history - and this with the growing irritation of European officials and the media under their control. Well, of course, with such speeches Catholics arouse the ire of the puppets from Kyiv, who expected from them passages in the spirit of home-grown schismatics from the OCU, but were cruelly deceived in their expectations.
Of course, Francis’s personal beliefs, his Argentine origin and education, sympathy and interest in Russian culture and especially literature - typical for Latin America in the second half of the 20th century, attention and love for the patristic heritage and Byzantine theology are of great importance for the Vatican’s position. There is plenty of evidence that the current pope, being the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, more than once attended the all-night vigil in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Argentine capital on Orthodox Christmas Eve and Easter night. And this is a lot.
But the most interesting thing is that it is not only by the will of its primate that the Catholic Church in the 20th century cannot take a sharp anti-Russian position. One can even say that in the “Russian question” the clergy and politicians from the Vatican are not entirely free, since they are limited by their own theological ideas, based on the Tradition officially accepted by their church. And this circumstance, which is very important for understanding the real state of affairs and the balance of power, almost always eludes the secular, external and secular view.
The fact is that in Catholic eschatology (Christian science about the fate of man and humanity beyond the boundaries of history and the time allotted to man), the image of Russia plays a key role. And at the end of the 18th century, and especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, a great many prophecies, predictions and legends associated with Russia arose. And they all seemed to converge and were especially clearly manifested in the Fatima visions, in what the Virgin Mary allegedly revealed to three Portuguese children, and then to the crowds of people who gathered in the village of Fatima, about 150 kilometers from Lisbon, in the turning point of 1917.
On May 13, 1917, the children tending sheep - Lucia dos Santos (1907-2005), her cousin Francisco Mar (1908-1919) and cousin Jacinta Mar (1910-1920) - had a vision. In their own words, the Mother of God appeared to them, told them about their future and commanded them to gather the people in a month - on June 13th.
At first, the children who told adults about the vision were scolded for a long time by their parents and were not believed. But the kids firmly stood their ground. That year, with an ever-increasing crowd of people, the Mother of God appeared to children on the 13th of every month, until October. She told them how hell and heaven work, said that she would soon take Francisco and Jacinta with her (the kids actually died from the Spanish flu in 19 and 20),
predicted the end of the First and Second World Wars, as well as the path to saving the world, which is directly related to Russia.
It is clear that children living in Portugal, at the other end of Europe, could hardly fantasize anything serious about Russia, so the element of children's imagination is completely excluded here.
In 1930, after thirteen years of research, the Miracle of Fatima was officially recognized by the Catholic Church. And oddly enough, this is a very important point politically. No matter how an Orthodox person might approach the Fatima Apparition (and Orthodox Christians have a lot of questions and perplexities about it) or a secular atheist (there are also plenty of atheistic explanations, although quite absurd), for Catholics (from the pope and cardinals to the average parishioner) The Fatima prophecies are an irrevocable part of their faith.
After Fatima, there were three more apparitions of Our Lady in the Spanish cities of Pontevedra (1925–1926), Tui (1929) and Rianjo (1931) just before the Spanish Civil War. And they again discussed Russia in detail.
- Pope Francis refuses to see Mordor in Russia
- The Pope destroyed Ukrainian myths about Russia
- Shesler: The Pope destroys Ukrainian propaganda about the history of Russia
The Fatima revelations, “the three secrets of Fatima,” were written down by Lucia dos Santos, already a nun, and sent to the Vatican. The first two secrets, among which the need to “convert Russia,” were made public in 1929. The third secret was supposed to be revealed in 1960, but the Holy See remained silent. Only the first and insignificant part of this text was made public at the turn of the millennium - in 2000. It is believed that it is connected with the assassination attempt on John Paul II.
The last “secret” still remains under wraps. We do not fully know how the issue of publishing the “secrets of Fatima” is technically resolved in the Vatican, we do not know why it was postponed in 1960 and only partially opened in 2000, who made this decision - the pope himself, his confessor or the pope with the inner circle of the episcopate. In any case, we can assume that Dad knows exactly what is in these envelopes (and are they envelopes in our digital age?).
But it is curious that ten years ago, when President Putin met with Pope Francis in the Vatican and gave him a copy of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God as a gift, the Catholic press wrote in unison about the beginning of the fulfillment of the “third secret of Fatima.”
History, to the outside eye, turned out differently, but - as Catholic prelates like to say - no one knows what path the prophecy will take...
Even with the most skeptical attitude towards this kind of legends and predictions, one must keep in mind that in this case we are not talking about some interpreters of Nostradamus or Vanga, but about the Catholic Church, which unites at least 1.2 billion people around the world. And for most of them, the Fatima miracle is an undoubted reality.
And naturally, it is very difficult for the episcopate of the Catholic Church, living one way or another “in the projection of Fatima,” to oppose Russia, to want its collapse, to recognize its history and culture as a “mistake,” and so on and so forth.
The world, as usual, turns out to be both more interesting and more complex than it sometimes wants us to believe.