I regularly get questions about the so-called “Fatima apparitions” which have recently become popular again in Latin circles. While the first time around the intention of this hoax was clearly to use the 1917 chaos in Russia to the benefit of the Papacy’s influence (you can read about this disgraceful episode here), the current re-activation of the hoax appears to aim to somehow piggyback the Latin Church unto the current religious revival of Russia, mostly by means of the deliberately so-called “consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary” by Pope Pius XII. Needless to say, one cannot consecrate something one does not own, even to an internal organ of the All-Holy Theotokos, so that this “consecration” really proclaims is, as usual, the Vatican’s claim over the entire planet and, of course, Russia. Frankly, I have neither the time nor interest to debunk this all, so what I have decided is simply to share with you two documents on this topic available on the Internet (one here, the other one here). I hope that these two text will be helpful to debunk the hoax, dispel any misunderstandings and close any further discussions about stuff like the “consecration of Russia” or the “Third Secret”.
The Saker
There is the “work” of above, and the business of men… and churches.
I can be very critical of the church’s business (catholic and others).
BUT :
As someone who travels a lot, and who has visited a very large number of “sacred” places in the world, I say (and i feel compelled to testify) :
There was an intervention of the Holy Mother of God, Богородица… in Fatima.
When you love someone, and this “someone” is there… you feel it.
I love the Mother of God.
There is no other place in the world where her presence and her grace was so strong, beautiful, and obvious…
This is just my personal experience.
You don’t have to believe me, and I’m not gonna argue to convince anyone.
Every one who is seriously interested about it, is free to go there, and to “read” the place with an open heart.
This is alway what i do when i want to “know” something.
—-
The apparitions took place from 13 May 1917 to 13 October 1917.
Октябрьская революция, “The October Revolution”, the Bolshevik revolution : October 1917
It does not seem absurd to me to say that it was perhaps enough “legible” from “above”, that the “forces” behind the Bolsheviks, and who were in the act of maneuvering, were not really “holy”… and would lead to great suffering.
Asking to pray for on this part of the world, at that time… was how much needed.
But it wasn’t enough…
and the greatest fault of the Catholic Church was to keep for itself, part of the message…
Excellent analysis!
The fact that there’s been some quarrel and injustice between the Latin or Roman Catholic Church and The Orthodox in the past doesn’t mean we should discredit everything that happens in the Latin Church.
Saker needs to be careful about that. Everything can’t be perceived from the prism of West vs East, Western Church hates East……church and state polemics.
Attributing the miracle of the collapse of the Soviet Union and communist regime to the intervention of the Teorokos, Mary doesn’t mean that the Latin church is taking advantage to bash the Russian church. Perhaps that was the act or mindset of “some western church ministers” at a point in history, but that is definitely generalization to now smear the entire church, its supernatural events and its Iconography.
Whether you discredit her or the apparition, we remain grateful to Teotokos for Her timely intervention, we love Russia, we respect the orthodox church and we respect Rome as well. All these are not mutually exclusive.
Let’s stop mixing issues. And pls seperate church from politics.
“And pls seperate church from politics.”
Politics, i.e. the mafias, have taken over all churches without exceptions long ago, if they have not created, financed and scripted them in the first place.
Hint:
When ruled by mafias, keep your networks small and tight.
Let’s stop mixing issues. And pls seperate church from politics.
Great idea!
Now you need to inform the Vatican about this brilliant insight.
The Saker
Hi, Saker,
Thanks for raising this issue. People are forgetful (or unfamiliar with history) and confuse anti-Catholicism with the genuine critique of the appaling record of the Vatican in spreading its ideology world-wide – by murder and conversion.
This topic requires a serious treatment but I’ll just mention three interesting episodes:
Moscow (early 1950s) – The Americans bring the statue of the Virgin to the US embassy where it serves as a “spiritual” focus for the (now well documented) nuclear annihilation strategy aimed the USSR.
Vietnam (1954) where Edward Lansdale (of the CIA) used the slogan “the Virgin has gone south” to induce a million Catholics to emigrate to Diem’s South Vietnam and start a mini-genocide of the Buddhists.
Yugoslavia (1980) where the Virgin “appeared” to three Croat children at the location of one of the most horrific slaughters of WWII – in Medjugorje where the Croat ustashe had murdered thousands of innocent Serbs in 1941. This signalled a world-wide Roman Catholic mobilisation against the USSR and Yugoslavia (led by Wojtyla amongst others).
This is not to denigrate anyone’s religious feelings but these facts need to be remembered.
The fact that there’s been some quarrel and injustice between the Latin or Roman Catholic Church and The Orthodox in the past doesn’t mean we should discredit everything that happens in the Latin Church.
Yeah, we hear that a lot. Let the bygones be bygones. That was all perpetrators say to their victims, nothing new here. For those interested, these are some of the bygones the Latins so desperately want us not to speak about:
/the-ancient-spiritual-roots-of-russophobia/
/putin-the-pope-the-schism-franks-and-romans/
/a-negative-view-of-christianity-and-religion-in-general/
or this
http://www.reformation.org/holocaus.html
As for discredit, two things discredit the Papacy more than anything we might say: first, that it has left the Church and engaged in roughly 1000 years of heresy and innovation and, second, that the world we live in today, the so-called “West” is its creation. All we have to say to that record is They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us (1 John 2:19)
The Saker
Saker, thank you for this, regarding Rome:
“it has left the Church and engaged in roughly 1000 years of heresy and innovation and […] the world we live in today, the so-called “West” is its creation.”
You perhaps thought this was standard understanding, but it blew my mind, and a thousand years of history fell into place.
We live in the world this spiritual demise created, and think it’s normal. Ah.
we love Russia, we respect the orthodox church and we respect Rome as well. All these are not mutually exclusive.
No, as a matter of fact, these are mutually exclusive propositions. To think that means that you either
1) do not understand what Russia is or stands for
2) do not understand what the Papacy is or stands for
3) do not understand BOTH Russia AND the Papacy and what they stand for
I mean that literally. You probably simply don’t realize that the Papacy is by far the oldest, most vicious and dangerous enemy of both Russia and of the Church (I mean the original, Orthodox, Church) in history and that each time in history when either Russia or any other Orthodox country was facing a crisis the Latin pounced and tried to use it to subjugate or murder all Orthodox Christians (I am not making that up, 1/3rd converted, 1/3rd murdered and 1/3rd expelled was the official goal of the Pavelic regime in this wonderful creation of the Papacy called the “Independent State of Croatia” which was so over the top with its atrocities that even the Nazis were disgusted). And who do you think created the Ukraine?
The only way to write what you wrote is to completely ignore history (and Christian eccelsiology, by the way). Sorry, but you have been lied to about a lot of what you think you know.
The Saker
My master once said, I paraphrase:
Miracles in the sense people think of them, do not exist.
Beyond that, everything in existance is a miracle.
2 things.
1) One does not add a clause to the Nicene creed without an Ecumenical Council.
2) One does not run multiple Crusades against the members of the Original Orthodox church, both in the north and in the Balkans, and then get the right to say let bygones be bygones.
I think one should just respect the Catholic view on the matter. It really doesn’t concern the Orthodox. Personally, I find this aspect of religious in-fighting extremely distasteful, ugly, and petty. At any rate there is no certitude in the matter, as with so much religious quarreling, just a lot of hurling of anathemas at each other by impassioned and self-righteous persons. Finally, what is accomplished by all this other than creating further divisions and ill-will? This is a time for religious unity and respect for others’ faith in the face of this increasingly darkened world. Religions are one thing and the people who profess them are seldom up to their level–there is a lot of stupidity, ignorance, fanaticism, and other vices in the history of religions, but that doesn’t affect their nature as divine means of salvation for those who try to live up to them.
I think one should just respect the Catholic view on the matter. It really doesn’t concern the Orthodox.
Oh really? When the Latins claim that they have the right to consecrate a country they don’t own but which they tried to submit for 1000 years we should look away, sing kumbaya, have group hugs and “let bygones be bygones”.
Maybe some will.
Not this blogger, not on this blog.
If you don’t like it – cry me a river :-P
The Saker
PS: since you clearly don’t understand even basic concepts such as “anathema” (or even what “religious unity” actually means), don’t try to comment on Christianity related issues – you come across as an pompous, virtue signaling ignoramus.
There is only one way to salvation:
“Jesus saith unto him [Thomas], I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him” (John 14:6-7).
And only one means of salvation:
“He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. 13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. 15 If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:12-14).
The Romans did not keep His commandments and like the Pharisees “honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do” (Mark 7:6-8).
Another Anonymus
I’m one faithful Roman Catholic guy, and I desagree a lot about those, that’s not correct about how we face and proceed with our faith.
Our lady has more then 2 thousand names/titles to us, she is only one with a lot of nicknames so Our Lady of Mercy is the same Our Lady of Glory but each one has different emphasis that makes devotion to be different. We do not worship Mary, but honor her as Jesus mom.
Whe believe that Mary is just like all saints but more honorable then all them. She is just like the moon, that don’t have its own light but only reflects gods lights as the sun reflect on the moon.
To us she is one way to achieve god, to have God’s presence in our life, just as a lot of other ways to achieve God father and Son. All faithful that observes tools like rosary consequently achieve God easier than without, or the scapular that make us every day all day remember Jesus and so more close to him.
There’s a lot of things about Roman Catholic faith that is not what Orthodox or Protestant understand.
The conversion of Russia to Fatima’s I believe that’s only Russians starting to understand that and get devotion to Our lady of Fatima. Fatima’s apparition is way more extended to other massages than the prophecy that died with the fall of communism. Just as other prophecies like that of Jonas that did not happened in Niniveh.
But I admit that there is a lot of faithful people of Roman Catholic devotes more attention to Our Lady than to Jesus an God father. And that’s not correct and they are ignorant and so makes the impression to those that are not Roman Catholic think wrong than what it really is.
Sorry about my English and I’m afraid that I wrote something that means other than what I wanted…
We are brothers but the devil is successful in making one think that the other do what they don’t. And it’s really sad but Jesus is correct when he says that this world is managed by the devil. But in the end they will loose and Jesus will triumph. :)
IMPORTANT, a conclusion, of sorts
The conversion of Russia to Fatima’s I believe that’s only Russians starting to understand
What a telling Freudian slip! The official statement was CONSECRATION yet you wrote CONVERSION. That’s it, I rest my case which you have made better than I ever could and for that I am truly immensely grateful.
So now we have it coming straight from a Latin: the Fatima hoax was about the CONVERSION of Russia. Like all the other Latin policies towards Russia and the Orthodox world for the past 1000 years. All the rest of the arguments here (and I won’t even go into all the hate mail I got over this) is just a smokescreen, a cop-out. The truth is that simple: first they fail to submit us by force, then they tried to submit us while the Bolsheviks were murdering us by the millions, now they want to pretend like the spiritual revival in Russia has something to do with them and submit us not to them directly, but to them via their hoaxes. And when a stubborn guy like me dares to say that openly, I get a torrent of accusations (and even more hate mail which the mods sent to trash). That infuriated and enraged reaction also says a lot (I think I get even more hate mail from Latins then I do from Zionists, that should tell you something).
Guys, you failed for 1000 years because for 1000 years there were enough for us to see straight through all the lies, deceptions and hoaxes and we STILL do. The Church is the foundation and pillar of truth and the gates of Hades will never prevail against it so you are wasting your time and efforts. Instead of fantasizing about converting us, why don’t you clean your own house (the West) as there sure is enough to clean in that section of the planet which you ran for 1000 years. There will only be peace between us when you finally give up any and all hopes of subjecting us to your Popes, by it by the sword or by means of hoaxes. Then yes, bygones will be bygones, but as long as your are still at it you will find enough of us to debunk your lies and denounce you for what you are doing. So which will it be? Will you finally give up? (I am not holding my breath, by the way)
The Saker
PS: and on a strictly personal level let me add this: I have very close Latin friends, collaborators to this blog and even donors who support me IN SPITE of what I write about the Papacy’s policies towards Russia and the Church. So peace, and even collaboration and love, IS possible between us and you, but only with those amongst you who 1) understand and 2) accept the past for what it is and do not try to silence me (by means of censure or insults) when I write about this past. I even have “traditionalist” Latin friends who while keeping their beliefs understand that the past gives me the right to write about these topics and who know that I do not judge an individual simply because of this faith since, after all, we all simply follow our conscience, Christians, Latins, Muslims and even agnostics and atheists. But the notion that I do have the moral right to speak about the persecutions of Christians by, say, atheists or Muslims is legitimate and all okay, but as soon as I touch the Latin “all hell breaks lose” and my hate mail inbox suddenly explodes says more about the Latins then anything else.
And I can explain that. Simply read this:
/the-ancient-spiritual-roots-of-russophobia/
and, specifically, the section entitled “A 1000 year old dispute”.
and these two will provide you with even more details:
/putin-the-pope-the-schism-franks-and-romans/
/a-negative-view-of-christianity-and-religion-in-general/
So, my angry Latin readers – realize that your outrage and stubborn insistence that this latest Marian hoax (there were other in the past, some even grammatically ridiculous ones as when the Mother of God allegedly declared “I am the Immaculate Conception” which is a nonsensical sentence, the correct one would have been “my conception was immaculate” making it all a prima facie hoax) just makes my case better than I ever could.
Those of you who are truly sincere and full of real good will towards Russia and maybe even the Church, please think about this.
The Saker
Saker, sorry, I was not clear.
Conversion to Fatima, not to Roman Catholic.
There is also a lot of conversions of Muslims to Fatima, not to Christianism.
Fatima is a destination of Muslim pilgrims nowadays, because of the Muslim princess Fatima, and also their Muslim devotion to Virgin Mary, and it is growing fast recently. The name of the city was given by Muslims – the time they accede Portugal – in honor of her. If I am not wrong those pilgrims are mainly Shiite.
There is some people that says Virgin Mary is going to be the Gods tool that will unite all the religions, because of God, not her. To Fatima, not to Roman Catholic.
Conversion to Our Lady of Fatima maybe is not the right expression, but to make people love Mary and also to have her as a way to God.
In the Carmelo’s scapular Jesus is in both sides, and only in one is Our Lady of Carmel but I see a lot of people saying that one side is Mary and the other is Jesus. :/ The scapular is something common used by Fatima’s devotes.
It’s hard for me…. my native language is not english, so I’m afraid about making things worse. I speak in Portuguese, in that I do not write poorly, I’m Brazilian and would like to go to Fatima, some day. :)
mod-to note: May I suggest a very critical read: The Marian Apparations: Divine Intervention or Delusion. This is contained within
this post “Debunking the Fatima hoax”. This should help in revising your knowledge on Fatima
Thank you very much for posting this. My wife was raised Catholic, and for some years we attended Church together, and for a long time the Fatima apparitions bothered me. The great deceiver, unfortunately, can use innocent children to deceive. I believe it was L A Marzuli who voiced his honest concern that the “Miracle of the Sun” had much in common with satanic “ufo” appearances–when you consider that, consider also how our earth would have been destroyed if the sun had truly been “dancing around” the sky in the way that was described! In the wake of numerous child abuse scandals that have resulted in billions of dollars of pay outs to victims in the USA alone (great use of your offering money, huh?) , I have to seriously ask, Which nation is it that needs “consecrating”, here? I I need to raise more issues: Master Jesus lamented that “an evil and adulterous generation needs signs” , so I urge sincere people to be very careful with the Fatima event. If “Fatima” had never happened, the teachings of the Cross and the Resurrection and Judgment would stand on their own two feet just fine without it — again as Jesus said, If I am lifted up. I will draw all men to me. Do we “lift up” Jesus in our daily lives? Does “Fatima” lift up Jesus, or does it do something else? I am concerned that the Adoration of Mary can easily turn into idolizing her, and the term “Mother of God” can be confusing to say the least—who exactly is the Creator of heaven and earth? I fear that Fatima is a portent of things to come in terms of Great Counterfeits: misleading signs and symbols in the skies, up to and including fire from heaven, that will be staged by demonic entities to confuse people and lead them astray from the truth. I wish great blessings from our Creator to all of you, and that you heed the counsel of Jesus when he said, Be harmless as doves, and wise as serpents.
[I apologize for my bad english]
I agree with you. I think if it is not a hoax… therefore it could be something worse. We must remember the words of Paul to the Ephesians (6:12): “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
The most common holy symbol around the world is, incidentally, a beautiful woman with a beautiful baby in her arms. The archetype of this feminine deity IMHO has to be investigated at the times of ancient pagan empire of Babylon, the times of Nimrod/Tammuz and Shammurammath/Semiramis. Protective like a mother, sexy like a mistress, fertile like the Nature, splendid like a queen… but also powerful like a witch, cruel and vindictive like a demon, ferocious and frightful in expecting a total cult for herself. Her priestly caste was an exclusive, rich and depraved circle of people connoisseur of “secrets” hidden to the populace, “mediators” between the masses and the deities, working in “sanctuaries” to offer endless “sacrifices” to appease the fury of these angry divinities. The mass celebrations were linked with the planets, included all type of perversions, and the continual repetition of the rite sacrifice-forgiveness guaranteed the people about the possibility to go on with their sins. This formula worked well for men and women, from top priest to last peasant, because the great majority of them were well rooted in the flesh instead of the spirit.
Later this system burst into the mediterranean sea area, and that is why we have in the Bible plenty of warnings about the dangers of idolatry, by Prophets. The Old Testament is a long sad chronicle of the downfall of the “chosen nation” and their priestly caste into the worship of pagan deities. However there are studies online saying that “the queen”, well rooted in the hedonistic greek-roman world, was later obliquely adopted by the dawning Catholic Church to house those people too far away from the Word of Jesus Christ: those people did not want to drop their “Mother”, an angel and demon at the same time, because they choosed to remain in the “babylonian” system. Think at Jesus Christ against the Pharisees, or at Paul in Ephesus.
And what about those worshippers inside the Catholic Church in the following centuries? Well, for experts (I am not) this is a gigantic and interesting matter of study… anyway, it appears to me that this feminine deity has strange secrets, tons of repeated stereotyped messages, geographical preferences and predominance in expecting materialistic demonstrations of faith. Jesus Christ was at the exact opposite, and for me this automatically close the file, either it is a hoax or not. But I remain confused about the goal: maybe could be to politicize and make immanent the faith of the masses, but therefore the true risk is to encourage a Christianity low-cost and to make the Catholic Church become the church of philosophy of Humanism, instead of the church of faith in God our Father.
I hope these thoughts will help.
There is a view that his Pope Benedict was forced to abdicate, in part for his effort to effect raprochemont with Russian Orthodoxy
If interested, check out https://onepeterfive.com/obama-benedict-abdication/
It should be noted that today the average Roman Catholic has no knowledge about this old hatred towards the Orthodox Church. And that there are many inside the Roman Church who are genuinely sympathetic with the Orthodox faith, especially the liturgy.
Also it is maybe not uninteresting that E. Michael Jones, from “Culture Wars”, a devout Roman Catholic, who, on the political and cultural level, shares many views with the Saker was and is campaigning against the Medjugorje hoax. His book: “The Medjugorje deception – Queen of Peace, Ethnic Cleansing, Ruined Lives” is a worthwhile read.
Please, read ” Russia and the Universal Church ” by Vladimir Soloviev ;
it can help you to understand many things about Catholicism and Orthosoxy.
Russian Katekhon
Just so you know Saker, that upon searching for ‘Fatima Hoax’ this blog post showed up on the front page of my search engine. As one who was baptized Greek Orthodox and who is researching the Catholic faith and its traditions (my partner is Catholic) the content herein has proved excellent and very helpful. God works in the most amazing ways, and helps us find the real truth when we seek in earnestness.
Over the past week I have been studying the ‘Holy Rosary’, I have printed off the prayers, and made an effort to apply myself to its system of prayer, but for some reason the Hail Mary would get stuck in my throat, and I had a hard time memorizing it. I decided to dig deeper into the ‘Holy Rosary’ and found myself face to face with Fatima. Upon studying the event, and the messages given by the ‘Mother of God’ I was struck by the blatant and obvious appeal by this ‘divine being’ to what I would consider newer teachings of the Catholic Church, and the emphasis upon supplication to Mary rather than God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. I have a very strong psychological and moral compass for true dogma that is more intuitive than scholarly – and the messages of Fatima left a bad taste in my mouth.
My intial reaction was to try and fit these ‘divine messages’ into my world view, but the more I tried the less comfortable I felt. Something was amiss, I became skeptical, and with that skepticism came a feeling of guilt that somehow I was betraying the Virgin – this in itself was insightful. The aura created around the event of Fatima was such that the case had been long closed, that it was beyond any doubt that a real apparation of the Virgin had occurred. I am no longer confident of that, and though I am not done investigtaing the matter in my heart, I now have a broader window with which to judge the whole situation. Thank you for your input on this. As a long time reader that doesn’t come around as much these days, it was nice to arrive back via another route.
its interesting to read the roman catholic and spanish language uses of Fatima. When I learnt about the Roman Catholics use of the word Faitma, I had a massive giggle to myself. You see, Fatima is the youngest daughter of the Prohet Muhammed PBUH and throught her marriage with his COusin, the 4th Caliph Ali R.A, they had 2 childern, Hassan and Hussein R.A. THis is Islamic History. Now the arabs conqured spain and they name towns that begin with the word Al, which means ‘the” and they name towns with the word Madina which means town and then they named towns with the name Fatima after the daughter of the prophet Muhamed PBUH. And now, centuries later, this town, named after the prophets daughter…gets Roman Catholic Saints and miracles and symbols and emanicpation named after her…..the irony. BTW I am a Muslim from South Africa of Indian Descent – just for some context – 6th generation living here – nice blog and thanks for the informaiton
Honestly, as a Roman Catholic, I never understood the anti-Orthodox rethoric. Given the current state of the Roman Church, it started me to think. Thank you for the honest website. When I’m able to convert, I probably will do so. Orthodoxy will save the world, I believe.