Russia and Fatima

[VeryTas]

May 13 will mark the 107th anniversary of Mary's first apparition at Fatima, Portugal. I don't know how much credence you give to Our Lady of Fatima, because she had some tough words for us to ponder:
7/13/1917 "...You have seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them God wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate heart. If what I will tell you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end, but if people do not stop offending God, a worse war will break out in the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign that God gives that he is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To forestall this I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the
Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated; in the end my Immaculate Heart will
triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal the
dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc. ..."
The Church was first informed of her requests on 12/10/1925 (the Communion of Reparation) and on 6/13/1929, when she said:
"The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father in union with all the bishops of the world to make the consecration of Russia to my
Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means. ..."
Several Popes attempted consecrating Russia, but never straight out -- I mean, never stating that specifically Russia was being consecrated. It will take
the bishops to join him in this too. Does anybody see Russia as already "converted"?

[Riverboat]

Several Popes attempted consecrating Russia, but never straight out -- I mean, never stating that specifically Russia was being consecrated. It will take the bishops to join him in this too. Does anybody see Russia as already "converted"?

Why are people still flogging this dead horse?

May 13 will mark the 107th anniversary of Mary's first apparition at Fatima, Portugal. I don't know how much credence you give to Our Lady of Fatima, because she had some tough words for us to ponder

As to this, if people don't heed the words of Our Lord, why would they heed the words of His Mother?

[VeryTas]

Several Popes attempted consecrating Russia, but never straight out -- I mean, never stating that specifically Russia was being consecrated. It will take the bishops to join him in this too. Does anybody see Russia as already "converted"?

Why are people still flogging this dead horse?

May 13 will mark the 107th anniversary of Mary's first apparition at Fatima, Portugal. I don't know how much credence you give to Our Lady of Fatima, because she had some tough words for us to ponder

As to this, if people don't heed the words of Our Lord, why would they heed the words of His Mother?

The horse I would flog, then, would be the current and future Popes, who are not dead yet.
When Mary was told to go say some things at Fatima, maybe she said that ("If people don't heed your words, Son, why will they heed mine?"). But she was sent anyway. What might he have told her that would have given her hope for this mission? Maybe "With God all things are possible".

[Doom]

Here is the thing about the "conversion of Russia", in 1917, Russia was probably the most religious country on the planet. Praying for Russia to be converted would be like praying for water to be wet.

Then the communist revolution came, and official atheism. And for 70 years, Christianity in Russia was illegal and oppressed. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and there was a great revival in Christianity. The Russian Orthodox Church is the strongest it has been in over a century, and most of the country's population are nominal members, with varying degrees of participation, Russian Orthodoxy is the country's official religion, although others are tolerated, even though proselytizing is illegal, Russia has full religious freedom, and the leader (for life, let's be honest) Vladimir Putin is not only an active member of the Church, he is for all intents and purposes, the leader of the Church in all but official title. Ans many of his domestic policies, such as his brutal crackdown on homosexuality, are an attempt to impose Christian morality on the state. Putin is like the tzars, an autocratic authoritarian ruler who considers it his job to promote the official Church.

So, has Russia been converted? In the sense that we are basically back to the status quo ante circa 1917, I would say the answer is "yes".

[VeryTas]

So, has Russia been converted? In the sense that we are basically back to the status quo ante circa 1917, I would say the answer is "yes".

Do you want to name the various nations that were annihilated before that conversion? And do you want to identify any obvious period of world peace that has followed that conversion?

[peregrinator]

Here is the thing about the "conversion of Russia", in 1917, Russia was probably the most religious country on the planet. Praying for Russia to be converted would be like praying for water to be wet.

Converted doesn't mean from irreligion to religion, but from something else to Catholicism.

[Doom]

Ummm...I'm surprised by your ignorance of history, after the collapse of communism in 1989 there was a period of general world peace and prosperity that came to be known as "The End of History" (the name of a book published in 1992 by Francis Fukuyama) , there was a period of mass disarmament by both the US and in Western Europe., a period which came to an end on September 11, 2001. I lived through all this and was observing it at the time, I vividly remember the overwhelming joy and optimism of the time. Or do you think the promise is that the world will become an absolute uptopia with all problems disappearing forever until the Second Coming?

[Doom]

Here is the thing about the "conversion of Russia", in 1917, Russia was probably the most religious country on the planet. Praying for Russia to be converted would be like praying for water to be wet.

Converted doesn't mean from irreligion to religion, but from something else to Catholicism.

Russia has never been a Catholic country, and the Russian Orthodox are more anti-Catholic than all the most extreme fundamentalists, the idea that a country that is filled with a population that thinks the Pope is antichrist and Catholics are satan worshippers pretending to be Christian is just going to spontaneously join the Catholic Church is a less of fantasy that would make Tolkien proud.

[VeryTas]

It would be odd for the Fatima message to culminate with the Miracle of the Sun, and then for the conversion of Russia and a period of peace to be so low key. (Euphoria at the demise of the Berlin Wall was as short lived as the Arab Spring.) One implication of how Mary said things would wrap up, I think, is that all those errors Russia spread to the world would drop dead. If those errors provoked wars and persecutions of the Church and the Pope before 1990, they could certainly continue to do so if they continued after that, and they have been doing so. Not only did communism not die (think China, Cuba, N. Korea), these "errors" are what the West is now suffering under and is itself spreading. Yes, I do think there will be a miraculous substantial defeat of evil and that the Miracle of the Sun was symbolic of the plight of modern history and God's solution to it. She said that God wanted to establish devotion to her Immaculate Heart in the world (I take it as: not just in the Church). It makes sense that that would need something impressive world-wide, which people would associate with her heart. When to look for this miracle? When we hit bottom.

[peregrinator]

Russia has never been a Catholic country, and the Russian Orthodox are more anti-Catholic than all the most extreme fundamentalists, the idea that a country that is filled with a population that thinks the Pope is antichrist and Catholics are satan worshippers pretending to be Christian is just going to spontaneously join the Catholic Church is a less of fantasy that would make Tolkien proud.

I don't think anyone said anything about "spontaneous" and I think everyone understands that such a conversion would be miraculous.

[Kage_ar]

I had the blessing of meeting and spending time in conversation with Fr. Andrew Apostoli C. F. R. He wrote what is in my opinion the definitive book on Fatima.

He stood in front of a group of us and in that great Brooklyn accent said "if anyone tells you that Russia has not been consecrated to Mary, they are calling me a liar and even more they are calling Pope John Paul II a liar."

[peregrinator]

One who believes he is telling the truth even when he isn't, is not a liar. So no, one who said Russia had not been consecrated according to Our Lady's instructions wasn't necessarily calling anyone a liar.

[VeryTas]

I had the blessing of meeting and spending time in conversation with Fr. Andrew Apostoli C. F. R. He wrote what is in my opinion the definitive book on Fatima.
He stood in front of a group of us and in that great Brooklyn accent said "if anyone tells you that Russia has not been consecrated to Mary, they are calling me a liar and even more they are calling Pope John Paul II a liar."

If the consecration of Russia were a mystery of the faith, so that a Council or Pope might need to define it in order to overcome our minds' difficulty with it, then we would need such experts. But when the consecration is done, it will be plain to the average person; otherwise it won't be tied in their minds to its impressive effects. (Even that article of faith, the Second Coming, when it occurs will be even more plain, since "every eye will see him".) In this matter, so far the emperor has no clothes, in the opinion of this child at the parade (yours truly). The difficulty of the Pope and bishops' making the consecration has always been one of trust and nerve, not: How do we get the words for it formulated.