DENYING FATIMA’S MESSAGE

DENYING FATIMA’S MESSAGE

Atila Sinke Guimarães

NOTE: TCK does not hold Francis as the true Pope

I would say that Pope Francis’ visit to Fatima this month can be summarized as an attempt to empty and deny the message of Fatima. The essence of his remarks appeared when he spoke these words at the Chapel of the Apparitions on May 12:

“Great injustice is done to God’s grace whenever we say that sins are punished by his judgment, without first saying – as the Gospel clearly does – that they are forgiven by his mercy! Mercy has to be put before judgment and, in any case, God’s judgment will always be rendered in the light of his mercy.

 
At Fatima Francis denies Our Lady's message, leaving out her warnings of chastisement

"Obviously, God’s mercy does not deny justice, for Jesus took upon himself the consequences of our sin, together with its due punishment. He did not deny sin, but redeemed it on the cross. Hence, in the faith that unites us to the cross of Christ, we are freed of our sins; we put aside all fear and dread, as unbefitting those who are loved (cf. 1 Jn 4:18).” (1)

These words are meant to “correct” the two parts of the message of Fatima that undoubtedly speak about God’s judgment of individuals and nations and threaten them with chastisements. In that message, although Our Lady showed great mercy to the souls and nations, the emphasis was placed on the punishment God reserves for men if they do not convert. That is, it was precisely the opposite of Francis’ input.

Punishment of individuals

If we put the parts of the Fatima’s message in perspective, we see that the first part refers to the punishment of a huge number of individuals who go to Hell because they abandoned the Commandments, while the second part refers to the punishment of nations.

Indeed, in the apparition on July 13, 1017, Sister Lucy reported:

“Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear.

The mouth of Hell from a medieval manuscript

“The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.” (2)

It is clear that this part of the message is turned to move Catholics primarily by means of fear, not mercy, inviting them to return to the path of grace. This way Our Lady chose to sent her message is in accordance with a multitude of Catholic teachings, which can be summarized in two maxims: “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” and “Think about the last things and you will not die eternally.” (3)

So, what Francis did was an attempt to deny Our Lady’s message.

When Pope Bergoglio revolted against the pedagogy of fear, he fell into multiple errors.

• The first is that by assuming that mercy always prevails over justice and that our sins were already forgiven on the Cross, he practically denied that sins are punished eternally.
• As a consequence, he implicitly denied Hell. He seemed to return to the error of John Paul II that Purgatory and Hell are existential situations a person experiences in this life.
• He further denied that each man must struggle against evil – the world, flesh and Devil – in order to merit his own salvation. Grace is only effective with man’s cooperation.
• He also indirectly encouraged people to sin. His motto seems to be: “Trust in mercy and do whatever you want.” Quite similar to that of Luther: “Believe and sin boldly.”

This analysis is in reference to the first part of the message.

The chastisement of nations

Now, let me go the second part of Our Lady’s message. According to Sister Lucy, her words were:

The multitudes at Fatima heard Francis' wrong message delivered in the Chapel of the Apparitions

“You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pope Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

“To prevent 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 shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.” (4)

This part of the message follows perfectly in the steps of the first. After showing that the individuals who do not observe God’s commandments go to Hell, Our Lady prophesizes that the unfaithful nations will be punished in this world.

A grave warning of a punishment for individuals and nations

Again, her message has the whole of Catholic theology behind it. In fact, many Doctors of the Church teach that since nations and peoples cannot go to Hell or Heaven, they receive their punishment or reward in this life.

So, when Francis affirmed that to speak of punishment before speaking of mercy is to commit an injustice to God, he denied the most essential part of the Fatima message.

If we consider that on the same day Our Lady showed the children Hell and predicted this chastisement of nations, she also gave the little shepherds a third part of the message, we cannot help but think that this unknown part, which is normally called the “third secret,” is also about a punishment.

I think this part refers to the punishment of the Church. The three parts, then, are inter-related and make a harmonic ensemble, as we should expect from a message of Our Lady.

From this trip we clearly see a progressivist Pope who publicly and ostensibly contradicts Our Lady’s words, known as being true for 100 years.

What he made was a symbolic act on the centenary of the apparitions that deserves to be carefully noted. Essentially, he told Our Lady: “I don’t accept your message. It is wrong. I will not allow it to continue to be spread.”

In brief, it was a Non permittam [I will not permit], not so different from a Non serviam [I will not serve].

All the more so since Francis also tried to ridicule Our Lady when he said, on the same occasion:

“[We are] Pilgrims with Mary… But, which Mary? …The Virgin Mary of the Gospel, venerated by the Church at prayer or a Mary of our own making: one who restrains the arm of a vengeful God; one sweeter than Jesus the ruthless judge; one more merciful than the Lamb slain for us? (5)

Once more we see Francis clearly saying that the Mary who appeared in Fatima is not the real Mary, but a fabrication of the imagination.

He was basically repeating what Benedict XVI said when he went to visit Fatima: “It is the fruit of children’s imagination.”
 

1. From the Vatican website Pilgrimage of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.
2. Lucia Santos, Fatima in Lucia's Own Words I (2003), pg. 123. In her third memoir, written in 1941, Lúcia said that the first part of the message, a vision of Hell, was disclosed to the children on July 13, 1917.
3. The four last things are: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell
4. Lucia Santos, Fatima in Lucia's Own Words I (2003), pgs. 123-124.
5. Vatican website Pilgrimage of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.