Published by Something quite dramatic had happened in the second decade of the 20th century that many people just ignore, while many others still don’t know about it. It occurred in a formerly prominent country that had become rather mainly insignificant by that particular time in world history.
On the surface of events, especially as it had been largely overshadowed by World War I, which had been called the Great War prior to the numbering of world wars, the event would seem to be something to be relegated to the mere backwaters of history; however, upon some closer inspection and careful examination, what went on did prove to be significant in terms of what had been predicted; namely, a second world-level conflagration that was, moreover, signaled by a prior celestial manifestation no less.
More than that, a once extremely weakened (due to World War I) and truly backwards Russia was predicted— absolutely correctly— to be the indisputable future source of tremendously enormous troubles, in the world, for many decades to come; such an odd and strange foretelling was, at the time, logically thought to be completely ludicrous and nonsensical to the extreme, which is the least that could be rationally said. And yet, the then obscure country of Portugal, where these above-noted events (predictions) had happened, has genuinely sparked an unresolved debate that is still greatly reverberating throughout many quarters of one of the largest religions in this world, perhaps, second only to Islam or Hinduism.
It is, when truly thought about profoundly, a greatly pivotal matter that notably strikes at the very heart of the core beliefs of many hundreds of millions of people. This is so because it draws attention to two different ways of ultimately believing; those who hold to the proper validity of the predictions adhere to a profound, traditional orthodoxy; the others who try to play fast and loose games with the revelations have a different and opposed view of what true orthodoxy means, which is not, for them, too far from Enlightenment rationalism when seen more closely and critically; of course, they would, the majority of them, deny heartily this characterization of their kind, mode, or style of belief, especially as to the issue of religious revelation under discussion in this article.
There is held to be a significant difference, in theological terms of reference, between what is called “public revelation” versus “private revelation” regarding the understanding of such concepts, according to the Roman Catholic Church. Revelation of a public nature, for instance, concerns Christ and the first Twelve Apostles because any such statements of a religious nature as to the appropriate orientation and comprehension of the Church’s dogmas, doctrines, and traditional beliefs, as to true Revelation, ended with the death of St. John the Evangelist.
After that time, in line with the thinking, tradition, and consensus of the Church, everything else concerns the private revelations coming from saints or holy people who made claims that either God, the Holy Mother of Christ, or another saint had transmitted knowledge, information, predictions, or warnings. Everything concerned must, moreover, be officially coordinated through and by the existing Magisterium, the Tradition of the Church, and Scripture as the three forever requisite and always united pillars of the Faith of all believing Catholics who, thus, wish to maintain orthodoxy.
All such private revelation must be properly adjudged, by the Church, as to its appropriate conformity with orthodoxy or at least nothing that contradicts the Faith; those supposed divine or other utterances that are or are judged to be, in fact, heretical are to be, thus, always totally rejected by the faithful. On the other hand, it needs to be rightly remarked, no merely private revelation is to become a part of the main belief system allowed by Catholicism; one can remain, therefore, in good standing as a believer without having to adhere to all or any “private” statements pertaining to apparitions.
These various matters are, one must note, not to be made equal to or equivalent in any way to the actual dogmatic statements sanctioned by the Church and promulgated through the theological doctrines outlining or detailing specifically the exact nature of orthodox beliefs. However, selected parts of such matters can get themselves, e.g., the approval of popes who can, thus, freely allow the faithful to recite prayers that are thought fully consistent with Catholic beliefs, traditions, or practices.
Within the Catholic Church, however, there is a rather ugly, ongoing, and vicious internecine kind of intellectual, moral and spiritual “warfare” between those denounced as “Fatima Freaks” (polemically reminiscent of “Jesus Freaks”) opposed to those who swear that the new theological, social, and cultural orthodoxy must adhere to full allegiance toward the Second Vatican Council done without question; the neo-orthodox Catholics struggle against the (merely) orthodox, traditionalist Catholics over many issues and questions; these important matters of great contention include, therefore, the highly dramatic and significant prophecies of the Blessed Virgin Mary given to the three children at Fatima, Portugal in the year 1917.
The neo-orthodox response has been based and biased toward a clever and nearly plausible form of historicism in trying to make various slippery facts fit, through extreme degrees of exegetical exercises in logic chopping that gives a good name to Jesuitical casuistry, the specific nature of the prophecies made by the Holy Mother of God. How the Blessed Virgin feels about such polemical rhetoric designed to justify the perpetuation of the appearance of obstructing the faithful believers’ rights to get the right message correctly given publicly is, of course, yet another matter of serious debate.
On the other hand, the traditionalists, the alleged Fatima Freaks (FF), insist that the prophecies must beat a minimum, logically and rationally matched to actual and substantive facts that adhere to the matters raised, not vice versa. The often assumed or neo-orthodox backed “facts” ought not to be continually plastically molded, shaped, and contoured endlessly until they reasonably seem to sort of resemble “managed” or manipulated interpretations of the predictions as to the actual historical events months, years, or (many) decades later.
Charges of subterfuge and deliberate efforts at continuous attempts at obfuscation and the making of partial statements, containing only partial or quasi-truths as to the revelations made, as with the secrets, for instance, once entrusted to Sister Lucia, are made repeatedly; the neo-orthodox defenders of the hierarchy’s stone-walling efforts, of course, repeatedly deny that any such, deliberate or otherwise improper, efforts have ever or will ever be done to not make fully and frankly public the contents of the actual secrets.
What has, unfortunately or otherwise, happened is that the very same historical incidents or events can be and often times have been variously interpreted differently, sometimes extremely widely differently. The neo-orthodox party (NP), to this dispute, absolutely insists that all of the secrets once entrusted to Sister Lucia, the last of the surviving trio, who died some years ago, have been made fully public and all of the events or situations or circumstances that were described have, in fact, been already fulfilled totally.
The traditionalists, involved with this ever ongoing Fatima controversy, do not agree; some, most, or, perhaps, at least many of the actual prophecies have not yet been truly fulfilled to the true satisfaction of the stated requirements manifestly put forth by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. And, there is, therefore, no sign that this highly involved dispute is going to go away anytime soon, which is the least of what can be easily and most definitely stated without fear of any contradiction.
The NP has the enormously great advantage of having the vast majority of the Church’s hierarchy on its side, especially because they support the radicalization settlement started by Vatican Council II (VCII); most of the hierarchy erroneously think that a really new era was forever initiated by VCII such that there was a definite theological break between the pre- and postcounciliar eras, in effect creating a new style or reality of Church. Of course, such a clearly modernist contention has been totally denied any validity, theological or otherwise, by both Pope John Paul II and the current pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI.
The two opposed camps, therefore, do not really communicate with each other but, rather, exchange charges and accusations, claims and counterclaims, arguments and counterarguments, regarding basic infidelity to the truth concerning the correct and proper interpretations of the statements given as prophecies. The FF still say that not all the predictions have yet historically occurred in terms of the proper interpretations; the NP insist that all have been justified by historical circumstances as having happened and that all of the interrelated controversies ought, therefore, to now completely cease or should have stopped, moreover, many years ago. But, of course, both sides cannot truly be correct.
The enormous number of manifold intricacies and involved complexities of the prophecies will not be attempted to be discussed in this much more modest article; it would probably take the alleged abilities of some sort of highly intelligent and profoundly wise “Talmudic scholar” to descend to the depths and ascend to the heights of all of the various and sundry issues, subjects, topics, etc. pertaining to the many details; this is explicitly concerning what may or may not be the proper interpretation of the various occurrence(s) or lack thereof, of pertinent and correct signs, that a particular prediction has been, in fact, properly fulfilled or not.
To cite one and only one matter for easy illustration here, it is rather very hotly disputed by the NP and FF as to whether or not Russia was or was not appropriately and completely consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary; if this was, in fact, correctly done, then the FF people claim that Russia would, thus, not be the tremendous moral cesspool of excessive corruption, manifest degradation, etc. that it remains obviously so today. This matter relates, for instance, to secret information that supposedly was made public as to the fact that a pope and a council of bishops was, thus, supposed to actually do this formal consecration in a certain prescribed manner, which the NP insist was done according to the explicit letter of the noted requirements. But, questions and objections yet remain.
The Blessed Mother did not speak of a Soviet Union or Soviet Empire; the fall of the Soviet Empire is not the same, according to the FF, as the conversion of Russia; past predictions or statements of what would occur did, in fact, happen. The Miracle of the Sun, in 1917 at Fatima, was witnessed by many thousands of people; the particular night with a spectacular light in the sky, in 1938, was, again, witnessed by many thousands of observers. What the Holy Mother of Christ said would happen occurred exactly as had been revealed; thus, as said, the fall of the Soviet Empire and its reversion back to Russia cannot be sophistically equated, as has been done many times, by the neo-orthodox propagandists, the NP.
And yet, anyone who disagrees with them is nastily denounced as a real simpleton or, much more pejoratively, just a nutty Fatima Freak— meaning someone who, thus, actually expects the Blessed Virgin Mary to keep her word. If Russia had been properly consecrated to her Immaculate Heart, in the specific way that was, therefore, requested for this miraculous conversion to happen, the faithful are to normally and naturally expect that, because Jesus, of course, listens to His Mother concerning all such morally good things, Russia would then, in fact, be converted to Catholicism.
Although this important matter gets denied or downgraded by the neo-orthodox bigots, the believers do still quite logically and rightfully expect that a true miracle will occur, since the Mother of Jesus said so; and, the other past miracles, it can be rather convincingly added, fully back up this substantive belief as to the particular and pertinent truth involved with it. Thus, what is going on cannot be simplistically dismissed as just a mere matter of a private revelation having no true bearing upon world events in any practical way whatsoever.
Those who do verbally attack the alleged FF, meaning the NP, are merely engaging in sophistic rhetorical assaults designed to wrongly disguise the obvious fact that what they are saying is true is really a lie. Either that is the real case or else the Blessed Virgin Mary must be a supposed liar, which, since the Church has fully validated the Fatima Apparition, cannot ever be true. Interested readers may, for instance, wish to go to the New Oxford Review, in the February and April 2009 issues, to get an understanding by looking at a recent book review and letters related to this important controversy; other sources of information pertaining to this matter are, of course, to be seen on the internet.
At a minimum, derogatory denunciations of FF, as made by the NP, will not deter many people from speaking out on this issue, until some genuine resolution of it has been empirically and verifiably achieved to the critical satisfaction of all people who seek the honest truth, especially in terms of traditional Catholic orthodoxy. In any event, both sides to this argument cannot be truly correct in their judgments and conclusions; one or the other must, essentially speaking, be completely wrong. Both sides must, nonetheless, make an appeal to empirical reality as to what has or has not taken place, at various times in history, pertaining to the 20th century and, of course, after that time.
Although this article may not really convince a reader as to which side is telling the truth, perhaps, skeptics might be, at a bare minimum, moved to rationally question the probability that something has, at least, not really occurred in Russia, meaning as to a truly significant spiritual improvement of its population in the early 21st century.
Athanasius contra mundum!
