Vatican II: At Odds with Fatima

Such a response to Fatima on the part of Rome did not take place with the apparitions at Lourdes or any of the other apparitions of Our Lady. There must be something grave that motivated the tremendous efforts, from 1952 onwards, to neutralize and even silence Fatima’s message. If we compare the spirit of the Second Vatican Council with the most important aspects of Fatima’s message, we can perhaps discover a strong reason for consigning Fatima to oblivion.

Hell

The reality of Hell was not an object of any discussion at the Council though it remained an article of the “dogmas of the Faith”; in fact, in all of the conciliar decrees, the word ’Hell’ does not appear even once. At the time of the Council, errors regarding the “ultimate salvation of all men” and of a Hell which is empty or at least nearly empty were widespread among theologians and a great number of clergy. But at Fatima Our Lady had shown the children the eternal fires of Hell. Afterwards, Jacinta could not stop thinking about the reality of Hell, and she offered many sacrifices for sinners that they might not be damned. Sr. Lucia often returned to the subject of Hell, either in her memoirs or in her correspondence. For example, she said: “Do not be surprised if I talk to you about Hell. It is a truth which is necessary to remember very much at the present time, because it is often forgotten: there is a mad rush of souls falling into Hell.”

By contrast, in the years following Vatican II, the reality of Hell almost completely vanished from catechetical teaching and likewise from the Church’s magisterium. Where can we find in the documents of the conciliar Church even an echo of the entreaty of Our Lady at Fatima: “Many souls go to Hell because there is no one to pray and sacrifice for them!”?

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was likewise eliminated from the religious practice of the Church from the time of Pope John XXIII. His “pastoral” Council never discussed devotion to the Immaculate Heart, and this title of Our Lady would not appear in the conciliar texts. The rationale could not be more obvious: this devotion is entirely noncompliant with the new trends of ecumenism.

The Council could hardly approve of a devotion making reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary and at the same time make room for the spiritual “values” found in all religions of the world, which largely deny Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, and her Divine Maternity. The liturgical reform took the same direction. Following the new logic, the feast of the Immaculate Heart was reduced in the new missal promulgated in 1969 from second class rank to a simple commemoration.

The Rosary

There is not a single mention of the Rosary in the decrees of the Council. When the Council was in session, many Council Fathers requested that the Rosary be referred to as being among the prayers of the Church, appearing in the list of practices and exercises of piety spoken of in no. 67 of Lumen Gentium. The request was turned down.

Mediation of the Blessed Virgin

The Council passed over in silence another essential point of Fatima’s theology: the powerful role of mediation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The message of Fatima states that God wills to give the world peace only through her mediation, and yet from the time of the Council to this day according to our knowledge, none of the efforts of the Vatican to work for peace have ever invoked the Blessed Virgin. Despite the request of approximately 300 Council Fathers for the dogmatic proclamation of Mary Mediatrix of all graces, not only was this proposition rejected by the majority of the remaining 2,100 Council Fathers, but the beautiful text proposed by the preparatory commission on the role of the Blessed Virgin in the economy of salvation was also summarily dismissed. Without any further reflection, more than 100 years of studies in Mariology were sacrificed on the altar of ecumenism, for it was known that the Protestant theologians observing the Council had threatened to leave if the original schema was considered.

Condemnation of Communism

The Council was criminally mute on the issue of Communism, one of the most horrifying scourges of the 20th century. Neither in the conciliar decrees nor in the analytical index of the Council documents do the words communism or socialism appear. Of the Council Fathers, 334 submitted a petition for the condemnation of communism, but this petition was turned down. In refusing to condemn the errors which the message of Fatima sought to remedy, the Council deliberately disregarded Fatima’s crucial message.

The Conversion of Sinners

Expressions such as the “conversion of sinners” and the “salvation of sinners” are not to be found in the documents of the Council. One searches in vain for a single phrase recalling the need for the conversion of sinners, a necessity which appears many times in the message of Our Lady at Fatima. Although the council acknowledged that man labours under weakness and sin, there is no reminder that prayers and sacrifices can help him save his soul. On the contrary, the Council seemed to invite men to search out the truth each in his own way, so that the fundamental issue of Fatima was never confronted at the Council. Since then, the very notion of sin has been progressively mitigated, to the point of disappearing almost completely from the Church’s teaching, a development tantamount to abandoning the objective reality of sin’s punishment, Hell itself.

The Consecration of Russia

Finally, the unequivocal request of the Blessed Virgin to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart was altogether brushed aside by the Council despite the petition of many Council Fathers, because the religious consecration of a nation stood in direct opposition to conciliar themes of religious liberty, secularism, and ecumenism.

In the end, all the points of the message of the 13th of July 1917 at Fatima were entirely disregarded in the discussions of the Second Vatican Council. At every opportunity, the Council took a diametrically opposite position to that of Fatima, either because the commissions or the majority of the Fathers contested the requests of Our Lady. Consequently, Vatican II was opposed to Fatima just as it was opposed to the Church’s magisterium in the Syllabus of Errors. From whence comes this desire to forget Fatima — so adamant that the miracle of the sun itself is never spoken of — unless the reason be that the very spirit of the Council is opposed to Fatima.

Conclusion

The message of Fatima stands in conflict with the novel spirit of the Council. Adherents of Fatima are regarded in the same way as those who oppose the Conciliar movement, manifested especially through ecumenism and the Novus Ordo Missae: they must be neutralized or eliminated. Currently there are two kinds of modernists: those who reject the Church’s tradition and those who try to amalgamate tradition with the Conciliar changes. In the same way, we observe two behaviours towards Fatima: either open hostility or an effort to “integrate” Fatima with the Conciliar orientation. Both positions and both instances are powerful blows aimed against the truth. The second position of “integration” is the more dangerous one. In the case of Fatima, “integration” is a devilish operation disguised as an angel of light, because proponents of modernism appear to be devotees of Fatima at the same time that they empty the Fatima message of its essential import — its heart and soul — only keeping its exterior appearance.

---