Frequently Asked Questions
regarding the
Consecration of Russia
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
regarding the
Consecration of Russia
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
“The Message of Fatima
imposes an obligation on the church”.
imposes an obligation on the church”.
… Pope John Paul II
1Q: What is a “consecration”?
A: It is a ceremony by which a person, group of
persons, or thing is set apart as sacred and dedicated to the service of
God or another sacred purpose. 2Q: What is meant by “the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary”?
A: At Fatima, on July 13, 1917, Our Lady told
Sister Lucy that “God 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 Communions of
reparation and for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart ...
In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will
consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace
will be granted to the world.” Our Lady’s request is very
simple: Russia—the fount of so much evil in the 20th Century—must be set
apart and made sacred by its consecration to the Mother of God.
3Q: Why is it necessary to consecrate Russia in particular?
A: Because God wills it. As Our Lady told
Sister Lucy at Fatima: “Russia will be the instrument of chastisement
chosen by Heaven to punish the whole world if we do not beforehand obtain
the conversion of that poor nation ...” And as Sister Lucy disclosed in
her published memoirs and letters, Our Lord Himself confided to her that
He would not convert Russia unless the consecration were done, “Because I
want My whole Church to recognize that consecration as a triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that it may extend its cult later on, and put
the devotion to this Immaculate Heart beside the devotion to My Sacred
Heart.” Sister Lucy has explained that because Russia is a well-defined
territory, the conversion of Russia after its consecration to the
Immaculate Heart would be undeniable proof that the conversion resulted
from the consecration and nothing else. The establishment in the world of
devotion to the Immaculate Heart would thus be confirmed by God Himself in
the most dramatic manner. 4Q: And what if the consecration of Russia is not done?
A: At Fatima, Our Lady warned that if the
consecration were not done as She requested, then “Russia will spread its
errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the
Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to
suffer, and various nations will be annihilated.” By the same token, the
miraculous conversion of Russia after its consecration by the Pope and the
bishops, and the resulting peace in the world, will be a sign of the power
of God’s grace acting through ministers of His Church and the intercession
of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. 5Q: How exactly is this consecration supposed to be accomplished?
A: True to Her word at Fatima,
Our Lady appeared to Sister Lucy at Tuy, Spain, on June 13, 1929, to say
that: “The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make, in union
with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of Russia to My
Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.” The phrase “by this
means” is crucial, because it signifies that the consecration is not
merely a symbol of the coming conversion of Russia, but the very means by
which it will be accomplished. Thus, without the act of consecration there
will be no conversion of Russia, and without the conversion of Russia,
Russia’s errors will continue to infest the world, producing the
persecution of the Church, the martyrdom of the good, the suffering of the
Holy Father and ultimately the annihilation of nations forewarned at
Fatima.Over the ensuing decades, Sister Lucy has explained time and again
that the act of consecration requires that the Pope “choose a date upon
which His Holiness commands the bishops of the entire world to make, each
in his own Cathedral, and at the same time as the Pope, a solemn and
public ceremony of Reparation and consecration of Russia ...”
6Q: But isn’t Fatima just a private apparition no Catholic has to believe?
A: Far from it. The apparitions at Fatima were
confirmed by a public miracle witnessed by 70,000 people—the Miracle of
the Sun. Pope John Paul II himself declared at Fatima in 1982 that the
Message of Fatima “imposes an obligation on the Church”, and he publicly
attributed to Our Lady of Fatima his escape from death in the
assassination attempt of May 13, 1981—the very anniversary of Our Lady of
Fatima.In fact, the Pope himself has twice attempted to perform the
consecration (May 13, 1982 and March 25, 1984), although Russia was not
mentioned on either occasion, and the bishops of the world did not
participate. These attempts demonstrate that the Pope himself recognizes
an obligation to consecrate Russia, even if he has not yet been able to
accomplish a consecration in the manner specified by Our Lady: a solemn
public ceremony, mentioning Russia specifically, and involving all of the
world’s bishops. Yet Our Lady Herself has promised us that this event will
ultimately occur. 7Q: Didn’t the Pope succeed in performing the consecration of Russia in 1984?
A: No. As Sister Lucy herself
declared in a September 1985 interview, the attempted consecration of
March 25, 1984, did not satisfy Our Lady’s requests because “there was no
participation of the bishops and there was no mention of Russia.” In
consecrating the world in general on that date without mentioning Russia,
the Holy Father himself acknowledged in the presence of tens of thousands
of witnesses, both during and after the ceremony, that the people of
Russia were still “awaiting our consecration and confiding.” The next day
these statements were reported in the Pope’s own newspaper, L’Osservatore
Romano, and the Italian Bishops’ publication, L’Avvenire. 8Q: Wasn’t the consecration of the world by the Pope in 1984 enough to fulfill Our Lady’s request?
A: No. For her entire life since the
apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, Sister Lucy has insisted that Russia
must be specifically mentioned. For example, in a 1978 interview
with her confidant, Father Umberto Pasquale, and in a letter to Father
Pasquale in 1980, Sister Lucy was asked the question: “Has Our Lady ever
spoken to you about the consecration of the world?” During the interview,
Sister Lucy answered:“No, Father Umberto! Never! At
the Cova da Iria in 1917 Our Lady promised: ‘I shall come to ask for the
consecration of Russia ...’ In 1929, at Tuy, as She had promised, Our Lady
came to tell me that the moment had come to ask the Holy Father for the
consecration of that country.” And, in the 1980 letter (dated
April 13 of that year), Sister Lucy confirmed what she had said in the
interview, stating in her own handwriting that “Our Lady of Fatima, in Her
request, referred only to the consecration of Russia.” Both the 1978
interview and the 1980 letter (photographically reproduced) were published
in the May 12, 1982, Italian edition of L’Osservatore Romano.Does not our
own common sense tell us that if Our Lady of Fatima requested the
consecration of Russia, then Russia must at least be mentioned in the act
of consecration? We might also reasonably ask what possible reason there
could be for not uttering one simple word—Russia—in the act of
consecrating Russia. No explanation has ever been given for this
mysterious omission in the attempted consecrations of 1982 and 1984..
9Q: But doesn’t the “collapse of Communism” after the 1984 consecration ceremony show that Russia is beginning to convert and that the consecration must have been effective, despite its failure to mention Russia?
A: Hardly. In 1997 Russia enacted legislation
which discriminates against the Catholic Church and in favor of Russian
Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. Catholic parishes are required to
apply for an annual “registration” which can be revoked at will by any
local bureaucrat, while priests and nuns are given only three-month visas
which cannot be renewed. The Vatican has condemned the new law as a great
setback for the Church in Russia. In all of Russia today there are
some 300,000 Catholics—fewer than there were in 1917, the same year Our
Lady came to Fatima and promised the ultimate conversion of Russia, which
has yet to occur. The Russian Revolution, which has been exported in
various forms to other nations, confirms Our Lady’s prophecy of the spread
of Russia’s errors throughout the world. Today Muslims outnumber Catholics
ten-to-one in Russia. Compare this with the true miracle of conversion
which occurred after the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico in
the 16th Century: within nine years some 9 million Aztecs turned from
devil-worship and human sacrifice and were converted and baptized as
Catholics. Yet in Russia today, more than 14 years after the supposed
“consecration” of 1984, we see barely a trickle of converts, and fewer
Russian Catholics overall than there were 80 years ago!Even the Russian
Orthodox patriarch, Alexi II, publicly admitted on December 24, 1998, that
since the supposed “fall of communism” in Russia, Christian culture “is
not only being pushed into the background and oblivion, but is also being
mocked and ridiculed ... as something extinct and unnecessary.” Alexi also
decried the “rise of neo-paganism ... totalitarian sects, black magic
practitioners, astrologers, and occultists” in “post-communist”
Russia.Meanwhile, Boris Yeltsin has been forced to cede power to the
Communist-dominated Russian parliament, and his new prime minister, the
former head of the dreaded KGB, has placed Communists in control of the
entire Russian economy, producing what even the liberal NY Times has
called “a shift to the left” and a return to Soviet-style
government.Most telling of all: Since the “consecration” of 1984, more than
600 million children have been slaughtered in the womb around the
world—including Russia, where legalized abortion began. The war on the
unborn is the greatest war in the history of the world. Thus, it should be
obvious to anyone with common sense that the period of peace promised by
Our Lady if Russia were properly consecrated has yet to occur.The conversion
of Russia promised by Our Lady of Fatima has simply not happened. This can
only mean that the consecration has not been done, for Our Lady’s promises
cannot be false.10Q: Isn’t it too late for the consecration of Russia anyway, since Russia’s errors have already spread throughout the world?
A: No! As Our Lord Himself confided to Sister
Lucy at Rianjo in August of 1931: “They did not wish to heed My request!
... Like the King of France, they will repent of it, and they will do it,
but it will be late. Russia will already have spread its errors in the
world ...” So the consecration will ultimately be done, and, as Our Lady
promised at Fatima, “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The
Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a
period of peace will be given to mankind.” Our Lord Himself confided to
Sister Lucy, regarding the consecration, that “It is never too late to
have recourse to Jesus and Mary.” 11Q: What is so urgent about the consecration now?
A: As Our Lady warned at Fatima: “If My
requests are not granted, Russia will spread its errors throughout the
world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will
be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations
will be annihilated.”We have yet to witness the
annihilation of nations foretold at Fatima. Must we wait until it happens
before we finally do exactly what Our Lady commanded us to do in God’s
name? In view of the accelerating decline of morality and the
disintegration of social order around the world, simple prudence should
tell us that we cannot delay even one moment longer the consecration of
Russia, and only Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. 12Q: But if the Pope feels he has done the consecration, what right does anyone have to question him?
A: The Pope has never publicly stated to all
the members of the Church that he has performed the consecration of Russia
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On the contrary, the Pope’s words as
quoted in L’Osservatore Romano demonstrate that he knows the consecration
has yet to be done. In view of this, the faithful have every right to
petition their Pope for the definitive consecration of Russia. In fact,
the God-given right of the faithful to petition the Supreme Pontiff in
matters affecting the good of the Church was infallibly defined as
Catholic doctrine by two ecumenical councils: Vatican I (1870) and the
Second Council of Lyon (1274), and is also guaranteed by the current Code
of Canon Law (Canon 212).The good of the Church and the
safety of the whole world demand absolute certainty that the requests of
Our Lady of Fatima have been carried out. The matter will be settled only
when the definitive consecration is performed, or when the Pope declares
in an official, binding way to the whole Church that he has already
performed the consecration in a manner sufficient to satisfy Our Lady’s
requests. Neither event has occurred, and therefore the matter remains
open to free discussion and petitions by the faithful, who have every
right to address a matter of such obvious importance for the Church and
the world.E-mail Us!
