Eyewitness (Mailbag): Sister Lucia Said Consecration Was Done

We had a few pieces in the mailbag during the past several weeks to do with the Fåtima call for “consecration of Russia” to her Immaculate Heart and whether any Pope has accomplished it. We ran an interesting angle on this question: Sister Lucia’s documented (video and audio-taped) claims in 1991 and 1992 that a consecration in 1984 prevented “an atomic war” in 1985.

In the mail came this note from Angie Dee, daughter of Howard Dee, at the time ambassador from the Philippines to the Vatican. The Dees were with President Aquino of the Philippines, a devout Marian Catholic. Said the note:

“I was just reading your article on whether or not the consecration to Russia was done. To add to it, on October 12, 1992, one day before the 75th anniversary of the miracle of the sun, my parents and I had the rare privilege of meeting privately with Sister Lucia at her convent in Coimbra. I remember many bishops in the foyer of her convent, but none of them were allowed to see her. With us was President Cory Aquino [pictured above with the Dees], and it was she who requested the meeting through my dad, who was still the Philippine Ambassador to the Holy See at that time.

“The one question my dad had for Sister Lucia was, ‘Was the 1984 consecration by Pope JP II accepted?’ to which Sr Lucia replied immediately, ‘Yes, it was accepted by Heaven.’ When my dad said Russia was not named explicitly, she replied that God knew what the Pope meant and does not have to be told explicitly the name of the nation that was implied. She also said that a nuclear war was prevented by the consecration- that God changed the hearts of those who were behind it! We had an excellent translator with us: Father Manuel Augusto Ferreira, the superior of the Comboni Fathers who still lives in Portugal.”

God bless,

Angie Dee (Vancouver, Canada/Philippines)

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[Footnote: The consecration was first attempted by Pius XII, whose effort in 1942, said Sister Lucia, the only living seer at the time she was asked, was not accepted by Our Lady (who obviously continued to speak with Lucia, almost a sure-thing for future sainthood, for the rest of her life). One issue was specific mention of Russia. Another was union with the bishops. That same Pope consecrated specifically “the people of Russia” ten years later, in 1952.

Another attempt, this time a “renewal” of the consecration, was prayed by Paul VI. This too apparently was not satisfactory. You can see a detailed timeline here or below. Pope Saint John Paul II conducted a consecration at Fátima itself in 1982 (with Sister Lucia present), but one of Our Lady’s stipulations — that it be done in union with all the bishops — missed the mark when many did not get the request or did not respond in time enough for his Fátima trip and the consecration prayer.

Though Saint John Paul did not name Russia specifically in 1984, when he conducted another consecration, Sister Lucia, as noted by the above eyewitnesses, as well as cardinals and bishops who asked Lucia the same question in the early 1990s, said it was accepted, according to the visionary. Was it that the combined consecrations of three Pontiffs were considered as one by God — the composite or aggregate — thereby finally meeting all the stipulations (Pius XII having mentioned Russia)?

We’ll not indulge in and do not seek to prolong this debate, which befuddles us, but to add the curiosity that the March 25, 1984, prayer by Pope John Paul II and the bishops was followed on the Fátima anniversary day of May 13, 1984 (less than two months later), by a devastating explosion at the key Soviet ammunition depot at Severomorsk, crippling the fighting capacity of the Northern Fleet, the strongest of the Soviet Navy’s four high-sea fleets; the mysterious death that same year of the Soviet Minister of Defense (who had designed plans for invasion of Europe); the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev the following year; and then an incredible meeting between Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan; followed by the phenomenal, unforeseen collapse in 1988 of Communism in Poland which in its turn was followed in 1989 by the fall of atheistic Communism in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Within two years, Communism was collapsing in the Soviet Union itself (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), followed by the fall of the Communist dictatorship in Russia. Albania and Yugoslavia soon joined the others.

The year before the consecration, in 1983, nuclear negotiations had collapsed. Back then, there were 50,000 nuclear devices in the world’s arsenals! No scholar nor intelligence or state department expert foresaw the collapse of the atheistic and evil Soviet empire (which is not to say the spirit of communism has been completely expunged, nor that the current Russian government is holy).

Screamed a former ambassador to Russia, Averell Harriman at the time, “If present developments in nuclear arms and United States-Soviet relations are permitted to continue, we could face not the risk but the reality of nuclear war.”

In fact, in 1983, nuclear negotiations had collapsed. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. were both building more weapons than ever. There were flashpoints around the world. There was the Middle East. There was the invasion of Grenada. A Korean jet with a U.S. congressman aboard was shot down over Russia. That year a Soviet military officer named Stanislav Petrov averted a worldwide nuclear war by correctly identifying a warning of attack by U.S. missiles as a false alarm as the Emergency Broadcast System went off for multiple television and radio stations in the United States. The Communists were upset at the time about what was dubbed as “star wars.”

And there were war-like words. In 1984 President Reagan was caught during a voice check for a radio broadcast, on an open microphone, joking (but in a way the Soviets may not have found funny), “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” Did the collective consecrations avert this?

Here is a timeline by the Catholic television network, EWTN:

“History of the Consecration and Related Events

“If one is looking for the conversion of Russia to the Catholic faith, and the acceptance of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff, then this will be an unsatisfying timeline. However, Our Lady promised,+

Por fim o Meu Imaculado Coração triunfará. O Santo Padre consagrar-me-á a Rússia,
que se converterá, e será concedido ao mundo algum tempo de paz.

In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia
to me, which will be converted, and the world will be granted some time of peace.

“In both Latin and Portuguese, to convert is a general term, convertere (L) and converter (P), meaning to turn around, a turning back to God. The people of Russia have had a tremendous devotion to Our Lady for hundreds of years, as well as an Apostolic Faith going back to Saints Cyril and Methodius, lacking, largely, only communion with the Roman Pontiff. This apostolic faith was persecuted under communism and its laws for over 70 years. That persecution ended in the wake of the 1984 Consecration, freeing Russians, and the peoples of the Soviet satellite nations, to publicly and ardently practice their faith once again.

“On the other, today we see in the West that the militancy atheism formerly found in Russia is now ascendant in our own countries, both in communist and socialism economic forms, but also in the secularism, humanism, scientism, and practical atheism of the cultural, academic and political elites. As a result the de-Christianization of the West is progressing rapidly. The remedy is the same as it was for Russia, the message of Fatima – a message of corporate and personal consecration, and prayer and reparation for souls. The remedies for persecution available within our cultural and political institutions are necessary, and should be utilized, but in the end they will be ineffective without recourse to the Blessed Mother, who by the Divine Will has been sent in our time to assist her Son’s people.

July 13, 1917	Our Lady promises to “come and ask the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart”
June 13, 1929	Our Lady fulfills her promise, asking “for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, promising its conversion through this means and the hindering of the propagation of its errors.”
1937	Pius XI (1922-1939) informed of this request by the Bishop of Leiria, Dom José Alves Correia da Silva
1938	Portuguese Bishops ask Pius XI for the Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart. It is said they were influenced to do this by the spiritual director of Bl. Alexandrina da Costa (1904-1955).
June 1940	Request made to Pius XII through the Bishop of Macau, and a little later through Father Gonzaga de Fonseca. Mention is made of Our Lady asking the Consecrating of Russia to the Immaculate Heart.
December 1940	Sr. Lucia writes letter to Pius XII, saying that Our Lord Himself requests the Pope to “consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special mention for Russia, and order that all the Bishops of the world do the same in union with Your Holiness.”
October 31, 1942	Pope Pius XII consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart.
July 7, 1952	Pope Pius XII consecrates the Russian people to the Immaculate Heart
November 21, 1964	Pope Paul VI renews, in the presence of the Fathers of the Vatican Council but without their participation, the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart.
May 13, 1982	Pope John Paul II invites the bishops of the world to join him in consecrating the world and with it Russia to the Immaculate Heart. Many do not receive the invitation in time for the Pope’s trip to Fatima, where he accomplishes the consecration. Sr. Lucia later says it did not fulfill the conditions.
October 1983	Pope John Paul II, at the Synod of Bishops, renews the 1982 Consecration
March 25, 1984	Consecration of the World and with it Russia, Pope John Paul II. “. . . united with all the pastors of the Church in a particular bond whereby we constitute a body and a college,” consecrates “the whole world, especially the peoples for which by reason of their situation you have particular love and solicitude.” Both the Pope and Sr. Lucia initially seemed uncertain that the consecration has been fulfilled, but shortly thereafter Sr. Lucia tells the papal nuncio to Portugal that the Consecration is fulfilled.
May 13, 1984	One of the largest crowds in Fatima history gathers at the shrine to pray the Rosary for peace.
May 13, 1984	An explosion at the Soviets’ Severomorsk Naval Base destroys two-thirds of all the missiles stockpiled for the Soviets’ Northern Fleet. The blast also destroys workshops needed to maintain the missiles as well as hundreds of scientists and technicians. Western military experts called it the worst naval disaster the Soviet Navy has suffered since WWII.
December 1984	Soviet Defense Minister, mastermind of the invasion plans for Western Europe, suddenly and mysteriously dies.
March 10, 1985	Soviet Chairman Konstantin Chernenko dies
March 11, 1985	Soviet Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev elected
April 26, 1986	Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident
May 12, 1988	An explosion wrecked the only factory that made the rocket motors for the Soviets’ deadly SS 24 long-range missiles, which carry ten nuclear bombs each.
August 29, 1989	Sr. Lucia affirms in correspondence that the consecration “has been accomplished” and that “God will keep His word.”
November 9, 1989	Fall of the Berlin Wall
Nov-Dec 1989	Peaceful revolutions in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania
1990	East and West Germany are unified
December 25, 1991	Dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

1940, December 2nd. Letter of Sr. Lucia to Pope Pius XII requesting the Consecration of the World and Russia to the Immaculate Heart

“Most Holy Father,

“Humbly prostrated at your feet, I come as the last sheep of the fold entrusted to you to open my heart, by order of my spiritual director.

“I am the only survivor of the children to whom our Lady appeared in Fátima (Portugal) from the 13th of May to the 13th of October 1917. The Blessed Virgin has granted me many graces, the greatest of all being my admission to the Institute of Saint Dorothy. (To here is copy of the sketch the Bishop sent me.)

“I come, Most Holy Father, to renew a request that has already been brought to you several times. The request, Most Holy Father, is from our Lord and our good Mother in Heaven.

“In 1917, in the portion of the apparitions that we have designated “the secret,” the Blessed Virgin revealed the end of the war that was then afflicting Europe, and predicted another forthcoming, saying that to prevent it She would come and ask the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart as well as the Communion of reparation on the first Saturday. She promised peace and the conversion of that nation if Her request was attended to. She announced that otherwise this nation would spread her errors throughout the world, and there would be wars, persecutions of the Holy Church, martyrdom of many Christians, several persecutions and sufferings reserved for Your Holiness, and the annihilation of several nations.

“Most Holy Father, this remained a secret until 1926 according to the express will of our Lady. Then, in a revelation She asked that the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays of five consecutive months be propagated throughout the world, with its conditions of doing the following with the same purpose; going to confession, meditating for a quarter of an hour on the mysteries of the Rosary and saying the Rosary with the aim of making reparation for the insults, sacrileges, and indifferences committed against Her Immaculate Heart. Our good Heavenly Mother promises to assist the persons who practice this devotion, in the hour of their death, with all the necessary graces for their salvation. I exposed the request of our Lady to my confessor, who tried to have it fulfilled, but only on the 13th of September 1939 did His Excellency the Bishop of Leiria make public in Fatima this request of Our Lady.

“I take this opportunity, Most Holy Father, to ask you to bless and extend this devotion to the whole world. In 1929, through another apparition, our Lady asked for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, promising its conversion through this means and the hindering of the propagation of its errors.

“Sometime afterwards I told my confessor of the request of our Lady. He tried to fulfill it by making it known to Pius XI.

“In several intimate communications our Lord has not stopped insisting on this request, promising lately, to shorten the days of tribulation which He has determined to punish the nations for their crimes, through war, famine and several persecutions of the Holy Church and Your Holiness, if you will consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special mention for Russia, and order that all the Bishops of the world do the same in union with Your Holiness. I truly feel your sufferings, Most Holy Father! And, at much as I can through my humble prayers and sacrifices, I try to lessen them, close to our Lord and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

“Most Holy Father, if in the union of my soul with God I have not been deceived, our Lord promises a special protection to our country in this war, due to the consecration of the nation by the Portuguese Prelates, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; as proof of the graces that would have been granted to other nations, had they also consecrated themselves to Her.

“Now, Most Holy Father, allow me to make one more request, which is but an ardent wish of my humble heart; that the feast in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary be extended throughout the whole world as one of the main feasts of the Holy Church.

“With the deepest respect and reverence, I ask for the Apostolic Blessing. May God protect Your Holiness.”

Tuy, Spain, 2nd of December of 1940.
Maria Lucia de Jesus

(Texts from Novos Documentos de Fátima, Fr. Anthony Mario Martins, SJ (Oporto: 1984). English edition: Documents on Fatima & Memoirs of Sr. Lucia. (Alexandria, SD: Fatima Family Apostolate, 1992)

Argued William Sockey is the custodian of the National Pilgrim Virgin Statue, “Pope Pius XI failed to make the consecration of Russia as requested by Our Lady. Great suffering resulted from this, for the world and for the Church. Sister Lucia said Our Lord spoke to her in an intimate communication, saying “They did not wish to heed my request…they will repent and do it, but it will be late. Russia will already have spread her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and the persecution of the Church; the Holy Father will have much to suffer.” The consecration would be made, eventually, but it would be too late to prevent the evils foretold by Our Lady if the consecration was not made in time.

“When St. John Paul II was recuperating in the hospital, after the assassination attempt on his life, he made a careful study of the Message of Fatima. It was obvious that the consecration of Russia requested of Pope Pius XI had not been made, and the evils and suffering foretold by Our Lady and Our Lord had come to pass. World War II was long over, Russia had grown and expanded its power, becoming the atheistic Soviet Union. Russian propaganda had infected the whole world – even Catholic countries – with a spirit of rebellion against God’s laws and the Christian faith, with publicly accepted and promoted atheism and immorality.

“Realizing that the damage we were warned about had now been done, St. John Paul II saw that it could no longer be prevented. The question that faced the Pope was, what did the Message of Fatima teach us that could now be done effectively to counter and repair the spiritual and moral damage done to the world and the Church following World War II? Evidently, the Holy Father decided, with the grace and spiritual authority of the papacy, that because the consecration had not been done in time, what was now needed was a consecration of the whole world.

“Our Lady did not say the whole world would be converted by the consecration of Russia, only that Russia would be converted before it would infect the whole world with atheism, immorality, and the spirit of rebellion against the established civil order. The Pope apparently judged, reasonably, that in 1984 the conversion of Russia would only prevent further infection of the world by the errors of Russia, but would not repair the damage already done. And the damage already done was extremely grave! It was the Holy Father’s judgment that the whole world now needed the powerful help of Our Lady to counter the errors of Russia already established and active in the world: influencing world governments to approve abortion and all sorts of immoral behavior as protected and celebrated human rights.

“So, St. John Paul II asked all the Catholic bishops of the Church to join him in consecrating the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with special prayers for those countries such as Russia that particularly needed her intercession. Sister Lucia said the 1984 consecration was accepted by God, the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia officially returned to the Christian faith. Today daily prayer and Christian instruction are required in Russian public schools. In a public ceremony broadcast throughout Russia, President Vladimir Putin and his political staff kissed the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan, the holiest Image of Our Lady as Queen of Russia.

“This is not to say that Putin is a saint, or that Russia is now a great political ally of the United States. They aren’t. But the fact remains that today Russia is officially ‘Christian’ and there is no longer a Soviet Union bent on enslaving other nations under atheistic regimes.”

You decide.

We’re a bit exhausted with the issue, which we first looked into in the 1990s but for the most part had moved on from.

[resources: Our Memories Of Sister Lucia]