The Angelus English-Language Article Reprint

Let your speech be “Yes, yes: no, no”; whatever is beyond these comes from the evil one. (Mt. 5:37)



May 2009

Reprint #86

“I shall harden Pharao’s heart” (Ex. 7:3)

The blindness
of Catholics

and the social kingship of Christ
If there is one truth Tradition hands on to us
which today is almost completely ignored and
openly refused by almost all Catholics, it is the social
Kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ. When speaking of
the relations between Church and State, the “cake” is
divided amongst the secularists (like the French), the
atheists (like the Soviets), and “healthy secularism.”
For the Church’s doctrine—for that is what is
involved—not even a few crumbs are left.
But how could this have happened in such a
short time? For, if we glance at the papal encyclicals,
we see that until 50 years ago the teachings on the
confessional State, the superiority of the spiritual
power over the temporal power, the indirect power

of the Church, etc., were still acknowledged and
present though subjected to a severe critique even
then. The answers to this question guides our inquiry
towards two key events of the last century: the rise of
communism with its lethal influence on the Catholic
world, and the great apparitions of the most Blessed
Virgin to three shepherd children of Fatima on July
13, 1917, apparitions made famous because of the
great secret confided to the three children, and the
apparition of June 13, 1929, at Tuy, Spain.
We propose a reflection developed in three
phases corresponding to three sections: 1) the
analysis of the essence of communism and the
solution proposed by Heaven; 2) the tragic choice of

19

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

the path of diplomacy by ecclesiastical authorities:
Popes Pius XI and Pius XII; and 3) “Russia will
spread her errors in the world”: The Ostpolitik of
John XXIII is the principle of the new concordats.

Analysis of the Essence
of Communism and the
Solution Proposed by Heaven
The Woman and the Dragon:
Fatima and Moscow

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Great
War between the Woman clothed with the sun and
the dragon (cf. Apoc. 12)—a war that has traversed
all history without exception—became increasingly
radical and reached its summit by “becoming
incarnate,” as it were, in two events: At one extremity
of the European continent, the cradle of Christianity,
in the small, unknown village of Fatima, this Woman
appears in all her splendor and maternal solicitude;
at the other extremity, in the great Russian nation,
the most extensive and most populous of Europe,
the most perverse and deleterious attack of the devil
is unleashed on the world, an attack characterized
by lies, blasphemy, and death. These are the
characteristics of the first beast spoken of by St.
John in the Apocalypse (c. 13), which receives all his
power and authority from the dragon: he “opened his
mouth unto blasphemies against God” and provoked
imprisonment and martyrdom.
It is because the power of this beast, this
“creature” of the devil, comes from the dragon
himself that it cannot be confronted with human
means, and even the ordinary means of grace are
inadequate. That is why the God of mercy sent in
person Her who from the beginning was predestined
to crush the head of the evil one, and He gave us
a simple, concrete means for combating the snares
of our time: devotion to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary, to be accomplished in two very precise ways:
the five first Saturdays of the month and the solemn
consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary.
But why did God choose to make the salvation
of the whole world depend on such puny and in a
certain way insignificant means? Why these precise
means and not others?
The answer to these questions resonates sweetly
in Catholic ears while it is a motive of scandal, anger,
derision, and incredulity for others. The simplicity
of God shatters the cunning of the devil, and His
weakness, as St. Paul writes, is stronger than every
power, human or diabolical. It is clear that what is
required here is an act of faith, without which the

20

remedy proposed by Fatima seems pure madness;
and this is precisely what the Virgin demands when
she asks that the Holy Father and all the bishops
consecrate Russia to her.
The history of the last century is the history
of God’s goodwill and the resistance of men of
the Church to grace, for they have preferred to
follow another, more “reasonable and concrete”
way: the path of diplomatic compromise with
communism. Where the Lord demanded that Russia
be consecrated, thereby manifesting the centrality of
the social Kingship of Jesus Christ by the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, the men of the Church answered
by refusing to perform the consecration and by
compromise. The consequence is before everyone’s
eyes: the blindness of the ecclesial authorities,
the dissolution of Christendom, and the spread of
Russia’s errors throughout the world.

Historical and
Dialectical Materialism
Above all, we must understand the essence of
communism so as not to confuse it with transitory
aspects of historical opportunism. The essential
characteristic of communism is materialism, but
not a superficial materialism that is the same
as consumerism. It involves, rather, a unified
conception of reality. Lenin explained it very well:
“The philosophy of Marxism is materialism....
The philosophy of Marx is integral philosophic
materialism.”1 Thus there is nothing that transcends
man, who is reduced to a purely material being. But,
to avoid falling into a widespread error, it must be
made clear that scientific or Marxist materialism does
not assert that matter is absolute:
It is impossible to betray a more complete incomprehension of Marxism, since the principle of Marxism is
specifically that there is no absolute, that there is nothing that can be posited as having a self-sufficient, lasting
existence; there are only forces in conflict which allow
nothing to last or exist.2

Indeed, this materialism is distinguished from
“traditional” materialisms by its historical and
dialectical character. For those who are not familiar
with modern philosophy, dialectical materialism
conceives of reality not only as pure matter (which
then manifests itself in numerous ways, including
those we define as spiritual realities but which are
in reality, according to materialism, nothing else
than the product of the evolution of matter), but also
as matter infinitely in motion. And this motion is
not fortuitous, but always occurs as the opposition
between two contraries (thesis and antithesis), which
produces a new situation (synthesis); the synthesis in
turn becomes the thesis, which must be surpassed by
another antithesis, and so on.

THE ANGELUS • May 2009 www.angeluspress.org

One last passage: dialectical materialism is the
law, not of “things” but of history and society:
The world must not be conceived of as an ensemble of
set things, but as an ensemble of processes in which things
stable in appearance and their intellectual reflection in
our minds, concepts, traverse an uninterrupted process
of becoming and decline.3

Thus all reality is nothing other than matter and
dialectical movement. The consequences of this
theory are evident, as Engels clearly asserts:
If, in one’s investigations, one always proceeds from this
way of seeing things, then the exigency of solutions and
definitive truths is finished once and for all: one is always
aware that all acquired knowledge is necessarily limited,
that it is conditioned by the circumstances in which it was
acquired; likewise one no longer abides the old antinomies between true and false, good and bad, identical and
different, necessary and contingent.4

It is only too clear that such a conception of
reality is not only the negation of the Christian
vision, but it is in some way its dissolution. In effect,
communism is not properly speaking an alternative
to Christianity, for in fact communism does not
propose an alternative. One cannot state: “This
type of society if the communist ideal,” or “This
type of man is the object of communism.” A good
many have interpreted communism in this way and
have committed some unbelievable blunders. By
placing contradiction at the very heart of being, the
issue of communism can only be nihilism. There
is no goal, no finality in communism: that would
require an order, a stable value above others. But
all that is denied at the outset. Communism has no
other “purpose” than negation itself, revolution for
revolution’s sake.
Marx did not start from the proletariat, its needs and
sufferings, or from the need to deliver it and then discover
Revolution as the only means of saving the proletariat. On
the contrary, he proceeded in the opposite direction....By
looking for the possibility of Revolution, Marx found the
proletariat.5

Clear. And upsetting. We find ourselves faced
with “a revolution of the revolution.” In effect,
common sense tells us that a revolution can be a
means of obtaining an end: in keeping with this
understanding, Marxism has generally been identified
with the cause of the proletariat. But nothing is more
false:
Revolutionary action is not a means for him [the
Marxist]: it was willed as the gigantic work in which the
new man will create himself; it is question of finding the
means to bring about this revolutionary action. In Marx’s
time, an excellent means presented itself: the extreme
misery and complete dissatisfaction of the working class.
The happiness of the working class, or proletariat, does
not constitute an end for the Marxist, as is commonly
believed, but it is the wretchedness of the proletariat
which is a means for revolutionary action....In order to

develop a total revolutionary will that desires to conserve
nothing, in which nothing conservative remains, which
seeks to transform everything, to create an entirely new
society [only to revolutionize it anew] men were needed
who had absolutely nothing, who were divested of everything.6

This was exactly the state of the proletariat, who
lived in a condition of affective, cultural, and spiritual
deracination, or uprootedness. This is the state today
of the majority of people, deliberately exposed to the
most deleterious perversions. Think about it: why
facilitate the break-up of marital unions by legalizing
divorce; the destabilization of the family by women’s
liberation, cohabitation, etc.? Why encourage
the destruction of the youth by increasingly
decriminalizing drugs, by favoring harmful
amusements, by abandoning youth and children to
immoral societies? Why the deracination of man
from his own civilization and culture in the name of
multiculturalism? All of that serves the revolutionary
cause, for when man is weak and unstable, only then
is he easily manipulated and exploitable.

The Remedy
Faced with this “materialization” of the spiritual
and the supernatural, God sets an act of consecration
as the remedy. It is in the very disproportion between
the enormous machine of the revolution and the
little remedy indicated by Heaven that the wisdom
of God appears. He wills that all recognize (and this
is why He demands a public, official consecration)
the conversion of Russia as the exclusive effect of
the decisive action of the supernatural in history, so
openly liquidated by communism; and He wills to
accomplish this in particular through the intercession
of her who not only fully lived the supernatural
dimension, but carried in her womb the very Author
of grace, acquiring thereby an almost infinite dignity,
according to the famous expression of St. Thomas.
The public consecration would moreover clearly
manifest the essentially evil and diabolical nature of
communism.
We emphasize this point: the consecration
requires a supernatural act of faith on the part of
the Sovereign Pontiff, that is to say, the head of the
Church, which regenerates and nourishes souls by
divine grace.
Thus on the one side communism stands as
the social embodiment of naturalism; on the other,
God exalts the supernatural life and her who is
the Mediatrix of all graces. God thus is offering a
supernatural means and requires a supernatural
act to save Russia and the world from the plague
of communism, promising an equally supernatural

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • May 2009

21

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

result: the conversion of Russia. The most
Blessed Virgin Mary does not promise economic
development, the opening of international relations,
diplomatic agreements, etc.; she promises the
conversion of Russia and, consequently, peace as the
fruit of the re-established order between man and
God.
Faced with the big lies of communism, which
becomes a system, a synthesis of reality; faced with
communism, which is embodied in a society, Russian
society, from which it extends its revolutionary
“progress,” encompassing all that exists and
engulfing everything in its dialectical and nihilistic
process—faced with all that, it is futile to deploy the
ordinary arms of diplomacy and mediation, “for
our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but
against principalities and powers, against the rulers
of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of
wickedness in the high places” (Eph. 6:12). Pope Pius
XI, after the total failure of diplomatic action (as we
shall see below), recognized this diabolical trait of
communism by defining it in the Encyclical Divini
Redemptoris as “intrinsically perverse.” It is not just
some aspects of communism that are erroneous; nor
is it question, as some have given to understand, of
good ideas achieved by bad means. No, it is the very
soul of communism that is perverse.

Subversion of the Social Order
One last aspect is worth highlighting: from
what we have seen, it is clear that the Communist
Revolution, having no other ideal to pursue than
revolution itself, is not limited by time or space.
It aims at the whole of human society, which
is precisely this “matter” subject to dialectical
movement. Communism thus tends by nature to
destroy everything ordered and stable in society.
Pius XI explicitly underscores this aspect, describing
communism as
a system full of errors and sophisms. It is in opposition
both to reason and to Divine Revelation. It subverts the
social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations; because it ignores the true origin and purpose
of the State.7

This is why the Virgin is not content to call for
personal conversion, which is necessary, but asks
for the conversion of an entire nation. It is not only
individuals that must correspond with the divine plan,
but also society with its structures and organization.
The principle of the confessional State is not
a theological thesis that has been discussed and
discarded, but a truth that “Leo XIII proclaims
as a requirement of politico-religious organization
according to the principles of Catholic thought, in

22

particular in the States which enjoy the unity of the
Catholic Faith.”8
The Jesuit Fr. Messineo indicates explicitly that
the principle of the confessional State is necessary
because
it is based on two revealed premises: the true religion
can only be one and unique, and [the true religion] is
exclusively the Catholic religion, towards which converge
all the historical and dogmatic proofs. To these premises
is added a principle derived from the order of reason,
namely, right connects ontologically only with truth....
The conclusion is that it is impossible to uphold the thesis
of the secular State and its separation from the Church,
with neutrality towards all religious confessions without
distinction as a consequence, without first overturning the
solid bastion called dogma.

So as to avoid any misunderstanding, let us
emphasize that the Church does not condemn the
fact that in some situations one or several States may
maintain a certain neutrality towards the different
religious groups, or that one may seek a practical
accord with a self-proclaimed secular State. What the
Church refuses is the idea of the secular State as the
governing principle of the relations between Church
and State, as the ideal towards which to tend.

Recapitulation
1) Communism is essentially revolutionary (its
key principle is historical and dialectical materialism);
it tends towards the theoretical negation and the
practical destruction (since communism is principally
praxis) of all that is stable. It is intrinsically perverse.
2) It has an eminently social aspect.
3) The Virgin of Fatima offers in remedy
eminently supernatural means which alone allow us
to confront a really diabolical system.
4) By the request for the consecration of a nation,
Russia, the Virgin forcefully expresses the necessity of
a Catholic social order for the good of souls and true
world peace; the nature of this order was sketched.

The Tragic Choice of
Diplomacy by Church
Authorities: Popes
Pius XI and Pius XII
In the preceding section, we gave a rapid but
essential “diagnosis” of the evil that invaded the
world at the beginning of the 20th century and of the
“therapy” offered by Heaven. The Virgin at Fatima
came to open our eyes to contemporary history and
to offer us the only exit door by which to escape from
the evils that were going to be unleashed. The Virgin
did not give several options, but only one obligatory
way: that of the consecration of Russia to her
Immaculate Heart and the Communion of reparation
on five first Saturdays of the month.
THE ANGELUS • May 2009 www.angeluspress.org

The Vatican’s Ostpolitik
under Pope Pius XI
Now we must show what the response of
churchmen to Heaven’s request was by considering
the Holy See’s actual conduct towards the
communism imposed on the countries of Eastern
Europe during the pontificate of Pius XI.
The first phase of the Milanese pontiff’s policy
towards the communist countries was compromise.
The Sovereign Pontiff’s intention was obviously to
come to the aid of the populations struck by cold
and hunger because of Lenin’s catastrophic policies.
But so doing, the Holy See opened the door to a
de jure international recognition of the Bolshevik
government. Not only that, but this “safe conduct”
forced the Pope to keep silent about the unbelievable
oppressions to which the Bolsheviks subjected the
people whose liberators they declared themselves
to be. The Russian refuges, having learned of these
contacts, publicly made known to the Pope their
disagreement in an open letter by their “National
Committee”:
The newspapers are forecasting the conclusion of a concordat between the Holy See and the Bolsheviks. It matters
little whether the news is true or not, for the form of the
agreement with the Bolsheviks can change nothing in our
relations with them. It is the very fact of the existence of
these relations which afflicts us.9

They knew very well the real intention of the
Soviet authorities: they were going to use everything
for their own perverse ends, even the charitable works
of the Church. Fr. Walsh, in charge of the Holy See’s
mission in Russia, quickly realized that the official
presence of the Church in Russia would be of benefit
to no one but the Bolshevik government, which made
him play its own game. Fr. Walsh rapidly perceived
the perversity of the communist strategy, which is
why he was accused by the communists of being the
cause of obstacles to the dialogue between Rome
and Moscow. He mentioned it explicitly to Cardinal
Gasparri, Pius XI’s Secretary of State:
In general, they want us to begin working, to assume
heavy expenses and to transport the greatest amount
possible of materiel onto Russian territory; then, when
the difficulties inevitably begin...we shall have no further
guarantee of protection beyond the normal rights granted
Russian citizens. Those of us who are familiar with the
death sentences, prison, exile, confiscation of property,
and many other fierce displays of vengeance and class
hatred which take place in Russia, know and take the
liberty of informing you that, in these conditions, our
work is impossible. Consequently, if I do not succeed in
obtaining an acceptable precise, written agreement, I see
no other alternative than the aid mission’s dignified and
immediate retreat.10

The Holy See decided to ignore Fr. Walsh’s
appeal and not only to continue the mission, but

www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • May 2009

also to engage in diplomatic relations with Moscow
in the person of the Jesuit Fr. d’Herbigny, a diplomat
highly appreciated by the Bolsheviks but viewed with
suspicion by Cardinal Pacelli, then Nuncio at Berlin.

The Vision of Tuy
The good God looked with pity upon His Church
being “used” by the Bolsheviks, who exploited
both the Holy Father’s aid missions to the martyred
Russian people and the imprudence of Vatican
diplomats; that is why He deigned to give Sister Lucy,
who was then in the novitiate of the Dorothean Sisters
at Tuy, a clear sign about the path to follow.
While the seer was in the chapel for a holy hour
on June 13, 1929, she beheld a marvelous apparition.
Above the altar she saw Jesus crucified and above
Him a dove and the face of a man; it was a theophany
of the Blessed Trinity. Then she saw suspended
before the crucifix a chalice and host, and on the
host there fell from Jesus’ face and side drops of His
precious blood, which ran down and collected in
the chalice. Beneath the right arm of the cross (thus
to Sister Lucy’s left) stood the Blessed Virgin with
her Immaculate Heart in her right hand. Beneath
the other arm of the cross, letters formed the words
“Grace and Mercy.”
Let us listen attentively to the narrative made by
Sister Lucy to Fr. Gonçalves:
Then our Lady said to me: “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....
Later on, by means of an interior communication, Our
Lord said to me, complaining: “They did not want to head
my request!...Like the King of France they will repent and
do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread
its errors throughout the world, provoking wars and persecutions against the Church: the Holy Father will have
much to suffer.11

In this message, we find a great gift from Heaven:
God sees that His Church has taken the wrong way,
a way that not only will not stop the Communist
Revolution, but will allow the communists themselves
to infiltrate the Church. And so the Blessed Trinity
manifests once again a design of “Grace and Mercy”
for the world through the most Blessed Virgin and her
Immaculate Heart:
Faced with an eternal hell [shown to the three little
shepherds of Fatima on July 13, 1917, in the first part of
the secret], faced with the hell on earth of the Bolshevik
Gulag, God presents the Immaculate Heart of Mary to us
as the final recourse, the last hope of salvation for a world
on the way to perdition.12

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

23

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT

Sister Lucy, confiding in Fr. Fuentes, expressed
herself in the same vein, stating that it is the last plank
of salvation offered by Heaven, after which, if it is
refused, only chastisement will remain.
The salvation of the world, then, depends on the
conversion of Russia through the consecration of
this nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the
Holy Father and all the bishops in communion with
him. God’s design is very clear and unequivocal: it
is necessary to return to a Christian social order by
affirming apertis verbis the social kingship of our Lord
in the triumph of the Heart of His most holy Mother.
The Revolution must be countered by the Divine
Order; naturalist materialism by the supernatural;
the secularization of the temporal order by its
subordination to the supernatural.

Other Signs from Heaven
We know for a fact that the Pope learned of the
message of Tuy from Fr. Gonçalves and from the
bishop of Leiria, Msgr. da Silva, between July 1930
and August of the following year, yet he did not want
to comply with Heaven’s request that he consecrate
Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
In August 1931, Sister Lucy had another
revelation from Our Lord. Jesus told her that she
consoled Him very much by asking Him for the
conversion of Russia, Spain, and Portugal. He
asked her to beseech His Mother often to obtain the
consecration and to ask her also for the conversion of
Europe and the whole world. Then He said to Sister
Lucy:
Make it known to My ministers that given they follow
the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My request, that they will follow him into misfortune. It will never be too late to have recourse to Jesus
and Mary.13

In this message, the reference to France recurs,
referring to King Louis XIV, of whom the Sacred
Heart asked, in 1689 by the intermediary of St.
Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, that he consecrate
himself and his court to the Sacred Heart and build
an edifice enshrining the image of the Sacred Heart,
which would also be placed upon the royal standard.
Jesus asked the Jesuit order to be the heralds of
devotion to the Sacred Heart and in particular to
advocate His specific request. Neither the king nor
the Jesuits heeded Heaven’s request: the French royal
dynasty ended tragically exactly a century later with
the decapitation of Louis XVI, while the Jesuit order
was suppressed in many European nations in the
second half of the 18th century and finally dissolved
by the pope in 1773!

24

After this severe rebuke, Our Lord added that
there was still time to have recourse to Him and
to His most holy Mother. That is why He sent two
other strong messages: the sad result of the Vatican’s
Ostpolitik and the Bolshevik Revolution in Spain. In
1933, the confidential secretary of Fr. d’Herbigny,
who had been made bishop, known as Fr. Deubner,
disappeared without a trace. All that is known is that
he was seen for the last time in Berlin in the company
of Clara Zetkin, an international agent of Moscow
and about whom it was learned—only too late!—that
she was Fr. Deubner’s aunt! The news shook up the
Secretariat of State and the Pope himself, who decided
to ask for Msgr. d’Herbigny’s resignation, which
was received on March 30, 1934, on which date the
Commission “Pro Russia” that he had founded was
also suppressed.
We cannot get into the Spanish Civil War here; it
suffices to underscore one key aspect: the revolution
in Spain failed because the Spanish episcopate and
the Holy Father wholeheartedly supported the antirevolutionary forces and denounced the lies and
injustices of the communists. It suffices to think of
Cardinal Goma, the archbishop of Toledo, who
openly preached the just anti-communist crusade
led by General Franco. It was not political motives
in the partisan sense of the word that pushed the
Church in this direction, but the awareness that the
rights of God and of the Church must be defended, if
necessary, even by the sword. It was Pius XI himself,
during an audience granted to Spanish refugees at
Castel Gandolfo (September 14, 1936) who blessed
this legitimate crusade: “Our blessing goes out in a
special manner to all those who have assumed the
difficult and perilous task of defending and restoring
the rights and honor of God and religion.”14 Faced
with a diabolical revolution that sowed death,
especially among the clergy and religious, in one
of the most Catholic nations of the world, the Holy
Father resolutely changed his attitude towards
communism, and on March 19, 1937, he published
the famous Encyclical Divini Redemptoris, in which
he called communism by its name, describing it as
“barbarism,” “diabolical,” and “intrinsically wrong,”
and stating that “no one who would save Christian
civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking
whatsoever.” Pius XI’s energetic tack was in
conformity with the good God’s directives; however,
it was only in regard to the negative part of Heaven’s
requests. He ought to have carried out the other
aspect, the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate
Heart, an act that Pius XI, alas! did not have the
courage to accomplish.

And Pope Pius XII?
Obviously, in this article it is impossible to
analyze the relations between the Catholic Church

THE ANGELUS • May 2009 www.angeluspress.org

Pope Pius XII

Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal

Pope Pius XI

and communism from 1917 to the present. We tarried
over the first phase conducted by Pius XI for it was
during this period that the signs of God’s will and the
disastrous consequences of disobedience to this will
became clear. Pope Ratti only responded to half of
Heaven’s requests.
Under Pius XII, in general a policy of noncollaboration with communism was maintained,
but neither did this Pontiff consecrate Russia in the
way requested by the Blessed Virgin. In this regard,
a digression is necessary. On October 22, 1940,
kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, Sister
Lucy heard Jesus address to her these words:
Pray for the Holy Father, sacrifice yourself so that
his courage does not succumb under the bitterness that
oppresses him. The tribulation will continue and augment.
I will punish the nations for their crimes by war, famine
and persecution of My Church, and this will weigh especially upon My Vicar on earth. His Holiness will obtain an
abbreviation of these days of tribulation if he takes heed
of my wishes by promulgating the Act of Consecration of
the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a
special mention of Russia.15

Let us remark that our Lord explicitly asks
that Russia be mentioned in a special way that
distinguishes it from the rest of the world. It is now
more than ever opportune to emphasize this detail, for
it concerns a blinding proof that the consecration of
the world that would be made almost forty years
later by Pope John Paul II did not correspond to
Heaven’s demands since the explicit mention of
the Russian nation does not figure in it.

Two days after this communication from
heaven, Sister Lucy, interiorly moved by grace,
decided to write to the Holy Father. With Fr.
Gonçalves’s permission, Sister Lucy addressed
her letter to her superiors so that they might
forward it to Bishop da Silva, who in turn would
forward it to the bishop of Gurza.
Towards the end of November or the
beginning of December of that year, Bishop da
Silva replied to Sister Lucy, commanding her to
modify her letter. These are the most important
modifications:
The Secret. In the version written December
2, 1940, Sister Lucy must leave out two
fundamental parts of the secret: the first is the
explanation that the Second World War would
begin during the reign of Pius XI; the second is
the unbelievable suppression of these words of
the Virgin: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart
will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate
Russia to me, which will be converted, and some
time of peace will be granted to the world.”
The message of Tuy. Bishop da Silva makes
her remove these explicit words of the Blessed
Virgin: “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”
and replace them by a paraphrase of this demand,
which, however, does not mention the requirement
that all the bishops of the world be united to the Holy
Father at the moment of the consecration!
Pius XII thus read a message that had been
mutilated in its essential parts; this may help to
explain the incomplete nature of the consecration
made by the Holy Father on October 31, 1942, which
only partially fulfilled the requests of Our Lord, as
Sister Lucy explained to her superiors the following
year. During this time, Pope Pacelli blessed and
favored every public initiative linked to Fatima.
In the month of May 1952, the Virgin appeared
once more to Sister Lucy, telling her: “Make it known
to the Holy Father that I still await the consecration
of Russia to My Immaculate Heart. Without this
consecration Russia cannot be converted, nor can the
world have peace.”16 And in fact, on July 7, 1952, the
Holy Father explicitly consecrated Russia, but this
time it was the other condition that was not fulfilled,
that is to say, union with all the bishops in the world.
That was the last major action Pius XII
accomplished in favor of the requests of the Blessed
Virgin at Fatima; afterwards the Sovereign Pontiff’s
fervor towards the message of Fatima waned. It is

THE ANGELUS ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTICLE REPRINT
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • May 2009

25

This space left blank for independent mailing purposes.

likely that he was affected by the strong influence
of a series of “scientific” articles published in the
Nouvelle Revue Théologique under the pen of the Jesuit
Fr. Dhanis (who, as it happened, is quoted in the
document published by the Vatican in 2000), in
which, on the one hand, he diminished the scope of
the Fatima message, reducing it to a simple “private
revelation” that ought not in any case influence the
public decisions of the Church; and, on the other, he
raised doubts about the credibility of the continual
revelations received by Sister Lucy and of the visions
of the three shepherds.
Another factor that weighed heavily upon Pius
XII’s determination was the presence in the Secretariat
of State of Monsignor Montini, who believed in a
diplomatic solution with regards to communism.
Certainly, Pius XII adopted, on the contrary, an
intransigent stance thanks to, among other things,
his relations with the Primate of Hungary, Cardinal
Mindszenty.17 Pope Pacelli was considered as “antidemocratic” because of his hostility to communism,
1) approving, on July 1, 1949, the Holy Office’s decree of
excommunication against Catholics who supported atheistic communism; 2) warning the Catholics who, on their
own initiative, wanted to inaugurate a “dialogue” with the
communists...; and 3) vigorously protesting against the
bloody repression of the Hungarian revolution ordered
by Khrushchev.18

However, in the final years of his pontificate, Pope
Pius XII ended up bolstering, in a certain sense,
the worldwide expansion of communism because
he did not realize that the spreading “anti-colonial”
movement was nothing other than a strategy to
enable communism to expand in the Third World,
which in fact happened, provoking revolutions and
massacres.
		
(To be continued)

$2.00 per SiSiNoNo reprint. Please specify.

Shipping & Handling
USA

5-10 days

2-4 days

Up to $50.00
$4.00
$50.01 to $100.00 $6.00
Over $100.00
Free
Up to $50.00
$8.00
$50.01 to $100.00 $10.00
Over $100.00
$8.00

Flat fee!

Foreign
25% of
subtotal
($10.00 minimum)

48 Contiguous
States only.
UPS cannot
ship to
PO Boxes.

Available from:

ANGELUS PRESS
2915 Forest Ave., Kansas City, MO 64109 USA

Phone: 1-800-966-7337
www.angeluspress.org
Translated from Courrier de Rome, December 2008.
1

V. I. Lenin, Three Sources and Three Integral Parts of Marxism.
J. Daujat, Connaître le Communisme.
F. Engels, “Hegel, Feuerbach et la dialectique,” in C. Fabro, Matérialisme dialectique
et matérialisme historique (Brescia, 1962), p.212.
4
Ibid.
5
A. Rosenberg, Storia du Bolchevisme (Florence, 1969). The author was a member of
the Trilateral.
6
Daujat, Connaître le communisme, pp.51-52.
7
Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris (March 19, 1937), §14.
8
A. Messineo, “Democracy and Religious Liberty” [Italian], La Civiltà Cattolica,
1951, c. 2420, p.135.
9
Quoted in Frère Michel de la S. Trinité, The Whole Truth about Fatima Vol. II: The
Secret and the Church (New York, 1989), p.564.
10
A. U. Floridi, Moscow and the Vatican: The Soviet Dissidents and “Dialogue” [Italian], (Milan 1976), p.20.
11
Frère Michel de la S. Trinité, The Whole Truth about Fatima, II, 464.
12
Ibid., p.493.
13
Ibid., pp.543-44.
14
Ibid., p.639.
15
Ibid., p.732.
16
Frère Michel, The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. III: The Third Secret (New York,
1990), p.327.
17
Cf. J. Mindszenty, Mémoires (Milan, 1974).
18
Floridi, Moscow and the Vatican.
2
3