MARCH 1998

l'est-éclair

WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY 1998

Mgr Daucourt at Rome:
appointed for the year 2000

The Jubilee will in fact be the opportunity for Christians to celebrate the 2,000^th anniversary of the coming of Jesus on earth.

The Bishop of Troyes has also just taken part at Rome in a plenary session of the Council for Ecumenism, a structure that acts as an observation post as well as a powerhouse for suggestions. In particular it has recently achieved significant advances between Lutherans and Catholics in a problem that goes back… to the Reform.

"THE CHURCH OF VATICAN II,
I SEE IT IN THE AUBE"

The Bishop of Troyes devotes more than half of his time to the diocese. A diocese that is not without its problems, but which also gives him much satisfaction, through the activity of both his priests and the pastoral teams.

"The Church of Vatican 2, I see it in the Aube – he declares. The collaboration between priests and laity is important. And these latter are very dynamic. Despite that, there is still a shortage of workers for the harvest. With fifteen additional priests, it would certainly be better."

To face up to the difficulties that will not fail to materialise in the near future, Monsignor Daucourt hopes that the laity may be correctly trained and "encouraged to take on responsibilities". However, he hopes that they will not forget their primary duties.

"The risk is that people will take refuge in the Church when they have a role to play in society, whether that be at the level of the family, politics, economics or culture." As for deacons, although he considers that they have become very important, he hopes that they do not "replace" priests.

Notre-Dame en l'Isle
downsized

The main affair for the diocese this year will be the development of the new diocesan Centre within Notre-Dame en l'Isle.

The Bishop of Troyes met John Paul II at the Vatican to prepare the great jubilee in the year 2000

Jean-François LAVILLE

Opposed to Vatican II,
the Abbé de Nantes is today
one of the intellectual guides
for traditionalist Catholics

Photograph published in l'Est-Éclair for 1^st August 1997

(article reproduced in the English CRC for 15 August 1997, pages 18 and 36)

(*)  "SOPHISM: Reasoning which only has the appearance of being logically correct, and which is devised with the intention of leading another into error." (Petit Larousse 1998)  Not only "can" one but one must reply to a sophism, if not to convert the sophist, at least to enlighten those who listen to him.

"If I have spoken wrongly, bear witness to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?" (John 18.23)

THREAT OVER FATIMA

For ten, twenty, thirty years the Abbé de Nantes has noted and been saddened by the fact that the seer of Fatima has been despised, vilified and reduced to silence by a hierarchy that, since Vatican II, has become antifatimist.

On May 13 1967 we all saw her on television – and with what anguish – weeping after her meeting with Paul VI… "It was a moving moment… Pressed on all sides, Lucy asked the Holy Father whether she might speak to him for a moment in secret. He refused her this grace in icy terms. Under the television lens and a hundred snapping cameras, before the eyes of all, she wept. She did not weep for herself, but for us, and – let us be quite certain about this – Heaven wept alongside the rejected confidant of the Virgin Mary as she was ushered away." (Letters to my friends, no. 246, 13 May 1967, p.3) But why did the messenger of Our Lady wish to have a private conversation with the Sovereign Pontiff? For this reason: "As the wishes of Heaven do not change, Sister Lucy wished to ask the Pope to make the warnings of Our Lady known to the world and perhaps she had been charged to invite his assent under the form of an ultimate appeal, an ultimatum." (Ibid. p.6)

Twenty-five years later, after the conversation between the seer and John Paul II at Fatima on 13 May 1991, it was evident that, between him and her, there was total disagreement. "The absolute silence of John Paul II about his meeting with Lucy can only be explained by their not having been able to agree. If the messenger of Our Lady had agreed to endorse the Pope's attitude concerning Heaven's demands, as well as his refusal to publish the third Secret and his refusal to carry out the consecration of Russia specifically, we would have known about it. No, Pope John Paul II failed to extract from her a single world of approval! As before on 13 May 1982, she had not displayed the least weakness. She gave firm witness before him of what she had seen and heard regarding the authentic requests of Our Lady." (Frère François, Fatima, joie intime, événement mondial, 2^nd ed. CRC, 1993, p.386)

Nonetheless, the voice of Sister Lucy, shut away in the Carmel at Coimbra, was to become even more stifled. In her correspondence and her rare parlours, she remained forced to keep silent on everything relating to the apparitions and message of the Immaculate Virgin. Orders received from the Vatican (Ibid., p.337, 380) obliged her to retreat into such an absolute silence that in May 1991 the Diario de Coimbra (4 May 1991) headed one of its articles: "Irma Lucia, mensagem de silencio; Sister Lucy, a message of silence". And the chaplain of the Carmel, Mgr Duarte de Almeida, added his own testimony by attributing to the seer a spirituality of silence, bizarre to say the least!

AN ENORMOUS MEDIA COUP BY "CHRISTUS",
THIS VERY MONTH: MARCH 1998

Thus, when the Portuguese review Christus, for this month of March 1998, announced on its front cover, under an impressive photograph of Lucy: "Irma Lucia rompe o silencio; Sister Lucy breaks the silence", it was assuredly a notable event. All the more so seeing that, since the end of February, the news had been cleverly propagated so that it might immediately cause an international stir. On the 28^th February the Portuguese weekly Semanario, from the same publishing house, ran a full-page headline: "An unpublished interview with Sister Lucy", and it went on to publish some extracts. These were reproduced the next day by the daily, ABC; and on the following day, in Italy, by the Corriere della Sera. On 2 March, the day before the appearance of Christus, the spokesman for the Vatican spoke of this "unpublished interview" and, by that very fact, imparted considerable importance to the words attributed to Lucy. Such a declaration by the Vatican is an event almost without precedent. To our knowledge, since the communiqué of February 1960 announcing the non-publication of the Secret almost forty years ago, never has the Vatican officially mentioned either the person, or any declaration, of the seer of Fatima.

THE "REVELATIONS" OF THE REVIEW CHRISTUS

On the first page of this extraordinary file on Fatima, we are presented with only one expression spoken by Lucy, set off to good effect in bold letters:

"He who is not with the Pope, is not with God."

Surprised and almost disconcerted, we rapidly leafed through the following pages and we discovered there a series of affirmations that were at the very least improbable, especially in the mouth of Lucy. For instance, we are told this about the consecration of Russia:

"It was accomplished by the Pope on the 25^th March 1984. It is not necessary to consecrate Russia again."

And this about hell! "Hell is a supernatural fire and not a physical one. It cannot be compared to a fire that burns from wood or charcoal, or to those fires that are lit in the forest. God condemns nobody to hell, but people condemn themselves to hell. God has given man the freedom to choose, and God respects this human freedom."

And even this about the third Secret! "The third Secret is not meant to be revealed. The Pope can reveal it if he chooses to do so, but I advise him against it (sic!). If he chooses to do so, I advise him (!) to act with extreme prudence. Our Lady never said that the Secret was in the Apocalypse."

So here we are once again, brought back to our questions and controversies of the years 1989-1992, all turning on the testimony of Lucy.

And straightaway we note that there is no precise indication for the date of this "unpublished interview" where everything is extravagant… starting with its very presentation:

"Recently, Cardinals Antony Padiyara, from Ernakulam in India, and Ricardo Vidal, from Cebu in the Philippines, accompanied by Carlos Evaristo, president of the foundation for Ourenian History and Culture, visited the Carmel in Coimbra. They thus had the privilege of speaking with Lucy during an exchange in which each might put his questions.

"It has not been easy to come by this interview. Until now we have only had short depositions that Sister Lucy had been induced to draw up after the apparitions. Usually, she has expressed herself outside of the framework of an official interview, and without having time to touch on several subjects.

"The conversation, which we publish in this edition of Christus, was previously unpublished, and its authenticity is guaranteed by the official declarations written by the cardinals mentioned below. This conversation will be reproduced in the first biography of the seer, written in Portugal, to appear this month." (Christus, March 1998, p.21)

Of the official attestations of the cardinals we find no trace in this edition of Christus. And although it is magnificently illustrated by a series of photographs of Lucy, we will search there in vain for a photograph of the two cardinals. On the other hand, the Semanario for 28 February presents, above its headline Entrevista inédita, the identical photograph of Cardinal Padiyara with Lucy which we had published on the first page of the article "The latest plot of Fatima village, uncovered! Real Lucy, false witnesses" in the Catholic Counter-Reformation for November 1992 (p.3-10). I repeat: 1992. Now, who does one observe next to Cardinal Padiyara? Mgr Francis Michaelappa, who passed away on 17 March 1993, exactly five years ago.

What an imposture! This conversation with Cardinal Padiyara – "recent"! and "unpublished"! – is nothing but a remake of an earlier intrigue. As for Cardinal Vidal, he was not at the Carmel of Coimbra with Cardinal Padiyara on that day, 11 October 1992, nor was he even in Portugal. It was only a year later, to the day, that he met Sister Lucy.

We still have in our ears the account of the conversation on 11 October 1992 that Carlos Evaristo gave us at Fatima the next day, and in our files we have his report of sixteen typed pages, which he faxed to us on 28 October and which we immediately published (Ibid. p.3-10). The "unpublished" conversation in Christus is nothing but the reproduction of this particularly perverse old text.

We have contested the authenticity of these declarations attributed to the messenger of Our Lady since 12 October 1992, when the young Evaristo told us that he had heard them on the day before from the very mouth of the seer. It was all too evident; he had made up the whole story, whilst Cardinal Padiyara, having retired to his hotel room, had already become invisible and inaccessible.

Carlos Evaristo and his accomplices acted on behalf of the Fatima authorities in order to disorientate the bishops who were taking part in the Congress on "Peace and the Immaculate Heart", organised by Father Nicholas Gruner. It was necessary to persuade them that the testimony of Lucy was in agreement with the directives of the Bishop of Fatima, Mgr do Amaral, who tirelessly repeated that John Paul II no longer wished to be "importuned (sic) with the request for the consecration of Russia".

Now it was impossible that Sister Lucy had made the declarations reported by the wretched Evaristo, and that for several reasons:

"Firstly, because such an aberration on the part of a witness chosen by God is unthinkable. Secondly, because Sister Lucy is not permitted to speak about the apparitions of Our Lady and the Great Secret without the express authorisation of the Holy See. Thirdly, because if Lucy had said such words, those who claim that the consecration has not been done would already have been invited by the Fatima authorities to talk with her." (Cf. CRC for October 1992, p.28)

The reader may wish to refer to our long article Real Lucy, false witnesses, in November 1992. It is a line-for-line commentary on each of the lying allegations attributed to Lucy by Carlos Evaristo. Here we will quote only the passage concerning the recommendation to be "with the Pope". It will be enough to remind our readers just how far this account was "a mass of fabrications perfectly calculated to confuse those who remain attentive and faithful to Our Lady's message and to the conditions She has set for the salvation of souls and the peace of the world". (CRC, November 1992, p. 5)

The review Christus occasionally improves the text drawn up by Carlos Evaristo. For example, one no longer finds the following:

"C. Evaristo: Has the conversion of Russia taken place?

"Sister Lucy: Yes, the news speaks for itself." (Ibid. p.5)

Today, such a reply would be problematic to say the least. For the most recent "news" speaks to us of the discrimination suffered by the young Russian Catholic Church of the Latin rite founded by John Paul II. Despite the Pope's letter to President Boris Yeltsin, despite the official protests of the Holy See, the Federation of Russia's new law on the freedom of conscience and religious associations took effect on 1 October 1997. Now, this puts the Russian Catholic Church in a highly precarious position. Each Catholic parish is obliged to enrol annually in an official register, as if it were some kind of sect like the Jehovah's Witnesses, and this enrolment can be cancelled at any moment with no reason given.

But then, what were the fruits, the effects of the consecration on 25 March 1984? Well, Lucy is supposed to have revealed this in a rider surreptitiously introduced into the text written by Carlos Evaristo in 1992. Read on:

"QUESTION: Did the consecration of the world, made by Pope John Paul II in 1984, avert a nuclear war in 1985?

"LUCY: We had almost reached the beginning of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia. The whole world was in suspense, but when the Pope made the consecration, the war plans suddenly changed into plans for peace! That was certainly not normal! The weapons that were about to be manufactured never saw the light of day and plans for mass destruction were transformed into plans for freedom! The consecration of 1984 averted an atomic nuclear war, which would otherwise have broken out during 1985. [To our knowledge, this pure fable was invented and first published by Carlos Evaristo in his pamphlet "Duas Horas com a Irma Lucia" (Two Hours with Sister Lucy), ed. 1994, p. 29] The peace is not a miraculous worldwide peace. The wars in the world today are civil wars, not world wars. That is a normal situation. With their modern science people had entered on the path of destruction, leading humanity towards atomic wars. For that reason, God ordered the Holy Father to make the consecration and because of this the words of the Virgin were fulfilled." (Christus, March 1998, p. 23-26)

What "words of the Virgin"!?

In the conclusion to the Great Secret, Our Lady announced: "The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and it will be converted", and not: "The Holy Father will make an offering of the world, which will thus be preserved from atomic war, and it will be given to the world to know the reign of Universal Democracy with its endless civil wars."

THE COMPLICITY
OF THE PORTUGUESE AUTHORITIES

On other occasions when questions arose – alas! – of authentic warnings and prophecies, Lucy's superiors would publish very firm denials. We need not repeat here the declaration of the episcopal curia of Coimbra, publicly accusing Father Augustine Fuentes of having fabricated the whole story. That was an enormous scandal that did great damage to the cause of Fatima… and to the trust of the faithful!

More recently, in 1993, after the revelations made by Edoardo Luciani about the prophecy that Sister Lucy had made to her brother, the future Pope John Paul I [Concerning the mysterious prophecy made to Cardinal Albino Luciani by Sister Lucy on 11 July 1977, cf. John Paul I and Fatima, CRC, September 1996, p. 1-12], the Jornal de Coimbra ran a headline: " 'It is a lie', says the Superior of the Carmelites." And the journal gave the following details:

"Beginning our brief discussion with a 'Do not believe everything that is reported', Mother Maria das Merces categorically denied that Lucy of Jesus had made any such prophecies: 'They are mere tales. Sister Lucy is not the type to make prophecies. It is true that John Paul I came here before becoming Pope, but Sister Lucy has never made any pronouncement on matters of this sort.' Then the mother prioress peremptorily concluded: 'This has no foundation'. (Jornal de Coimbra, 1 Sept 1993, p. 5)"

In this month of March 1998, after the publication of Christus, the Bishop of Coimbra carefully maintained a prudent reserve, bordering on an abdication of responsibility and complicity with the falsifiers of Lucy's evidence. The Diario de Coimbra for 4 March 1998 in fact pointed out that: "Maria do Carmo, the mother prioress currently in charge of the Santa Teresa Carmel where Sister Lucy is cloistered, today declined to comment on the publication of the conversation between the seer and Cardinals Antony Padiyara and Ricardo Vidal.

"Yesterday evening we tried to obtain some comments on this affair from the Bishop of Coimbra. A representative from the bishop's house replied to our paper by stating: 'We do not believe that the situation requires any kind of clarification on our part.' "

The rector of the sanctuary of Fatima, Mgr Guerra, has published over the course of the last few years vigorous warnings against associations that make known the authentic message of Fatima: Fatima International, the TFP, and "the sons of thunder" of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20^th century [It was in fact just so that the rector designated the disciples of the Abbé de Nantes and worded the headline of his warning, reproduced by us in full in the CRC for January 1993, p. 4]. On the other hand, during the month of March 1998 he maintained a conniving silence.

To our knowledge, only the archivist at the sanctuary made any declaration – certainly a prudent declaration, but sufficiently explicit to uncover the set-up. During a conversation reported by the Jornal de noticias for 4 March, he said:

"To publish snatches of a private conversation is, to say the least, a procedure lacking in elegance. For Father Luciano Cristino, this "lack of elegance" lies mainly in the fact that the conversations were presented in the form of an interview, whereas in reality Carlos Evaristo interviewed nobody; he only served as an interpreter. These meetings (of 11 October 1992 and of the same day in 1993) have, moreover, already been recounted in the pamphlet "Two hours with Sister Lucy", published in 1994."

So while the review Christus proclaims : Entrevista inédita, Father Cristino replies by criticising the adjective, whereas he should have denounced the substantive and demonstrated the deceitful character of the whole! As a good archivist, he could have, and he should have, denounced the imposture by referring to the very first publication of this conversation, that is to say, to its appearance and the implacable criticism it was subjected to in the Catholic Counter-Reformation for November 1992, a copy of which can be found on the shelves of the document section of the Sanctuary. To mention the pamphlet published in 1994 by Carlos Evaristo is to pay credit to the deceitful and partisan allegations of the latter, allegations which are directly aimed against the defenders of the authentic message of Our Lady. On page 16 of this pamphlet, when Evaristo claims to report Sister Lucy's reply regarding the apocryphal letters dealing with the consecration in 1984, he explains in a note:

"The publication The Fatima Crusader of Father Nicholas Gruner, as well as the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the Abbé Georges de Nantes, are both mistaken when they insist that these letters were forgeries, that Sister Lucy does not type, and that she has never stated that the Consecration has been done." [If, following our Father, we claimed that the five "apocryphal" letters of Sister Lucy were forgeries, it was not because they were typed, but because they contained statements that were stupid and incorrect and falsified the message of Our Lady; cf. Fatima, joie intime, p. 376-378.]

And so, in Portugal, nobody will stand up any more to denounce this enormous imposture and to recall the main requests of Our Lady, addressed to the hierarchy, namely the publication of the third Secret, the consecration of Russia possessed by Satan, and the approbation of the reparatory devotion of the Five First Saturdays.

ALL THE SAME, THERE WAS A REFUTATION!

Some years ago, the weekly, the Semanario – such as it was then, before it had gone over to the official propaganda, as we have seen – published amongst its readers' letters an excellent clarification concerning the travesty of Lucy's testimony. It was in its edition for 24 October 1992, only a few days after the parlour with Cardinal Padiyara:

"In May 1989, Sister Lucy received a visit from Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston. She told him that the consecration of 1984 was not what Our Lady had requested.

"But it was precisely in 1989 that people began to state the contrary, and this seemed to reflect an intention to promote the Ostpolitik of the Vatican. We were then at the height of perestroika and a meeting was being arranged between the Pope and Mikhail Gorbachev, which was due to take place on 1 December.

"It was convenient to claim that the consecration of Russia had been done, so that it could be said that Russia had already begun to be converted and that Gorbachev, a personal friend of the Pope, was the instrument of Providence.

"The truth is that there does not exist a single proof that Sister Lucy ever declared that the consecration of 1984 was what [Our Lady requested and what the] Catholic world was waiting for. In the afternoon of the 21^st March of that year [1992], Sister Lucy was visited by the Apostolic Nuncio, accompanied by several other key people. During a long conversation, carried out with the aid of an interpreter, she is supposed to have stated that the consecration of Russia had been carried out. But that is merely hearsay and has no foundation. Not one of the parties to this fine conversation made a public announcement on this matter, as it would surely have been in their interest to do so." (Joao Alvares, Semanario, 24 October 1992.)

Today, in Portugal, nobody seems openly to oppose the schemes hatched by Rome to travesty the revelations of the Blessed Virgin of the Immaculate Heart.

THE DECLARATION OF THE SPOKESMAN
FOR THE VATICAN

Having published on the 2^nd March extracts from this fantastic conversation, as reported by the false witness Evaristo (see his photograph!), the Corriere della Sera, of Milan, reproduced on the next day a fully official clarification from the spokesman of the Vatican. Here it is in its entirety:

"Quoted from the Vatican: 'Gorbachev did not ask for forgiveness from the Pope'.

"Mikhail Gorbachev did not kneel before the Pope and beg forgiveness for his sins, as supposedly stated by Sister Lucy, ninety-one years old and the only surviving member of the three seers of Fatima. 'It is neither true nor plausible', declared the spokesman of the Vatican, N. Valls. This striking event had been recounted by Sister Lucy dos Santos to Cardinals Padiyara (India) and Vidal (Philippines) during a series of conversations, from which certain religious together drew up an interview for the Portuguese monthly Christus, several extracts of which have already been made public."

Such a communiqué calls for several remarks.

First of all, the spokesman for the Vatican could not have made such a statement without the backing of the highest authorities in the Church, especially the Pope, whose directives he would have had to follow most scrupulously.

Secondly, Navarro Valls denies this act of Gorbachev, allegedly reported by Sister Lucy, without settling in one way or another whether the seer really made such a remark [Regarding this statement, put in the seer's mouth by Evaristo, we simply commented in 1992: "What raving madness!" CRC, November 1992, p.5]. Navarro Valls passes from a hypothetical formula, "as supposedly stated by Sister Lucy", to a categorical affirmation, "had been recounted by Sister Lucy". And so the spokesman for the Vatican insinuates that the seer might have told such a story, as though she had become senile or mad! After all, was she not eighty-nine years old?

One cannot but be shocked and indignant at such an infamy. All the more so, seeing that it was the Vatican itself that originated this whole affair. Having started things off in 1989, it then supported and protected the travesty of Lucy's testimony, involving the fabrication of apocryphal letters and the spreading of totally made-up conversations (cf. Fatima, joie intime, p. 370 sq.).

Finally, and most alarming of all, the Vatican disclaims only one of the remarks insanely attributed to Lucy. This suggests that all the rest may be considered as authentic and believable. So, Sister Lucy is no longer merely reduced to silence. From now on, the Vatican is the implicit guarantor of alleged declarations of the seer that obscure and falsify the whole message of Fatima.

UNIVERSAL DIABOLICAL DISORIENTATION

For the sceptics, the modernists and the evil-minded, what a victory is this declaration by Navarro Valls! Here we have the seer discredited. She makes up stories, as Father Dhanis told us a long while ago. All the supposed requests of the Virgin are acts of Lucy's imagination and her late inventions. They have done nothing but harm to the faithful, pushing them into integrism, anticommunism, and a senseless fever of devotion!

As for the well-intentioned, they will confidently accept these latest "revelations" of Lucy. Since she has recommended the Pope not to publish the Secret, let us speak no more of it. Furthermore, the consecration has been accomplished, and the world has been saved from atomic war. The fact that Lucy said that Gorbachev fell on his knees before the Pope to beg forgiveness from him for his sins, does not alarm these good people. Has not the wretched Evaristo calmly explained to the press "that this was a symbolic representation of communism, in the figure of the Soviet president, offering homage to the Vicar of Christ." (Diario de Coimbra, 4 March 1998)

One must read the summary of the said conversation in Famille chrétienne for 12 March – a whole series of statements ascribed to Lucy, as for example that "the Virgin did not request the conversion of Russia to Catholicism" – to understand just how far Fatima has now been falsified and exploited to win the devotees of Our Lady over to John Paul II and to his great ecumenical, millenarist, one-world plans.

But the most painful thing is to note how far the devotion to the most benign Heart of our gentle Mother has been so totally eclipsed. In the two pages of Famille chrétienne there is not a single mention of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Here we are then at the height of "the diabolical struggle against the Message", to repeat an expression taken from Sister Lucy in her sixth Memoir, the last of her writings to be published and surely authentic! (Memorias da Irma Lucia, vol. II, ed. Vice-Postulaçao, 1996, p. 133. Her seventh and eighth Memoirs, which she finished writing last year, have not yet been published in Portugal.)

THE JUBILEE OF SISTER LUCY

In this sixth Memoir, a long text of 140 pages that she began in 1992 and completed on 25 March 1993, we rediscover over and over again the real Lucy, with her prodigious memory, her extreme humility, her ardent filial devotion, her remarkably vivacious style, and her highly varied vocabulary. As she recounts her memories with such charm and cheerfulness, she intersperses her account with numerous quotations from both Holy Scripture and the saints, aptly chosen to bring out the little known virtues of her mother, and expressing her constant concern to benefit her potential readers by communicating to them the flame of her supernatural spirit and of her invincible hope. In recalling the trials that befell her family after the 1917 apparitions, Sister Lucy writes:

"Wherever God is found, there the devil will rush up with his sidekicks to see if he can obstruct the work of God and, if possible, pull it up by its roots. Today I thank God that things have turned out like this. It is yet one more sign that the work is His. If it were not so, the devil and his minions would not oppose it so strongly, nor would they wage such a relentless a war against it.

"But in God I find peace, because God alone is great, God alone is strong, wise and powerful, God alone sits above everything, victorious!" (Ibid. p. 125)

Today, at the moment when the devil attempts to mislead the very elect themselves, this fearful campaign of intoxication paradoxically provides a new proof that Sister Lucy has not failed in her mission as the witness of the apparitions and of the message of Our Lady. The wicked cannot provide a single authentic testimony of the seer to support the re-launch of their lying propaganda. They are therefore obliged to re-varnish and publish an older document, a totally fabricated account, the authorship, circumstances and purpose of whose writing and publication we remarked on six years ago, while we were actually on site at Fatima.

No, Sister Lucy had not yielded to the pressures to which she has been subjected. No, she has not wavered.

If she remains in this world, it is certainly to guarantee to the hierarchy, in the face of all the infernal trickery, the authenticity of the divine message, which she will continue to do right up to the long-awaited dawn of the triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart. And one understands the sharpness of her reaction when she learned that the rector, Mgr Guerra, had already placed her tombstone in the basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, next to that of the Venerable Jacinta: "But I am not dead yet!"

When Father Joaquin Alonso had asked her why Our Lord should permit the consecration of Russia to be delayed, she had replied that "such is what our present guilty state demands", and that, in this terrible situation, "there is only one remedy: penance and reparation, to be realised in and through the Immaculate Heart of Mary". (The review Madre di Dio, May 1978, p. 20)

Today, as the victim of the gravest acts of treachery, it must be a true martyrdom for her to see that, over and above her own poor person, it is the Virgin Mary Herself who is outraged and mocked. By enduring such an injury in her soul, has not Sister Lucy-Mary of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart thus experienced the torments that Saint Theresa of the Infant Jesus and the Holy Face would have liked to share in, those of the Christians in the times of Antichrist?

On the eve of the jubilee of her entry into the Carmel of Coimbra, which she will celebrate on 25 March, we could not do better than to re-read with emotion what she wrote to her former confessor, Father Bernardo Gonçalves, on 9 November 1954, and to understand that, by accepting her tribulations with heroism and holiness, she offers, in all truth, a sublime witness to the authenticity of her heavenly mission and her Carmelite vocation.

"It is necessary that our immolation be complete, that all of us be marked with the sign of the Cross of the Lamb.

"Saint John said that he saw in Heaven a multitude that followed the Lamb everywhere. I believe that on earth the Lamb has a similar retinue following Him, bearing the flag of the Cross out of love, until the day that its members are enrolled into the eternal phalanxes and chant the hymn of victory.

"I do not know whether you have ever entered a Carmelite's cell. It is a pity that you were not able to come on one of those occasions when the cardinals enter them and allow others to do so as well. You would then have been able to see what is its very best adornment : a single large Cross made of wood, which stands out against the whiteness of the main wall.

"When I had the happiness of entering Carmel, I was escorted to my cell and, on entering it, I gazed for a little while on the large bare Cross that opened its arms to me. Our Reverend Mother Prioress asked me:

– Do you know why this Cross does not have a figure on it?

"And without giving me time to reply, she added:

– It is so that you may crucify yourself on it.

"What a beautiful idea, to be crucified with Christ! How it fills me with delight in the foolishness of the Cross! It is here that the secret of my happiness resides : no longer to love or desire anything, unless it be to love and to suffer out of love." (Quoted in A.-M. Martins, Documentos de Fatima, Porto 1976, p. 447)

Frère Françoise de Marie des Anges. 

THE DEMAND OF THE SACRED HEART

From 1673 the Sacred Heart appeared to Saint Margaret-Mary (1647-1690), a Visitation sister at Paray-le-Monial, to reveal to her the inexhaustible treasures of His love for men. On the 17^th June 1689, He complained of being so little loved in return and gave this sister a message addressed to King Louis XIV. Saint Margaret-Mary informed Mother de Saumaise:

"Make it known to the eldest son of My Sacred Heart – speaking of our King – that, just as his temporal birth was obtained by devotion to the merits of My Sacred Infancy, in the same way he will obtain his birth into grace and eternal glory by the consecration which he will make of himself to My Adorable Heart, which wishes to triumph over his own and thence over the hearts of the mighty of the earth. My Heart wishes to reign in his palace, to be painted on his standards and engraved on his arms to make them victorious over his enemies, prostrating their proud and arrogant heads before his feet, to make him triumphant over all the enemies of Holy Church."

On 28 August of that same year, the messenger of the Sacred Heart further specified the requests of Heaven and its incomparable promises:

The eternal Father, wishing to repair the bitterness and anguish that the adorable Heart of His divine Son suffered in the house of the princes of the earth during the humiliations and outrages of His Passion, wishes to establish His empire in the court of our great monarch, whom He wishes to use for the execution of this design that He intends to accomplish in this way: to have an edifice built containing the picture of this divine Heart, to receive there the consecration and homage of the king and all his court. Moreover, this divine Heart wishes to become the protector and defender of his sacred person against all his enemies, both visible and invisible, to defend him against them, and assure his salvation by this means. Therefore, He has chosen him [the king] as His faithful friend to obtain the authorisation of the Mass in His honour by the Holy Apostolic See, and all the other privileges which must accompany this devotion to this Sacred Heart, through which He wishes to dispense the treasures of His graces of sanctification and salvation, pouring out His blessings in abundance over all his enterprises. He will cause them to succeed for His glory, and give new success to his arms to make them triumph over his enemies.

Happy will he be then if he learns to love this devotion, which will gain for him an eternal kingdom of honour and glory in this Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who will undertake to elevate him and make him great in Heaven before God His Father, for as much as this great monarch will undertake to take away before men the insults and humiliations which this divine Heart suffered before them. This will be done by giving to Him and procuring for Him the honours, love and glory which He awaits from the king.

But since God has chosen the Reverend Father de la Chaize for the execution of this design, through the power He has given him over the heart of our great king, it therefore falls to him to make this plan succeed.

The Sacred Heart added that the Jesuit Order had been specially chosen to spread the devotion to Him, and pass on His great designs to the king. If it fulfilled this mission, the Order would receive graces and blessings in return.

And if not?

We will see during the next camp of the Phalange, God willing, what the cost is of despising the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

THE LEAGUE

GOING TO JESUS THROUGH MARY

I look upon this year, our present and our future, as a large river flowing majestically and powerfully towards its estuary, rather like the Saint Lawrence flowing to the Cape of the Magdalene. But if its rapid movement carries us towards some roaring waterfall, like its cousin, the Niagara Falls, then let it be as God wills! And may You also come to our aid, O Immaculate, the Mother of us all and for always!

• This happy new stage of our spiritual family began, for the residents of our House and its guests, on the 15^th August, with our enthusiastic discovery of the historical background of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary provided by Brother Bruno's sparkling study. When I read it again, I seemed to be realising this touching and marvellous event for the first time. Never before had the 15^th August been so ardently experienced.

• For our Canadian brothers, sisters and friends, there was our pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Cape a few days later, which was prepared, accompanied and prolonged by a study of its miracles and its Message, strongly reminding us of those of La Salette. I narrated and commented on all this during our three autumn retreats on the "circumincessant divine charity, Marian and fraternal", received with growing enthusiasm…

 • Then, there were our Congresses, both here and over there, and the All Saints conference for our young phalangists. These were taken up with the study of the texts of the complete documents involved in our Appeal to Rome, which possessed the undeniable power of our Catholic faith and our hope in the indefectibility of the Power of the keys and the infallibility of Peter. Thereupon, we came  back, as though irresistibly, to Our Lady.

• And there was the triduum of the 8^th December, which was not planned to be more than a small gathering during school term. But, having started to reflect on Father Kolbe and being carried away by the enthusiasm that took hold of us, those three days were filled with his deeply moving life and teaching. So great was our enthusiasm that we ordered a thousand Miraculous Medals from Ambert and we all made our consecration to the Immaculate Conception with a seriousness, a fervour and a resolve that are still with us today. I know of families that have gone back to saying the Rosary in their family, to the fervent acceptance of the trials that previously crushed them, and to a unanimous and total trust in the love of the Virgin Mary and of Her Divine Son.

• Our celebration of Christmas, though lived here according to the "closed door" policy, – the only time in the year! – was entirely illuminated by this consecration.

• The first Saturdays of the month gained a new and quite remarkable impetus with the increased attendance and fervour of our friends. The disasters and disorders of the world impelled us to take up again the prophecies of Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and Maximilian-Mary Kolbe, the latter inspired by the former. And so we were led to expect less from our political studies and activities, and to direct all our attention on the insistent requests of Our Lady and the demands of Catholic devotion rather than on the wretched utopias long denounced by the Church.

• The Epiphany and Candlemas revealed what the message of Saint Maximilian made clear and what his life proved: that the struggle is not between men, but between the devil and the Immaculate Virgin. She will conquer, assuredly, evidently! But She calls us to devote ourselves to this hidden struggle, relinquishing all comforts and worldly ambitions on behalf of the reign of the Immaculate! Our three hundred friends, who came each month, acquired a growing strength of soul – as did their children also – to resist the depraved climate of their schools.

• The film Titanic was then (and now) attracting packed audiences. Following the method of Maurras, who looked for "portents" in impressive events – types of warning about our destiny, making us fear great chastisements –, I compared the carefree spirit of the wealthy class of the Titanic, the godlessness of its shareholders, the blasphemies painted in red lead by its builders along its waterline: "NO GOD, NO MASTER", and the gliding of the iceberg like a razor blade, effacing these impious words and sending this giant of the seas to the ocean floor as if it were a mere cockleshell… The audience indulging in these tragic scenes believed they were watching the event of 1912, a portent of the coming slaughter in 1914. How is it that they did not reflect that this reminder of an appalling drama in 1997 might be the final portent of the misery already prepared for 1999?

• For, as we have been preaching at every opportunity over the years, modern man is ungovernable! It is the television and the newspapers that have kept telling us this – without knowing of any remedy – during these mad weeks devoted to the elections. Our "Freppel Movement", basing itself on the approach of the saints and their doctrine, and on the numerous and coherent Messages of the Virgin Mary, is thus able to deduce from these authentic lessons of Heaven a political stance full of supernatural wisdom and Maurrassian realism, allowing us soon to reply to the appeals of a people thrown into the abyss by their godless masters.

• It goes without saying that our Pilgrimage of reparation and consolation planned for the 9^th May at Turin appears to be going well. As with the pilgrimage to Fatima, everything gets resolved step by step. There are now over a thousand of us, and we are forced to refuse further applications.

What is it that makes these pilgrimages, prepared for by months of spiritual study and progress, so special, allowing them to be looked forward to, lived and re-lived with so much satisfaction? The truth is clear : Unlike many others, we know, with a certain knowledge, the reality of the Apparitions, the miracles, and the messages pronounced. Faith cannot be built in the clouds or in charismatic vapours. And any devotion that would not base itself on solid demonstrations of authenticity would be hateful to Jesus and Mary.

But, alas, great numbers of people object to one speaking of Fatima or of Turin, and even more to the idea that one should actually go there! To be sure, many good Catholics visit these places, inspired by their genuinely Catholic traditions and habits. But, once there, it was only doubts that their preachers preached to them, doubts that encourage an odious relativism assimilating all religions into a single confused mass, a product of pure imagination.

These poor people, whom you came into contact with at Fatima and whom you will meet in great numbers at Turin, have been betrayed by their priests. Hopefully they will learn from us that Fatima and Turin are concrete realities, and that these realities compel recognition. It was there that the Immaculate appeared. Let us all fall to our knees! And here we have the Burial Cloth of Christ, allowing us to behold His true Body and His true Blood, impregnated, imprinted on this sacred linen. Let us all fall down in adoration!

Georges de Nantes.