THE SPIRIT OF ASSISI

     In the preceding pages we have shown how a world in which Islam and Money reign in the place of Christ and His Holy Mother, has become the antechamber of hell. But on this point also, Father Nicolas is not in agreement, for having expressed his hope that «Christians and the Church will act as leaven in the dough» – a “secular” dough one assumes –, he goes on to write, «Let us not for all that imagine that the world is fundamentally bad!» According to Father Nicolas, the world is completely good and kind, either with Christ or without Him. The only difference is that «Christians have a fuller and more conscious trust in God». Really? more so than the Jews, than the Moslems, than the Buddhists?

     Not everyone shares his opinion, as the growing success of Buddhism in France indicates: «According to a recent poll (Psychologies, December 1999), 11% of the French say they have “a religious affinity with Buddhism”.» (La Croix, Wednesday 20 September)

     At the height of the Council, the Abbé de Nantes had already observed, «It has almost become an impiety to speak of the conversion of men “so holy” and of the necessary renunciation of their pagan religion! Modern “missiology” tends to consider Christianity as some kind of mystical reality that invisibly pre-contains all these other religions, which are viewed as being almost on the same level as the Church.» (Lettre à mes amis n^o 191, December 1964, p. 4)

     Such indeed is the thinking of John Paul II today. In his message to the thirteenth international meeting “MEN AND RELIGIONS”, organised in Lisbon by the Community of Saint Egidio, an Italian sect dear to the Pope, «the Pope reaffirmed the spirit of Assisi», according to the headline in La Croix: «In my mind I go back to 1986, when, for the first time, men and women of various religions came together to invoke God’s peace from the hill in Assisi. Such an event could not remain in isolation. It was groundbreaking. It was like a spring from whence new energies of peace began to gush forth.» Let us not ask on what point of the planet this apparent wonder can be verified... The Pope will not cite facts in support of his act of faith; and indeed he would be hard pushed to do so!

     «I am convinced that “the spirit of Assisi” constitutes a providential gift for our times. In the diversity of religious expressions, honestly recognised as such, the fact that one religion can stand alongside another visibly manifests the aspiration to unite the human family. We must all walk together towards this unique goal. I remember when, as a young bishop at the Council of Vatican II, I added my signature to the declaration Nostra ætate, which inaugurated a rich relationship between the Catholic Church, Judaism, Islam and other religions. This conciliar declaration affirms that the Church, “in her task of promoting unity and charity among individuals, and even among nations, first examines what men have in common and what tends to promote fellowship among them”.»

     We can apply to Assisi 1986 what the Abbé de Nantes said of a similar interreligious meeting organised at Nagpur in 1964: «Nagpur was devised to make us forget the ways of perdition along which march in the dark hundreds of millions of human beings in Asia, and this is unpardonable! For, while people are being sold the dream of mystical encounters at the summit, Asia is toppling over into the new form of western barbarity, Communism and its inevitable concomitants, famine, slavery and extermination.»

     We have drawn attention to this observation from the 60’s, because it marks the fulfilment of the Secret of Fatima, the third part of which Our Lady asked to be revealed «before 1960».

     «If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace...»

     What requests? «The consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the reparatory communion of the First Saturdays.»

     There is no need to point out that neither the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary nor the Communion of Reparation were mentioned at Nagpur in 1964 or Assisi in 1986:

     And so we had, not peace, but that which was predicted: «If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world.»

     «INDIA, delivered from the English “occupier”, cuts the throat of hundreds of thousands of Moslems and harries Pakistan, all under the cover of “non-violence”!» our Father wrote in 1964. Such events still make the news today: «The renewal of tensions with Moslem Pakistan and the imposition of economic openness have renewed the religious agitation of Hindu extremists, taking their cue from the BJP, the Hindu party in power. They demand a return to Hinduism pure and simple which would make a clean break with any foreign influence.» (Valeurs actuelles, 28 April 2000)

     India «has reduced our French cities and Portuguese Goa without the world daring to show its indignation», added our Father in 1964. Today, in October 2000, she even wants to impose on Catholics a “patriotic Association” based on the Chinese model. The goal pursued by the Hindus is the expulsion of all foreign missionaries (La Croix, Friday 13 October). For many years now, visas have been required for all Christians, even laymen, who exercise any charitable activity in India.

     «She would readily annex other neighbouring countries if she could», continued our Father in 1964. «China would long ago have allowed her human tide to spill over into India had not that destitute country been more of a burden than a desirable prize. But China is preparing for war and exerting pressure on every one of her frontiers. She swallows Tibet and threatens Vietnam, as she prepares to expand overseas… Are our fine apostles aware of their complicity in these fearsome acts of barbarity by their raptures over “these faces” in which “the features of Christ” appear? The horror attains its acme when this “charity” ends in glorifying the heroic deeds of the Buddhists in Saigon who have gone over to Communism, in opposition to our doubly persecuted Catholic brothers; or else when the Christians of the West untiringly commend Bombay on the supposedly peaceful and tolerant Indian State, before an oppressed Goan population! Once again, as ever, we catch religious dialogue in flagrante delicto, committing treason in the world’s hotspots.» (Lettre n^o 191, p. 6).

     Clearly nothing has changed for thirty-six years. On his return from Rome, Cardinal Etchegaray declared:

     «Ultimately we are talking about just one Church in which a single shared faith gradually seeks to overcome what has, until now, unfortunately separated her “underground” and “official” members.»

     As Guillaume Goubert writes, «it is clearly unprecedented for any senior churchman in the Holy See to publicly declare that there is but one Church in China, including under this one term both the faithful attached to the Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics who do not recognise the authority of the Pope, and those who must live their faith in a clandestine manner by reason of their fidelity to the see of Rome.»

     There is more. The President of the Committee for the Great Jubilee assures us that one can be a member of the Patriotic Association without being cut off from Rome:

     «The fact that I recognised that the Catholics of the official Church are faithful to the Pope (!) does not in any way lessen my recognition of the heroic fidelity of the Church of silence.» (La Croix, Tuesday 26 September)

     These words were surely not pronounced lightly: «More than three days have passed between Cardinal Roger Etchegaray’s return to Rome after his trip to China and his first public declarations made yesterday on Vatican Radio», writes Guillaume Goubert. «There is, therefore, reason to believe that, following exchanges in the Holy See, the Cardinal carefully weighed every word of his intervention.»

     We need only continue our reading of John Paul II’s message to Lisbon, cited earlier, to understand that «fidelity to the Pope» is the prerogative of Chinese Catholics who «dialogue» with the Communist regime, whereas «the heroic fidelity of the Church of silence», which refuses to dialogue, is no longer «fidelity to the Pope». Yet, the Cardinal pays homage to this «heroic fidelity»... But to whom does it relate? To what? The Cardinal does not say. All one is given to understand is that it is an anachronism at this hour of «dialogue»:

     For Pope John Paul II in his message to Lisbon writes, «Today, by the grace of God, this dialogue is no longer just a simple wish; it has become a reality, even if the road before us is a still long one.» Consequently, any refusal to dialogue is tantamount to refusing «the grace of God».

     «We must be all be more daring in order that the men and women of our world, whatever their country or belief, may discover themselves to be the children of the one God and brothers and sisters of one another.»

     Michel Kubler quotes this passage, but he leaves out the words which we have emphasised. Why? Doubtless to attenuate the scandal of the terrible denial they express. But in his commentary he inadvertently draws our attention to this denial by recalling that the meeting organized by the Community of Saint Egidio took place «at Belem, whence once legions of conquistadors and missionaries embarked, agents of a one-world order under the unique sign of Christendom. Today, globalisation rather seeks to welcome every kind of diversity and to unite all men of goodwill, whether believers or not.»

     If it were not for the Secret of Fatima, it would be enough to make one despair. But we need only turn to the vision that constitutes its third part to understand: the Church is collapsing “in ruins” but only “half”, because there is still «the heroic fidelity of the Church of silence», «climbing the mountain, at the top of which there is a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks». There we find the blood of Father Ye Gongfen which the Angels will not allow to fall to the ground:

     «Beneath the two arms of the Cross, there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.»

     Pope John Paul II is only too happy to see himself in the «Bishop dressed in White». It is therefore astonishing that he was not shocked to see the ground tremble in Assisi for the tenth anniversary of the idolatrous celebration of 1986, seeing that at the time he knew the Secret of the «large city half in ruins»...
 

THE CORPSE AND THE SAINT

     Pius IX was beatified by Pope John Paul II for an obvious reason: the pope of the Immaculate was a very great saint (cf. English CRC n^o 333, Sept 2000, p. 13-24)

     And because Pius IX is the Doctor of the Immaculate who crushes all heresies, he is also the Pope of the Syllabus and of the encyclical Quanta cura. Finally, he is also the Pope of papal infallibility as defined at the First Vatican Council. Such is the “logic”, entirely supernatural and holy, of this pontificate, one of the greatest in the Church’s history.

     John XXIII, confronted with the same realities of the modern world, deliberately took the opposite path to Pius IX. Confronted with the Third Secret of Fatima, he declared, «This does not concern the years of my pontificate». Which amounts to saying, «I have no wish to be this “Bishop dressed in White”.

     Like Pius IX, he convened a Council. But Vatican II minimized the privileges of Our Lady, refusing to declare Her the universal Mediatrix of all graces; and he opened the Church to the World, contrary to the condemnations of the Syllabus; he refused to condemn «the errors of Russia». Such was the “logic”, completely human and naturalistic, of this papacy, the most disastrous in the whole history of the Church.

     In the presence of such a contradiction, one would be led to despair if Our Lord God had not given us an indubitable sign to distinguish the saint and the corpse, to use the “symbolic” language of the third part of the Secret of Fatima.
 

     A violent press campaign, orchestrated by the Israeli government, accused Pius IX of anti-Semitism (Jerusalem Post, 3 September).

     In a communiqué published on 27 September, L’AMITIÉ JUDÉO-CHRÉTIENNE DE FRANCE added its own chorus: “the spirit of Assisi” has its obligations! It denounced the «failure» of Pius IX and declared that he incarnated, «particularly in his attitude towards the Jews, the standoff that Catholicism used to obstinately maintain and which, ever since, it has made great efforts to overcome». Recalling the Mortara affair as well as the “anti-Semitic remarks” made by Pius IX, the association considers that the personal piety of the Pope beatified by John Paul II at the beginning of the month cannot «make us forget this failure in the exercise of his responsibilities.» «One cannot regret the crimes of the past and yet honour those who committed them», concluded the association (La Croix, Thursday 28 September 2000).

     At Rome, the chief rabbi of Rome, Elio Toaff was not going to let himself be outdone. In an interview published on 3 September by the Italian daily La Repubblica, he stated in connection with “the Mortara affair”, «It was quite dreadful and it has left a definite mark on the Jewish community.» (La Croix, Friday 22 September)

     The bad faith here is all the more flagrant in that no trace of this charge of anti-Semitism can be found until shortly before the holy Pope was beatified, i.e. until August 2000! But John Paul II does not see anything, does not understand anything. He persists:

     «How can we not thank God for the gift of this reciprocal (!) opening which promises a more profound understanding between the Catholic Church and Judaism, at a time when I still have keen memories of my unforgettable pilgrimage to the Holy Land?»

     No, Pius IX was not anti-Semitic. Mgr Carlo Liberati re-established the truth in two interviews given to the Italian dailies Corriere della Sera and Avvenire: «Pius IX promoted the enfranchisement of the Jews. On the night of 17 to 18 April 1848, he ordered the gates of the ghetto to be taken down. He put an end to the degrading and humiliating tasks that had been assigned to the Jews. He declared that they were not “foreigners” and ordered patrols to be set up to protect them from a popular revolt which had effectively broken out against this emancipation of the ghetto.»

     As for Edgardo Mortara, the two-year old Jewish child secretly baptised on the point of death by a Catholic servant and then raised by the Church against the will of his parents, Mgr Liberati pointed out that «what no one wishes to remember is that when Edgardo Mortara reached the age of adolescence, he was given the freedom to return home. He spent one month with his parents, and then decided to stay in Rome and become a priest. Once ordained, he was reconciled with his parents. Edgardo was one of the first witnesses to pronounce in favour of Pius IX’s beatification, by making a deposition which figures in the canonical process.» (Taken from the European Correspondence n^o 49)

AND THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS?

     The declaration Dominus Jesus, «on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church», published on 5 September by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, caused an uproar: this thirty-six page document, approved by the Pope and signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, affirms that the revelation made by Jesus Christ exists in a complete and definitive form in the Catholic Church, and rejects religious pluralism erected into a principle as contrary to the «definitive and complete nature of the revelation of Jesus Christ»!

     As a sign of protest, the chief rabbinate of Rome immediately cancelled the Day for Judaeo-Christian dialogue, planned for Tuesday 3 October in the Jubilee calendar. It was to be celebrated, in Rome, by a ceremony at the Pontifical Lateran University during which Father George Cottier, the theologian of the Papal Household, and Rabbi Alberto Piatelli, were to take it in turns to express themselves on «THE TRADITION OF THE JUBILEE IN JEWISH AND CATHOLIC CONCEPTIONS.» Those who had been invited to attend this double conference received a letter laconically informing them that the event had been «postponed to a date which remained to be arranged» (La Croix, 22 September).

     According to Guillaume Goubert, the Jews «are sulking». They saw the declaration Dominus Jesus as a «restoration of proselytism», particularly as it makes «no mention of the particular situation of the Jewish religion in regard to the Christian faith – a particular situation that has frequently been stressed by John Paul II down the years, for example in his speech on 31 October 1997, where he affirmed that the Church is “aware of her vital bond with the Old Testament without which the New Testament is itself devoid of meaning.” Or again, in his letter of June 1999 regarding his planned pilgrimage to the Holy Land:

     «“The Great Jubilee will constitute yet one more occasion for us to increase our awareness of the bonds uniting us.”»

     With or without «the Lord Jesus»? or perhaps in opposition to Him and His «inconvenient Cross» (Bossuet)? The idea would seem to be to adjourn sine die the conversion of the Jews prophesied by Saint Paul.

     «The fact that similar teaching was not restated however briefly in Dominus Jesus, might well have caused some perplexity on the Jewish side.

     «On this head, it should be noted that John Paul II implicitly affirmed on Monday that the Catholic Church had not modified her attitude with regard to the Jewish religion. During the reception of the letters of accreditation of Israel’s new ambassador to the Holy See, the Pope, quoting the Vatican II declaration Nostra ætate, declared, “The Church is fully conscience that she draws nourishment from that honest olive-tree onto which the wild olive branches of the Gentiles have been grafted.” The spiritual inheritance common to Christians and Jews is so important and vital to the religious and moral health of the human family, that every effort must be made to continue and develop our dialogue, particularly as it relates to questions of a biblical, theological and ethical nature.»

CHRISTENDOM BETRAYED

     While receiving Israel’s new ambassador, Yosef Neville Lamdan, to the Holy See,  John Paul II referred to his Holy Land pilgrimage as «a testimony which I would especially like to leave to the young people, an invitation to build a new era of relations between Christians and Jews». The Pope repeated the Holy See’s request for a «special internationally guaranteed status» for Jerusalem. But the ambassador replied that the required guarantees are already enshrined in Israeli laws...

     However, the Holy Father and the ambassador found themselves in agreement on one point: that of the mosque in Nazareth. They agreed… not to talk about it! Neither of them mentioned it in their speeches.

     «Once again, as ever, we catch religious dialogue in flagrante delicto, committing treason in the world’s hotspots.» (Lettre à mes amis n^o 191, p. 6, already quoted in connection with China)

     If the Pope wishes to continue his «dialogue» with Israel, he must turn a deaf ear to the appeals made by the Franciscan Custody to the nunciatures, embassies, bishops and Christians of the whole world that the construction of this mosque, undertaken with the authorization of the Israeli government, should cease. It has put the Basilica of the Annunciation into «a state of siege», quite literally.

     «Each day», says Father Battistelli, a Franciscain of the Custody of the Holy Land, «groups occupy the basilica precincts and, at the time of prayer, the place is invaded by hundreds of young Islamists.» During the last few months, they have thrown stones and dead mice at the pilgrims, and they have distributed leaflets insulting and threatening Christians and the Pope, all under the sardonic eye of the Israeli police who are careful not to intervene.

     The decision to build the mosque has, however, been criticised on several occasions by Moslem authorities in Israel and the Arab world. Mr Yasser Arafat himself has let it be known that he was not in favour of it. Nevertheless, «quietly and without fanfare, the preliminary surveys were begun. “We proceeded to survey the area on 4 September, and in two months time we will have the architects’ plans, which will allow us to start work by the end of the year”, stated the deputy mayor of Nazareth, Salman Abou Ahmed, to La Croix.»

     I was astonished to find that La Croix made absolutely no reference to this cry for help from the Custody of the Holy Land. The explanation is all too clear: its correspondent had had a meeting with Salman Abou Ahmed, «the representative of the Israeli Islamic Movement, which has occupied ten of the nineteen seats in the town council since the 1998 poll. His aim is to ensure that the mosque will be built on the 700 m² granted in October 1999 by an Israeli departmental committee.» (La Croix, Monday 25 September)

     The coalition is therefore very solid: everyone is in agreement, and both Moslems and Jews join forces against the Christians of Nazareth. As in China, the Christians are abandoned by all: in Rome the Pope does not breathe a word of this to the Israeli ambassador; in Paris La Croix “informs” its readers, but refuses to take sides...

     If we are to believe the Moslem deputy of the «city’s Communist Christian mayor (!)», «the building will not encroach on the remaining disputed terrain (in all 2,100 m²)», which will be laid out as «a reception area for pilgrims and tourists».

     The fact remains that «for the time being the Islamists occupy the whole area». And who will dislodge them? «We are used to the green flags hoisted by the integrists (Moslems) near our sanctuary (the Basilica of the Annunciation)», said a Christian shopkeeper in the vicinity, «but how can we tolerate the inflammatory speeches of the iman, broadcast on Fridays from the tops of the minarets?»

     Recently, a Christian pilgrim was injured by a stone thrown at her. In April 1994, Nazareth became the theatre of serious scenes of violence stirred up by a group of radical Islamists against the city’s Christians who form half the population: 32,000 of the 75,000 inhabitants.

     At a time when the Holy Land is counting her fatalities and casualties, the Pope invokes peace on Jerusalem: «Before I leave», he declared on Monday 2 October to the pilgrims come for the canonization of the Chinese martyrs, «I wish to tell you of the heaviness that weighs on my mind at this time. Over the last few days, the Holy City of Jerusalem has been the theatre of violent confrontations leading to many deaths and casualties, including children. Close in spirit to the families of those who have lost their lives, I address a heartfelt appeal to all those responsible: let weapons be silent, let all provocation be avoided, and let the path of dialogue be resumed: the Holy Land must be a land of peace and fraternity.»

     If he really wanted to ensure that his words would bring an effective peace to Jerusalem, the Pope had at his disposal an infallible means: all he had to do was to pronounce, along with the fifteen hundred bishops who had come to Rome for the jubilee, the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and to recommend the Reparatory Communion of the First Saturdays.

     And the face of the world would have been renewed!

WHY THIS HATRED FOR THE IMMACULATE?

     The Third Secret of Fatima informs us that this world has only been allowed to continue thanks to the intervention of the Blessed Virgin. Without Her, it would have been engulfed in fire. This was already true in 1917, when the little shepherds saw «an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; it flashed and gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire».

     It was truer in 1944, when Lucy put the Secret into writing; even more so in 1960, the closing date specified by Our Lady for its disclosure; and still more in 1983, the year of a menacing “deadline”. Finally, the fact that it took forty years to reveal this vision despite the insistent requests of Heaven reiterated by Sister Mary Lucy of the Immaculate Heart, indicates a hardness of heart rivalling that of the Hebrew people in the desert, and reveals the ultimate combat between the demon and the Virgin, a «decisive battle» according to the warning given by Lucy to Father Fuentes in 1957: «and a decisive battle is a final battle where we will know on which side lies victory and on which side defeat. Hence, from now on, either we are for God or we are for the devil; there is no middle way.»

     That is to say that we do not have to take sides in the quarrel between the Israelis and the Palestinians, be it only for the possession of a few hundred square metres of the esplanade of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth...

     The enmity between the Virgin and the demon involves the whole world, and it goes back to the very beginning, when Yahweh-God established this «Woman» as the eternal enemy of Satan:

     «I will make you enemies of each other, you and the Woman, your offspring and her offspring.»

     From the very beginning, She is in the presence of God, extinguishing the flames blazing out from the sword of His Anger. But this is not in order to pardon us – and let people stop talking as though it were! It is rather to allow us time to do «penance», as proclaimed by the Angel bearing this sword who «points to the earth with his right hand and cries out in a loud voice:

«PENANCE, PENANCE, PENANCE!»

     Almost as if he knew the contents of this Secret, our Father wrote in 1964 for the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

     «It is You, O brave Mother! who descend to Lourdes and Fatima to warn us of the scourges which threaten our world in revolt. In advance of the Storm, Your apparition warns us to be good!

     «You call Your children, firmly yet tenderly, to the necessary conversion. And even today You compel us to acknowledge that we have not done what we ought, since, although Christians, we continue to spurn Your requests and neglect Your lessons!»

     That was written shortly after the encyclical Ecclesiam suam (6 August 1964), the charter of Paul VI’s pontificate. Nearly forty years have now passed. It is not a simple matter of knowing whether the Consecration has been performed or not. If the answer is affirmative, it must be easy to renew it. Otherwise, it is urgent to finally carry it out in the manner prescribed by Our Lady.

     However, what did we see, what did we hear on that Sunday 8 October 2000? Hour by hour we relived the expectation of 13 May 1967, when «our eyes riveted on the small screen, our heart wrung with anguish, the rosary in our fingers and murmuring in company with the crowd of our brothers down there (the Cova da Iria, visited by Pope Paul VI for the fiftieth anniversary of the apparitions) our sorrowful Ave Maria’s, we awaited the Event of the century...» (Lettre à mes amis n^o 246, 13 May 1967)

     This comparison is all the more striking in that John Paul II had in fact wanted to place this jubilee of the bishops under the sign of Our Lady of Fatima. The statue in the Capelinha had been transported to Rome. In its presence, the Pope addressed the fifteen hundred bishops present, of whom only twenty or so were from France! Like the Jews, they «are sulking», and for the same reasons: the beatification of Pius IX and the declaration Dominus Jesus simply will “not do”...

THE PAPAL COUNTER-MESSAGE

     The Pope made a discreet allusion to this muted faction: «Faced with the relativism and subjectivism that contaminate the majority of contemporary culture, bishops are called upon to defend and promote the doctrinal unity of their faithful.»

     Pope John Paul II speaks about «contemporary culture» where one would rather expect him to demonstrate his concern for the Catholic and apostolic faith, so urgently in need of being «defended». He speaks about «unity» where one rather expect him to show his concern for doctrinal truth, so greatly in need of being «promoted». Especially in the presence of Our Lady of Fatima, who forewarned us of the apostasy from the «dogma of the faith» when She promised that Portugal would constitute an exception and would always preserve this dogma.

     At midday, before the recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father pronounced, along with all the bishops, an ACT OF ENTRUSTMENT to Mary:

     «1. “Woman, behold your Son!” (Jn 19:26). As we near the end of this Jubilee Year, when You, O Mother, have offered us Jesus anew, the blessed fruit of your womb most pure, the Word made flesh, the world’s Redeemer, we hear more clearly the sweet echo of his words entrusting us to you, making You our Mother: “Woman, behold your Son!”

     «When he entrusted to you the Apostle John, and with him the children of the Church and all people, Christ did not diminish but affirmed anew the role which is his alone as the Saviour of the world.»

     Is this the reason for refusing the title of universal Coredemptrix to our Mediatrix of the Immaculate Heart?

     «2. You are the splendour which in no way dims the light of Christ, for You exist in Him and through Him. Everything in You is “fiat”: you are the Immaculate, through you there shines the fullness of grace. Here, then, are your children, gathered before You at the dawn of the new millennium.

     «Today, through the voice of the Successor of Peter…»

     This «today» will be repeated on two occasions, giving the Pope’s prayer a solemnity like that of the Invitatory which we say every night at Matins: «Today, if only you would hearken to his voice.» (Ps 95.7) The voice of the Successor of Peter... The parallel is particularly startling because it occurs to us that it is we who are this people of erring hearts who for «forty years» have saddened God (Ps 95.10).

     «... in union with so many Pastors assembled here from every corner of the world…»

     It was the largest gathering of bishops since Vatican II concluded (on 8 December 1965). It was the perfect opportunity for the Holy Father, and all the bishops with him, to finally perform – «late, but it will never be too late» – what Our Lady asks of him: the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.

     «... the Church seeks refuge in your motherly protection...»

     Here one would expect an invocation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, seeing that Our Lady of Fatima promised Lucy on 13 June 1917: «My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge...» However, not once will Pope John Paul II refer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary throughout the whole of this long prayer.

     All the same, allusions to the third part of the Secret show through on several occasions. For example, in the second paragraph the enumeration of the «widest array of people» come to Rome for the jubilee – «priests and religious, artists and journalists, workers and people of learning, children and adults» – evokes the «Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people, men and women of different ranks and positions» at the end of the Third Secret.

     But the pilgrims of the jubilee year are presented by the Pope as a procession of the happy, rather than as a cohort of martyrs.

     And now we come to «the Act of entrustment»:

     «3. Today we wish to entrust to you the future that awaits us, and we ask you to be with us on our way.»

     In the Third Secret, this «way» is that of a «steep mountain» which is climbed by «a Bishop dressed in White», the Holy Father, «several other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious».

     At the top of this mountain is planted «a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks».

     There is no sign of this here. The Pope will not even refer to the Cross in his prayer. The «way» he is talking about is not the Way of the Cross. It is the «road of man», according to his favourite expression. Of man in all his glory:

     «We are the men and women of an extraordinary time, exhilarating yet full of contradictions.»

     Does that mean that these «men and women» are as «extraordinary» as their «time»? Undoubtedly, for the time conforms to the image of those who make it.

     «Today, humanity possesses instruments of unprecedented power: we can turn this world into a garden, or reduce it to a pile of ashes.»

     The Pope does not speak of the other world but of «this world», this world down here. He speaks neither of Heaven, but rather of a «garden», nor of hell, but rather of a «pile of ashes».

     To make «a garden» of this world is something that is not in anyone’s power: our earlier pages rather suggest that it is on the point of becoming «a kind of animal park roamed by wild beasts, a jungle», as Paul-Marie Coûteaux writes. «Le Figaro recently counted the countries which it is inadvisable to visit, and the list still continues to grow. Such countries are numerous in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Here we find a world where access is forbidden, lands which defy the vision of those who talk flatteringly of a “happy world order”...» (BIENVENUE DANS LA JUNGLE, Valeurs actuelles, 25 August 2000)

     The Third Secret of Fatima, published by order of Pope John Paul II, shows us «at the left of Our Lady and a little higher up, an Angel with a sword of fire in his left hand; it flashed and gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world alight»... Could the Pope have forgotten this already?

     This vision reveals to us that «to reduce the world to a pile of ashes» is in the power not of man but of the Angel of God with his «sword of fire in his left hand» emitting flames. On the other hand, what is in the power of man is to do «penance», through the grace of the Immaculate:

     «... but they were extinguished on contact with the brilliant light that Our Lady radiated against them with Her right hand; pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice:

«PENANCE, PENANCE, PENANCE!»

     But the Pope cares not to speak about penance.

     «Today as never before in the past, humanity stands at a crossroads.» The two possible directions are not those of Heaven or hell; they are those of the «garden» and the «pile of ashes».

     «And once again, O Virgin Most Holy, salvation lies fully and uniquely in Jesus, your Son.»

     In the thinking of the Pope, «salvation» does not consist in avoiding falling into hell and so going to Heaven; it consists in taking the «way» of the «garden» in «this world», and so avoiding the «pile of ashes». That is why this affirmation of salvation in Jesus alone can only arouse the anger of the cabal incensed by the declaration Dominus Jesus. Jews and Moslems, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists all seek to tend the garden of this world in their own way, without any help from Christ, and better than Him!

     But there is something even more serious: the Pope’s affirmation contradicts the central message of Fatima. For we would have expected him to say: «Salvation is entirely and uniquely, O Blessed Virgin, in Your Immaculate Heart!» Which does not take anything away from «Your Son Jesus», as it is He who wills to bring His Mother to the fore. And it is true that this Son appears to take a backseat in the vision of the Third Secret in order to leave full scope to His Mother of the Immaculate Heart. This is undoubtedly the reason why the «Cross of rough-hewn trunks» appears without Christ, like an invitation to the martyrs to mount it themselves. It is the naked Cross of Carmel, which signals to us and awaits our response.

     Whereas the «Lord Jesus», according to Pope John Paul II’s «Act of entrustment», is depicted without His Cross, the Cross in the Third Secret is depicted without Christ, because the Immaculate Heart of Mary has taken over; for the Virgin is fully present, let us not forget: «We saw to the left of Our Lady...» On the other hand, She is absent from Cardinal Ratzinger’s declaration Dominus Jesus. It is difficult to conceive of an antagonism, nay a hatred, more consuming, despite its hidden nature.

     And indeed this is the whole Secret of Fatima, as revealed to the little shepherds on 13 July:

     «You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wants to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart.»

     «God wants», but the Holy Father does not want, and that is our unspeakable misfortune.

     We will therefore end up with the «pile of ashes». As at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The research into “anti-missile missiles” actively being pursued by the Americans along with the Israelis, has the sole object of allowing them to threaten Russia with total impunity, and China into the bargain: one hundred missiles are planned by Washington, to be sure of intercepting the twenty intercontinental missiles available to Peking.

     The project is progressing well, since last June in the desert of New Mexico they managed to destroy in mid-flight a rocket of Russian manufacture, which had been purchased on the black market (Valeurs actuelles, 8 September). This suggests that the United States are not so much seeking to protect themselves from the missile strikes of «less significant countries like North Korea, Iran and tomorrow Iraq, not to speak of India, Pakistan and other potential “proliferators”», but primarily to protect themselves from Russia , and then China.

     «In the meantime, batteries of Patriot systems will be deployed in Israel in December, just in case Saddam Hussein has his own ideas for celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Gulf War.» (ibid.)

     Not just Saddam Hussein, but the whole of the Arab world united against Israel, for Ehud Barak is under no illusions: «Arafat prefers violence, and peace will be impossible to achieve while he is around.» (La Croix, Tuesday 17 October) It is not from the summit at Charm-el-Sheik that peace will come, since, after this 8 October, as the Abbé of Nantes could write back in 1967, shortly after Paul VI’s pilgrimage to Fatima:

     «There is no longer any hope of peace. Everything was tied to the ultimate and mysterious grace expected from this meeting of the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth and his Holy Mother.» (Lettre n^o 246)

     The Six-Day War (5 June 1967) was the answer to the incantatory and blasphemous litanies uttered by Pope Paul VI on 13 May at Fatima: «Men, be men!» The fires of war today «flashing» in the Near East are the direct consequence of that Six-Day War and the conquests that Israel made at the time over the Arab world.

     The continuance of the geopolitical haggling in the Middle East over these last fifty years, is only equalled by the perspicacity of the analysis elaborated by the Abbé de Nantes:

     «The discord (Israelo-Arab) has become both septic and chronic», he observed at a public conference on 22 November 1975. «Two questions worry me: Is it not the case that Kissinger is thinking of creating a Palestinian State by driving the Christians out of the Lebanon, imagining that he will please both parties by this new population expulsion? Furthermore, during the Salt negotiations, did he not arrange for missiles with nuclear warheads to be delivered to the Israelis?» (French CRC n^o 100, December 1975, p. 12)

     This threat still weighs on the world today and «looks as if it were going to set it alight», through the fault of Pope John Paul II, the spiritual son of Paul VI, who has once again stifled the insistent voice of Mary, the Help of Christians and Refuge of sinners.

THE TRUE SECRET

     In his Letter of 15 August 1964, from which we have already quoted, our Father raised his mind with fervour and tenderness towards the Blessed Virgin, in a way which could, and which should, have been that of Pope John Paul II on Sunday 8 October 2000:

     «It is You, O Queen, who invite us to raise our eyes towards the Kingdom of Heaven whither You have ascended to enter the presence of the glorious Jesus. From the visions of the Apocalypse to the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption, You appear as the Ark of the Covenant and, as the fearful clouds gather at the end of time, You show Yourself as the Rainbow of peace offered once more to men. You divert our gaze from the seductions of the Serpent. Your secret, finally revealed, is that of a creature forgetful of Herself and preserved for God alone, a creature whom God has magnificently exalted.»

     In 1964 the Third Secret had still not been revealed, although it should have been in 1960, but the first two parts had been published, and these as well as the conversation between Sister Lucy and Father Fuentes (1957) were enough to give Our Lady’s devout servant a presentiment of its contents:

     «Your lesson saves us from the mirages of Antichrist, who is the opposite of You in every way. You are the Spouse of the eternal Wedding Feast, whereas he seeks to reduce us to the slavery of the earthly City.

     «You are the fruitful Virgin with whom refuge is found by the humble and penitent, by good Christians and those who would wish to be so, by a multitude out of all races and languages who have believed in the Saviour and hoped in His grace, by all men of good will who have finally been reunited, while against You and against Jesus rages a World roused to fury by Satan.» (Lettre à mes amis n^o 179, 15 August 1964)

     As though he had entered surreptitiously into the Heart of Mary Immaculate, our Father had drawn up, without realising it, the list of those who are inscribed therein, «the souls making their way to God» of the Third Secret: «Beneath the two arms of the Cross, there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.»

     The 13^th October 2000, the anniversary of the sixth apparition of Our Lady at Fatima and of the miracle of the sun, was not marked by any special celebration in Rome. On the other hand, on Thursday 12 October, while at Fatima people were preparing for the blessed vigil around the statue recently returned from Rome, Mrs Ludmila Putin visited the Orthodox monastery at Pskov, in the north of Russia, on the occasion of its feast. The Italian daily Corriere della Sera reports that the Russian president’s wife arrived quite unexpectedly. The prior was absent. She visited the catacombs and spent some time in personal prayer, before assisting at the sacred liturgy along with some of her entourage.

     It may have been an insignificant event, but news of it went round the world, because Ludmila is the wife of Vladimir Putin. Now Putin is «the first Russian Head of State since Nicholas II to openly declare himself a Christian, to make the sign of the cross before the cameras, to kiss the cross, go to confession and receive communion.» (Victor Loupan, Le défi russe, published by Syrtes 2000, p. 145)

     The designs of the Immaculate Heart of Mary are being fulfilled before our very eyes. From Russia we will receive no longer devastation, war and genocide, but peace, a peace that is Christian and... Catholic!

     «In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted and a certain period of peace will be given to the world.»

     Vladimir Putin declared on 1 February: «The contemporary world lives under the sign of two major events: the entry of humanity into the third millennium, and the celebration of two thousand years of Christianity. In my opinion, behind the great interest aroused by these events and the attention given them, lies something far more profound than the practice of celebrating important dates.» (ibid., p. 207)

     After the foolish celebrations of this jubilee year, the true opening of the new era lies before us: 2001, year 1 of the restoration of the Empire of Jesus Christ, Kingdom of Mary. Through the voice of Our Lady of Fatima, God our Father repeats to us the oracle of the Prophet Ezekiel addressed to apostate Jerusalem in the 6^th century BC. Comparing her to Samaria and Sodom, He holds her up to shame: «Throughout your career you have shown yourself more corrupt than they were.» (Ez 16.47) Then the prophet unveiled the Secret of the Heart of God which has crossed history and come down to us through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. All we need do is make the following transposition: read Peking and Moscow for Sodom and Samaria, and Paris and Rome for Jerusalem:

     «I will restore them. I will restore Sodom and her daughters. I will restore Samaria and her daughters; and, after that, I will restore you along with them, that you may bear your shame and be ashamed of all you have done, and so console them.» (Ez 16.53-54)

Brother Bruno of Jesus