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The News
Not Fit to Print?
 At Fatima, the Blessed
Virgin Mary predicted that Russia would be God's chosen instrument of
chastisement, warning that unless Her requests were granted (especially
concerning the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart), that that "poor
nation" would spread its errors throughout the world, enslaving millions and
leading to the annihilation of many nations.
In
recent years, a lively and at times acrimonious debate has ensued within
Catholic circles concerning whether, in fact, the consecration of the
world made by Pope John Paul II in 1984 fulfilled the requirements set
forth by the Blessed Mother sixty-seven years earlier. One of the strongest
arguments advanced by those who believe that it did has been the dramatic
series of political changes that occurred across Eastern Europe in the late
1980s and early 90s. Organizations like The Blue Army and Father Robert Fox's
Fatima Family Apostolate have publicly affirmed their belief that the "collapse
of Communism" and break-up of the Soviet Bloc were the direct result of the
Pope's fulfillment of Our Lady's request for the consecration of Russia to Her
Immaculate Heart.
Critics of this position (most notably, Father Nicholas Gruner) have argued
that the 1984 event did not and could not have fulfilled the Virgin of
Fatima's request. Writing not long after the Pope's consecration ceremony,
Father Gruner noted:
By its very nature, the consecration
of Russia will be a fact of objective history which should be easy enough to
establish. Simply speaking, the consecration requires that the Pope order all
the Catholic bishops of the world to, on the same day and at the same hour,
solemnly and publicly pronounce a common prayer consecrating Russia to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary.
No
such event has ever taken place. That is, no Pope has ever ordered the bishops
to consecrate Russia and no Pope has ever sent a common prayer to the world's
bishops that explicitly and specifically consecrates Russia (and only
Russia).
Father Gruner's stalwart insistence that the 1984 consecration of
the world did not fulfill the Blessed Virgin's request has earned him
considerable enmity from many sides, particularly from within the official
bureaucracy of the Church. His most ardent detractors continue to maintain that
the changes within the former Soviet Union are positive proof that he and
others are wrong and that the "conversion" of Russia, promised by Our Lady at
Fatima, is in fact well underway.
In
response, we wish to offer the following excerpt from a short article that ran
in the December 2 issue of The Nation, a journal that is generally
conceded to be among the most left-wing publications in the United States:
From
"THE NATION"
December 2,
1997
"For the first time in our memory, The New York
Times...did not see fit to print any news from Russia on the anniversary of
the 1917 Revolution, even though this eightieth anniversary generated some
highly significant political developments.
Here
are a few things the Times might have reported. In the weeks and days
leading up to November 7, the Russian national press was filled with
fascinating, soul-searching, across-the-spectrum discussion of the meaning of
the Revolution for the country's past and present. It also published opinion
polls showing that popular esteem for 1917 has grown in recent years and that a
clear plurality of Russians continues to have a anticapitalist, socialist
views. On the day before the anniversary, Boris Yeltsin made an unprecedented
personal visit to the Communist-dominated Parliament, where he gave a
prestigious state award to its Communist speaker for "services to the
fatherland." On November 7 itself, despite bad weather, street demonstrations
in Moscow and elsewhere appear to have been the largest and most militant in
years.
None
of these events or their possible meanings were reported by the Moscow bureau
of the Times."
Related Articles:
Father Nicholas Gruner
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