Sr. Lucia Insisted Upon the Consecration of Russia – Appendix I

The Fatima Crusader Issue 132 – Appendix I

A Compendium of Consistent Testimonies Evidencing Sister Lucia Insisted Upon the Consecration of Russia


Introduction

While there is evidence that a woman who appeared as Sister Lucia on a few occasions (beginning in 1967) was an impostor, nothing this impostor said or did invalidate the Message of Fatima, all the elements of which were in place prior to 1960. Moreover, there is substantial evidence that the real Sister Lucia dos Santos was alive and saying things that contradicted the Vatican’s false narrative through 1989.

The 132nd Issue of The Fatima Crusader, published in the Spring of 2024, addresses the issue of A ‘Fake’ Sister Lucia? (request your copy at the Fatima.org/shop/). Given the space limitation of the magazine, much relevant evidence could not be included. Therefore, Appendix I and Appendix II, which would fittingly have been included in Chapter 5, are published here. The compendium of these testimonies helps demonstrate that Sister Lucia was alive until at least 1989. Her consistent witness to the simple but precise conditions of Heaven’s request for the Consecration of Russia is a sure key to recognizing Our Lady of Fatima’s true chosen witness.

We also encourage the interested researcher to carefully read through our booklet The Fatima Timeline. It supplies much information that we were unable to include in Chapter 6 of A ‘Fake’ Sister Lucia? (The Fatima Crusader Issue 132).

No one has questioned the authenticity of Sister Lucia’s testimony in the 1940s and 1950s. It is important to become familiar with this testimony in order to recognize its consistency with the testimony she provided in later years.

Context

In October 1940 Sister Lucia’s confessor, Don Manuel Ferreira, the Bishop of Gurza, knew that the August 1, 1935 request of Our Lord through Alexandrina da Costa for a consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary was favorably looked upon in the Vatican, particularly by Pope Pius XII (who as Cardinal Pacelli had been closely involved in its investigation).

Convinced that his efforts to persuade Pope Pius XII to comply with the Fatima request were all but hopeless, he sought to combine the request of Our Lady of Fatima with Our Lord’s different request for a consecration of the world (to shorten the duration of the Second World War). And so, Don Ferreira ordered Sister Lucia to write to the Holy Father, asking him to consecrate the world with a special mention of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Sister Lucia, greatly disturbed by this order but bound to obey her confessor, realized the inevitable confusion that would come from her own involvement in this initiative. On October 22, 1940, at a loss for how to proceed, she spent two hours before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, and at last received a special communication from Heaven. It was indeed God’s will that she ask the Pope for the consecration of the world, but it was not to be confused with the Consecration sought by Our Lady of Fatima. Rather, Our Lord’s object in His request for the consecration of the world was to shorten the duration of the Second World War:

“His Holiness will obtain an abbreviation of these days of tribulation if he takes heed of My wishes by promulgating the Act of Consecration of the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special mention of Russia.” [1]

The distinction between these two consecrations was further emphasized by Our Lord two years later, on an unspecified date shortly after Pius XII had at last made that consecration of the world on October 31, 1942. Speaking to her during a Thursday night holy hour between 11 p.m. and midnight, Our Lord renewed His promise to turn the course of the war in response to the Pope’s act. But the conversion of Russia and world peace would still await the fulfillment of Our Lady’s request for the Consecration of Russia. In a letter of February 28, 1943 to her confessor, Archbishop Don Manuel Ferreira, Bishop of Gurza, Sister Lucia wrote:

“The Good Lord has already shown me His contentment with the act performed by the Holy Father and several bishops, although it was incomplete according to His desire. In return, He promises to end the war soon. The conversion of Russia is not for now.” [2]

Thus, it was clear – and should still be clear – that a consecration of the world cannot satisfy the Fatima request. From the beginning, Heaven has regarded these as two different requests, for different ends, and made through two different seers: Bl. Alejandrina and Ven. Sister Lucia.

Our Lady of Fatima’s request for the Consecration of Russia is Our Lord’s inflexible will for His Church, without which He absolutely will not grant the conversion of Russia or peace in the world. Our Lord’s request for the consecration of the world was a distinct, interim measure by which the length (and possibly the projected outcome) of World War II was mercifully changed.

But as Sister Lucia rightly feared, this distinction was blurred by her involvement in the request for the consecration of the world. Many voices – whether purposely deceiving or innocently deceived – began to misrepresent the Fatima request to correspond to the act of Pius XII. For the rest of her days, Sister Lucia did all she could to make the truth clear, as evidenced in the following testimonies.

  1. Prof. William Thomas Walsh (1946)

The eminent historian and author William Thomas Walsh interviewed Sister Lucia on July 15, 1946, in connection with his book, Our Lady of Fatima, and he asked her to clarify Our Lady’s request in this regard. He wrote:

“Lucia made it plain that Our Lady did not ask for the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart. What She demanded specifically was the consecration of Russia. … She did not comment, of course, on the fact that Pope Pius XII had consecrated the world, not Russia, to the Immaculate Heart in 1942. But she said more than once, and with deliberate emphasis: ‘What Our Lady wants is that the Pope and all the bishops in the world shall consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart on one special day. If this is done, She will convert Russia and there will be peace. If it is not done, the errors of Russia will spread through every country in the world.’” [3]

  1. Father Thomas McGlynn (1949)

Fr. Thomas McGlynn, O.P., was an American sculptor who had been commissioned to carve a statue of Our Lady for the great façade of the basilica at the Fatima Shrine. In the course of his work on the statue, he had many opportunities to speak with Sister Lucia, and he wrote a book in 1949 about his visits with her. At one point in their discussions, Fr. McGlynn asked her to confirm or correct the wording of the first two parts of the Secret as they had been published in English, as his translator, Fr. Gerard Gardiner, read it aloud to her. When Our Lady’s request was repeated, phrased as if She had said, “I ask for the consecration of the world…,” Sister Lucia interrupted him at once and energetically corrected him, saying, “No! Not the world! Russia! Russia!” [4]

  1. Italian Bishops’ Conference (1952)

In the book Il Pellegrinaggio della Meraviglie,[5] published under the auspices of the Italian Episcopate, a little-known revelation of Our Lady of Fatima to Sister Lucia is recounted. The Virgin Mary appeared to Sister Lucia in May 1952 and said:

“Make it known to the Holy Father that I am always awaiting the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart. Without the Consecration, Russia will not be able to convert, nor will the world have peace.” [6]

  1. Unnamed Correspondent (1952)

On July 7, 1952, Pope Pius XII published his Apostolic Letter Sacro vergente anno. This letter was addressed to all Russians. In it he wrote, “We consecrate and in a most special manner We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate Heart.” This effort was a consecration of Russia without any public ceremony and without the participation of the bishops. Shortly afterwards, Sister Lucia wrote: “I also thank you for the magazine clipping which reports the consecration of Russia. I am pained that it still has not been done as Our Lady requested it.” [7]

  1. Father Umberto Pasquale (1978, 1980)

On May 12, 1982, the day before the attempted 1982 consecration, L’Osservatore Romano (Italian edition) published an interview of Sister Lucia titled “Restero nel museo del mundo a ricordare la misericordia di Dio,” which had been conducted by a Salesian priest, Father Umberto Maria Pasquale, on August 5, 1978. He was a long-time friend of the seer, as he noted in this same article:

“I have been the confidante of the seer of Fatima since 1939, when she was still a Dorothean Religious at Tuy, until now. I have received from her 157 letters. I have seen her again and have paid her visits several times as confessor of a community of religious in the college of Sardao near Porto, then later in the Carmel of Coimbra. She has the goodness to consider me as a member of her family, for having helped her mother and for having had her nephew come into the Salesian order, as well as two cousins, nephews of Jacinta and Francisco.”

Sister Lucia told Father Umberto in no uncertain terms that Our Lady had not requested the consecration of the world in general, but of Russia specifically, and only Russia:

“I wanted to clarify the question of the consecration of Russia, in having recourse to the source. On August 5, 1978, in the Carmel of Coimbra, I had a lengthy interview with the seer of Fatima, Sister Lucia. At a certain moment I said to her: ‘Sister, I should like to ask you a question. If you cannot answer me, so be it. But if you can answer it, I would be most grateful to you, for you to clear up a point for me which does not appear clear to many people … Has Our Lady ever spoken to you about the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart?’

“‘No, Father Umberto! Never! At the Cova da Iria in 1917, Our Lady had promised: I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia … to prevent the spreading of her errors throughout the world, wars among several nations, persecutions against the Church… In 1929, at Tuy, as She had promised, Our Lady came back to tell me that the moment had come to ask the Holy Father for the consecration of that country (Russia).’” [Emphasis in original.]

In order to have a written declaration from Sister Lucia to this effect, Father Pasquale later addressed the same question to her: “Has Our Lady ever spoken to you about the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart?” Her reply (a handwritten note dated April 13, 1980) was first published in that same year in a pamphlet produced by Cavaleiro da Imaculado titled Mensageira de Jesus para a consagraçao do mundo ao Imaculado Coraçao de Maria:

Reverend Father Umberto,

In replying to your question, I will clarify:

Our Lady of Fatima, in Her request, referred only to the consecration of Russia.

In the letter which I wrote to the Holy Father Pius XII – through the direction of my confessor – I asked for the consecration of the world with explicit mention of Russia.

Yours all devotedly and in union of prayers.
Coimbra 13 IV – 1980
(signed) Sr. Lucia [8]

 

Read more in Appendix II.


ENDNOTES:

[1] Père António Maria Martins, S.J., Documentos de Fatima, Porto, 1976, p. 467, cited in Frère Michel, The Whole Truth About Fatima, vol. II, p. 732.

[2] Père António Maria Martins, S.J., Fatima e o Coraçao de Maria, ed. Loyola, Sao Paulo, 1984, pp. 104-105; cited in The Whole Truth About Fatima, vol. III, p. 18.

[3] William Thomas Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima, MacMillan Co., New York, 1947, p. 226. Emphasis in original.

[4] Fr. Thomas McGlynn, O.P., Vision of Fatima, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1949, p. 213; reprinted by Sophia Institute Press, 2017, p. 77.

[5] Il pellegrinaggio delle meraviglie [A Pilgrimage of Wonders], Cura Del Comitato Nazionale Mariano, Ars Graphica Presbyterium, 1st Ed. 1960, p. 440.

[6] The Whole Truth About Fatima, vol. III, p. 327.

[7] Fr. Alonso, Marie sous le symbole du Coeur, Téqui, 1973, p. 56, and Fátima ante la Esfinge, “Sol de Fatima” Press, Madrid, 1979, p. 120; cited in The Whole Truth About Fatima, vol. III, p. 337.

[8] See Frère François, Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 218-220.

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