This Apocalyptic Age

THIS
APOCALYPTIC

A commentary on
prophecies relating

to our times

and their portents

ROBERT BERGIN

This Apocalyptic Age

FIRST AUSTRALIAN EDITION

Revised and Enlarged

Vr;>:

THIS

APOCALYPTIC

AGE

A commentary on prophecies
relating to these times . . .
AND THEIR PORTENTS

By ROBERT BERGIN

Published by

Fatima International

Australia: Box 1579 G.P.O. Brisbane

U.S.A.: P.O. Box 8947 Richmond, Va. 23225

England: P.O. Box 5 Cheadle, Staffs.
Rep. Sth. Africa: P.O. Box 3354 Johannesburg

Copyright © Voice of Fatima International

First Edition November 1970, 30,000

copies

Secpnd Impression April 1971, Calcutta,

India. 5,000 copies

Revised Edition July 1971, 30,000 copies

Revised Edition June 1972, 20,000 copies

Revised Edition June 1973, 35,000 copies

2nd Impression Rev. Edition 50,000 copies

This Apocalyptic Age now available in

Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Printed in Australia at

The Griffin Press, Netiey, S.A. 5037.

DEDICATED

with great affection
to the youth of the world

in the hope

that they will find herein

the solution to the riddle of existence

and unlock for themselves

the secrets of the last ends of man

The Author

'Greater than the tread of mighty armies
is an idea whose time has come.'

Victor Hugo

CONTENTS

1. Preface 9

2. Death of a Civilisation 10

3. "Despise Not Prophecies" 14

4. The Beast Unchained? 18

5. Persecution 22

6. The Significance of Error 26

7. The Uncertain Future 29

8. The Basis in Scripture 33

9. A Great Red Dragon 39

10. An Elite Corps 41

11. Recent History 45

12. The Meaning of Creation 48

13. The Search for Happiness 54

14. The Apostasy in Politics 57

15. Problems on Campus 61

16. The Great Ideal 65

17. The Existence of God 69

18. Miracles 72

19. Learning from the Past 74

20. The New Crusade 78

21. The Quest for Peace 84

22. Can War be Justified? 87

23. Ecumenism 91

24. The Psychopaths 95

25. "Certain Fashions . . ." 98

26. The Only Tragedy 102

27. The World Religions 105

28. The Doctrine of Love 108

29. A Challenge 111

30. The Permissive Society 1 14

31. A Call to Youth 118

32. Authority in the Church 121

33. Fatima's Doctrinal Importance 126

34. Salute to Portugal 129

35. The Story of Fatima 132

36. The Secrets of Fatima 139

37. The Church and Fatima 144

38. Documentation 147

39. Conclusion 152

PREFACE

Nothing is so irresistible, it is said, as an idea whose time
has come. It could be said that Marx, Engels and their
fellow-conspirators seemed relatively powerless a century ago.
But they were promoting an "idea whose time had come" —
the dialectical materialism which was to blend with an age of
apostasy. Its success was inevitable, given the spiritual con-
dition of the people. Today there is, on the contrary, a wide-
spread hunger for religion. The Prodigal Son is thinking of his
Father's house. His stomach revolts against the materialistic
husks that are fit only for swine. He suffers a hunger of the
soul, seeks a new inspiration, a new gospel, a new light to lead
him to happiness and peace. The Prodigal Son looks back for
the embrace of his Father. And that embrace is offered to
him.

The "idea" outlined in these pages is a precious spiritual
antibiotic which can rapidly and efficiently eliminate the
massive world infection of today.

It is truly the light that can dissipate the darkness of war
and hatred threatening the modern world. It is the way that
can lead to peace, to the peace that surpasses understanding.

At this stage, we would ask all who read to lift up their
hearts to the Supreme Being with words such as these:

"Lord God, open my mind and my heart so that I may
understand these things"

DEATH OF A CIVILISATION

As we move to the later stages of the 20th century there looms
a clear crisis in human relations characterised by constant
friction, constant wars, riots, rising crime., vandalism, racial
disorders, serious sociological convulsions of all kinds. There
is also, hospitals report, a neurological breakdown, indicating
that nervous tensions have reached an all-time high in re-
corded history.

We appear to be moving towards a climactic hour. Without
question the Judeo-Christian civilisation of our forefathers
is in extremis. A world is dying; a world is being born.

It was the 1 3th century, according to the historians, which
saw our Christian civilisation at its zenith. The Church had
passed through the Dark Ages, and the spiritual genius of
Dominic and Francis, the brilliant scholarship of Albert and
Aquinas were illuminating Europe, giving that continent an
intellectual" eminence and a refinement in "ethics and aesthet-
ics' that became the glory of the world.

The civilization was necessarily relative. Europeans still had
their free will. As always, men could choose the refinement of
divine grace; or they could reject it. What distinguished the
13th century was that so many chose to ratify the vows their
sponsors had made for them in baptism: so many chose io
accept Christ, to reject the devil u and all his works and
pomps". It was a mass movement towards the Light in Europe,
and it was to influence, greatly, the whole world.

Almost as it reached its pinnacle. Christian civilisation be-
gan to decline. The Renaissance, with its magnificent art and

10

architecture, was the acknowledged product of a Christian
ethos. Some of its early poets, rejoicing in the new culture but
failing to see the Divine benevolence behind it, began to
rhapsodise in terms of man's inevitable progress. The seeds
of the secular humanism of today were being sown. God was
being told, in mild terms suited to the times, that He was not
indispensable.

The 14th century, with its rising tempo of wars between
Christian States, the exile of the Popes at Avignon and the
scandal of two — and later three— claimants to the throne of
St. Peter confirmed the decline.

The 15th century saw the appearance of serious and wide-
spread corruption in the clergy and a loss of spirit in the great
Religious Orders. Occam, Wycliffe and others were sounding
a warning of a widespread revolt that was to come.

And, in the 16th century, the storm burst in all its fury.
Luther, Calvin, Knox, Henry VIII, all struck violent blows
at the seamless robe of Christian unity. Thenceforward, there
would no longer be one flock and one shepherd.

The catastrophic plunge downward continued with the re-
ligious wars of the 17th century, with subtle attacks on the
magisterium by heresies like Jansenism and Gallicanism —
immanent heresies as they are called today — heresies that stay
within.

The lights of Europe's Christian civilisation were going out.
The darkness grew worse in the 18th century when forces
truly diabolical were unleashed to attack the greatly enfeebled
"Institutional Church".

Christian civilisation has never really recovered from the
deadly blows delivered against it in the 18th century by Vol-
taire and the other forces of "enlightenment". The successful
plottings of the secret societies and the penetration of Europe's
most Catholic States by the new scepticism led to the suppres-
sion T>f the Jesuits, shock troops of the Church and its most
ardent defenders of doctrinal orthodoxy. Christian princes in
all the major states of Europe connived with the secret
societies to ruin the Church.

When the revolutionaries led France to officially apostatise
in the last decade of the 18th century, there was clear evidence
of a diabolic presence of considerable power in Christian
civilisation. It was a devil, we were to be told later, that could
be cast out only by prayer and penance.

The 19th century was to see the rise of Karl Marx, prophet

11

of Antichrist, acclaimed by his followers as "the man who will
drag down this God from His heaven." There was a wide-
spread collapse of faith and morals, a cancer of the spirit in
the form of secular humanism and moral relativism spreading
across the face of Christian Europe. In the gathering darkness
there were flashes of light, augurs of a great illumination to
come. In 1830 Our Lady appeared to St. Catherine Laboure
at Rue du Bac in Paris; again in 1846 She appeared at La
Salette, and again in 1 858, to St. Bernadette at Lourdes. Again
she appeared at Pontmain in 1871. Curiously, all four ap-
paritions took place in France where the infernal enemy had
thrown down the gauntlet in the dying years of the preceding
century. The gauntlet was clearly accepted on behalf of the
forces of Light by the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was a sign
of a direct confrontation of enormous significance between
Heaven and Hell, a battle of apocalyptic proportions between
the Woman of Prophecy (Gen. 3:15) and the infernal serpent
It was to rise to a crescendo that would shake the pillars of
Christendom and throw all creation into turmoil; it presaged
a struggle unique in human history as good and evil came to
wrestle, in a single, global, titanic contest for the soul of
modern man.

The dawn of the 20th century was a red dawn, red with the
promise of blood and violence on a scale unparalleled in his-
tory.

The full significance of the work of Luther, of Voltaire, of
Karl Marx began to show itself. The darkness became pro-
found. Men were no longer able to perceive what was for their
good, no longer knew why they were created, lacked the
faith to rejoice at the good news of Redemption.

The richest soil, wrote the philosopher Plutarch, unculti-
vated, produces the rankest weeds. This Christian civilisation
was rich soil indeed, uncultivated now by the Divine grace of
former days. It would soon produce the rank weeds of Nazism
and Communism, the gas chamber and the concentration
camp, cruelty and atrocities on a scale that would defy
description.

As decade followed decade the darkness would become
more profound; wars were to follow one another with mo-
notonous regularity, and, as weapons became more "sophisti-
cated", with increasing devastation.

Into the gathering darkness came a brilliant ray of light,
a special grace to "waken the slumbering ages" to recall this

12

Christian civilisation to its past greatness. The light came, cut-
ting a brilliant path across the darkened world. There was a
celestial vision, a heavenly voice, a staggering solar phe-
nomenon . . . and silence,

A series of prophecies had been made, telling mankind what
its future was to be. It was the year 1917.

And the announcement told us of the last agonising hours
of the collapse of a Christian civilisation.

But it gave us also the sensational news that mankind was
moving into a new Christian social order, into a time of major
triumph for the Cross. It was to be a victory that would reach
to the uttermost ends of the earth and see fulfilled the visions
and dreams of saints and mystics.

The voice spoke of a new era of peace, of the fulfillment of
prophecies uttered by God Himself in the earthly paradise.

It was to be the climax of history.

Please Note

Readers who are unacquainted with the story of Fatima
are advised to turn at this stage to Chapter 33 for the outline
of the events that happened here.

"DESPISE NOT PROPHECIES"

(1 Thess. 5.20)

It might be expected that so great a confrontation between
good and evil as that which we are witnessing today would

13

have been referred to by the prophets and mystics of the
Church.

In fact the coming of some great worldwide spiritual con-
vulsion is noted in very many prophecies and private revela-
tions. And there looms in some of these prophecies, the
ominous figure of the Antichrist.

We will try to co-relate here three remarkable prophecies
which may well bear on these extraordinary times in which
we are living. Each of these complements and supports the
others, and each is unmistakably an authentic prophecy. They
are (a) the prophecies of St. Paul in the second chapter of
II Thessalonians (b) the prophecies of St. Louis de Montfort
and (c) the prophecies of Fatima made in our own century.

St. Paul, in his second epistle to the Thessalonians, makes
a prophetic allusion to a significant age to come. It is the age
of Antichrist, as he makes clear. And the prophecy is of ex-
ceptional importance because it is Scriptural. St, Paul tells us
in II Thessalonians that the "man of sin, the son of perdition"
will "oppose and {he) lifted up against all that is called God
or that is worshipped" St. Paul tells us that his coming is
according to the working of Satan in all power and signs and
lying wonders and in ail the seduction of iniquity to them that
perish, This "seduction of iniquity" is glaringly obvious in the
modern world's obsessive preoccupation with sex and carnal
pleasures, a preoccupation that carries with it an abandon-
ment of and even contempt for God. St. Paul gives us one
more important clue as to the times of the Antichrist. He tells
us that God will punish men by sending them "the operation
of error to believe lying" and he says this is in punishment for
their "not having received into their hearts a love of the
truth."

The Incredible success of Communist propaganda through-
out the world could be explained in this way for it is against
all reason.

The record of Communism's murders and brutality since
1917 is unparalleled in history. Yet men are still deceived by
it and millions give it their allegiance.

Clearly St. Paul's prophecy is being fulfilled to the letter.
Our Lord is sending men "the operation of error to believe
lying'* because they have not received into their hearts a love
of the truth.

In regard to this extraordinary age, St. Paul gives us the
following chronology of events: (a) a widespread revolt

14

against the Cross; (b) the appearance of the Antichrist who
opposes and is "lifted up above all that is called God or that
is worshipped so that he sitteth in the temple of God shewing
himself as if he were God." (II Thess. 2.4.); (c) the Lord
Jesus shall slay him with the breath of His Spirit and destroy
him with the brightness of His coming. (II Thess. 2.8).

Because this prophecy is Scriptural, directly inspired by the
Holy Spirit and part of public Revelation, it is more impor-
tant than any other.

Nevertheless the prophecies of saints and Ecclesiastically
approved private revelations are of tremendous importance,
particularly as they throw a clear light on this prophecy of
St. Paul and are in harmony with it. As will be seen, the
prophecies of St. Louis de Montfort seem to bear clearly on
this age and give us exceptional illumination as to its sig-
nificance. They were probably written around 1711. St. Louis,
in his Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin lays
down the following sequence of events: (a) Persecution of
the Church, widespread in his own time would continue and
develop until it became general and universal under the Anti-
christ; (b) At the height of the reign of Antichrist, the "power
of Mary" would break out against the devils.. By the power of
the Holy Spirit, Mary would crush the head of the serpent.
This, according to St. Louis, would be the actual fulfillment of
the ancient prophecy in the third chapter of Genesis; (c)
There will be a mass return to the Catholic Church; (d)
Christ will reign in the hearts of men by grace in a period of
major triumph for the Church. St, Louis emphasises that, just
as Christ came to us personally through Mary, so also will
He come by grace through Mary in this period of His triumph
on earth. St. Louis constantly refers to these events as happen-
ing at or towards the ''tvA of the world" or in "the latter
times". He uses these terms repeatedly so as to indicate that
these world-shaking events are to be ih^ climax of kaman
history.

The prophecies of St. Louis are of exceptional Imooriance
because he claimed to be writing under tho inspiration of the
Holy Spirit in his famous Treatise in which the prophecies are
made. His subsequent canonisation and the fulfillment aVady
of the main outline of his prophecies indicate that the Holy
Spirit did indeed speak through him.

It should be emphasized that St. Louis' propheciss have a
distinctive importance in that (a) they tell us of continually

15

increasing attacks by the devil culminating in the reign of
Antichrist; (b) they add a new and significant dimension to
the whole drama by telling us that the subsequent triumph of
Our Lady is to be the fulfilment of the most ancient of all
prophecies made by God the Father to the serpent rejoicing
in the downfall of our First Parents. "/ shall put enmities
between thee and the Woman and thy seed and Her seed. She
shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for Her heel".
(Gen. 3.15).

We find Our Lady's prophecies at Fatima in complete har-
mony with those of St. Paul and St. Louis. They have a special
importance because they relate to this century and clearly
and unmistakably speak of our times.

Several of the Fatima prophecies have already been ful-
filled. Some are yet to be fulfilled.

In the second apparition, Our Lady told the children
that the two younger seers would "die soon" whilst Lucia, the
eldest, would live on to help spread, in the Church, the devo-
tion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. At the Jubilee cele-
brations, in May 1967, Lucia stood in a place of honour
beside the Pope as Sister Mary of the Immaculate Heart
O.D.C. The two younger seers had died within two and a
half years of the final apparition.

But the major prophecies of Fatima were given in the July
13 apparition. There, after asking for the daily recitation of
the rosary and for a heartfelt conversion and consecration by
Christians to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Vision ut-
tered the following prophetic words.

"// my wishes are fulfilled, Russia will be converted and
there will be peace; if not, then Russia will spread her errors
throughout the whole world causing wars and persecutions of
the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will
have much to suffer, certain nations will be annihilated . . .
but in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph, Russia
will be converted and an era of peace will be conceded to the
world.' 9

There is an obvious similarity in this chronology of events
to those outlined by St. Paul and St. Louis. Our Lady does not
refer to the Antichrist whereas St. Paul and St. Louis do. But
then the full message of Fatima has not been made known for
the famous "third secret" is still hidden in the Vatican archives

16

and has not been made known. It is at least possible that
it could refer to the Antichrist.

The revelations of Fatima indicate very clearly that these
tremendous events are with us today, that the great climax
could well occur in our own lifetime — that it may even be
imminent

There are dozens, possibly even hundreds, of other pro-
phecies which support the outline of events recorded in the
three major revelations given above.

According to some reports Our Lady referred to the Anti-
christ in the secret of La Salette (1846) and announced that
his reign would occur in the twentieth century.

The Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, the Roman mystic of the
early 19th century, saw a time of great peril and darkness for
the Church followed by an unprecedented Christian triumph.
Her biographers indicate that this would occur in the second
half of the 20th century. Pere Lamy, a mystic of this century,
who was favoured, it is believed, with many visions of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, also spoke of a great disaster which
would overwhelm the world, followed by a great Christian
renewal.

Catherine Emmerich (died 1824) wrote that Lucifer,
chained by the merits of Christ's passion, would be let loose
for a time about 50 or 60 years before the year 2000.

There is an extensive bibliography of prophetic writings
relating to some age of mass apostasy and mass destruction
as a result of sin. It is not practicable to refer to them at
length here, and in any case, it is probably better to restrict
ourselves to the study of those prophecies which have con-
siderable weight and authority and are of undoubted authen-
ticity.

The study of these revelations, both public and private,
which may relate to this unique age in which we live, helps to
give us perspective, to nerve us for what may be ahead how-
ever calamitous, and also to make us understand that God's
hand is on the helm at all times, that we should seek our hap-
piness not in the fleeting and perishable things of earth, but in
Heaven.

17

THE BEAST UNCHAINED?

It is in the prophecy of Malachias four hundred years before
Christ that a reference is made to the adorable sacrifice of the
Mass to be offered in the distant future by the Gentiles, by
those multitudes that would come from the East and the West
to sit down in the kingdom of Heaven with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob.

The prophet, speaking in the name of God, said: "For, from
the rising of the sun even to the going down My name is
great among the Gentiles; and in every place there is sacrifice
and there is offered to My name a clean oblation. . ." (MaL
1.11).

The continual sacrifice of the Mass, offered in various climes
and longitudinal regions across the globe by hundreds of
thousands of priests each day, bears out exactly the prophecy
of Malachias.

An earlier prophet, Daniel, who lived in the seventh century
B.C. had referred to the cessation of the "continual sacrifice"
several times in his prophecy. In the context he seems to be
writing about the times of the Antichrist and this is the con-
clusion of nearly all exegetes.

During the times of the Antichrist, the continual sacrifice of
the Mass throughout the world will cease.

This does not necessarily mean that no Masses will be
offered up throughout the world. It simply means that the
Holy Sacrifice will not be offered up continuously as hereto-
fore. It seems to mean that entire regions of the world will be

18

physically devastated or under the control of the Antichrist, so
that the celebration of Mass is impossible.

Four times each second, throughout the whole twenty-four
hours of each day, has the Sacred Host been raised by the
hands of a priest, to plead for blessings on sinful man, to atone
by this Divine sacrifice, for his sins.

This is to cease at the time of the Antichrist.

The word Antichrist is, according to Donald Attwater's
Catholic Dictionary, "a designation for Christ's chief antag-
onist who will precede His second coming and the end of the
world, and whose activity will be directly connected with a
widespread apostasy from the Christian faith. He will be an
individual human personality marked by utter lawlessness,
self-deification, hatred of Christian truth and rivalry with
Christ through mock miracles"

In addition to the Apocalyptic references, the Antichrist ap-
pears to be referred to by the prophet Daniel in the following:
When iniquities shall he grown up, there shall arise a king of a
shameless face and understanding dark sentences.
And his power shall be strengthened, but not by his own force:
and he shall lay all things waste and shall prosper and do more
than can be believed. And he shall destroy the mighty and the
people of the saints, according to his will: and craft shall be
successful in his hand; and his heart shall he puffed up, and
in the abundance of all things he shall kill many; and he shall
rise up against the Prince of Princes and shall he broken with-
out hand. (Dan. 8.23-25).

This is very similar to St. Paul's references to the Antichrist
in the second epistle to the Thessalonians.

The cessation of the "continual sacrifice" is referred to four
times in the book of Daniel, chapters 8.12, 9.27, 11.31, and
12.11.

The terrible "beast" of the seventh chapter of the book of
Daniel is clearly the kingdom of Antichrist.

The prophet Daniel saw in his vision, four great beasts,
three of them being identified by the Scriptural experts as
tyrants of those early days. The fourth beast is generally
accepted to be the Antichrist and, in fact, so terrible and
frightening was his appearance that Daniel himself asked
that he be identified. (Dan. 7.19). The prophet goes on to
tell us: "his teeth and claws were of iron; he devoured and
broke in pieces, and the rest he stamped upon with his feet"

"And he made war against the saints and prevailed over

19

them'* (Dan. 7.21). The prophet tells us that a Divine inter-
vention puts an end to the power of the fourth beast but not
before he has wrought immense havoc and great destruction.
His power, we are told, will be greater than that of all pre-
ceding tyrants, and he shall devour the whole earth and shall
tread it down and break it in pieces. (Dan. 7.23). This clearly
relates to the Antichrist. It could be none other. The general
outline is in perfect harmony with the various authentic and
reliable prophecies quoted in the preceding chapter.

A ,careful student of the times of the Antichrist, the late
Father R. G. Culleton, had this to report in his book The
Prophets and Our Times, published in 1943:

An important sign of the latter days is the prevalence of
false teachings with the natural consequences: defections from
religion, lack of faith even among Catholics and great moral
degeneration.

Some such rebellion against God and His Christ is to extend
itself throughout the world shortly before the reign of Anti-
christ, with even Catholics in great numbers abandoning the
true faith. Coincidental with this general indifference toward
religion, in fact even actual hatred of it, there is to be the com-
plete degeneration of the morals of the people, a degeneration
similar to that which existed among the pagans before the
dawn of Christianity and civilization as we have known it.

These signs of the approaching end have, of course, been
true in varying degrees in earlier ages. The essential difference,
however, between former defections and those which presage
the end, is to be found in the universality and sinister char-
acter of the latter apostasy.

Several years before this general apostasy there were to be
false teachers who would cause great confusion and darkness
in the minds of the people, resulting in the loss of entire
nations to the true faith. This would very effectually prepare
the way for Antichrist. Some say that this has already been
fairly well accomplished by the so-called Reformation with
its consequent evils. Much more and far worse evils were to
befall.

After the birth of Antichrist and shortly before the rise of
the Great Monarch, the false doctrines were to multiply and
spread to such an extent that even Catholics would doubt
many of the articles of faith, resulting in their perversion, this
to apply not only to the laity but even to many priests and

20

some of the hierarchy. The zeal of these latter will be greatly
affected by this lack of faith.

Because of these defections Catholics will be severely pun-
ished, for only by chastisements can God bring back to the
minds of His people, a realization of their dependence upon
Him. As a consequence, widespread persecutions of priests
and people will come upon the Church in order that faith and
love of God may be revived, for as surely as night follows
day, so will civilization crumble and the world become steeped
in the darkness of ignorance, hatred, misery and war when
God, who is the Light of the World, will no longer rule in the
hearts of His people.

Father Cuileton, writing in 1943, four years before Israel
was set up as an independent nation, cited the return of the
Jews to Palestine as a "sign of the times", a sure indication
that tho fulfillment of these significant prophecies is at hand.

To give us some idea of the opponent we may face today,
let us glance at the brief sketch of him drawn by St. Thomas
Aquinas, the 'Angelic Doctor* who died in 1274,

"Antichrist will pervert some in his day by exterior persua-
sion . . . He is the head of all the wicked because in him
wickedness is perfect. . . . As in Christ dwells the fullness of
. the Godhead so in Antichrist the fullness of all wickedness.
Not indeed in the sense that his humanity is to be assumed by
rhe devil Into unity of person . . . but that the devil by sug-
gestion infuses his wickedness more copiously iruo him than
into all others. In this way all the wicked that have gone be-
fore are signs of Antichrist" (Summa 111:8:8).

In his commentary on the Apocalypse, the noted Scripture
scholar Dr. Bernard J. Le Frois, S.V.D., reminds us that the
Marian Church of the Consummation has nothing to fear
from the Antichrist. Those truly consecrated to the Virgin
Mother are invulnerable against the attacks of the fierce dra-
gon. (Rev. 12.1-18).

(Bernard J. Le Frois: "Eschatological Interpretation of the
Apocalypse" ia The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. XIII,
pp. 17.20).

It is significant that the whole tenor of the Fatima message
and of certain other modem revelations is that those who are
consecrated to the Blessed Virgin in these perilous times
will be safe whilst those who reject this protection will be
lost. All reliable Scriptural commentators agree that tfm
will be a time of immense danger for souls. Catholics should

21

surely take pains to consecrate themselves devoutly to Mary,
to say her rosary, to wear her scapular. This point was partic-
ularly emphasised in the third apparition at Fatima when
Our Lady, after showing the vision of hell to the three
children, said: "You have seen hell where the souls of sinners
go. It is to save them that God wants to establish in the world
devotion to my Immaculate Heart". Here Our Lady implies
that souls truly consecrated to her are safe from any attacks
of the evil one as the saints and sacred writers have always
maintained. It is a deep woe and tragedy for the world, there-
fore, that the great wisdom and enlightenment of Fatima have
not been embraced by the generality of Catholics. How many
immortal souls may have been lost forever because of this!
What physical tragedies in the form of war and violence lie
ahead of us because of this!

PERSECUTION

7 send you forth as lambs amongst wolves' (Luke 10.3)

It is not an accident that the history of the Church is large-
ly one of relentless persecution, not surprising that the preach-
ing of the Gospel attracts bitter hostility and the fiercest op-
position. The Church must endure this intense harassment
from the external forces which we call the world and from
internal enemies just as implacable which seek to paralyse
Her by introducing error from within.

According to the prophecies already alluded to, there is
a persecution coming which is to make all former persecutions

22

pale into insignificance. It is the persecution of the Antichrist
during which reparation must be made for the great apostasy
of this age, for the increasing millions of abortions each
year, for widespread and unprecedented sexual permissiveness
and perversion, for blasphemies and sacrilege that cry out to
Heaven for the Divine retribution.

Our Lady referred to the great persecution at Fatima and
as the prophecies She made there unfold and are fulfilled, it
seems we may be on the threshold of this worldwide onslaught
on all that is of God. She indicated that the Holy Father him-
self is to suffer in this persecution, twice referring to this
according to the authoritative work by Father de Marchi.

The reference in second Thessalonians to the Antichrist
as showing himself in the temple of God as if he were God
has been interpreted by some as indicating that the Antichrist
will seize St. Peters and establish his throne there as a type of
'Vicar of Satan' upon the earth. The Cistercian abbot Joachim
held that the Antichrist would overthrow the Pope and usurp
his see.

Throughout Christian history a tremendous bibliography
has built up around the great persecution of the Church in
the time of the Antichrist. It has already begun of course
for the Church has been ferociously persecuted in many
countries by the Communists and their satellites for decades.
Some writers say that the martyrs of the Iron and Bamboo
Curtain countries in this century are collectively greater than
the martyrs of all other centuries together.

But it is to develop still further as the great drama reaches
its climax. Perhaps we could summarise the writings con-
cerning this age of devastation for the Church in the words
of Cardinal Manning taken from his book The Present Crisis
of the Holy See published in 1861.

The distinguished English Cardinal saw very clearly the
worldwide persecution that was coming having read carefully
the writings of the Fathers on this subject from the earliest
times. He gives us the following guidelines:

The Holy Fathers who have written upon the subject of
Antichrist, and of the prophecies of Daniel, without a single
exception, as far as I know, — and they are the Fathers both
of the East and of the West, the Greek and the Latin Church
— all of them unanimously, — say that in the latter end of the
world, during the reign of Antichrist, the holy sacrifice of the
altar will cease. In the work on the end of the world, ascribed

23

to St. Hippolytus, after a long description of the afflictions of
the last days, we read as follows: "The Churches shall lament
with a great lamentation, for there shall be offered no more
oblation, nor incense, nor worship acceptable to God. The
sacred buildings of the churches shall be as hovels; and the
precious body and blood of Christ shall not be manifest in
those days; the Liturgy shall be extinct; the chanting of psalms
shall cease; the reading of Holy Scripture shall be heard no
more. But there shall be upon men darkness, and mourning
upon mourning, and woe upon woe." Then, the Church shall
be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a
time, as it was in the beginning, invisible, hidden in catacombs,
in dens, in mountains, in lurking-places; for a time it shall be
swept, as it were, from the face of the earth. Such is the uni-
versal testimony of the Fathers of the early centuries.

"It shall be a persecution in which no man shall spare his
neighbour, in which the powers of the world shall wreak upon
the Church of God such a revenge as the world before has
never known. The Word of God tells us that towards the end
of time the power of this world will become so irresistible and
so triumphant that the Church of God will sink underneath
its hand — that the Church of God will receive no more help
from Emperors or kings or princes or legislatures or nations
or peoples to make resistance against the power and might
of its antagonist. It will be deprived of protection. It will be
weakened, baffled and prostrate and will lie bleeding at the
feet of the powers of this world . . •"

It is clear that the persecution referred to by Cardinal Man-
ning would make that of the Spanish Civil War, when 13
bishops and seven thousand priests and religious were mar-
tyred, seem insignificant by comparison. The prophets Isaias,
Jeremias and Daniel all refer to this great persecution at the
end of the world, the latter prophet referring four times to
the cessation of the continual sacrifice. But Jeremias refers
specifically to the devastation wrought amongst the shepherds
of the flock who are always the first to be destroyed by the
Satanic enemy:

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Behold evil shall go forth
from nation to nation: and a great whirlwind shall go forth
from the ends of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be
at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end
thereof: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be
gathered up, nor buried: they shall lie as dung upon the face

24

of the earth. Howl, ye shepherds, and cry: and sprinkle your-
selves with ashes, ye leaders of the flock: for the days of your
slaughter and your dispersion are accomplished, and you shall
fall like precious vessels. And the shepherds shall have no
way to flee, nor the leaders of the flock to save themselves. A
voice of the cry of the shepherds, and a howling of the princi-
pal of the flock: because the Lord hath wasted their pastures.
And the fields of peace have been silent because of the fierce
anger of the Lord." (Jer. 25:32-38).

Jeremias refers clearly to a worldwide persecution. The
prophet was clearly looking ahead to the latter ages of history
when all the world would be devastated by the concentrated
global power of militant atheism disguised as Communism.

Let us hasten to add that, if this is unduly depressing for
some of our readers, Our Lady has intervened to soften this
fearful blow directed against the Church by promising that
She will protect all who consecrate themselves to Her, that
She will give them the grace to remain faithful unto death.
She has made it a thrilling age in which to live for it is plain
that a Divine intervention will crush the power of the
dragon and give us a victory unprecedented in history.

If we are to die, then that is of little account if a martyr's
crown awaits us.

We should rejoice really for the long night of Communist
tyranny is coming to an end. All good men are weary of living
in a world half enslaved, where atheistic tyranny prevents in-
nocent children from raising their eyes to God in prayer,
where violent hatred is taught as a philosophy, and bloody
revolution, the destroyer of peace and love, is fomented
throughout the world. For long enough have we endured this
reign of Satan over the world; the light of the Cova da
Iria is to dissipate this fearful darkness, to bring to the world
the greatest age in its history.

The darkness is all around us now and the light is a distant
vision. But it draws ever closer and must sustain us in the
night that is at hand. We must prepare by fervent prayer and
self-sacrifice for these important events of our times. The
terse words of Our Lady at Fatima about war, famine and
persecution should be understood in the context of the world-
wide Communist successes; for this is Satan's army, the force
with which we must contend. As good soldiers of the Queen of
Heaven we must arm now with the weapons of the spirit, with

25

the sturdy faith, the ardent hope, the burning charity which
is to renew the world.

Those who fight under Our Lady's banner are surely chosen
souls, for they struggle with Her for the victory of the Cross,
for the reign of Christ on earth, for the crushing of the
serpent's head, for a triumph that is to crown all the achieve-
ments of mankind throughout the ages.

It is to give us this inspiration in a dark hour that Heaven
has sent us the light, the wisdom, the consoling prophecies
of Fatima. It is to nerve us for this most crucial spiritual con-
flict in all history that our Lady obtains for us the copious
graces of this Divine intervention so that we may know who
the real enemy is, how to defeat him, how to bring about the
rise of a Christian civilisation without precedent in history.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ERROR

'Love the light of wisdom all ye that bear rule over peoples'
(Wis. 6.23)

The word 'error' is mentioned, as we have seen, in two of the
three prophecies quoted in chapter 3. St. Paul tells us that,
in the fullness of time, Antichrist will come "in all power and
signs and lying wonders" (2 Thess. 2:9). Obviously, the Anti-
christ will be a master of deceit. But his task will be made
easier because men manifest an aversion to obvious truths,
such as the existence of a Supreme Being (and the evidence
of this is everywhere) and the countless miracles being per-
formed in every age, miracles of healing at Lourdes and

26

Fatima, miracles connected with the various stigmatics, cases
of diabolical possession which are well authenticated, the in-
explicable preservation of the bodies of saints and so on.

It may be said that modern man has, in a general sense,
relentlessly turned his face away from these phenomena and
refused to draw correct conclusions from them, so that on
all sides one hears the obvious absurdity "there is no God",
or the equivalent absurdity "God is dead".

St. Paul tells us that, because of this utter obstinacy and
perversity, God punishes men by blinding them to the most
obvious errors.

Error is also mentioned at Fatima by Our Lady. Error was
to spread from Russia throughout the whole world, causing
wars and persecutions of the Church.

Error has spread throughout the world in two ways. First it
seeped, drop by drop, like some insidious poison, into the in-
tellectual bloodstream of Western nations from Soviet Rus-
sia, exactly as had been foretold. Virtually every modern
writer on these subjects has paid tribute to the brilliance of
Communist propaganda.

Secondly, in an even more insidious attack on Western civi-
lisation, Communism has managed to infiltrate the Church
itself with its deadly errors.

Communism, guided as it surely is by an angel of darkness,
essays to conquer the world. It can, in fact, conquer the
world only through sin. For sin blinds and enfeebles men,
makes them easy victims to the wiles of the atheists.

Sin follows error as night follows the day.

It was to destroy this empire of sin that Christ died on the
Cross. It is the Cross, and the light that comes from the
Cross, that enlightens and liberates mankind. "I am the Light
of the world" Christ said, "He that followeth me walketh not
in darkness." (Jn. 8.12),

It has been the principal responsibility of the Church
throughout the ages to preserve this Light, to preserve it serene
and undimmed by error.

Christ also told us that He is the "Way, the Truth, and the
Life" (Jn. 14.6). This light then is the Light of Truth. It is op-
posed by the darkness of error.

Thus the real enemy of the human race is error, for the
truth liberates man whilst error enslaves him. Inasmuch as
Christ is Truth itself, so also is the devil error itself.

"Know the truth" Christ said to the Pharisees "and the truth

27

shall make you free" (John 8.32). The Redeemer is not merely
speaking of political freedom but of the much more im-
portant freedom of the spirit, the liberty of the sons of God.
For He warned the Pharisees that all sinners are slaves, the
slaves of their sins.

In telling us these things Christ was marking out for us the
highest possible standard of living, both in this life and the
next. For our personal happiness is intimately connected with
this vital freedom of the spirit which He gave us by His sacri-
fice on Calvary.

It is for the reasons cited above that the Church has always
regarded error or heresy in the Church as the ultimate disas-
ter. She has regarded it as a far greater affliction even than
savage external persecution.

Error, which, as we have noted, is a form of darkness, para-
lyses the magisterium and prevents Christians from proceed-
ing with facility along that path of union with Christ which
is their sublime destiny. As we move towards Christ we move
towards the Light of Eternal Wisdom. As we embrace error
we become entangled in the subtleties and illusions of the
devil and place our souls, consequently, in mortal peril.

The horror of heresy in the Church has come down to us
from earliest times for we find St. Irenaeus telling us of the
incident when St. John the Apostle left the baths with bis
disciple St. Polycarp when he found that the heretic Cerinthus
was there. "Let us iiee hence,'* St. John said "lest the baths
fall upon us seeing that Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, is
here". It may be observed that St, John, the beloved Disciple,
was quite content to keep company with pagans; but not
heretics. It is necessary here to make a careful distinction
between heretics (those who, being Catholic, willfully em-
brace error) and those born in heresy, such as Methodists,
Baptists, etc., many of whom arc sincere and devout according
to their lights and are regarded with respect and affection by
Catholics as living according to their consciences.

Id the Sixth Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople in
680- 1 Pope Honorius was "anathematised" by name for "go-
ing along" with the heresy of Monotheiitlsm during his reign
about forty years earlier.

The then reigning Pope, Leo II, would not confirm the
harsh "anathematisation" but substituted a simple condemna-
tion of Honorius tor neglecting to denounce heresy outright
when rie, ought to have done so.

28

Gilbert Keith Chesterton observed in one of his essays:
"An error is more menacing than a crime, for an error begets
crimes. . . ." (The Diabolist).

This is what Our Lady had already said at Fatima: "error
would cause wars and persecutions . . . the annihilation of
nations"

In the forties, the world paid in blood and violence for the
sins of the thirties. It is estimated now that 54,000,000 died
in World War II.

Before the world can be delivered from the havoc being
wrought by the most grotesque of all errors, militant atheism,
the Church itself must be strengthened by the light of the most
sublime truths, by a new formula for a rapid and streamlined
renewal in grace.

Such a formula was given to the Church at Fatima.

THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Recent decisions of the United Nations Organisation to expel
the Nationalist Chiang kai Shek regime as the legal govern-
ment of China and to admit the Mao tse Tung regime consti-
tute a clear victory for the forces of evil.

As is well known the United Nations is constantly betray-
ing its charter by the admission of Communist nations. For
Communist states, in suppressing the basic freedoms of their
peoples, cannot hold to the principles set out in the United
Nations Charter as follows:

To achieve international co-operation in solving inter-
national problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humani-
tarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect

29

for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all with*
out destinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.

The politicians tell us however that we must discard prin-
ciples and face "realities"; the Communists have atom bombs
so we must negotiate with them as though they were reliable
and trustworthy people.

This policy has given the Communist nations of the world
immense influence and power. They may now claim that the
world is theirs, that free nations no longer dare to resist them,
that it is only a matter of time before the slow relentless
pressure that they know so well how to use on the free world
will cause a general collapse.

There has been much evidence from reliable sources that
Soviet Russia is working to a certain plan which we might
call Plan A. Should Plan A break down she will instantly put
into operation Plan B. Plan A calls for taking over the whole
world without large scale war by deceit, intrigue, blackmail,
threats, etc. Should there be any sign of real resistance to this
Plan B will be put into operation. And Plan B calls for a first
strike by the Communists in what will be an all-out nuclear
war. There is ample evidence of this provided by high-ranking
Soviet defectors like Artomonov, Penkowsky and others. In
fact it has been pointed out often enough that the Soviet
missile programme is developing alarmingly and is aimed
clearly at America.

It is often held by observers who are considered balanced
and intelligent that Soviet Russia will keep the peace because
it is in her interests to do so. This reasoning may be comfort-
ing, but it is not realistic in the light of history. It was to
Germany's interests in 1939 to keep the peace, but Hitler led
her into war. It is in the interests of the Communist guerrillas
in Indo-China to go back to their paddy-fields and keep the
peace. But this they do not do.

In the light of Fatima, we know well that the third World
War, if and when it comes, will have been caused by the sins
of this age. That is the stark compelling deduction that must
be made from the message of Our Lady, that every deliberate
sin, every rejection of God's commandments and of the
natural law written in our hearts taJces us nearer to war,
infallibly imperils the peace and well-being of the human
race.

Of course the Church has always taught this. But today,
when mankind is losing its sense of sin, when corruption and

30

moral degradation are becoming "normal" Our Lady has
dramatically re-emphasised it.

Communism exists primarily as a threat against our im-
mortal souls. Satan is not interested in the destruction of cities
as such for that is no gain to him. He is interested in the
destruction of immortal souls, and Communism, to be under-
stood, must be seen in this light. And it is difficult for political
leaders to do this. So that, if the Communists could take over
political control of the world without a third World War, they
would be glad to do so.

The missile systems of Soviet Russia exist primarily for the
purposes of blackmail.

Much more devious than Nero and Diocletian, the Soviet
leaders strive for the goal where they are in a position to offer
us our lives in exchange for our souls.

The fact that a materialistic world cannot comprehend this
does not lessen its validity and its truth.

To all these subtle Soviet manoeuvres, the American leaders
react predictably by trying to develop new anti-missile systems
or by some other military or political device.

And this in spite of the fact that the morale of the U.S.A.
is collapsing before their eyes. The recent decision of the
U.S. Supreme Court to legalise 'abortion on demand* has
brought the nation to the crossroads of history. This repre-
sents a formal apostasy from America's Christian traditions
by a majority vote of the people apparently. Concurrent with
this of course there is a general moral decline, unprecedented
sexual permissiveness, rising crime, widespread drug addiction.

Of what use to build up purely military defences against a
Communist thrust that is so surely ideological, aimed at
America's morale?

In any case, what would be the use of destroying Soviet
cities in retaliation for a successful first strike by them? We
would only be destroying the Russian people, ninety per cent
of whom are anti-Communist according to reliable reports,
and who are therefore, our allies in spirit.

The Communist threat is obviously and unquestionably on
an ideological level which politicians or even statesmen as
such cannot counter.

For that reason Mr Nixon, talented as he is, must fail just
as President Johnson, who was a consummate politician, also
failed. The political and military power these leaders have at

31

their command are inadequate. Another, a higher form of
power, is indispensable.

Humanly speaking, there would be no hope for the world
in its present condition. The simple unvarnished facts are that
men who are mass murderers and psychopaths are in posses-
sion of an arsenal of weapons which could virtually destroy
the civilised world.

The somewhat naive reaction of the average citizen is, "But
they wouldn't do that."

Wouldn't they?

The Communists are working to a masterplan of a totally
Marxist world. They have told us that often and it runs like a
constantly recurring refrain through all their propaganda.
What it really means is that they are out to destroy utterly
and completely all belief in God, all organised religion upon
the earth.

If they can achieve this end without a third world war they
will withhold their terror weapons. But if war is necessary for
this objective they will use their missiles in a devastating "first
strike".

But they cannot achieve the destruction of the Church for
Christ promised that it would endure to the end of time. Thus
a collision of spiritual forces is inevitable and this is precisely
what has been foreshadowed in all the prophecies.

What form will this collision take? That, it must be admit-
ted, is a mystery. Assuredly, in a moment of crisis a Divine
hand will reveal itself.

The burning issue for us who follow the Fatima message
is the convincing of our fellow-Catholics that the spiritual re-
newal of all of us is the urgent answer in this critical hour.
Even the secular world senses that we may be facing an awe-
some confrontation with world Communism.

But the world can never understand this problem as Catho-
lics understand it. The Catholic Church alone can lead the
world out of this morass. No other institution can. We hold
the key to the situation, we know exactly what is wrong, we
know exactly what to do to give the nations victory over their
ancient enemy, to give the world the greatest civilisation it has
known.

All the ingredients for victory over the forces of Satan are
present, and the blueprint for the new social order lies spread
out before us.

32

What then is holding up that blessed hour for which the
agonised world is waiting?

That scarcely needs an answer. The blueprint for peace,
involving the spiritual renewal of Catholics, was given to
us at Fatima in 1917. It has been blessed by the Church,
approved by several Popes, and proved authentic by the
evolution of events and the fulfilment of its prophecies.

This formula is the instrument which is to crush the ser-
pent's head, and bring about the coming triumph of Jesus
Christ.

Inevitably it must be opposed by all the concentrated power
of hell, by the deceits and the wiles of the devil who fears this
Fatima formula as he fears nothing else. Consequently it has
been hidden, treated with contempt, rejected by God's chosen
people — as was the Messiah Himself.

But Our Lady herself has foreshadowed its appearance and
its success. It will be embraced by the generality of Catholics
— and many non-Catholics — at some point in history. And it
will bring about the triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart
and the era of the true peace that is to come.

THE BASIS IN SCRIPTURE

All history has re-echoed with the lamentations and u! illations
of the great Jewish prophet Jeremias and the word "jeremiad"
in a familiar one in English literature today, recalling the
mournful dirges of the prophet as he sat amongst the ruins
of Jerusalem whilst his kinsfolk were carried into the Baby-
lonian captivity.

That great tragedy that befell the Chosen People of old

33

surely has a message for us today for there are many striking
analogies between the appearances of the great Prophets who
came to warn the Jews and the appearance of the Queen of
Prophets who came at Fatima with a warning to the "Chosen
People" of today.

It is Jeremias who appears as tragedy is about to strike, with
a final warning which, like all the others, was to be utterly
ignored by the People of God. God Himself directs Jeremias
precisely in this solemn final warning to be given to the Jews.

"Take thee a roll of a book, and thou shalt write in it all
the words that I have spoken to thee against Israel and Juda,
and against all the nations from the day that I spoke to thee,
from the days of Josias even to this day, if so be, when the
house of Juda shall hear all the evils that 1 purpose to do unto
them, that they may return every man from his wicked way,
and I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin."

It is a terrible thing to ignore the warnings of the Lord,
sent by His Messengers and confirmed with miracles.

"/ will persecute them with the sword** He told Jeremias,
"and with famine and with pestilence and 1 will give them up
unto affliction . . , because they have not hearkened to My
Words which I sent to them by My servants the prophets."

What happened to this solemn warning, dictated word for
word by the Lord to Jeremias, and written down by his secre-
tary Baruch who then presented it to the Princes of the
people?

Holy Scripture tells us that the Princes heard this warning
of Jeremias with astonishment (Jer. 36.16) and they said,
"We must tell the king all these words."

It was winter and the king has a hearth before him full of
burning coals. He listened to the first three or four pages of
the prophecy, whereupon he seized it from the hand of the
scribe, hacked it to pieces with a knife and cast it into the fire.

And Holy Scripture goes on to tell us that the Princes and
servants who stood about the king did not rend their garments
at this, nor were they afraid, indicating plainly that they
concurred with the contemptuous action of the king.

After this final, formal warning, the fate of the Chosen
People was sealed. Jeremias told the king explicitly that the
king of Babylon would come speedily to destroy both him
and his people.

Attacked by the ferocious Nabuchodonosor the people of
Jerusalem shut themselves in behind their walls and defended

34

their city for eighteen months. Then the plague broke out
and wrought terrible havoc.

Finally the Babylonians broke in, pillaging, burning, de-
stroying at random. With his own hands Nabuchodonosor put
out the eyes of the king, whilst his soldiers burnt the wonder-
ful Temple of Solomon and destroyed the Ark of the Cove-
nant. He carried all the rich and better-educated Hebrews
back to Babylon as hostages.

This terrible disaster, the extent of which we can only
faintly comprehend, took place in 586 B.C. To seek a parallel
today we could perhaps imagine the capture and burning of
the Vatican and St. Peter's by the Communists and the de-
portation of the Pope and all the Cardinals to Siberia.

The destruction of Solomon's temple and the Ark of the
Covenant seemed to the Jews to be the final disaster, as
though God were abandoning them utterly.

But it was not so.

It is when the Jews are suffering acute misfortune, when
they are being driven along like animals under the burning
Syrian sun, lashed by the savage whips of Nabuchodonosor's
soldiers that their spiritual renewal begins. Their princes are
treated with great cruelty. A ring is fixed to their lips, much
as we fix a ring to a bull's nose, and they are dragged along
by ropes fixed to the saddles of the Babylonian horsemen.

Now they see clearly their guilt in turning from God to
material things, in ignoring the warnings of the great Prophets
who were sent to them.

A spirit of compunction, of sorrow for sin returns to them
and they find sublime words to express their repentance.

"It is to this day," writes Daniel Rops, "that we sing the
magnificent hymn of grief and hope which expresses the agony
and hope of Israel on her way to exile."

"Out of the depths I have cried to thee O Lord; Lord hear
my voice' 9

Israel remembers the great promises made to her and turns
with hope in this dark hour to the True God.

"My soul hath relied on his word: my soul hath hoped in
the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy: and with him
plenteous redemption"

And the Lord, a true Father, hears the cries of His errant
children.

He sends His prophet Ezechiel to tell the Chosen People
that if they repented of their sins, God would forgive them,

35

would allow them to return to Palestine, and would restore
the former glory of Israel.

In the sorrows and sufferings of their exile, the people lis-
tened with obedience. Seventy years were they in exile before
God permitted them to return to their Promised Land, a
liberated people.

In the light of what happened to the Jews we must see
clearly that materialism, contempt for God, immorality, pride
and unreadiness to forgive are not only sins against God but
are serious social disasters that are dragging us to the abyss
of Communist enslavement.

God has sent the most highly honoured of all His messen-
gers, the Queen of Prophets herself, to warn us of the danger,
and He will surely not suffer His words to be despised.

Nothing is so offensive to God as the contempt of His
chosen ones, His rejection by those on whom He has lavished
His special graces.

"The Lord hath cast off His altar," lamented Jeremias. "He
hath cursed His sanctuary." (Lam. 2.7).

A tremendous warning indeed to Christians who alone can
be guilty today of this special sin of treating with indifference
and contempt the extraordinary graces of God.

This story of Jeremias outlines the traditional method of
God, in dealing with His chosen people; He has been ac-
customed to rebuke them through the mouths of prophets and
chosen representatives for their sins, to warn them that these
sins would bring upon them all manner of disasters if they
failed to repent.

Looking through the old Testament, reading again the
warnings of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses, of Daniel, of Jonas,
and so many of the other prophets and patriarchs we find
that the story of Fatima is truly in line with God's dealings
with His chosen people throughout the ages.

The words of the prophet Samuel to the people of Israel
are almost a paraphrase of those words that Our Lord spoke
to His chosen people through His Blessed Mother at Fatima.

When Samuel had assembled the people, after the Philis-
tines had crushed and defeated them in battle, he addressed
them as follows:

"// you turn to the Lord with all your hearts, and put away
the strange gods from among you and prepare your hearts
unto the Lord, and serve Him only, He will deliver you out
of the hands of the Philistines." (1 Kings 7.3).

36

It was the same old proposition put to the children of Israel
from the earliest times. Give up their sins, turn to God with
a humble and contrite heart and all would be well. Continue
their idolatry of created things, their lusts, their stiff-necked
perversity and great would be the misfortunes that the Lord
would send them. "Woe to the sinful nation" cried out Isaias,
"they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel. If you be
willing and hearken to me, you shall eat the good things of
the land. But if you will not . . . the sword shall devour you.
Because the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it" (Isaias
1.4.19.20).

Is not the Lord using Communism today to purify and re-
fine His Church with suffering? He has sent not a prophet but
the Queen of Prophets to repeat the age-old message. Return
to God and be saved; refuse God the homage due to Him and
suffer the disasters that will come infallibly.

That Fatima is, therefore a true and authentic development
of God's methods as cited in Holy Scripture cannot be
doubted. It is modernised, of course, with a request for the
rosary and a penance rather different from the sackcloth and
ashes of ancient times.

Moreover Fatima was accompanied by the miracles that
have been God's normal method in the scriptures of con-
vincing His creature man.

In dealing with the disputatious Jews, Our Lord delivered
this crushing reply to their rejection of His just claim to be
the Son of God.

"If I do not the works of my Father believe me not; but if
I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works that
you may know and believe that the Father is in Me and I in
the Father" (Jn. X.37).

There were two also who gave testimony at Fatima, Our
Lady herself and God who, by His divine power wrought the
unprecedented miracle of the sun to confirm her words.

There is a parallel of this also in the Scriptures.

It is related in Chapter 9 of the Gospel of St. John how
the man born blind and cured by Our Lord, had to face the
harsh and sceptical enquiry of the Pharisees. In a sneering
endeavour to brush aside the miracle as of no importance
the Pharisees declared, "We know that God spoke to Moses;
but, as to this man we know not whence he is"

And the man who had been blind cried out his famous

37

rebuke, a rebuke that might echo in the minds of many who
ignore Our Lady's message at Fatima today.

"Why herein is a wonderful thing, that you know not
whence he is, and he hath opened my eyes . . . from the be-
ginning of the world it hath not been heard that any man hath
opened the eyes of one born blind" (Jn. IX.30).

An unprecedented miracle failed to convince the Jews,
and an unprecedented miracle at Fatima has failed to make
any impression on many Catholics in this age of crisis.

The Message of Fatima is surely a reliable and authentic
development of the Scriptures.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem" lamented Our Saviour, "thou who
killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee,
how often would 1 have gathered together thy children even
as a hen gathereth her little ones under her wings, and thou
wouldst notr (Matt. XXIII.37).

This sorrowful lamentation was repeated by Christ's mother
at Fatima when She sought to save the human race from
the ravages of Communism, and of war, and was rejected.

For all the vaunted dreams and plans that world leaders
pursue in the name of liberty, liberty they never can have
until they turn to God, until they hear the Heavenly message,
delivered with signs and wonders, and with the irrevocable
commitment of the Mother of Christ who cannot belie
Herself.

If they do these things, liberty and peace.

If they do not, persecution, war, disaster upon disaster,
unending tyranny.

One simple condition, a general return to God, for the
conquest of Communism and the greatest and brightest social
order in history.

"Now the Lord," wrote St. Paul, "is a spirit; and where
the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3.17).

38

A GREAT RED DRAGON

"And a great sign appeared in heaven," wrote St. John in the
twelfth chapter of his Apocalypse. "A woman clothed with
the sun, and the moon under her feet, having on her head a
crown of twelve stars . . . and I heard a voice in heaven
saying, 'Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom
of our God and the power of his Christ'/ 9

Most commentators agree that this sign in heaven has a
double symbolism. It refers to Mary, Mother of God, and to
the Church.

The appearance in splendour then of Mary Immaculate is
a sign of Christ's triumph, the coming of His kingdom.

This passage is interesting in view of the pronouncements
by some of the saints and mystics that a development and
increase in devotion to Mary will precede and announce the
coming of Christ's kingdom on earth

Christ is to reign on. earth in a great age of triumph, St.
Louis dc Mo&tfort assures us positively of this in his inspired
Treatise on True Devotion, ft is, of course, foreshadowed at
Fatirna in the corning triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart.

In view of all this h can only be imagined what a tragic
and calamitous step n would be to arrest the development of
devotion to Mary on the pretext that it is hindering the
development of Christian unity, it is tht increase in devotion tc
Mary which is to bring ?bout Christian unity.

The Mi development of Marian doctrine is the indispen-
sable pre-requisite for the re-union of Christendom.

39

The miracles of Lourdes and Fatima in this age point
unerringly in the direction which theology is to take.

"But they going forth preached everywhere, the Lord work-
ing withal and confirming the word with signs that followed,"
(MarkXVL20).

Miracles were called signs in the Scriptures and they were
plainly used to confirm doctrine.

The miracles of Lourdes confirm the doctrine of the Im-
maculate Conception, defined only three years previously by
Pius IX in Rome.

For the Vision, when asked by Bernadette to identify
Herself at Lourdes uttered the significant words:

"/ am the Immaculate Conception**

The great public miracle at Fatima, the sign in the Heavens,
was meant to confirm the message and we can well ponder
upon the importance of that message when a public miracle
unprecedented in the annals of religious history was worked
"that all may believe".

The excerpt from St. John's Apocalypse quoted above is
taken from the Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes on February
11.

Those who take the trouble to look up the Scriptures at
this point will notice that the liturgists have left out those
verses dealing with the persecution of the woman and her
child by the great red dragon. The dragon is overcome "by
the blood of the Lamb" and it is then that the voice from
heaven cries "now is come salvation and strength and the
kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ"

A great sign certainly appeared in the heavens at Fatima.
In the majestic tableau in the skies on October 13th the
children saw Our Lady and St. Joseph carrying the Divine
Child with the sun between them. The infant Jesus was
blessing the world and the tableau, Lucia noted, was more
brilliant than the sun.

This tableau announced the beginning of the last and final
round of the struggle with the demon. It was October 13th,
1917. Lenin and Trotsky were then making final preparations
for their great coup d'etat on November 7, a day which
began a new and terrible epoch in the history of the modern
world.

St. John's mystical allusion to the encounter between the
Woman and her Child and the great red dragon seems to

40

possess real meaning in this tremendous struggle that rages
about us today.

"And that great dragon was cast down,'* wrote St. John,
"the ancient serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan,
who leads astray the whole world." (Apoc. XII.9).

The Woman clothed with the sun had triumphed and the
Woman who stood beside the sun in the heavens at Fatima
giving a great sign to the world at the very moment of Com-
munism's first success in Russia, had already foretold her own
victory over the twentieth century Red Dragon, "In the end
my Immaculate Heart will triumph . . . Russia will be
converted and there will be peace."

10

AN ELITE CORPS

The major problem in the Church today is to find an elite
corps of men who will take the Gospel literally, who will
follow the counsels of perfection.

Throughout the Christian centuries the great Religious
Orders have fulfilled this role. Their vows of poverty, chastity
and obedience, faithfully observed, made them the true "salt
of the earth" and from their ranks came the spiritual geniuses
who enlightened Europe.

It was the late Archbishop Downey of Liverpool who, in
one of his witty, after-dinner speeches, suggested that every
religious Order should go into voluntary liquidation fifty
years after the death of its Founder. By that time, he said, it
would assuredly have lost its spirit.

The Archbishop was jesting, of course, for there are many
instances in history where Orders have done truly magnificent

41

work centuries after the death of their Founder. But the
remark was thought-provoking nevertheless. It reminded us
all that the great Orders find it far from easy to retain a spirit
of intense dedication. It made us reflect on how greatly the
Church depends on these "shock troops" of Christ, the de-
voted men and women who sacrifice all for Him!

But if the salt loses its savour! It is good for nothing any
more but to be cast out and trodden on by men. (Matt. 5.13),

Unseen but terrible things happen in the soul of the re-
ligious who has abandoned Christ — under whatever pretext.
In the Gospels the Saviour gives us the example of the house
from which the devil has been expelled. The devil returns and
finds it "ready for occupation"; he takes with him seven other
devils, more wicked than himself "and the last state of that
man", Our Lord tells us, "is worse than the first"

Corrupio optimi pessima. The old Latin proverb tells us
that the best, when corrupted, become the worst.

What causes Religious to lose their spirit?

There would be a virtually unanimous answer to this from
the saints and spiritual writers. Religious lose their spirit and
their vocation because of their failure to strive for perfection.

The Religious state is often referred to by theologians as a
"state of perfection". The Religious is a spiritual athlete who
has a special responsibility to strive for perfection. According
to Dr. Adolf Tanquerey "all theologians agree that Religious
are bound to tend to perfection in virtue of their state". (No.
367). This obligation is so grave, continues Tanquerey, that
St. Alphonsus does not hesitate to say: "// a Religious takes
the firm resolution of not tending towards perfection or of
giving no thought whatever to it, he commits a mortal sin"
What happens in practice, as we know today, is that such a
Religious often loses his or her vocation.

Pope Paul VI referred to these things in an address to
Religious in Rome on August 23rd, 1964. "Therefore, it has
seemed good to us to recall here the priceless importance and
necessary function of religious life; for this stable way
of life, which receives its proper character from profession
of the evangelical vows, is a perfect way of living according
to the example and teaching of Jesus Christ. It is a state of
life which keeps in view the constant growth of charity leading
to its final perfection"

On July 10th, 1955, the Sacred Congregation of Religious
issued a MONITUM concerning members of Religious Insti-

42

tutes in Europe who are forced to live outside their houses.
In it the Sacred Congregation gave these Religious certain
instructions and encouragement in their own particular
problems.

The Monitum concluded, exhorting the Religious:

"to be faithful in keening their religious vows and to con-
tinue constantly to offer themselves as victims to God. This
consecration of life is the principal element of the religious
state, never to be hindered by any temporal vicissitudes;
and it wins for the universal Church immense treasures of
heavenly gifts."

At the end of Vatican II Pope Paul VI summed up the
entire four years deliberations in one word: "renewal". Later
he made it clear that he was not speaking of externals when
he used the Greek word metanoia, meaning, loosely, a per-
sonality change. St. Paul called this "putting on Christ" (Rom.
13.14), suppressing the rebellious demands of our carnal
nature in order to yield to reason and accept thereby the life
of grace.

Now, it is certain that the entire Fatima revelation can be
summed up in one word "renewal". The Mother of Christ
appealed many times for this "change of heart", for this re-
jection of Satan and all his pomps and works in order to
serve Christ, which is expressed for Christians in the vow they
make at baptism.

It has always been assumed that the message of Fatima was
addressed positively and absolutely to Catholic Christians, and
to Orthodox and Protestants only relatively.

It is true that the Protestants and Orthodox will suffer
equally with Catholics in a third World War, for atom bombs
are no respecters of persons. But the message was addressed
primarily to Catholics because the three children were Cath-
olics and the requirements of Mass and Holy Communion,
coupled with references to the "Holy Father", excluded in a
primary sense any other denomination. This does not imply
that God would not want Protestants or Orthodox to say the
rosary and consecrate themselves to Mary's Immaculate
Heart.

Now, if the message was addressed primarily and specifi-
cally to Catholics, we must assume that it was addressed in a
supereminent degree to our bishops and to our consecrated

43

Religious and clergy. At the Cova da Iria, our Religious were
reminded of their duty to strive for perfection and Heaven
itself appealed for the new elite corps of spiritual shock
troops which the Church so urgently needs. Thus it must be
particularly agonising to Mary's Immaculate Heart to see Her
fateful message rejected without even a cursory study by the
vast majority of the Religious of today. For it is from the
ranks of the consecrated souls that the ten just men must
come who save the city. (Gen. 18.32).

Our Lady appealed to us all to enter into this deep union
with Christ which is painful to slothful human nature but the
most glorious privilege, nevertheless, which it is possible for
man to be given.

Christians bring the Light of Christ to all the world. There
is no doubt of this. And without this Light the world is in
darkness.

How beautifully this is expressed in the Letter to Diognetus,
which Daniel-Rops designates as the earliest Christian master-
piece we possess, apart from the Scriptures.

It was written at the beginning of the Second Century and
contains these wonderfully clear-sighted sentences:

"The Christians are to the world what the soul is to the
body. Just as the flesh hates the soul and is continually wag-
ing war upon it, so the Christians are in permanent conflict
with the world. And just as the captive soul preserves the
body which keeps it prisoner, so the Christians preserve the
world."

44

11

RECENT HISTORY

The main thesis of this book is the assertion that peace is
the reward of fraternal love; wars, on the other hand, are
the fruits of hatred and injustice.

It is well worth touching on recent history to see how this
theory works out in practice. It is a pragmatic age and people
are not likely to accept our Christian theories for the better-
ment of mankind unless we can give some solid evidence that
they work.

Perhaps we may begin with the great Peace Conference in
1919 in order to unravel the tangled skein of trouble that has
enveloped the world in this century.

Most modern historians seem to agree that it was the Treaty
of Versailles and, in particular the brutal enforcement of its
provisions by troops occupying Germany that gave Hitler his
golden opportunity to capitalise on a wave of German hatred
of the oppressors.

Clemenceau, the French Premier, an atheist, was deter-
mined to crush Germany without mercy. His stern call of vae
victis — woe to the conquered — was whispered through the
famous Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

During World War I, China, backward, feudalistic, but
desperately anxious to reach out into the twentieth century,
fought with the West against the Kaiser's Germany. She had
been promised freedom from the unequal treaties forced upon
her by the various European powers in consideration of her
help in defeating Germany and Austria.

45

The war ended, the promises were forgotten, callously and
cold-bloodedly. China was betrayed by the West.

Her distinguished Foreign Minister, Lx)u Tseng-tsiang, a
devout Catholic, refused to append his signature to the Treaty
of Versailles in protest against this betrayal. Later, he was to
abandon the world to become a priest, subsequently becoming
the first Chinese Abbott in the Benedictine Order.

The University students of China, the inevitable leaders of
backward China, did not forget the betrayal and it was in
their passionate hatred of the West that Mao-tse-tung found
the spark he needed to promote the revolution.

The Student Movement of the Fourth of May, 1919 was
formed to commemorate China's betrayal at Versailles.

It was a comparatively simple matter for the Communists
to exploit this situation. Emissaries from Russia came to ex-
plore the possibilities of Communism and in 1920 seven per-
sons calling themselves Communists grouped around Professor
Ch'en Tuhsiu and started a proletarian newspaper which
urged the formation of trade unions. It is difficult to believe
that the Red China colossus which so threatens the peace of
the world today grew from this tiny but dynamic nucleus of
seven men. It is a consolation to know that the small group of
Fatima crusaders in the world now can also grow— if their
members are dedicated enough.

Just over one year later the First Congress of Chinese
Marxists was held. It was July, 1921. Mao-tse-tung joined the
Party in the following October.

What was Mao like then? According to Fr. Raymond de
Jaegher, weil-known expert in Far Eastern affairs, his pro-
fessor at National Peking University, the distinguished Chinese
intellectual Dr. Hu Shih, remembered him as a vital, keen-
witted and aggressive young man who seemed to be dedicated
to progress and burning with the fires of purest patriotism.

It was in the harsh and unjust treatment by the European
States of the Chinese people that Communism gained its first
impetus in that unhappy country.

As in Germany, so in China the seeds of hatred and in-
justice brought their wild harvest of war and bloodshed, of
tyranny, of tragedy.

And the seeds of hatred, of injustice are the first cause of
all the riots, the disorders, the bloodshed that figure so largely
in the pages of our daily newspapers today.

Consider, on the other hand, the humane and generous

46

policy of the Americans in Japan after World War II. They
poured more than three billion dollars into the shattered
Japanese economy, an unheard-of gesture from a victor to the
vanquished in war. This "Christian" policy of General Mac-
Arthur paid handsome dividends, for the Japanese today are
strong and dependable allies of America and an important
force for peace and stability in Asia.

When General Douglas Mac Arthur died a thought-provok-
ing speech made by him aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri
at the time of the Japanese surrender was not reported in
most of the biographies. Part of it is given hereunder:

"Men," the General said, "since the beginning of time have
sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been
attempted to devise an international process to prevent or
settle disputes between nations. From the very start, work-
able methods were found insofar as individual citizens were
concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger
international scope have never been successful. Military al-
liances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn
failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of
war. The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this
alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not
devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon
will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and
involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human
character that will synchronize with our almost matchless ad-
vances in science, art, literature, and all material and cultural
developments of the past 2,000 years. It must be of the spirit
if we are to save the flesh."

And on another occasion this is the manner in which he
described our present crisis and prayed for our preservation:

"There are those who seek to convert us to a form of
socialistic endeavor leading directly to the path of Com-
munist slavery. As a counterbalance to those forces is the deep
spiritual urge in the hearts of our people — a spiritual urge
capable of arousing and directing a decisive and impelling
public opinion. This, indeed, is the great safeguard and re-
source of America. So long as it exists we are secure, for it
holds us to the path of reason. It is an infallible reminder
that our greatest hope and faith rests upon two mighty
symbols — the cross and the flag; the one based upon those
immutable teachings which provide the spiritual strength to
persevere along the course which is just and right — the other

47

based upon the invincible will that human freedom shall not
perish from the earth. These are the mighty bulwarks against
the advance of those atheistic predatory forces which seek to
destroy the spirituality of the human mind and to enslave the
human body. Let us pray for the spiritual strength and innate
wisdom to keep the Nation to the course of freedom charted
by our fathers; to preserve it as the mighty instrument on
earth to bring universal order out of existing chaos; to restore
liberty where liberty has perished; and to reestablish human
dignity where dignity has been suppressed."

The strengtji of General Mac Arthur's moral fiber was
especially indicated when in 1942, while accepting an award
as outstanding father of the year, he said: "My hope is that
my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the
battle but from the home repeating with him our simple daily
prayer, 'Our Father who art in heaven.' "

"By their fruits you shall know them," Our Lord said. "Do
men gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? Every
good tree bringeth forth good fruit and the evil tree bringeth
forth evil fruit", (Matt. 7.16).

The fruits of the doctrine of Christian love are peace.

The fruits of the doctrine of atheistic hatred are wars, and
yet more wars.

12

THE MEANING OF CREATION

God created man in order to communicate to him a partici-
pation in the divine nature.

The first man and woman, whose creation is recounted in
Genesis 1-3, were created in grace, i.e. in the friendship of

48

God. Nevertheless, they had freewill and it was fitting, in
God's divine justice, that they should be "tested" so that they
might be able to make a free choice of the service of God, or
the rejection of Him.

This set the stage for the mightiest drama in all human
history, for it was to have, as a direct result, the Incarnation
and death of God-made-man on Calvary.

It is a simple historical fact that our First Parents rebelled
against God with utterly catastrophic results.

This initial revolt of Adam and Eve carried with it a chain
reaction of subsidiary revolts. Divine love being immediately
extinguished in man, his sensitive nature began to rebel against
his reason. And creation itself began to rebel against man,
hitherto its overlord. Divine love had been the bond which
united all creation. It had preserved order in man's own
being. It bound him to his fellow-men; it linked all with God.

When this Divine love disappeared, harmony had fled. Man
was now naturally a rebel prone to defy all authority. Cre-
ation itself broke up into a welter of warring elements. The
orders of reason were now resisted by man and then flouted.
Each sensitive appetite pursued its own reckless course of
gratification regardless of the welfare of the person.

In the state of justice, a stream of delights had overflowed
from the higher faculties to the lower. This ended abruptly
with sin. The senses were now to clamour in vain to the
higher faculties for these delights.

Dark clouds of ignorance began to gather in the hitherto
serene heaven of man's mind, as the senses openly rebelled
against reason. Man began to find it unpleasant and difficult
to contemplate truths which conflicted with his own perverse
inclinations. He developed an affinity, a sympathy for error.
The stage was set for the bloodshed and violence, the cruelty
and oppression of which the history of the human race is so
melancholy a record.

There were several direct punishments meted out to man
because of the Fall. The first was death. Man, taken from the
dust of the earth, was to return to his parent dust at death.
The second was labour. "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou
eat bread** (Gen. 3.19). Eve was told that she would bring
forth her children in pain, that she would be under her hus-
band's dominion all the days of her life. (Gen. 3.16).

The Church teaches that the entire human race fell into

49

disgrace with Adam its head. The Mother of Christ is excepted
of course.

As we know, the transmission of the evil effects of Adam's
sin, the loss of the preternatural gifts of immortality, infused
science, integrity, etc., which our first father originally en-
joyed, is regarded by some as unjust.

Why, asks modern man, should I suffer the evil effects of
a sin I did not commit?

But, in fact, God has anticipated the question and has
more than recompensed man for this seeming injustice.

Adam's sin was serious, constituting an infinite transgres-
sion by reason of the infinite dignity of the offended Majesty
of God.

No human sacrifice could make reparation, and this is
where we must remember that God is bound by His own
divine attribute of justice.

So inexorable is the follow-through of this justice that the
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity must become man and
sacrifice Himself to make the infinite reparation that is re-
quired.

THE WONDROUS INCARNATION

This theology of redemption accords perfectly with reason,
as theologians from Justin, Irenaeous and Tertullian onwards
have pointed out.

Just as Adam communicates his sin to corrupt and disgrace
human nature, Christ the Redeemer communicates His divine
merits to restore human nature, and raise it to a far higher
condition than its original state of natural happiness in Eden.
First the person of fallen man is restored by the infusion of
the life of Christ at baptism. Then the nature is gradually
restored by the discipline of a Christian life and the gradual
increase of sanctifying grace in the soul. This is an individual
effort of man's own free will, an effort made possible by the
help of God's grace. But the attainment of complete moral
integrity is impossible. And the death sentence remains, as
also the laborious acquisition of knowledge.

It is significant that we all participate in the evil effects of
Adam's sin but we are not affected — in our nature that is —
by the sins of other members of the human race.

Similarly we are all, if we choose to be, partakers in the
Divine merits of Christ, but the merits (sanctifying grace)

50

of all other members of the human race are not communi-
cable. (Although the satisfactory and impetratory value of
their good works is communicable.)

Christ became the New Adam, the new head of the human
race in place of Adam.

Mary, as the Patristic writers were quick to notice, became
the New Eve,

Eve co-operated substantially with Adam in the ruin of the
human race. Mary co-operated substantially with Christ in
its restoration to the friendship of God. Mary's obedience
repairs Eve's disobedience. Christ's obedience blots out
Adam's disobedience.

But, just as Mary's obedience could never have saved the
human race without Christ's, so Eve's disobedience could
never have harmed the human race without Adam's. For
Adam's sin, not Eve's, is the cause of humanity's loss of
original justice.

CHRIST OUR BROTHER

The entire theological structure is based on the assumption
that Christ saves us because He can represent us as our true
Brother, a genuine representative of the human family before
the throne of God to plead for us there. This He does because
of the human nature which Mary gave Him by her free assent
to the proposal of the Archangel. It was necessary for Him to
be a human being in order that His divine merits could be
communicated to men, His blood brothers.

We appear before the throne of God clothed in the merits
of Christ, and that is the essence of redemption.

The symmetry is perfect Christ appears vis-a-vis Adam.
Mary appears vis-a-vis Eve. Adam's sin runs like a dark stain
through all the human family and explains why we are born
with inclinations that are selfish, proud, perverse.

Christ's merits run, potentially at least, through all the
human family, like a brilliant eraser of that stain, uplifting all
humanity and enfolding it with the glory of a Divine presence.

The French saint, Louis de Montfort, goes even further with
that beautiful analogy.

He acknowledges that Christ's merits, like Adam's demerits,
are communicable, so that the human race is lost in Adam,
restored in Christ.

But what of Eve's demerits? She was the prime mover in

51

the tragedy of the Fall. In some mysterious way her demerits,
absorbed in those of Adam, are communicated to the human
race. For her sex all through history is to bear the stigma of
her sin. (Gen. 3.16).

And this is where St. Louis surpasses himself. He tells us
that Mary communicates to her children her own merits and
virtues, that she bequeathed these to her children by her testa-
ment when she died. Thus, the consecrated servants of Mary
appear before the Eternal Father, he tells us, clothed in
'double clothing' (Prov. 31.21) in the merits of Jesus and
Mary. The analogy with the demerits of Adam and Eve is
complete. The statement of St. Louis is perfectly fitting.

All Mary's gifts and prerogatives come from God and no
praise of Her can be derogatory of the Divine dignity.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN

Without question, all men are true brothers and all men must
be treated by the true Christian with reverence and respect
as sons of God.

Jesus Christ is the true Brother of all men, and it is in the
logic of this that He suffers with mankind, uplifts and redeems
it

This unity, this powerful reason for loving men, is su-
premely important in today's world of racial tensions, of
hatreds, of disrespect for the dignity of the person and of the
individual.

Christ emphasised this very point in St. Matthew's gospel
when He warned of how He would judge the world on the
last day.

"But I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these
My least brethren, you did it to Me." (Matt 25:40).

Please Note

Some readers may object to the term creation of man, as
described in Genesis, holding rather to the theory that man
evolved.

No reputable scientist would hold that evolution is anything
more than a theory. And it is becoming more and more
widely regarded as a pseudo-scientific theory.

It is now 115 years since Charles Darwin published "The
Origin of Species", the work that was hailed as providing a
"mechanistic" solution to the problem of how man came to

52

be. In that time there has been a frantic search by biologists
and palaeontologists to find what they call the intermediary
fossils or missing links. The search has been a total failure.
Not one valid missing link has been discovered. The Piltdown
Man, Java Man and Peking Man fossils have all turned out
to be hoaxes.

Many theories of how evolution works have been put for-
ward, by Lamarck, Darwin, De Vries and others. All, without
exception, have been abandoned as impracticable. Prominent
former evolutionists like Bounoure and Rostand have referred
to it as a "fairy tale for adults".

Another French scientist, Dr. Maurice Vernet, the author
of La Vie dans TEnergie Universelle (Paris, 1966), says flatly
that biology no longer makes sense without the assumption
of a Prime Mover to explain life. Dr. William Tinkle (a
geneticist listed in American Men of Science), says in his
recently published book, Heredity: A Study in Science and the
Bible that he can name more than 300 men with advanced
scientific degees who do not believe in "evolution."

Researches made by Rev. Patrick O'Connell and outlined
in his books, Science of Today and The Problems of Genesis
and others, indicate that the solid scientific evidence that has
come to light in this century supports the traditional teaching
of the Church on the origin of man, on the specific creation
of Adam and Eve by God, and on the consequent unity of
the human race as brothers, as sons of the same Father.

If it is a scientific "hoax", how is it that evolution has been
widely propagated as "fact" and not merely as the hypothesis
that all reputable scientists know it to be?

In general, it may be said that there has been a massive plot
on the part of the powers of darkness to discredit Christianity
and the Bible through the use of this unscientific and unproved
theory. But the truth is great and it will prevail. The long
night is coming to an end.

Addendum
Those interested in the current scientific exposure of the
evolution hoax are advised to subscribe to the writings of
Henry M. Morris, Ph. D., Director of Creation Science Re-
search Center of Christian Heritage College, 2716 Madison
Ave., San Diego, Cal. 92116.

53

13

THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

The first reaction of many who read the foregoing chapters
may be an aversion to the idea of prayer and penance. They
may come to the conclusion, somewhat superficially, that if
they embrace a life of prayer and self-sacrifice, they will
surely be unhappy.

But, in fact, the very reverse is true. Nothing assures a deep
and enduring happiness so much as simple obedience to God's
commandments; and it is written in the Gospels that those
who sacrifice themselves for the kingdom of God will receive
an hundredfold even in this life, and in eternity, life ever-
lasting. (Mark 10.30).

The consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady,
asked for at Fatima, will lead us to the greatest happiness
possible to us in this vale of tears. The experience and wisdom
of the saints amply demonstrate this.

Possibly the greatest good that can come from the practice
of a perfect consecration to the Blessed Virgin is the fact that
it enables a Christian to live his life to the full, to attain what
philosophers have called the summum bonum. The Greeks
indeed referred to this as the peak of natural happiness. But
for the Christian it has a far deeper meaning than the attain-
ment of a merely natural happiness.

If the following of Christ gives us an hundredfold in terms
of human happiness even in this life, then a perfect formula

54

of consecration to the Blessed Virgin, being in itself a perfect
form of consecration to Christ, must be the crowning achieve-
ment of philosophy and theology down through the ages.

Natural and supernatural happiness go together, of course,
a fact that is not always realised. "It is only by striving to live
a supernatural life" writes Fr. Edward Leen, "that man will
succeed in living a truly natural life. Grace, in perfecting
nature, keeps nature true to itself . , ."

Another writer, Mgr. Bolo, tells us that a soul in possession
of the Holy Spirit has "the very quintessence of happiness,
for the inspiration applies its action to the centre of the soul
and touches the mainspring of all felicity"

There are two fundamental errors by which men are con-
fused in this matter of seeking happiness. The first is well
known — the belief that happiness consists in an opposite con-
dition to some trial or viscissitude through which we may
happen to be passing. For example, the sick imagine they
would be perfectly happy if they regained their health, or the
poor sometimes believe that they would find happiness in
riches. The ageing, with their bald heads or grey hair, sigh for
their lost youth, and like Faust, feel that they could trade
their very souls to regain it.

That these are illusions is amply demonstrated by a glance
at the daily newspapers, for the rich, the physically well and
the youthful are all listed among the frustrated and the
bitterly unhappy, and amongst the suicides.

The other fundamental error of men is the belief that, by
depriving themselves of some pleasure, they will necessarily
make themselves unhappy.

The erroneous belief that penance is synonymous with un-
happiness is the fatal illusion of our times. It prevents, at one
stroke, the entry of millions on this golden path by which men
may reach union with God and all happiness. But the pleasure-
seeker, the hon vivant — even when his pleasures are lawful in
themselves — finds ultimately that his attachment to these
things has provided only an escape from reality, that it has
not led him one single step towards the "good life" towards
that elevation of the soul which can only come from detach-
ment from created things. The ultimate fate of the pleasure-
seeker is inevitably boredom, frustration, ennui.

In the pagan world we find Cleanthes, one of the greatest
sages of antiquity, abandoning an easy and luxurious life to
serve the field-labourers of Athens. And one wonders what

55

the modern Sunday golfer would think of Seneca's assertion
that happiness is the result of virtue and that pleasure is "a
low, servile, weak, perishable and shameful thing." (De Beata
Vita).

The second error and illusion referred to above is the chief
obstacle to the common practice of St. Louis de Montfort's
consecration to Jesus through Mary, for St. Louis makes it
clear that we cannot attach ourselves sincerely to Jesus
through Mary without surrendering — gradually perhaps but
inevitably — our natural attachment to creatures.

The first essential of St Louis' consecration formula is the
renunciation of our own wills for the will of God — and we
must remember that God wills our greatest happiness, here
and hereafter.

As man's will impels him to seek pleasures, luxuries, sensual
attachments of all kinds we find that an almost immediate
crisis arises for the newly arrived client of Our Lady. St. Louis
himself says that the greatest number will stop at what is
exterior in this devotion, and will go no further.

How then can we give this powerful "secret of grace" to all
the world? The path thereto is penitential, but modern man,
standing on the edge of the howling wasteland to which his
lusts and his materialism have brought him, may well listen
to the wisdom of the ages that he has long since abandoned.

This is the "radical" new theory which must capture his
attention, that penance brings happiness not only to indi-
viduals but, in its pervasive influence, to families and societies,
to communities and nations, and to all the world. This is the
message given us throughout the ages by prophets and
patriarchs, in the lives of Christ and His Mother, in the
apparitions of Lourdes and Fatima, in the constant teaching
and practice of saints and evangelists.

Its acceptance by the modern world throws wide the gates
leading to widespread knowledge and practice of St. Louis de
Montfort's luminous theological masterpiece and consequently
to the greatest age of faith in the history of the world.

56

14

THE APOSTASY IN POLITICS

// the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch
(Matt. 15.14)

If the world is in darkness today, threatened with a breakdown
of civilised society on one hand, and atomic annihilation on
the other, it is imperative that we seek a diagnosis of the
trouble. A correct diagnosis must precede a cure; until the
present world situation is intelligently analysed there can be
no hope of improvement. We have already diagnosed a serious
and widespread spiritual atrophy as the root cause of the
crisis. Let us study now its effect on political life.

The blindness of the secular state in the political arena has
been the indirect cause of the deaths of millions of human
beings innocent of any crime. As stated above, this blindness
in political life has its roots in the spiritual aridity of the
souls of the people.

The Popes have given us Divinely inspired guidance in
matters which appear to be political, but which are, in fact,
of deep spiritual import. The failure of the leaders of Christian
nations to listen to Papal advice has drenched Europe in blood
and made our century the most violent in history.

It is known and recognized that Marxist Communism has
been trenchantly condemned by the Popes from Pius DC to the
present day.

Against the most pressing advice of the Popes, the leaders
of Christian States recognised Communist "governments",

57

giving them a dignity to which they were not entitled, a legal
authority they did not possess, and prerogatives which would
enable them to destroy civilised living in the whole world.

Even the Communists have admitted that Stalin was a
tyrant and an oppressor, an enemy of the people of Russia.
Yet he was recognised as the legal ruler of the Soviet Union
by Christian Europe even though it was the avowed purpose
of the conspiracy which he headed to destroy the Christian
faith and all belief in God in Russia and throughout the
world.

By 1924 most European powers had recognised the Com-
munist government as legal, mostly for trade reasons. At the
time Stalin was recognised as legal ruler of Russia, in 1933,
by America and Australia, he was in the very act of order-
ing the wholesale starvation of the Kulaks, the peasant farmers
who were resisting his harsh "collectivisation". Kravchenko,
a reliable witness of these events, reported that 20,000,000
perished, that their slaughter was deliberate, well-planned and
cold-blooded.

This "legal recognition" was all-important for Stalin. It
elevated a criminal conspiracy to the status of a government,
gave him enormous help through "diplomatic privilege", and
enabled the Marxist virus to infiltrate and infect all the
nations of the world. Above all, it was a betrayal of God and
that constituted its essential malice.

It can be demonstrated that the great political problems
and confusions of the modern world began with this act of
betrayal which was in some sense the first step in the great
political apostasy of today.

The world has suffered greatly because of it, uncounted
millions have died as a result of it. But the blindness still
persists and will persist until men pray again.

The secular states were told in many great encyclicals and
allocutions of the Popes how to deal wisely with Communism.
The new ideology was condemned severely by Leo XIII in
Allegiance to the Republic and Christian Constitution of
States, and it was Pius XI who told us in 1937 that "Com-
munism is intrinsically evil and no-one who has any concern
for Christian society may collaborate with it in any enter-
prise whatever." (Encyclical on Atheistic Communism).

The encvclical Allegiance to the Republic was issued by
Pope Leo XIII in 1892.

This great Pope was already aware of the attempt by God-

58

less men to seize political power in order to suppress religion.

What lawful authority would such rulers have? What lawful
authority do the rulers of Communist nations have today?

Pope Leo led off with a definition of law. A law, he said,
is a precept ordained according to reason and promulgated for
the good of the community.

He made it clear immediately that laws which are hostile to
God and to religion should never be approved. On the con-
trary, he said, it is a duty to disapprove them.

As soon as the State refuses, he continued, to give to God
what belongs to God, then by a necessary consequence it re-
fuses to giwe to citizens that to which, as men, they have a
right.

The great Pope clearly foresaw the dangers threatening the
twentieth century, for he goes on:

"Whence it follows that the State, by missing the principal
object of its institution, finally becomes false to itself by deny-
ing that which is the reason for its own existence, namely God
. . . All citizens are bound, therefore, to unite in maintaining
in the nation true religious sentiment, and to defend it, in case
of need, if ever, despite the protestations of nature and of
history, an atheistical school should set about banishing God
from society and annihilating the moral sense even in the
depths of the human conscience"

Later, in his Christian Constitution of States, Pope Leo
was to proclaim:

"It is a public crime to act as though there were no God."

"Nature and reason," the Pontiff went on, "which command
the individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because
we belong to Him and must return to Him, bind also the
civil community by a like law."

This question of the inalienable rights of man is crucially
important. An inalienable right is one that cannot be justly
taken away by any power on earth, a right that is inherent in
human nature itself, a right that is given to man by God.

As we know, the American Declaration of Independence
issued on July 4th 1776 opened with these noble words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights gov-
ernments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of

59

goverment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or abolish it."

By recognising the Communist conspiracy in Russia as a
legal government America helped to take away this right of
self-determination from the Russian people, helped to consoli-
date the criminal conspirators in power.

The Soviet ralers never even pretended to recognise these
inalienable rights of man and they do not do so now. In fact it
can be truthfully said that Communism has no reason for its
existence other than to take away the inalienable rights of man,
the principal of which is the right to worship God in holiness,
in justice, and in truth.

As is well known their system of internal espionage, with its
ubiquitous secret police makes it impossible for the unfortunate
Russian people to rebel.

In recognising such a conspiracy as a government, and giv-
ing it indispensable help by means of diplomatic privilege and
immunity, have we not become, in some sense, accomplices in
their crimes against the Russian people?

It is clear that, when the American and European govern-
ments recognised the militantly atheistic dictatorship of Joseph
Stalin as the legal government of Russia in the twenties and
thirties they perpetrated a grave injustice against the Russian
people.

How grave the injustice is shown by the rivers of blood that
have flowed in the Soviet Union in the ensuing decades. For it
is clear that diplomatic recognition and help from the West
established the murderer Stalin in power.

The Communist conspiracy channeled its deadly poison
through many of the countries of the world by means of the
precious diplomatic immunity granted it by blind politicians in
the free world.

We have only to read Anatol Kuznetsov's articles, released
in the Daily Telegraph, August 1969, to realize whom the
various Soviet Embassies represent. They don't represent the
Russian people, that is certain.

"Democracy will be safe" wrote the great Greek sage Solon
six hundred years before Christ, "when he who is not injured is
just as indignant as he who is."

There is little indignation today for the millions of innocent
people who have been murdered under Communism in Russia,
in China, in Vietnam. The victims are quietly buried, unwept,
unhonoured and unsung. But we shall meet them again on

60

the Last Day, when all these accounts will be settled by a just
God.

These matters are being brought up in a rather agonising
hour in history, an hour in which the oppressors of the Russian
people have at their disposal enough terror weapons to destroy
the civilised world, and the Russian people as well.

Who has the answer for such a fearful dilemma?

A challenge to the Soviet Communists in a global war may
well be an act of madness; we can turn only to God.

It is absolutely clear from reliable internal reports on Soviet
Russia that the Communist regime could be destroyed from
within by an internal upheaval, and it is for this we should
work and pray.

All things are possible to God who can easily preserve us
from the dangers of Soviet Russia's hydrogen bombs — if only
we pray.

But let us remember well that it is the politicians who have
let us down, not the Popes.

It is the blindness, the lack of insight in the political leaders
we have elected which has created the Frankenstein monster
that threatens us today.

It is the wisdom of the Popes that would have saved us,
the sagacity of the great Leo XIII — Lumen in coelo he was
called — which would, had his advice been followed, have
spared the world from much of the sorrows and bloodshed
of this age.

15

PROBLEMS ON CAMPUS

It is inevitable that a new generation of youth, better edu-
cated in a technical or technological sense, literate, sophisti-

61

cated and somewhat spoiled by an unprecedented affluence,
should be disturbed and agitated in today's world.

They face an uncertain future with a constant, and to them
inexplicable, succession of wars threatening their happiness
and their lives.

They have, in Western civilisation at least, little or no moral
and spiritual patrimony handed down to them from their
faithless ancestry. In the important department of philosophy
they are orphans — and they know it. Bewildered, they have
become the prey of slick demagogues, unscrupulous agitators,
hypocritical politicians. Frenzied dictators and political pied
pipers have shouted attractive slogans and ideologies at them,
only to lead them into the ditch to which the blind invariably
lead the blind.

The frustration of youth today is understandable, and to a
very large extent, excusable. The university students, as the
intellectual elite of today's youth and its articulate leaders,
capture the headlines with riots on campus, vandalism, mob
violence.

Now that the draft for the war in Vietnam has ended the
riots have subsided, but the frustration remains and will re-
main until the vacuum is filled in the souls of our modern
youth. Many of our most talented students realise the in-
trinsic worthlessness of the education they are receiving. In
despair they turn to the reckless pursuit of sensual pleasures,
to drugs, and sometimes to suicide.

Who is responsible for this failure in education?

It is a fact that most universities today care little about the
moral or philosophical background of faculty staff. It is held
to be illiberal to refuse a man an appointment if he is a Com-
munist or an atheist. But a professor or lecturer at a uni-
versity should be required to have, as a condition sine qua non
to his appointment, a dedication to truth. The Greeks held
that those who taught the youth of the nation held the most
honoured and responsible positions in the nation. But, if a
university professor is confused and is in error on the really
great questions of essence and existence, questions relating to
the meaning of life, to higher metaphysics, etc., then it is
surely unwise to place him in control of the nation's youth, no
matter what other qualifications he may have. As Christians
know very well, such a man may become an instrument of
the powers of darkness.

Of course it will be considered naive to raise such a ques-

62

tion in a pluralist society which sees no harm in atheism, or
in moral corruption and unnatural vice.

The question is raised to underline the fact that in agreeing
to such appointments we are doing something our ancestors
would never have considered wise, something which is proving
to be unwise if we are to judge from its fruits.

The Greeks were right. High moral qualifications should
be expected from the man who essays to teach the youth of
the nation.

The university has been traditionally a centre for giving a
comprehensive education to its students. As a first essential a
university must decide if God exists, for all education must
take its character and its orientation from the question of
God's existence. In other words, theology has to be the first
and most indispensable of the academic disciplines if the
university is to gain the respect of its students.

The entire meaning of life revolves around creation, for,
if we have been created, we simply must know who created
us and why. And of course we must know if there is life after
death. Even the most primitive of human minds should be
able to see the relative unimportance of technology in com-
parison to this.

Christian parents in recent years have been bitterly dis-
appointed with the results of university training for their sons
and daughters. Only too often, the university milieu has been
infected with agnosticism and secular humanism. In such a
spiritual climate faith is eroded, morals are corrupted, lives
are ruined, and souls may be lost forever.

We have, it seems, reached a crisis in higher education.
Expensive buildings there may be but it is useless to provide
magnificent buildings and appointments if there are no en-
lightened professors and lecturers to go with them.

Buildings and appointments say nothing to the soul of man.
Modern technocrats or technicians are not necessarily edu-
cated in the old sense of the word. They would have little
affinity for example, with the philosophers of Attica who
walked in the "groves of Academe", much less with the in-
spired writers and brilliant thinkers who have interpreted
Christ's gospel for us and given to the world the greatest
civilization it has known.

The word educate meant, in the old sense, to lead forth
e — ducere — and, in the days of Charlemagne and Alcuin it
surely meant to lead forth from the darkness of paganism to

63

the light of the Gospel. How then can an atheist professor
truly educate his pupils? He may train them in various exact
sciences, give them the ability to take out $20,000 per year
from some Corporation. But none of the wise men of the
past, not Plato or Aristotle, Seneca or Confucius or Buddha —
none of them would have confused this with education, which
is, primarily, a search for one's identity and a search for
happiness.

Men have asked fundamental questions from the beginning
of time: Who am I? How did I come to be? What am I doing
here? Is there a life beyond the grave? How can I attain peace
of soul, happiness, true love?

The achievements of the astronauts rivet our attention to
the fact that we are fellow travellers on this space ship called
earth, that we are constantly orbiting the sun in the trackless
wastes of space.

How utterly extraordinary it is! What human mind is there
which can fail to marvel at this journey of man through space!
What unseen power has flung this planet Earth into the
cosmos, enriching it with all that man needs for his suste-
nance, guiding it constantly into the narrow elliptical orbit
from which it must not deviate if we are to live?

Whence did we come? Where are we going?

Modern man needs to know the answers with desperate
urgency, for there is an atomic "sword of Damocles" sus-
pended above his head.

What will the historians of the future say of this age? What
will they say of its youth?

It is not possible to answer these questions at this stage for
the great drama has not reached the denouement, the climax
which will fill the soul with awe; in the full apocalyptic gran-
deur of the spiritual crisis shall we see what our youth are
made of.

Their discontent, their anger and frustration are laudable
insofar as they imply a rejection of the materialistic values
of their fathers and mothers. But this is praiseworthy only if
they have the character to rise to a challenge, to seize that
"tide in the affairs of men" which God will present to them
eventually. For our youth are not to be left permanently with-
out leadership, without a light to guide them into a better
world order. Have our youth the courage, the resolution, the
idealism to follow the light, even unto great sacrifice, into the

64

valley of death itself? There are many indications that they
have.

16

THE GREAT IDEAL

It is no exaggeration to say that Christianity, fully lived by
the generality of men, would enable mankind to reach the
maximum happiness possible to it in this vale of tears.

It is, in fact, a common assumption of spiritual writers that
Heaven begins here on earth when sanctifying grace enters
the soul at baptism. This Divine life which, as St. John tells
us, is love itself, communicates itself like a light to other
people and gives some faint promise of the paradise to come.
For grace, as we have noted, is called glory in exile.

It is curious that the existentialist Jean Paul Sartre, when
asked if he believed in hell, is said to have replied, "hell is
other people",

Sartre, alas, does not have the gift of faith. For the Chris-
tian, it can be said that Heaven is other people. For the Chris-
tian is bound by the express teaching of the Church and of
St. Paul in particular, to see and reverence Christ in his
fellowman.

The history of the human race is, it must be confessed, a
melancholy record of cruelty and oppression. "Man's in-
humanity to man," wrote Robert Burns, "makes countless
thousands mourn." Could man ever be persuaded to believe
that, in meeting his fellow-man, he was, in some sense, having
an encounter with the Infinite God?

We know from any number of private revelations that
angels, when they appear to men, are superhumanly beauti-

65

ful. We know that their angelic intellect is such that the most
gifted of men is, compared to the least of the angels, un-
utterably and abysmally stupid. We have it on the word of
Our Lord Himself that the just who die in grace are as the
angels of Heaven endowed with an eternal happiness and
bliss that no human tongue could describe. (Matt. 22.30).

Each man or woman we meet must be seen then as having
a Divine image, as a soul on its journey to eternity. For this
reason, we owe each other reverence and love, and this ap-
plies to all nations and all classes, for, in order to have this
incomprehensible dignity, it is simply necessary to be a man,
redeemed by the Precious Blood of our Brother Jesus Christ,
called by God to occupy the princely thrones from which
the fallen angels fell by pride. (Apoc. 12.4). This is the
premise from which we draw our ideal of Christian love.

This is the greatest ideal which can possibly be put before
the wavering, uncertain mind of man. If he seizes on this
ideal, perceives its sterling worth, its truth, its validity and
acts on it, then he reigns as a prince, both in this life and the
next. For the trials and vicissitudes he may have to endure
here on earth, far from harming the inner peace and happiness
of his soul, actually enrich these spiritual qualities. That is
why God permits His chosen ones to suffer in this life.

It is not intended for one moment to ignore the difficulties
of living a spiritual life. Every mature person knows the chal-
lenge that Christ offers us in asking us to take up our Cross
daily and follow Him. The pain to our sensual nature, dis-
ordered and disoriented by Original Sin is there. But it must
be insisted that Christ the Redeemer is strictly faithful to His
solemn promise that His followers would be one hundred
times happier, even in this life, than those who sought grati-
fication in their sensual appetites. This can even be proved
statistically, for countries which have degenerated morally
usually have a higher incidence of suicide and nervous dis-
orders than others. The one single simple constituent in the
natural order that unites the human race is that we all seek
happiness. Even the bank robber robs a bank in the pathetic
belief that the proceeds of his robbery will enable him to be
happier. The bank robber, like all criminals, is tragically
deficient in philosophy.

It can be said that no nation can be greater than its phi-
losophy for wisdom is the quality that most elevates man
above the animals. Wisdom is the proper use of knowledge

66

and it is wisdom to see God's signature in the universe, to
adore Him and to obey His commandments. Jesus Christ is
called by the saints the Incarnate Wisdom and He is identified
with the beauty of nature in that inspired verse of the Irish
poet Plunkett, "/ see His blood upon the rose, and in the stars,
the glory of His eyes . . ."

Christ, then, represents the ideal par excellence for the
human race, the indispensable Sun of Justice whose rays
illumine all men, the glowing Furnace of love, in which we
are all united, in love.

The least thing done for Christ brings rewards, in the
natural and supernatural orders, beyond all measure. Truly
he could say of His divine mission, '7 am come that they may
have life, that they may have it more abundantly"

Is history itself against us in believing or hoping that so
sublime an ideal could really motivate men, colour their
thinking, raise them above the selfishness and corruption of
the past? Cynics may indeed laugh at the idea that human
nature as portrayed in the pages of history, could change so
radically.

Nevertheless, the age of Christian triumph foreshadowed
in the prophecies at the beginning of this book does indicate
some great and unprecedented acceptance of the Christian
ideal by men. This was clearly referred to by Our Lady in
those memorable words, "In the end, my Immaculate Heart
will triumph, Russia will be converted, and an era of peace
will be conceded to the world."

What will this new Christian social order, referred to in so
many prophecies, be like?

There will be, without doubt, a vast refinement of manners,
motivated by a sincere fraternal love between men.

In this glorious age, men will see Christ in their neighbour,
no matter how poor, how illiterate, or of what race or nation
he may be, lest they merit the rebuke given to Saul, '7 am
Jesus, whom thou persecutest" (Acts 9.5).

It will be an age of mass conversions, as St. Louis pre-
dicted, with vast numbers of the non-Christian races embrac-
ing Christianity.

It is unnecessary to say that, in such an age, extreme
poverty and starvation will be banished, although, in the
Church, there will be a great love of evangelical poverty.
Money will simply be considered to be "filthy lucre" — as St.
Peter and St. Paul both referred to it— unworthy of the notice

67

of the Christian sincerely striving for the glories of eternal
life.

The sudden removal of the great armaments programmes,
the immediate decrease in the incidence of crime, the greatly
increased output in production as a result of a Christian in-
dustrial and social conscience — all these things will lower
taxes to a small fraction of what they now are.

Science will truly serve man, in this great age, as God
intended it to do. Freed from concentration upon weapons of
destruction, this will surely be an age of almost incredible
technological and scientific advancement. Deserts will bloom
and crops will double and treble under the force of man's
God-given genius.

Reason also tells us that it must necessarily be the greatest
age of all time in art, in literature, in architecture, in music,
in all that enobles and inspires the soul of man.

Does all this mean that the cross will be eliminated from
man's life, that the new Christian social order will be some-
thing of a "paradise on earth"?

This can never be, for the very purpose of existence is to
try man, as gold is tried in the furnace.

The corruption of man's human nature will still subsist,
and he will still be subject to serious temptation. The proper
will of man will still struggle against the Divine will, and the
self-denial which faith and reason command will still be pain-
ful to him.

The important thing is that man, in this golden Age of
Mary, will carry these crosses with far more ease, with far
more merit and far more glory.

Enlightened as to the shortest, easiest, most perfect and
secure path to Jesus, modern man will travel this via immacu-
lata with giant strides, without retracing his steps, with lights
and graces unknown to those who try to reach perfection in
other ways.

This then, is the new City of Man which lies just over the
horizon, beyond, perhaps, the dark clouds of Satan's final
triumph. This is the great age which is brought so much nearer
with ever consecration of a soul to Mary's Immaculate Heart,
with every resolution of a soul to pray and do penance as
Our Lady so urgently begged us to do at Fatima,

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17

THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

For centuries men have quoted St. Thomas' five proofs of
the existence of God; they have cited the miracles which
abound in every age to support Christian revelation — and
which are present in abundance in our own age. The heavens
have consistently shown forth the glory of God, the firma-
ment declaring the work of His hands.

And still we hear the ultimate absurdity, "there is no God".

Objectively speaking, it can be said that the most obvious
thing in all the world is that a Supreme Being, a Creator,
exists. In spite of all this there are some who are considered
learned and intelligent who tell us "there is no God".

Curiously enough this is still another proof of the existence
of God. For it is true to say that, in general, those who be-
lieve are those who pray. And those who do not believe are
those who do not pray.

Hence it is obvious that God punishes the proud and the
perverse souls who refuse to pray, by withholding His divine
presence from them. They are left by the most just God, in
darkness. They cannot see what any child can see, that there
is a God.

But the man who prays perse veringly is not left in doubt.
For God reveals Himself to such souls, and consoles them
with His graces, so that all the mysteries of life are revealed
and the sufferings and trials of this life are seen in the most
noble context of the sufferings of Calvary.

The marvellous plan of creation and redemption is un-

69

ravelled before the mental gaze of the man who prays to God
through Jesus Christ.

But no light can pierce the thick cloud of darkness that
envelops the mind of the atheist, the man who refuses to
pray.

He will deny the most sure evidence of his reasonings, will
be unimpressed by the most staggering miracles worked to
prove the existence of God.

The intricate design of the universe, found in the cosmos
as well as in the marvellous plant and animal world, cry out
to us, affirming the presence of a Supreme Designer.

The laws which govern the Heavenly bodies, the tides, the
seasons, presuppose a Divine Lawgiver.

The countless effects we see around us have causes. In
biology we trace life forms back to a necessary First Cause.
For at some point in time life began on this planet.

Who created that life?

There is a tremendous motion in the universe, the earth
alone, as we know, orbiting the sun at a constant 66,600 miles
an hour. If it were to slacken its pace it would plunge into
the 36,000,000 degrees Centigrade heat of the sun and all
life would end.

But who sustains this motion, who keeps the earth rotating
at a precision speed around the Sun?

Matter is inert and cannot move itself.

The consensus of all humanity, until this proud, blind,
atheistic age, is that there is a Prime Mover, an Omnipotent
Being, who is God.

It is true that educated men are to be found who are
atheists, just as there are educated men who are believers.

And this is how it should be, for the significant division in
the human race is between the good and the evil, not between
the educated and the uneducated.

If in fact Heaven could be entered by the talented and the
educated whilst Hell was the lot of the stupid and the illiterate
then the injustice of the Divine plan would be manifest.

Our Lord Himself warned us that the children of this world,
the materialists, are wiser in their generation than the children
of light

As businessmen, as executives, as administrators, atheists
or agnostics are often more efficient than Christians.

In terrenis fortes, in coelestibus debiles.

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In earthly things they are strong, m heavenly things they
are weak.

But this business ability, this worldly success, may well be,
in reality, a curse.

For what does it profit them if they gain the whole world
and lose their souls?

No matter how smart they are, no matter how subtle and
quick-witted in their business dealings, they cannot "scheme"
their way into God's presence. Holy Scripture refers to such
men as fools.

The Beatific Vision, the eternal happiness of Heaven, is the
reward of the good, not the clever.

THE PASS IS CHARITY

The entry pass is charity, in the form of sanctifying grace.
Without this, the most brilliant intellect who ever lived can-
not reach the eternal reward, the paradise for which every
fibre of his being subconsciously yearns.

And the stupid, the backward, need not fear that they will
miss the Beatific Vision on this account.

Only a deliberate choice of evil will draw down this judg-
ment upon them, a failure to thank God in prayer for His
blessings,a failure to adore, to bend the knee in the just hom-
age which we owe to the Deity.

What then of the shrewd business man, the brilliant execu-
tive who neglects God and finds himself in Hell forever and
ever?

How smart is he? How brilliant is he then?

With what unimaginable remorse does he contemplate then
the brilliant intellect that was his in life, the intellect that he
used merely to gather the useless baubles of earth!

He is accursed, ruined, bankrupt — not in the useless tran-
sient wealth of earth, but in the infinitely precious wealth of
God's love, the eternal ecstasy which was purchased for him
on Calvary. He is ruined, utterly and forever, this smart
businessman who refused to pray, and no tongue or pen could
describe the extent of his ruin.

No greater act of charity for our neighbour can we per-
form than to save his soul from Hell. Prayers of reparation to
Our Lady's Immaculate Heart are supremely efficacious in
saving these souls from the abyss.

The prayers and the penances of Christians can set in mo-

71

tion the conversion of the atheist and the agnostic, and bring
the warmth of God's love even to those "who do not believe,
do not adore, do not trust, and do not love"

18

MIRACLES

Many sceptics who doubt the truths of the spiritual life are
wont to say that they are only prepared to believe what they
see, meaning that if they saw a miracle they would believe.

We know from the Scriptures themselves that miracles do
not necessarily bring faith. There must be goodwill before
this peace can enter the soul. St. Luke tells how, when Our
Lord healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath,
the Pharisees, watching Him, were "filled with madness" and
immediately began to plot His death. They were similarly in-
censed when He raised Lazarus from death after four days
and even considered killing Lazarus himself because many of
the Jews believed in Christ through this miracle.

This attitude is still common, as we know from the dis-
interest with which the majority of people receive authentic
accounts of the miracles of Lourdes and Fatima.

There was once a famous French novelist named Emile
Zola, whose fame was at its peak at the turn of the century.
He was an atheist.

Zola popularized the theory that the cures at Lourdes were
due to "religious suggestion". Being an intelligent man he
must have known that organic diseases could not possibly be
cured in this way, but to Zola any solution was preferable to
the true solution, that the cures were worked by Divine power.

72

Zola went to Lourdes with a fanfare of publicity in 1892
declaring, "If / can only see a cut finger healed I will believe."

Because of his fame as a writer every door was thrown
open to him and he was given all the privileges of a visiting
doctor. And Heaven accepted his challenge in a remarkable
way.

A woman named Marie Lemarchand had been suffering
from lupus of the mouth and nose, the cartilages of the latter
being almost eaten away while blood and pus oozed from
the shapeless and repulsive wound. In addition her left arm
and leg were partly paralyzed.

During Zola's train journey from Paris, Marie Lemarch-
and shared the same carriage with him, so that he was
familiar with her case. He was present also at the baths when
Marie Lemarchand, with others, was immersed. The moment
she touched the water she felt a violent pain. She screamed
loudly, attracting the attention of all, and then came up, com-
pletely cured.

There was a shout of triumph from Dr. Boissarie, President
of the Medical Bureau. "Behold, Monsieur Zola," he said ex-
citedly, "the case of your dreams.**

There was a moment of silence as Zola faced this bitter
fact, so hurtful to his pride and self-esteem.

Refusing to bend even before this unassailable evidence he
muttered, "Take her away — she is not pretty enough yet."
Later he was reported as saying that if he saw all the sick in
Lourdes cured he still would not believe. In fact he refused
to change in any way his theory of auto-suggestion and, in his
writings on his journey to Lourdes he made it appear that
Marie Lemarchand was cured gradually as a result of re-
peated bathings and the atmosphere of what he called "re-
ligious suggestion".

If there is one thing clear from the Scriptures it is this:
Miracles were worked by Christ in order to prove His au-
thority to teach in the name of God, and He clearly expected
His hearers to believe His doctrine because of those miracles.

There is evidence in the Scriptures that Our Lord was
moved to anger when His miracles were rejected and ascribed
to Beelzebub.

"The men of Ninive" He declared, "shall rise in judgement
with this generation and shall condemn it, because they did
penance at the preaching of Jonas, and behold a greater than
Jonas here." (Luke VI: 32).

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In sending His seventy -two disciples to teach and work
miracles in His name, He condemned in advance those who
would reject them, telling the disciples to wipe off the dust of
their cities for a testimony against them.

'7 say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom . . •
than for that city" (Luke X:12).

"Woe to thee Corozain, woe to thee Bethsaida," the Saviour
continued, "for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the
mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have
done penance long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes."

Such is the awesome responsibility of people who reject
miracles, who tell us that our dogmas must have a Scriptural
basis. // is the Scriptures themselves that cry out to us, and
warn us of the necessity of believing in Lourdes and Fatima,
and the doctrine and messages given to the world there, be-
cause those doctrines and messages are confirmed by the
spectacular miracles worked at those famous Shrines.

19

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

There may be sceptical readers of this book who will say,
"If the message of prayer and penance is so powerful, if its
implementation will solve all the problems of the world, the
wars, the crime, the colour question, poverty, etc., why did it
not do these things in the ages of faith when ail Europe was
Christian?"

There are several considerations to be taken here. In the
Ages of Faith there was great confusion in regard to the
proper role of a Christian king or emperor vis-a-vis the
Church. Also, communications were poor, restricted to de-

74

livering messages by horseback, and the opportunities did not
exist, as they do today, for dissemination of a really powerful
theological ideal to great masses of people in many countries
at one time. The Fatima revelation is such an ideal today.

And it must be noted that the message given by Our Lady
to the world is not just prayer and penance; it has much more
theological depth than that. Our Lady's prophecies concerning
the conversion of Russia and the coming of the triumph of
Her Immaculate Heart indicate that the world is poised
for new and marvellous spiritual adventures, even if, as seems
inevitable, we must pass through some terrible Gethsemane
to reach this blessed Resurrection of the spirit.

There is a Providential opportunity now for soul-searching,
for looking back into history to discover the mistakes of the
past, for examining the record of the "Institutional Church"
to discover why She has not fully carried out the injunction
of Her Divine Founder to "go, make disciples of all na-
tions ..."

All mature persons, well aware of the weakness of our
fallen human nature, will examine the pages of history with
some compassion for the tragic failure of Church leaders in
the past. If the apostles themselves had serious weaknesses,
how can we expect every Pope and bishop to behave like a
saint?

Nevertheless, all will agree that the Institutional Church
can and should be organised to encourage sanctity rather
than laxity, to promote the Christian virtues, to give to man-
kind the inspiration of the Gospel, to send out impulses of
light and love to all the world. In the past it has not been
organised on these lines at all times, and it is the most sacred
mission of all Christians to help the Church fulfil this sublime
destiny in the future.

In April 1969, Pope Paul ordered leading ecclesiastics in
Rome to cut back on expensive clothing and other extras,
and to give an example of the poverty and simplicity of the
Gospel to the world.

Some saintly writers, examining the comparatively poor
performance of the Church throughout the ages, have ad-
vanced the theory that the Church became far too involved
with the secular power in the Constantine and subsequent
eras, so that high Ecclesiastics came to be looked upon, all
too often, as secular lords and princes, rather than as spiritual
shepherds of the flock of Jesus of Nazareth.

75

It is a historical fact that in many countries bishoprics were
richly endowed with property and temporal benefices, so that,
all too often, unscrupulous and ambitious men cast covetous
eyes upon them when they were vacant.

As the kings and emperors had the right, for many cen-
turies, to nominate their own bishops, the harm done to the
Church was enormous.

Many Popes were acutely conscious of this great harm
being done by bad Episcopal appointments and there was an
intermittent struggle from the time of Gregory Hildebrand
onwards for the right of investiture of bishops. But few Popes
had the courage and resolution of Gregory, and most of them
submitted tamely to the ruthless demands of the secular
powers.

It is important to remember that the kings and emperors
claimed the right to nominate the bishops primarily because
the bishop was often the equivalent of a baron or a duke in
those days, and, as such, subject in a special way to the king.

The Pope himself was often the equivalent of a secular king,
particularly after Charlemagne when the district around Rome
and the provinces of Romagna and the Pentapolis were ceded
to the Papacy.

The Pope's temporal power reached its height at the begin-
ning of the 16th century when he had control of seven
duchies and three provinces.

Victor Emmanuel merely had to send an army of occupa-
tion to take the Papal States in 1870, after French troops
protecting the Pope's rights were withdrawn. Vatican 1, which
was then in session, was hastily terminated.

It was the end of the temporal power of the Popes. Re-
garded as a tragedy at the time, it has since come to be
considered a great blessing. For the Pope's prestige rose
immensely in the ensuing years, and he came to be regarded
for what he was, a great spiritual leader, above politics and
the ambitions of princes and prime ministers.

At Vatican 1 1 , some bishops from Latin America sponsored
a move to return the Church to stark poverty and simplicity.
They held that this was the Church that Jesus Christ set up
as outlined in the Gospels. They succeeded in having several
strong recommendations to poverty written into the Council
documents.

Without doubt Christ wants a Church which will bring rich
spiritual gifts to the poor and the suffering, a Church which

76

will see in every man a soul on its journey to eternity, a
Church whose members truly love one another, and who love
and serve their neighbour in all mankind.

St. Ignatius tells us that the devil usually tempts holy men,
first with a desire for money, second with a desire for position,
and finally with pride. The failure of the Church in history
is all too understandable in the light of this.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit" said the Saviour.

Poverty or detachment from worldly goods engenders
humility.

"The poor will speak with supplications and the rich will
speak roughly." (Prov. XVIII.23).

Our Lord tells us also that we can serve either God or
Mammon — and not both.

It is fitting therefore that the Church which is the Bride of
Christ be decked out in that poverty and simplicity which are
the striking characteristics of the life of the Bridegroom here
on earth.

"Be not solicitous" He tenderly counselled His anxious
followers. "Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow
nor gather into barns; and your Heavenly Father feedeth
them"

"Seek therefore the kingdom of God and His justice, and
all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6-25.33).

If all the agony of this century of blood and tears, if all the
suffering of the persecuted in the lands of atheist darkness
can purify the Church so that She is easily recognizable by
Her likeness to Her divine Founder, then the current crisis
will indeed be worthwhile and we may hope for the greatest
Christian era in all history.

This is an enlightened, articulate, and perceptive genera-
tion. It has a golden opportunity to learn from all the errors
of history.

It has an outstanding opportunity also to learn how to re-
fashion the Church in the manner and according to the image
designed by God Himself. For the Most High has con-
descended to reveal these guidelines to us at Fatima,

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20

THE NEW CRUSADE

The Mother of Christ launched a new crusade at Fatima but
its tremendous significance has been little understood by the
world at large.

As is well-known She forshadowed the ultimate success of
this crusade, indicating, nevertheless, that much bloodshed
and suffering would precede that success.

Like an efficient surgeon dealing with a cancerous growth
of the spiritual order Our Lady tells us in concise, almost
laconic, terms how the operation is to be carried out.

We should not be surprised if we discover that the most
brilliant theology is hidden in those few sentences She uttered
at the Cova da Iria. It could hardly be otherwise.

The Church has traditionally taught that the prayers and
good works of Christians — and we refer here pre-eminently
to the reception of the Sacraments— have certain powerful
hidden effects, in addition to those which may be visible or
sentimental.

The first and most important of these is an increase in
sanctifying grace — which is the life of Christ — in our souls.
No treasure on earth can compare with this treasure of sancti-
fying grace which is sometimes called glory in exile- — for it is
transmuted into glory at our deaths.

Not only does this increase in sanctifying grace carry with
it an increase in the theological virtues of faith, hope and
charity, it brings with it also the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
and a strengthening in the cardinal and moral virtues. In
other words it moves us powerfully away from error and

78

into the light of true wisdom, which is the principal gift
of the Holy Spirit.

There is one important proviso — it is necessary that our
prayer be reverent and humble, as is fitting when we address
the Deity. For Holy Scripture tells us that God rejects the
proud and gives his grace to the humble. And this humility
must carry with it the disposition to do God's will, for Christ
said, "Not everyone that cries Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my
Father he it is that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven"
(Matt. 7.21).

There are two other effects of a prayer well said, not so
important but they should be mentioned. The first is that the
prayer makes satisfaction for sins we may have committed
and procures for us some remission of that sentence that we
might otherwise have to spend in Purgatory. The second is
what theologians call an "impetratory effect" or the power to
help a friend or relative by some actual grace.

But easily the most important effect is the increase in sancti-
fying grace for it is a step, however small, along the path
towards that union with Christ in which the perfection of a
Christian consists.

With the foregoing in mind, let us examine what Our Lady
asked us to do at Fatima.

Let us place the requests in this order:

(a) consecration to Her Immaculate Heart

(b) daily recitation of the rosary

(c) penance in the form, principally, of a special care to
do well the duties of our state in life.

CONSECRATION

By asking us to consecrate ourselves to Her Immaculate
Heart, Qur Lady has, at one stroke, increased dramatically
the flow of sanctifying grace into our souls as a result of our
good works and prayers. She has done this by guaranteeing
that our dispositions will be humble and reverent when we
approach the Almighty. Great saints from earliest times (e.g.
St. Augustine and St. Ephrem) have counselled souls to
approach God through Mary because, as they insist, we there-
by act more humbly and glorify God more highly. Fallen
man, they tell us, is too blind to perceive the depths of

79

degradation to which he has been reduced by the triple
concupiscence inherent in us all. The saints, with greater
insights, perceive this degradation and warn us that it is not
fitting to approach Jesus Christ who is God and as worthy
of respect as His Father, without a mediator to help us.
Whence St. Bernard's well-known advice, "If you have any-
thing to offer to God, take care to offer it by the most agree-
able hands of Mary, unless you wish to have it rejected."

Some have quoted St. Paul's words to try to disprove this:
"There is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus
Christ". (1 Tim. 2:5). This is a reference to Christ's unique
role as Mediator of redemption. However, in Holy Scripture
itself we find Abraham, Moses and the prophets acting as
mediators between God and the people, mediators of inter-
cession, that is. St. Paul himself in asking God for graces and
blessings for his people in acting as a mediator in this sense
and at least on one occasion (1 Thess. 5:25) he asks his
people to pray for him.

As our true Mother in Heaven, Our Lady certainly inter-
cedes for us as a most powerful mediator of intercession with
Her Son; and the most striking modern proof of this is Her
coming at Fatima, an event which was confirmed by a public
miracle reported even in the daily press of those times.

It has commonly been taught by approved doctors and
theologians in the Church (Saints Bernard, Bonaventure, Al-
phonsus and others) that it is more efficacious to approach
Jesus through Mary than to try to reach Him by any other
means. It is impossible to reproduce all the persuasive reason-
ings they use here but those who are specially interested in
this subject will find some of them in the famous Treatise on
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by St. Louis de
Montfort.

A true act of consecration is not just a passing prayer.
It is a deep and determined commitment to Mary, a kind of
loyalty oath that a soldier takes to die for king and country, a
promise to serve the Son of Mary through Her, to serve
without counting the cost, the sacrifices, the wounds. We all
make this kind of vow at baptism really, when, through our
sponsors we renounce Satan and his pomps and works, and
vow to serve Jesus Christ and Him alone. Most of us forget
about the vow we take at baptism — the greatest of vows
according to the canonists — and live as though we had never
taken it

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The consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is called
the 'perfect renewal of the baptismal vow because it ensures
that all our actions are done for the greatest glory of God.
It is, if faithfully observed, a perfect service of Christ. This is
because we enter by participation into the sublimity of Mary's
intentions, and as She did everything for the greatest glory of
God, our good works, passing through her hands, acquire an
unspeakable increase in merit and in satisfactory and inter-
cessory value.

But there is another reason for making this all important
consecration to Mary. In this dangerous age, when the devil
has enormous power, a true consecration of ourselves to Mary
will form an impassable shield to protect us against the fear-
some assaults of hell. Traditionally in the Church, a love of
Mary and a true and tender devotion to Her has been regarded
as a certain sign of predestination. But we have to make
sure that it is a true devotion. St. Louis de Montfort lists
seven false devotions to Mary in his treatise.

This is the Age of Mary and a Marian Church is to emerge
from this crisis. In this Marian Church our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ will be worshipped and adored on a scale hither-
to inconceivable. Mary is the short, easy, secure and perfect
path to Jesus, but men have never trod this path before in
great numbers. Because of the enormous increase in glory
which this devotion gives to God, it is urgently necessary that
it be made known so that Satan may be thrust down to hell,
and a true fraternal love and peace be restored to humanity.

This consecration to Mary has also marvellous 'fringe* bene-
fits — if we may call them that. v St. Louis tells us that those
who practise it faithfully will be personally escorted into
eternity by the Queen of Heaven and will thus have nothing
to fear from their judgment. On our death beds we will
appreciate what that means. Also the Saint tells us that our
relatives and friends will be especially protected by Our Lady
through our embrace of this devotion. We will also, he says,
carry our crosses with more merit, with more facility, with
more glory, without becoming irritable or depressed, scrupu-
lous or timid.

You cannot sincerely consecrate yourself to Mary in this
way without becoming a great benefactor of the human race.
Souls consecrated to Mary are the favorites of Heaven,
St. Louis tells us, and it is they whom the angels will assist
to reestablish the human race in grace and love.

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This army of souls devoted to Mary will crush the head of
Satan as is promised in the third chapter of Genesis. Many
of the saints have written about the thrilling contest when all
the world is in uproar, stirred by this violent global clash
between good and evil; when Mary enters the lists against
the enemy he is hurled back like a thunderbolt to hell and
all the world is inspired and uplifted by the graces of a new
Christian social order.

The magnitude of' the victory is dependent on what we do
now. Our Lady needs our help, our perfect consecration to
her Immaculate Heart, and our loyal service of her cause.

Let us recall then that we are Christians, followers of Christ
and His most loyal soldiers in the battle against the dragon
prince and his hosts! Let us serve Him through Mary whom
He has made Commander-in-chief of His armies, conqueror
of His enemies! Let us promise, as an earnest of this com-
mitment, the recital of at least five decades of the rosary
devoutly each day, together with the careful carrying out of
the duties of our state in life and sacrifices according to our
devotion and capacity.

THE ROSARY

What is the most perfect method of ensuring that we are
truly faithful to the important consecration of ourselves which
we have made to the Immaculate Heart of Mary? Our Lady
indicates clearly that it is the devout recitation of the rosary
each day.

For centuries the rosary has been recognised as the prayer
of predestinate souls; St. Louis de Montfort goes so far as to
say that he could determine how much a person was "for
God" by the love which that soul had for the rosary.

The rosary is a series of meditations on the life of Christ
made at the feet of Mary. For the meditations are made as
the lips address the age-old "Angelic Salutation" to Mary,
together with the greeting of Elizabeth, "Blessed art thou
amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" (Luke
1.42).

In the recitation of the rosary, the inspired prophecy Mary
Herself made in reply to Elizabeth's greeting is thus marvel-
lously fulfilled: "Behold from henceforth all generations shall
call me blessed," (Luke 1.48).

In the sorrowful mysteries the mind is riveted in reverent

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attention on those sufferings by which we were redeemed, the
crucifixion and death of the Son of God.

We do not have space here to enlarge on the beauty and
fruitfulness of the rosary. Our Lady urged us all to recite it
daily, speaking of it in every one of the six apparitions of
Fatima. And, at the sixth apparition on 13th October 1917,
She identified Herself as "the Lady of the rosary".

DAILY DUTIES

The request of Our Lady that we do penance by accepting
with resignation the daily duties which fall to our lot seems
at first sight easy enough. This is, the saints tell us, what
Christ meant when He said that we must take up our cross
daily and follow Him.

Closer examination reveals that this request of Our Lady is
really a counsel of perfection. There is an old saying that if
we are constantly doing what we should be doing we are ready
to be canonised. Or, as the novice-masters of old used to say
to the new novices, "// you wish to be a saint all you have
to do is obey the rule**

What surer sign that the Fatima message is indeed from
Heaven than the theological depths contained in this simple
request to accept with patience and resignation the cross of
our daily toil, to see God's benign hand in all the contradic-
tions and vicissitudes of life! How utterly contrary to the
advice of the Communists who love to foment unrest and
disorder, strikes, rebellions, hatred of authority!

Clearly the widespread acceptance of this penance for
which Our Lady has asked would produce devout and con-
scientious fathers and mothers, happy, morally-healthy chil-
dren, stable and law-abiding nations, and peace in the world.
"In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." (Gen. 3.19).
In accepting the "curse" of labour out of love for God we find
that that very labour has been mysteriously sweetened and
made light by the tremendous Sacrifice of the Son ol God.
"My yoke is sweet and My burden light." (Matt. 11.30).

Thus the formula for peace outlined by Our Lady at Fatima
can not only save the world from war, revolution and
anarchy, it is a superbly easy, streamlined — as we say today
— method of accomplishing this. For this reason it is destined,
ultimately, to conquer the spirit of darkness which so troubles

83

the world today, to convert Russia and bring into existence
a new Christian civilisation, the greatest age in history.

21

THE QUEST FOR PEACE

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" Plato

The world seeks today, more than anything else, an assurance
of peace. The world itself has a highly superficial meaning in
the minds of most people who think of peace as an absence
of war.

For the Christian, the word peace has a far deeper meaning
than the mere absence of war. Peace is a spiritual quality
of the soul, indicating harmony and filial union with our
Father in heaven. "My peace I leave you. My peace I give
you" Christ said (John 14.27). In the world we would have
distress, the Saviour warned us, but in Him we would find
peace. (John 16.33).

Communists and their allies have been noted for conducting
"peace congresses" throughout the world in recent decades.
Many talented and prominent people are asked to take part
in these conventions, sometimes even ministers of religion.
Can such "peace congresses" do anything to promote real
peace in the world?

In the light of traditional Christian teaching, as accepted
by all major Christian denominations, they cannot. In the
light of what was revealed to the world at Fatima, peace con-
ferences in which Communists are associated are obviously
bogus.

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Why is this so?

As far as Christians are concerned, genuine peace is incon-
trovertibly based on spiritual foundations.

Peace cannot come, in any degree whatsoever, from the
actions of those who are at war with God, as the Communists
openly profess themselves to be.

Peace comes infallibly to the individual soul as a result of
its turning to God. And what is true of the individual is true
of the collectivity of families, communities, nations.

It would be virtually impossible, at Communist peace
congresses, to conduct the debate on terms reasonable to
Christians. The basic assumption that peace is from God, that
it is promoted only by a return to God, would not be tenable
in such company.

On the other hand, if this is not assumed, if it is taken for
granted that peace can be striven for effectively without God,
then Christians present are betraying a great principle.

For, as Christians, they should seek first the kingdom of
God so that all other things may follow. Christians were
hardly surprised when Stalin gave Hitler the green light to
start World War II by signing a pact with him, or when
Soviet tanks brutally suppressed a popular uprising in Hun-
gary, or when Red Chinese armies ruthlessly slaughtered
tens of thousands of defenceless Tibetans and expropriated
their land.

These shocking atrocities, the murders at the Berlin Wall,
the Katyn Forest massacre, the countless other acts of war
and violence committed by the Communists are not surprising
to Christians. It would be in fact surprising if the sworn
enemies of God behaved in any other way than with violence
and injustice.

Should Christians collaborate with Communists because of
the laudable nature of the objective, which is peace?

Collaboration with Communists in a Peace Movement com-
promises the doctrine that true peace comes from Christ the
Prince of Peace. It indicates extremely confused thinking
on the part of Christians involved as to how peace is really
to be brought into the world.

In the book of Ecclesiasticus we read that "the worship of
God is an abomination to a sinner" (Eccu. 1.32) and this it
certainly is to the militant atheists. "Receive not a sinner"
Holy Scripture goes on to say and gives the reason "He that

85

toucheth pitch shall be defiled by it, and he that hath fellow-
ship with the proud shall put on pride" (Eccu. 13.1).

Jehu the prophet, as we see, rebuked Josaphat the king for
this. "Thou helpest the ungodly* he accused him "and art
joined in friendship with them that hate the Lord. Therefore
thou didst deserve indeed the wrath of the Lord" (2 Pa. 19.2).

It is obvious that Holy Scripture is referring here to public,
obstinate and unrepentant sinners. Communists publicly pro-
claim their hatred of the very idea of God, so that they fall
into this category.

Christ was full of mercy to Mary Magdalene, and to the
woman taken in adultery, and to the dying thief only because
they repented. The Pharisees, proud and stiff-necked, He re-
buked in the harshest terms. Before Herod, another public
and obstinate sinner, He did not condescend to utter a word.

Clearly we cannot dignify the diabolical ideology of Com-
munism by a public inference that it can help us to attain
peace. The world has made many errors in its efforts to find
peace, it cannot afford the luxury of more errors at this late
hour.

In 1917, our Lady told the world, in the apparitions at
Fatima, that World War I would end soon, that another
and worse war would break out in the reign of the next
Pope if men did not return to God.

Nine million lives were lost in World War I, fifty-four
millions lost their lives in World War II.

We must have peace it is true. But if we do not use our
God-given intelligence to discover how wars arise, how they
can be averted, then a large section of the human race is
doomed, and, as General MacArthur observed, "Armageddon
is upon us"

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22

CAN WAR BE JUSTIFIED?

It must be admitted that the question of justifying war in the
atomic age greatly preoccupies modern man.

Peace is an ideal dear to the human heart. Of course we all
want peace and only a madman, a psychopath, could want
war.

Yet there have been wars, terrible wars, in every age in
history, And this is an enduring and bitter rebuke to rational
men, a triumph of passion over reason, of nature over grace.

"Jus belli est odiosum" wrote the great theologian Suarez,
"the right to war is hateful". It is a. horrible thing to have to
take up arms to kill a fellow human being.

Yet the Church has always believed that there are just wars.
For it has been held to be inconceivable and insufferable that
men like Hitler should be allowed to take over the whole
world unopposed.

Recently the noted American columnist Joseph Alsop re-
called the incident of the "Oxford Oath" the vow taken by
the University of Oxford undergraduates in 1933 that they
would never again take up arms "for King and country".
These sentiments tied in with the wave of pacifism which was
sweeping England at the time. Hitler, referring to this oath,
told his Generals that England obviously was "rotten to the
core" and that there was therefore no danger of her declaring
war on Germany. At Munich he seemed to be proved right,
and his Generals must have fallen silent before this spec-
tacular victory. But, in 1939, England did declare war on

87

Germany, and those Oxford undergraduates, now a little more
mature, did go to war against the Nazi armies. \

Many people, fearing that wars of the Vietnam type may
flare up into the unthinkable disaster of an all-out atomic
war, react hysterically and condemn all war as intrinsically
immoral — something that has never been held by Christian
theologians. We know with certainty that God not only ap-
proved of just wars in Old Testament history, but, on oc-
casions He commanded them as when He told Saul to make
war against the Amalecites. And in New Testament times we
find a constant tradition of a just war upheld by Popes and
Saints.

"Every war of aggression" in the words of Pope Pius XII
"is a sin, a crime, an outrage against the majesty of God, the
Creator and Governor of the world"

Yet the same Pope insisted that a defensive war was, at
times not only legitimate but necessary. And it must be
remembered that Pope Pius spoke in the atomic age.

"A people threatened with unjust aggression" stated Pius
XII, "or already its victim, may not remain passively indif-
ferent if it would think and act in a Christian way. And the
solidarity of nations does not permit other nations to behave
as mere spectators in an attitude of apathetic neutrality"

On another occasion the Pope said: "What St. Paul says of
the body applies also to the international political body: if one
member suffers all others suffer with it. Gross injustice can-
not be inflicted on one nation without the rights of other
nations being placed in jeopardy. If one people is crushed to
death by force, who will promise the rest of the world security
in lasting peace?" (Quoted in The Liguorian March 1966).

The Council Fathers at Vatican II also commented on the
matter as follows:

"War has not been rooted out of human affairs. As long
as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and
sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, gov-
ernments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense, once
every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted. There-
fore, government authorities and others who share public re-
sponsibility have the duty to protect the welfare of the people
entrusted to their care and to conduct such grave matters
soberly." (The Constitution on the Church in the World).

There are many warriors in the calendar of Saints as we
know. St. Sebastian, St. Louis IX of France, St. Joan of

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Arc — to name but a few. The Theban Legion were all Roman
soldiers, as were the Forty Martyrs who died for their faith
under the persecution of the Emperor Licinius in 320.

The various wars against Communism are unquestionably
wars in defence of liberty against tyranny. It is reasonable to
believe that Communism is the greatest menace and the most
total threat to liberty that history has ever seen. Anybody who
has read the books of Kravchenko, Eugene Lyons, Dr. Dooley,
Wurmbrand and various others would concede this.

If then, there is such a thing as a just war, this surely is it.

But the point remains: is it lawful to resist Communism if,
thereby, some risks are entailed of a third World War?

In other words does the gain, which is the preservation of
Christian civilisation, of the vital and inalienable rights of
man, outweigh the colossal physical destruction which a
nuclear war would certainly bring?

First of all it is necessary to point out that a threat by the
enemy to launch a third World War is only a threat. We
cannot surrender all that makes life worth living, our prin-
ciples, our self-respect, our honour under duress of blackmail
of this type.

We are perfectly entitled to resist Communist aggression —
as we should— and trust in God to prevent a third World War.
For war will not come unless God permits it to come.

Secondly, our immortal souls are gravely endangered by the
spread of Communism. It is a moment of truth for us all. If
we really believe in Hell, in eternal damnation, we will prefer
to die in defence of Christian liberty rather than die spiritually
under the pressure of Communist enslavement and secret
police torture.

St. Ambrose tells us that we must help a victim of aggres-
sion. In his book Must War Come? John Eppstein quotes him
as follows:

"He who does not ward off an injury which is being done
to his neighbour when he is able is as much at fault as he who
perpetrates the injury".

Eppstein states that this dictum of St. Ambrose was in-
corporated in the Decretals of Gratian and was widely ac-
cepted by theologians of the Middle Ages.

According to this it was the simple duty of America to
prevent the terrible injury and injustice of Communist enslave-
ment of the Vietnamese people if it could. The American

89

people don't have to apologise to anyone for their noble
actions there.

It is true that the ideal method of solving the problem of
war is to prevent it. This can be done, as Our Lady told us,
by prayer and penance. But how many of our "pacifist
theologians" preach prayer and penance as a solution to war?
How many of them organise religious devotions, holy hours,
all-night vigils etc. for peace?

An unprincipled and irrational pacifism always leads to
war. It did so at Munich and it is still doing so today.

It is not in the line of Christian tradition to cravenly
capitulate to the diabolical enemy today.

The blunt fact is that in Communism we deal with a threat
not only to the liberty and security of the whole human race,
but a threat to the freedom which mankind needs to serve
God and work out the destiny for which men were created.
Communism is a calculated threat to the most precious, the
most fundamental of all liberties; and how is the threat to
be met?

It is no solution to tell us to surrender, to permit the extinc-
tion of liberty in South-East Asia and the destruction of a
flourishing Catholic Church there.

The only solution is that given by Our Lady — the solution
which reaches out with love to the Communists and converts
them, the solution that rescues these enemies of God from
the danger of eternal damnation.

For, when a Communist is converted, the rifle or grenade
he carries falls from his hands and he becomes a man of
peace.

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23

ECUMENISM

'Other sheep I have that are not of this fold . . .' (Jn. 10.16)

Since Vatican Council 11 there has been something of an
ecumenical groundswell amongst the innumerable com-
munions scattered throughout the world which claim to be
following Christ.

For the first time in centuries, these denominations appear
to be willing to stand face to face with an honest truth,
That truth is this:

The division amongst Christians is clearly contrary to God's
will

And this thought is immediately followed by another:

Who is responsible for this division?

In the earlier chapters of this book it is pointed out that
reliable prophecies foreshadow a vast division of the human
race into good and evil at some future time and a fearful
global conflict between them.

It is to be that great struggle between the forces of Christ
on the one hand, and the followers of Antichrist on the other,
which has been commonly referred to as Armageddon. It
seems from the prophecies that all men of goodwill will flock
to the standard of the Cross no matter to what religion they
have hitherto been attached. It will be a general, universal
war between those who love and those who hate. It will be
won by those who fight under the standard of the Cross and

91

the conquerors will set up a new Christian civilisation which
will be the greatest in the history of the world.

In the light of the above the Ecumenical movement is of
the greatest importance. We are clearly to be in a position to
welcome with great love the millions of people, good people
Of other faiths, who will join forces with us against the
Satanists, against the armies of the Prince of Darkness who
spreads diabolical hatred and error over the world.

Because of the great harm done by that section of the so-
called 'ecumenical' movement which is prepared to water
down doctrine and even join with Marxist influenced groups
like the World Council of Churches and its affiliates, many
Catholics are confused and distrustful of anything savouring
of ecumenism. But we cannot dismiss this all-important move-
ment because of the aberrations associated with it.

Nothing can alter the fact that the Catholic Church is the
one true Church of Christ, the community of the faithful
who are led by the Vicar of Christ in Rome, who holds in
his hands the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, according to
the promise of Christ. (Matt. 16.19)

Many Catholics today, shocked by the open violations of
the traditional 'communicatio in sacris' laws carried on in
the name of ecumenism, react with outrage and refuse to have
anything to do with even reasonable forms of ecumenism.

The matter has to be put in some perspective.

First let us consider the objections of that rigorist school
which quotes the 'outside the Church there is no salvation*
bulls of Popes Boniface VIII and Eugenius IV, and which
incredibly, follows them literally. These were explained, on
Dec. 9th 1854, by Pope Pius IX as follows:
'It is to be held as of faith that none can be saved outside
the Apostolic Roman Church . . . but nevertheless it is equally
certain that those who are ignorant of the true religion, if that
ignorance is invincible, will not be held guilty in the matter
in the eyes of the Lord'; invincible ignorance is defined as
that which cannot be dispelled by the use of ordinary dili-
gence, (Donald Attwater's Catholic Dictionary)

The Church distinguishes carefully between heretics, who
are automatically excommunicated, and those born in heresy
who are following their consciences and are not guilty of sin.

In the Old Testament we find God showing pity on the
ignorance of men when He refused to satisfy Jonah's wounded
amour propre by condemning the people of Ninive.

92

'Shall I not spare Ninive' He said 'that great city in which
there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
that know not how to distinguish between their right hand
and their left?' The people of Ninive were not of the Chosen
Race. They were pagans.

Our Lord Jesus Christ was to refer to the Ninivites during
the time of His Incarnation. In a stern rebuke to the Pharisees
and their followers He said:

'The men of Ninive shall rise in judgment with this genera-
tion and shall condemn it; because they did penance at the
preaching of Jonas and behold a greater than Jonas here 9
(Matt. 12.41)

The Lord showed condescension also to the Samaritans
who were the 'protestants' of His own time. The Samaritans
were despised by the Jews as heretics, deviates from the law
of Moses. But the Saviour delivered a stinging rebuke to the
Scribes and Pharisees by making a Samaritan the hero of
what is probably His most famous parable. The stern warning
was there; of what use was all their vaunted doctrine if they
had not love?

The Lord recognises none but those who love as His
disciples. 'By this shall all men know that you are My dis-
ciples, if you have love one for another* 'Many sins are for-
given her* He says of Mary Magdalen 'because she has loved
much'; His two greatest commandments are commandments
of love; 'thou shah love the Lord thy God with thy whole
heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind* and
'thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Matt. 22.37).

The Lord tells us He will make this profession of love
the supreme test by which we will be judged on the Last Day:
'Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom
. . . for I was hungry and you gave Me to eat, I was thirsty
and you gave Me to drink, I was a stranger and you took
Me in . . . sick and you visited Me, in prison and you came
to Me. . . . / say to you, as long as you did it to one of these
My least brethren you did it to Me. (Matt. 34.40)

T say to you: love your enemies; do good to them that hate
you; and pray for them that persecute and calumniate
you . . .' (Matt. 5.44.)

The same theme is repeated in the epistles of St. Paul. 'He
that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law* (Rom. 13.8)

"// / should have all faith so that I could remove moun-
tains and have not charity I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13.2).

93

Charity, he tells us, is patient, kind, not perverse or puffed
up. Charity is love.

"Have a constant mutual charity amongst yourselves 9 urges
St. Peter, 'for charity cover eth a multitude of sins' (IP. 4-8)

But the human mind seems to be so constituted that it must
rush from one extreme to the other. And so we have the
"social gospel" being preached since Vatican II, giving the
utterly erroneous impression that doctrine is not important
so long as we 'love one another.'

But there can be no real love without union with Christ
who is love itself and who is also truth itself.

If sound doctrine is important — and of course it is vitally
important — it is because it develops the necessary union with
Christ — who is love itself — in the soul of the Christian. It is
reported in the life of St. Francis de Sales that, in his long
wearisome journeys made on foot through the cantons of
Switzerland, caring for his flock in the diocese of Geneva, he
converted 70,000 Calvinists. They could not resist the ardour
of his love for them, and the sacrifices that he made to reach
them. St. Francis de Sales is listed by St. Louis de Montfort
as being one of the few saints who practised the 'true devo-
tion' to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He had perfect doctrine and
that is why he had such great love.

Christ is love itself as we know, and he who hates Christ
cannot love. St. Paul is unequivocal in this regard: 'If any
man love not our Lord Jesus Christ let him be anathema'
(1 Cor. 16,22).

There is an apparent dichotomy in the Scriptures in regard
to this matter of doctrine and love. In the texts cited above
it would seem that love alone is the fulfilling of the law and
is the certain path to salvation. But there are, nevertheless,
many other texts which go hand in hand with these, and
which insist on a love of the truth, on the rejection of error
and the following of sound doctrine. For we must remember
that, if Christ is love itself, He is also truth itself. A man
develops in the richness of sanctifying grace according to
the soundness of his doctrine and the purity of his motives.
Those who are consecrated to Mary can be confident of the
purity of their motives, for, if it is a true consecration, then
they share in her sublime motives. They can also be sure of
the soundness of their doctrine for the saints tell us that
nobody who truly loves Mary will err formally and fall from
the faith.

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'He that believeth not shall be condemned? Christ tells us.
(Mark 16.16) And again: 'he that believeth not the Son
shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth in him 9
(Jn. 3.36) If thou wilt enter into life, the Saviour tells us,
keep the commandments (Matt. 19.17)

The intervention by Heaven at the Cova da Iria in 1917
makes it clear that the coming reunion of Christendom is to
be brought about by the clear doctrine that was taught at
Fatima, the necessity of the approach to Jesus through Mary,
the sovereign importance of the Mass and the Eucharist, the
certainty of original sin through the references to Mary's
immaculate conception, the existence of Heaven, hell and
purgatory and so on. The Fatima movement is clearly the
light that is to attract the attention of the masses of un-
committed people of goodwill in the world.

No opportunity should be lost by us therefore to offer
great love and affection to Protestants, to Jews, to all who
are outside the Church and who seek the truth. Let us then
reflect the beauty of the ideal given us by Our Lady which is
surely a thrilling twentieth century repetition of the Song of
the angels at Bethlehem: 'Glory be to God in the highest and
peace on earth to men of goodwill*

24

THE PSYCHOPATHS

'Keep me O Lord from the hand of the wicked' (Ps. 139)

Some years ago a newspaper in Sydney, Australia, published
the autobiography of a convicted murderer. He had killed

95

five men, most of them underworld figures with whom he had
fallen out. He mentioned in passing the sadistic pleasure he
experienced as he carried out these killings, the thrill and the
exhilaration of the blood spurts as his bullets tore through the
bone and tissue of his victims.

Psychiatrists call such men psychopaths, men who are
diseased in mind and spirit.

The term has been applied in recent years to the sadistic,
the cruel, to those who love to inflict injury, torture and
death upon others. It is not applied to those who are simply
insane, or are suffering from various forms of paranoia.

As religion declines the number of psychopaths in the
community must rise. In a country completely dominated by
the irreligious, like Nazi Germany or the Communist coun-
tries, we have concentration camps with pitiless cruelty
rampant, unchecked, disposing as it pleases with the lives and
property of the citizens.-

The first step in becoming a psychopath is a resolute turn-
ing away from God, the deliberate refusal to accept the just
sovereignty of the Almighty. This leads inevitably to a sick-
ness of the soul, for the soul was created to love and adore
God. If this serious sickness persists, eternal death supervenes
and the person is lost forever, body and soul, in hell.

The Nazi and Communist philosophies might be sum-
marised, from a Christian point of view, as 'death to the
innocent, long life and prosperity to the criminal element in
the community'; the constant pressure on the people to
surrender their allegiance to God is a criminal act according
to the Popes, for the people were created to know, love and
serve God and they have an inalienable right to freedom
to do so.

This anti-God philosophy increased and developed as a
result of World War II, and yet America and England which
had fought, in the main, for the principles of Christian civili-
sation were naive enough to believe they had won the war.
From the vantage point of 1973 we see that there are more
psychopaths around us than ever before. Never have the
innocent been in such danger as today, never have criminals
been so brazen, so contemptuous of justice as in our modern
society.

The virus that is causing this is irreligion as we know.
Irreligion has brought about the destruction of millions of
innocent babies in recent years. Soon it will be the aged and

96

the mentally ill, the crippled and the blind who will be
threatened. For if a doctor will destroy a living baby because
it is inconvenient to someone, why not an aged person or a
cripple who are also inconvenient at times to other people?
The principle is the same. If we turn our doctors into
murderers can we be surprised if they finish up murdering us?

Our Lord sent His apostles into the world to leaven the
corrupt mass of human society. He instituted the sacraments
to refine men, to civilise them, to elevate them above the
coarseness, the cruelty, the brutality of the pre-Christian era.
Fallen man was to be re-made in the Divine Image.

It was in fact held by the elder Huxley and his fellow
agnostics at the turn of the century that society could retain
the Christian ethic after the Christian gospel had disappeared.
How wrong they were!

The Christian Gospel has, it seems, been by-passed by
modern man. And the barbarism of pre-Christian days has
automatically returned.

In order to re-develop the Christian civilisation of former
days, what are we to do? There has been, as we know very
well, a spiritual formula, a recall to holiness and virtue given
us by a direct intervention of Heaven in 1917.

It can be seen now that this spiritual formula is so impor-
tant that we cannot survive without it. It is to be the basis of
a renewal of Western civilisation.

We must realise that we are facing primarily and essentially
a crisis of the spirit, and, consequently, a moral crisis.

The concentration camp, the gas chamber, the unprece-
dented world wars, the mass abortions all speak eloquently
to us of a fearful decline in morals. These things are casting
long shadows on the future. For if sin is the cause of wars, as
we have been authoritatively told, then the permissive society
speaks eloquently to us of war on a scale hitherto unknown.

The abortionist may simply shrug his shoulders if we tell
him he is murdering human beings.

But abortion is certainly a grave sin, and the abortionist
may be impressed if someone were to tell him convincingly
and with real authority, that there is a hell of fire into which
unrepentant sinners will be cast on the Last Day.

The soul, it is said, at the moment of death, awakes from
darkness into a brilliant light, in the same place where the
dead body lies. Like a dark theatre when the curtains are

97

suddenly swept aside to reveal a crowded stage, the deceased
beholds the scene of his life.

His sins are seen, horribly illuminated, in their true per-
spective; every crime, every rejection of God's grace exposed
in all its foulness carries its own eternal and terrible sig-
nificance.

As Cain fled from the dead body of Abel, so does the sinner
long to flee from the scene of this overwhelming tragedy. The
voice of the invisible Judge says "Away from Me . . . ."

And the never ending torments of Hell open to receive the
soul, made in the image of God, created to adore and praise
Him forever in the Beatific Vision.

25

'CERTAIN FASHIONS

Perhaps no prophecy connected with the Fatima message has
been more widely circulated than the well-known "certain
fashions will be introduced which will gravely offend Our
Lord".

This prophecy is attributed to Jacinta. It was confided to
Mother Godinho, a nun who was caring for the youngest seer
during her dying months in a convalescent home in Lisbon.

It is believed that Our Lady appeared to Jacinta during
this last illness and it has always been assumed that the child
spoke as a result of a communication from Our Lady.

The observation of Jacinta was translated into English as
outlined above. However the translation is subject to misin-
terpretation as the Portuguese word used was modas, cor-
responding somewhat to modes, habits or trends. All the
aberrations of modern society, divorce, contraception, abor-

98

tion would be embraced in this term, as well, of course, as the
immodest dress which is so conspicuous a feature of this day
and age.

Objectively, a divorce or an abortion is a far greater evil
than the wearing of a mini-skirt. The immodest dress worn
by Christian girls in this age is, nevertheless, peculiarly sad-
dening in that it represents a complete break with the Chris-
tian morals of past ages.

It may be held that any Christian girl or woman who has
an abortion must know that she has committed a grave sin.
For this is murder in the eyes of the Church and a crime
against the natural law, the law written in the heart of man.

It is commonplace to see girls in brief mini-skirts going to
confession. Obviously they are not conscious of any sin in
this matter. It seems that strong rebukes, condemnations, even,
in some parts of the world, refusal of the sacraments, all these
things are not able to make any significant impression on this
problem. It must be admitted that, in many parts of the world,
the women dress modestly. The problem of immodest dress
relates particularly to America, England, Australia and some
other countries of an Anglo-Saxon ethnic background.

Curiously enough, if you speak to some of these girls, many
of whom lead otherwise blameless lives and even engage in
apostolic action, they will tell you they are "sure" there is no
harm in wearing a short or even a very short dress.

We don't need sociologists and students of the behavioural
sciences to tell us that all boys and girls, at puberty, experi-
ence a "mating urge" which some, at least, find difficult to
control. This is merely nature itself, in God's providence,
ensuring the continuity of the human race.

Reason itself rules out the promiscuity proper to the ani-
mal kingdom for experience has taught man that the family,
as the basic unit of society, must be preserved and made stable
in the interests of the State.

There is an innate modesty in man, as Holy Scripture sug-
gests, for we find in the first chapter of Genesis that Adam
and his wife, Eve, were both naked and, prior to the fall,
"were not ashamed" (Gen. 2.25). However, after the fall,
when the lower faculties were no longer subordinate to the
higher, we find a significant change has taken place. "They
perceived themselves to be naked" the Genesis narrative goes
on, "and they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves
aprons" (Gen. 3.7). This is interesting, for it shows that

99

Adam and Eve were not then morally depraved, for the sin
they had committed was one of pride, not of sensuality.

In addition to this innate modesty, Christian tradition and
Christian moral training have strictly restrained girls from
arousing deliberately a boy's sexual instincts. Girls who did
such things have been considered common, or, as the nine-
teenth century novelists used to put it, "wanton".

All civilisations, whether Buddhist, Islamic, Christian,
Hindu, have developed moral codes to restrain these basic
urges. As historians clearly show, it is impossible to have a
civilisation without the mores which civilise it. Without these
codes, always accepted by the community as tribal or State
laws, community life cannot endure.

It was not out of love for Christ that Napoleon restored the
Christian religion to France after the Terror. He could see
no other way of restoring order. Bonaparte well knew the
power of a subversive ideology. He proscribed the writings
of the "Enlightenment" with the terse comment, "I am not
strong enough to rule a nation that reads Voltaire and
Rousseau".

Strict Christian sexual codes do not mean that sex is evil
in itself. Canonists have always referred to the vow of chastity
as a surrender of the "goods" of the body, a free offering of
something good, i.e. the right to a husband or wife and the
conjugal life, to God.

The gravitational pull of a corrupt world and indecent
fashions has caused a collapse in these Christian moral codes
and our girls are finding it difficult to adjust to the new
situation. A girl wearing a modest dress of perhaps an inch
or two below the knees would stand out in a group of girls in
brief dresses. She would feel uncomfortable and embarrassed,
afraid that she would be considered odd. Our Christian girls
are simply not courageous enough, generally speaking, to
challenge in this way the codes of their group. Perhaps it may
require a species of heroic virtue, something that takes time
to develop, and which, after all, has never been common.

Caught in this dilemma, there is the usual attempt to
"rationalise"; "girls have always tempted boys and vice versa.
Thafs just nature asserting itself" And they will tell you they
are sure that there is nothing really wrong with their micro
mini-skirts.

But the sexual instincts of a man are aroused by images,
by things he sees or things which he has seen and which play

100

on his imagination. It is in the very nature of things that he
is aroused sensually by female nudity or near-nudity.

Our Lord Himself has told us that, if a man look on a
woman to lust after her, he has already committed adultery
with her in his heart.

Does this make the woman an adulteress?

If by flagrantly immodest dress — and a micro miniskirt
is just that — she has deliberately incited lust then, according
to traditional Christian morality, there is a degree of guilt
attaching to her.

This matter has to be brought up in a book on Fatima be-
cause the current widespread collapse in sexual morality has
surely begun with immodest dress, and the tide will be re-
versed when our youth show that they have sufficient integrity
and intelligence to willingly and generously accept the Chris-
tian moral codes of old in order to restore sanity and peace
to the world.

It is useless for our youth to proclaim that they want
peace and immorality as well. The two are mutually exclusive
as we have learned. In opting for sexual licence, we opt also
for the vivid orange flashes that preceded the destruction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Those are the realities of the situa-
tion.

Christian modesty demands, and reason itself suggests that
a girl puts her claims to a boy's affection on a higher plane
than mere sex. Sex, after all, is the lowest common denomi-
nator of a girl's appeal, for it is found in all the daughters of
Eve. An undue emphasis on it is, therefore, vulgar, i.e. of the
crowd.

Reason suggests that girls should superimpose on this very
basic natural appeal higher qualities of mind and soul which
will attract a better class of husband, and will help to ensure
a stable and happy marriage.

It is absolutely true to say that the practice of the Christian
virtues greatly enhances and enriches the personality. By this
process, a girl becomes refined, for grace acts on the soul to
refine our carnal nature. For this reason, true beauty, which
is beauty of soul, is at the disposal of any girl who seeks it.

The normal young man, seeking a lifelong companion, the
future mother of his children, needs a person of character,
a girl with high standards, lovable, unselfish, capable of being
faithful to him and assisting him to establish a happy and
enduring home life. The virtuous girl is the most beautiful

101

girl of all, no matter how homely her features may be. And
any girl may be virtuous if she wills, for the sanctifying grace
which develops these marvellous qualities of soul is available
in abundance for us all as a result of the death of the Saviour
on Calvary.

For these serious reasons, our Christian youth must be
called on to make an intelligent and informed re-appraisal of
the whole situation. There is an urgent need, if the world is to
change for the better, that the immodest dress syndrome be
broken, that our youth discuss these things among themselves
and arrive at a balanced, mature and carefully thought out
appreciation of what their moral behaviour really signifies.

Moral behaviour is all-important. If God is our true Father,
if He feeds and clothes us, even becomes Man and suffers
for us, then He has a sacred right to our filial love. And that
is where moral behaviour comes in, and that is why it is so
important.

We can never begin to turn back the tide of evil, of sen-
suality, of vulgarity, until we enlist in our ranks our idealistic
youth. It is our duty to persuade them that Christian morality
pays off in higher living standards, in deeper happiness, in
peace of mind, that it leads to international peace, brotherly
love, and the new world social order of their dreams.

26

THE ONLY TRAGEDY

The significance of the Fatima message lies in its power to
renew the life of grace in souls, to rekindle the light which
dissipates the darkness of error, to strengthen the charity of
Christ which overcomes men by love.

102

Prayer and self-denial, the two pillars of the interior life,
are also the two major requests of Our Lady at Fatima, the
blessed formula for renewing the face of the earth.

But even more, the Fatima message brings to us the very
latest in theological devices for reaching that union with
Christ in which the perfection of a Christian consists.

That "theological device" is, of course, a true devotion to
the Immaculate Heart of Mary, described by St. Louis de
Montfort as the short, easy, secure and perfect path to Christ.

By this devotion, the Saint assures us, we give more glory
to God in a month than by years of service following lesser
devotions.

It is as though the Holy Spirit has introduced "automation"
into theology, an accelerated process by which modern man
can sanctify and enrich himself in a way little known to our
forefathers. For that reason St. Louis calls it a secret of grace
and he tells us that it is reserved for an age of great peril in
the Church. (He wrote about the year 1711).

"Unless the grain of wheat, falling into the ground, die, it
remains alone; but if it die, it brings forth much fruit**

So says the Saviour as quoted by St. John. And Our Lord
goes on to say immediately, "He that loveth his life shall lose
it; and he that hateth his life in this world keepeth it unto life
everlasting.*' (Jn. 12.25).

This is regarded by ascetical writers as Our Lord's most
urgent and compelling call to the interior life, a warning that
nothing is achieved by the Christian apostle unless he re-
nounces his own will by prayer and penance to embrace the
higher life, the life of the spirit. For it must be confessed that
our own wills do not lead us to prayer and penance.

In this age of confusion, when false teachers play down
the necessity for this interior life of the spirit it is well to
recall that all of the great saints and masters of the spiritual
life counselled this path.

How then can we listen to men who so plainly speak
against the spirit of the Gospels, and against the solid tra-
ditions of the Church?

In His sermon on the mount the Master calls His apostles
"the salt of the earth, the light of the vjorld!*

"We are the salt of the earth," comments Dom Chautard,
"in the measure that we are holy."

As true salt, the holy abbott goes on to say, "the pious
103

apostle will be a real agent of preservation in the midst of that
sea of corruption, human society."

But the salt must retain its flavour. The treasure of sancti-
fying grace must be there to radiate its divine effulgence into
the darkness of sin, to sweeten with its own peculiar ecstasy,
the tepidity of human love.

How does one acquire this sanctifying grace?

One must go to the masters of the spiritual life, not to the
quacks who abound in the turmoil and confusion of today.

Sanctifying grace, the life and the light of Christ is, of
course, communicated to us by baptism, by which Sacrament
we are incorporated into the Mystical Body. It is lost by
mortal sin, regained by perfect contrition and the Sacrament
of Penance.

It is increased in the soul by every prayer and good work
done with the right intention of the love of God and the sal-
vation of souls. It is increased eminently of course, by the
devout reception of the Blessed Eucharist and the offering of
the Holy Sacrifice.

The smallest increase in sanctifying grace constitutes a
treasure more sublime than all the wealth of earth.

With it the world is saved. Without it the world is lost in
blood and tears and war.

It is the central purpose of this book to increase the life
of grace in the souls of its readers. That is, in fact, the ob-
vious intent of Our Lady Herself in communicating to us the
precious message.

Hence we have no greater ambition than to increase the
holiness of our readers, to arouse in them a sense of urgency
in regard to the fleeting moments of time in which they must
gather this treasure.

For the months and the years pass and there comes a day
on which we must render an account of our stewardship. Then
shall we be stricken with remorse for our miserable reaction
to God's glorious gifts. What marvellous opportunities have
passed us by, what supreme and lasting wealth is constituted
in the graces we have rejected!

And as the silence of death begins to overwhelm us, when
the sights and sounds of this world recede forever, we may
well sigh and echo — and re-echo — the final poignant words
of Leon Bloy: "The only tragedy is not to have been a saint.*'

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27

THE WORLD RELIGIONS

'The heavens show forth the glory of God

And the firmament declares the work of His hands* (Ps. 18.2)

It will occur to the reader that, if Fatima is a plan for giving
to mankind a new fraternal unity, a new all-pervasive civilisa-
tion blessed with peace and tranquillity, then its prospects of
influencing other great world faiths should at least be ex-
amined.

It is clear that traditional religious structures are tottering
and collapsing under the ferocious impact of militant atheism.
It is said by reliable observers that the ancient religions of
China have been virtually destroyed amongst that large sec-
tion of the human race which must live under the despotism
of the Communist regime.

Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Muslimism, Christianity,
all have wilted under the blast of hatred and intolerance that
comes from the dialectical materialists who permit none but
their own sterile creed in areas that they control.

All the world reels under the impact of Marxism in its
various forms as man's intellectual ability sinks to an all-time
low in his inability to discern even the elementary fact that
there is a God.

We are facing a "scorched earth" of the spiritual order as
country after country apostatises in the age of materialism,
from its traditional faiths, to lie fallow awaiting the sower of
the good seed of a modern Gospel.

105

The mind of man cannot for long suffer the utter barren-
ness of materialism, dialectical or otherwise.

Surely the good seed to come is the revelation that Our
Lady gave to the world at the Cova da Iria.

She prophesied there its ultimate success on a global basis.
All the world must feel the impact of the Fatima message
ultimately, for it is this revelation and this light which is to
dissipate the darkness of Marxist atheism. The great world
religions, influential for centuries over much of the globe,
may well have perished then, as they have perished in Red
China today.

A tremendous earthquake rocks the spiritual foundations
of the universe, and from the ruins a new light is to shine,
and a new civilisation is to arise, when Russia is converted
and all the world feels the spiritual exhilaration of the Age
of Mary, and the triumph of Her Immaculate Heart.

Already She has claimed the love and affection of countless
millions not of the Christian faith.

The Pilgrim Statues that have traversed the world have
been received with reverence and honour amongst Moslems,
Hindus, Buddhists and other non-Christian faiths.

Entire Buddhist villages asked to be allowed to venerate
the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima taken to Vietnam
in 1965. Their own bonzes led them in these demonstrations
of love for Mary.

The Buddha himself taught the impermanence of created
things, that this earth is not our true and lasting home, but
a place where we must be diligent in working out our sal-
vation, where we are on a sort of probationary pilgrimage.

Thus Buddhism prepares the soul for the reception of Chris-
tianity, for the first principle of Buddhism is that man should
seek enlightenment. In the Diamond Sutra the Buddha is said
to have prophesied in this wise: "500 years after my death
there will appear One who will fulfill all righteousness, One
who has the root in him not only of one, two, three, five, ten,
or a thousand Buddhas, but that of ten thousand Buddhas.
Therefore, when he comes hear him"

Five hundred and forty four years after Buddha's parinir-
vana or passing away, the Prince of Peace was born in
Bethlehem. No wonder, writes Lim Cheow Kam, Buddhists
who are acquainted with the Gospel says Buddha's prophecy
has come to pass in the appearance of Jesus — the Buddha of

106

Boundless Love, the One who has the good root in Him of
ten thousand Buddhas.

Islam also has shown great love and veneration for the
Pilgrim Statues that have toured the world; there have been
spontaneous demonstrations of Muslim affection both in Asia
and Africa.

It is often pointed out that Moslems are particularly at-
tracted to this devotion because Mohammed had a daughter
named Fatima whom he designated first in Paradise after
Maryam as Moslems call Our Lady.

It is well recognised that the best meeting ground for
Christians and Moslems is the common affection they have
for Mary. An eminent Franciscan scholar and convert from
Mohammedanism Fr. John Avd-El-Jalil O.F.M. states that
Muslim devotion to Mary is deep and dogmatic, that there
is, in Islam a "a rudimentary form of Mariology".

There is, in the Koran, at least a hint of the Immaculate
Conception in the lines:

"O Mary, God has chosen you

and purified you
He has chosen you above
all the women of the world".

It is interesting that Moslems believe in the Virgin Birth,
something that is, sad to say, rejected in certain "Catholic"
circles today.

Hindus, Parsees, Sikhs, and India's other major faiths came
in tens of thousands to welcome the Pilgrim Statue of Our
Lady of Fatima which passed through that country in 1950.

There is a mysterious attraction in these cases which it is
difficult to explain. The potential is there for a universal
attraction to the Cross and to the Crucified through an
affinity with the sinless Virgin who gave Him his human
nature, whose fiat ensured redemption for us all.

Mary is loved in the East, and She is called in Christian
literature the Eastern Gate by which the Orient from on high
enters the world.

She is the Mother of the human race not merely in a
biological or juridical sense, but in what theologians call an
ontological sense, a far higher and more effective form of
motherhood than our human concept of the term could ever
allow.

107

She will reach out to claim the affection and love of the
Moslems, the Buddhists, the Hindus and all the others. They
are Her most dear sons, and in the age of the triumph of Her
Immaculate Heart, She will open wide to them the mysteries
of life, redemption, of the last ends of man.

Then, when the East is touched by the sublime idealism of
Christianity, we will see holiness and mysticism on a scale
unknown in history.

28

THE DOCTRINE OF LOVE

'Bless them that persecute you: bless and curse not (Rom. 12.24)

Holy Scripture tells us that God is love (I Jn. 4.16). It is
the insistent lesson of the Christian Gospel that we must love
our neighbour for Christ's sake.

We must expect our neighbour to have faults and weak-
nesses. He is sure to be selfish, the saints tell us, if only for
the melancholy reason that we are all selfish. But it is Christ's
strict command that we forgive our neighbour his weaknesses,
his selfishness, in imitation of the Divine Master Himself who
forgives all of us our sins.

It is possible that some who read this book may feel that
it deals in rather harsh polemical terms with Communism and
Communists, that we have little love for those unfortunates
who wander in the dark mists of atheism and often die
estranged and at enmity with God.

Now we can make the bold statement — and it contradicts
nothing that has already been written — that Fatima crusaders

108

manifest by their lives, a very special and genuine love foi
Communists.

Our Lady is the Mother of the entire human race, Com-
munists included. She made it clear in the August 19 appari-
tion that souls at enmity with God are still very dear to Her,
and She pleaded with us all to pray and make sacrifices so
that these souls would receive the grace to see the light, to
repent of their sins, so that they would not be lost forever in
hell.

The Fatima crusades throughout the world make a special
effort to answer this call from Our Lady. They are constantly
organising processions, all-night vigils, seminars, holy hours
for the conversion of sinners. And it must be confessed that
militant atheists are, in the objective sense, sinners.

Let us put ourselves in imagination in that fearful situation
where we are at open enmity with God. The Gospels tell us
plainly that those who die in grave sin are lost forever. The
unrelenting atheist, the man who rejects God, is then, of all
men, the most tragic figure. He stands on the brink of the most
terrible precipice, about to plunge into an inferno from which
there is no return. Many such people are externally likeable
people, and if we could see with the eyes of a vivid faith, the
dreadful danger they are in, we should rush forward to save
them at all costs.

Alas, no action of ours can help the tragic figure of the
militant atheist other than prayer and penance. The Mother
of Christ, who loves them so much, who is in anguish over
the danger they place themselves in, could not give us any
other method of helping than to say the rosary and to make
sacrifices for them.

Christians of necessity must hate the diabolical creed of
Communism which springs like a poisonous weed from the
evil root of militant atheism. We must hate it because it takes
away from the glory of God, because it causes wars and dis-
cord, because it leads souls to eternal damnation. No Chris-
tian need ever feel ashamed of hating evil. That is the simple
duty of all good men.

It is different however with the Communist himself. Him,
we are bound to love, not in the sentimental sense, but in the
sense of wishing him well, of praying and making sacrifices for
him.

Christ warned us of a day of General Judgement that is
coming, of a "day of wrath" — as it has been traditionally

109

called — on which all the world will appear before God's tri-
bunal to be judged on our choice of good or evil during life.

What a drama it will be! No human mind could conceive so
dramatic an event, not Sophocles or Dante, Shakespeare or
De Mille, none of them could possibly visualise the entire
human race, from Adam down to the last man, arraigned be-
fore the Judgement Seat of God, there to be rewarded or
punished according to their deeds.

"Come, you blessed . . ."
"Depart, you accursed . . /*

What a vast unbridgeable chasm there exists between the
two groups! Mysteriously, with the unimaginable powers of
the angelic intellect which will be ours then, we will be con-
scious of the judgement passed on all other members of the
human race. There will be no mercy, only justice on that ter-
rible day.

Pride, hatred, moral perversion will be seen for the loath-
some and hideous leprosy of the soul that they are. The
virtuous will be possessed of such angelic beauty as to ravish
the soul with delight; they are adjudged worthy to enter the
courts of Heaven, into the Beatific Vision, the infinite beauty
of the Godhead, which no man on this earth can see and live.

It is then that the Communists will know who their true
friends have been. And the Fatima crusaders, who have
prayed through the long night at vigils for Communists, who
have laboured assiduously to extend the influence of the
Christian Gospel, they will see the fruits of their labours on
the last day, in souls converted and saved forever to praise
and glorify God.

It is then that all the world, the just and the damned, will
turn to that hill of Calvary on which Jesus Christ died, to see
for the first time, the full significance of this Divine sacrifice.

Let us love our neighbour then for Christ's sake, and be-
cause He has first loved us and delivered us from death. Let
us pray fervently for Communists; for the greatest, the best
of all solutions to the problem of Communism, the solution
that God wants most of all, is the conversion of Communists.

110

29

A CHALLENGE

Lives of great men all remind us
We must make our lives sublime

And departing, leave behind us
Footprints in the sands of time.
(Longfellow)

Without question, the revelations that came to mankind in
1917 at the Cova da Iria constitute a challenge to every be-
liever. It is incumbent upon us all to decide for ourselves per-
sonally whether they are true, or whether they are not.

If they are true, then there is a serious responsibility upon
us all to take action. Like a searchlight these revelations probe
into the inmost depths of our being to see if we really love
God, and our fellow-man for the sake of God. For, if the
revelations are true, then the future of the human race is
bound up with their implementation.

Our Lady waits patiently for a sign of apostolic action from
us, having given us the clearest indication of the urgency and
importance of such action. Our first indispensable require-
ment is an increase in faith. We need a lively faith, "animated
by charity, which will enable us to perform all our actions
for the love of God ... a faith firm and immovable as a rock
through which we shall remain tranquil and steadfast amidst
the crosses, toils and disappointments of life . . ."

We cannot hope to walk along this way of Christ, this via
crucis, unless we believe deeply.

A man engages in apostolic work primarily because he be-
lieves. The more he acts on his beliefs the more intense they
become and the deeper becomes his faith. As his faith deepens,
his love of God develops and he desires to impart this love to
others.

The lives of the saints give us admirable illustrations of
this. Of all men they had perspective. They looked at time

111

and at eternity through the perfectly adjusted telescopic sights
of a vivid faith in God. They were gifted with "supernatural"
eyesight. For the saints Heaven, the City of God, lay just
over the horizon beckoning them onward to its mysterious
grandeurs and unparalleled delights.

As their faith deepened, the reality of this vision became
more vivid and they burned with a desire to share this King-
dom of love with their fellowmen even at the cost of great
personal sacrifice, just as Christ Himself burned with such a
desire during His life on earth.

How do I develop a faith like that?

Would it change my life?

A vivid faith changes more than the life of an individual,
it changes the lives of multitudes and affects the very destinies
of nations.

Before developing one's faith to the point where it becomes
a positive supernatural vision unlocking for us the great
secrets of Creation and of the last ends of man, one must
begin by believing in God.

The Marxist, in embracing dialectical materialism, turns
his back on the mighty panorama which belief inevitably
brings and places his hopes in the earth and in earth only.
He thus becomes utterly faithless, a modern infidel, and the
more he follows Communism, the further he advances into an
abysmal spiritual darkness.

Utterly out of harmony with the plan of Creation, his voice
becomes discord and his works sabotage. He has by-passed
Heaven and walks upon the broad highway that leads to the
abyss.

As I see so many of my fellowmen stumbling blindly along
the road to eternal perdition, what must I do?

Certainly, I must increase my faith, for faith must be the
foundation of a daring apostolate, a powerful and recklessly
self-sacrificing spirituality which will urge me on, even into
the cannon's mouth, in a bold endeavour to break the spell
which Satan has cast upon so many in this age.

Faith will enable me to see clearly that Christianity is the
great positive and re-integrating force in an anarchic and
chaotic world.

Faith in Christ means union with Christ, and union with
Christ means that T share in some measure in the power of
Christ, or rather that Christ will invest His power in me to
the extent that I become His instrument.

112

Becoming His instrument necessarily involves some sacri-
fice, for I must allow His will to triumph over my will. But
the stakes are high, and I must not allow my body to stam-
pede my soul. I CAN DO PENANCE, I MUST do penance
if the liberty of my country is to be preserved.

Thus will I develop my faith, thus I shall fight for my coun-
try more truly than if T directed the fire of a thousand ma-
chine guns into the enemy's ranks.

What must be my first step in building up an heroic faith
in God which will enable me to face calmly even the savage
persecution of atheistic tyranny — if that were God's will?

Certainly it is necessary to have a holy, tender, interior,
constant and disinterested devotion to Mary, to be entirely
and truly consecrated to Her, to be willing to suffer the trials,
the contradictions, the humiliations, the crosses that She will
send.

It is indispensable to have a solid routine of prayer if one
is genuinely seeking perfection.

Daily Mass, if possible, and the fifteen decades of the
rosary, recited daily with care and devotion, are powerful
means of advancing in the spiritual life.

Even if Our Lady had not asked for the rosary at Lourdes
and Fatima the saints have made plain the great value of that
devotion in developing the life of grace in the soul.

This indeed is the great challenge of our age. In its accep-
tance by devout Catholics, in a spirit of noblesse oblige,
rests the hopes of all humanity.

113

30

THE PERMISSIVE SOCIETY

'They that are Ckrisfs have crucified their flesh with the vices and
concupiscences' (Gal. 5.24)

The point has already been made that the so-called "permis-
sive society" cannot produce fruits in terms of human happi-
ness for the people. Its fruits, so far, are rising crime, broken
homes, drugs and delinquency.

Thus is history repeating itself, for history has plainly
taught us these lessons. Most people who interest themselves
in these things are familiar with the conclusions of the his-
torian Arnold Toynbee, that nearly all of the great civilisa-
tions of the past have perished from within by internal cor-
ruption.

Another great historian, Dr. J. D. Unwin tells us: "Every
civilisation is established and consolidated by observing a
strict sexual moral code, is maintained while this strict code
is kept, and decays when sexual licence is allowed" (Sexual
Relations and Human Behaviour).

Unwin reports that the collapse usually comes within a
generation where there is serious moral decay. For his ex-
haustive analysis in "Sex and Culture" he closely examined
every known society — over eighty in all.

It cannot be denied that, as society grows more and more
"permissive" — particularly in countries like Sweden, America
and England — crime has risen steeply. Some refuse to see a
nexus between the two, holding that the prevailing permis-
siveness does not influence the crime rise.

114

Yet they can hardly deny that a climate of sexual permis-
siveness increases the divorce rate. For infidelity in marriage
is a leading cause of divorce. And, as the divorce rate rises,
juvenile delinquency must rise, for all informed observers
agree that broken homes are a major cause of juvenile de-
linquency.

Nevertheless there is a move throughout the Western world,
the civilisation that once was Christian, to abolish all forms
of censorship, to push through to the last stage in the fully
permissive society.

In this historic hour of instant global communications an
idea spreads rapidly — like a contagion. All the world it seems,
is being swept by the craze for an open season on sex. The
wisdom of the past is ignored, the verdict of history set aside.
The shadow of the atomic bomb is disregarded as twentieth
century man prepares to return to the morals of his stone-
age ancestors.

Toynbee, Sorokin and the other historians have not been
giving us their own views, but the sober conclusions of his-
tory. If we behave in this way, we are betraying our country,
and the generations to come.

In one of his recent books, Toynbee tells us that "religion
not only helps to create civilisations but acts as a stabilising
factor in times of decline." (Experiences) .

This is because the various religions are, above all, dis-
ciplinary systems, imposing restraint on man's wilful in-
dulgence of his lusts. Remove these safeguards of civilisation
and what have you got? A return to barbarism, a return to
the mores of the Vandals, the Huns, and the Visigoths who
were rescued by the light of the Cross in the Dark Ages.

Here we are arguing against the permissive society on
purely sociological grounds. What we all have to realise is
that the real case against immorality rests on a much more
serious basis, the fact that it is grossly offensive to God who
created us, and seriously contrary to His law.

Immorality is always a personal disaster for the adulterer
or the fornicator for, if he dies unrepentant, he will surely
lose his soul for all eternity.

But, as Our Lady indicated plainly at Fatima, it helps to
cause wars and other national disasters and thus must be
seen from a sociological aspect.

The Greeks and the Romans understood that moral cor-
ruption threatened the stability of the state. Caesar Augustus

115

banished Ovid for writing a pornographic book and salacious
literature was banned in some of the Greek states.

The youth of today, in the sophisticated countries, are often
said to be blase, saturated with sensuality. If this is true
then they have tasted of the Dead Sea fruits of immorality,
and must know through experience, that it cannot bring hap-
piness. In fact it produces nervous breakdowns, depression,
despair and often suicide. It greatly increases the work of the
police force.

Thus society is gradually being forced by the disintegration
and decay of its constituent parts to realise that a moral code
is necessary. Noting that all societies have a moral code
Brisbane writer Mr. George Cook quotes the following from
the article on Comparative Ethics in the Encyclopaedia
Brittanica:

"Everywhere in stable society there is a code which bids
men do this and not do that. If exceptions are to be found
at all they are not in what appear as the most primitive
societies, but in cases of decadence, where the long-established
code of one culture is broken and not replaced by the irrup-
tion of another. If we run the gamut of culture from the
highest to the lowest, we shall find that the codes cover the
principal relations of social life. They deal with persons and
property and specifically with sex, imposing restraints on be-
haviour which, from our point of view, may be just or unjust,
but which are certainly working rules. These rules rest on, and
in turn support, a certain community of life, extending beyond
the simple family of parents and young children, where nat-
ural feeling might be a sufficient guide.' 9

"The actual institutions of a society are the results of an
adjustment of human relations to the needs of life, and a
solution, good or bad, of the problem of living together under
given conditions." (Reference, Ency. Brit. Vol 6. Page 154 and
following pages.)

Mr. Cook makes the following very pertinent comment:
As every stable society has a code which "bids men do
this and not do that," it follows that you cannot have a "per-
missive society". The two words "permissive" and "society"
are contradictory. The Oxford Dictionary defines "permis-
sive" as "each individual free to do what he likes." "Society"
is defined as "the customs and organisation of a civilised

116

nation." Obviously, we cannot have "customs and organisa-
tion" if each individual "does what he likes."

What is being sought today is not a permissive society, as
Mr. Cook points out, but permissive decadence, decadence
being permissive itself and the end result of permissiveness.
And he goes on to make the following comments:

"All are concerned when the society in which they live is
threatened with destruction.

"The unchecked permission of sexually licentious living
not only threatens, but means the certain destruction of
that Society.

''Everyone is therefore concerned that the Government
ensures that sexual aberrations like homosexuality are de-
clared illegal and monogamous marriage is defended.

"Civil authorities have as their prime duty to promote the
common welfare of their subjects.

"They must, according to their ability, avert all harm
from their country both internal and external.

"As sexual licentiousness means certain destruction of the
country, the civil authority concerned must combat this
internal threat just as it must combat an external threat by
an enemy country.

"Legislation is the only means open to a civil authority
against this internal threat. This is because of the separa-
tion of Church and State. The State cannot check sexual
licentiousness by exhorting its subjects by moral homilies.

"By definition, moral homilies are not the State's sphere.
All the civil authority can do is identify sexual licentiousness
as an internal threat and legislate against it, prescribing
penalties against it just as it prescribes penalties against
theft and murder.

"The State laws against theft and murder do not contain
moral homilies on these subjects: they just prohibit these
things as crimes against the State and fix penalties.

"In exactly the same way the civil authority legislates
against sexual licentiousness, and fixes penalties for breaches
of this legislation,

"The Civil Authorities thereby are NOT legislating
against sin'. They are legislating for survival of the country
they govern. The extent of this legislation is open to dis-
cussion, once the right of legislation in this field is accepted.

"The Rule is that such legislation must be sufficient to
117

prevent internal decadence in the country but the State
should avoid legislating against moral lapses not serious
enough to threaten the survival of society ."

Perhaps Divine Providence has permitted the unprecedented
permissiveness in almost every department of Western society
to convince us that it cannot bring happiness, that its fruits are
drugs and degradation, misery and despair.

Experience is a hard school but we have obstinately refused
to learn at any other.

A COMMENT FROM SIGMUND FREUD

"We believe that civilisation has been built up by sacrifices
in gratification of the primitive impulses, and that it is to
a great extent for ever being re-created as each individual
repeats the sacrifice of his instinctive pleasures for the com-
mon good. The sexual are amongst the most important of the
instinctive forces thus utilised; they are in this way sublimated,
that is to say their energy is turned aside from its sexual goals
and diverted towards other ends, no longer sexual and socially
more valuable"

Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.

31

A CALL TO YOUTH

'But flee thou youthful desires and pursue justice, faith, chanty
and peace' (2 Tim. 2.22)

How is it possible to penetrate and influence with this cru-
sade the thinking of society in a short time?

118

An enormous effort is involved here, nothing less than a
world revolution in ideas, the building of a new civilisation
from the ruins of the old.

Only our youth would have the relentless energy, the ideal-
ism, the resolution, the tremendous generosity required for
such a Herculean endeavour.

Because of this it is hoped that the contents of this book
will be absorbed above all by leaders of our youth, that it will
be used as a textbook for study in universities, colleges and
high schools, as well as in youth circles generally.

In the past, it has been the more mature, the middle-aged
and elderly who have carried the burden of propagating the
Fatima message. But the hour has now arrived when massive
help from our youthful echelons is indispensable.

The most rapid means of infiltrating our universities with
the powerful idealism latent in the Fatima message is un-
questionably the use of the dedicated few, the completely
convinced cadres who will spend themselves in Our Lady's
service and count it an honour to do so.

A cadre, in military parlance, is a highly trained, self-reliant,
specialist soldier, with commando training and the initiative
and imagination to become a guerrilla leader.

A cadre will organise meetings, write letters to newspapers,
distribute printed propaganda and engage in any activity
which will penetrate his own particular milieu with a deep
realisation of the potential of the 1917 message of peace.

Obviously a cadre must first of all be convinced — intensely
convinced — of the vital importance of giving the profound
wisdom of Fatima to the confused modern world. He is a
true soldier of the Queen of Heaven, a commando in the
best sense of the word, intelligent — through the wisdom of
Fatima — disciplined and dedicated.

Students who would like to undertake such special respon-
sibilities for disseminating the knowledge of Fatima and all
that it means to others should begin by consecrating them-
selves sincerely to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart, promising
Her at least five decades of the rosary each day as an earnest
of their good intentions.

"It is possible by means of shrewd and unremitting propa-
ganda to make people believe that heaven is hell and hell
heaven"

So wrote Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf in 1926.
119

Nobody who has seen the spread of atheistic communism
throughout the world would doubt that today.

All the evidence we have of communism indicates that it
creates a veritable hell on earth in countries which it controls.

Liberty is extinguished, the citizens are arbitrarily arrested
and killed, nobody is allowed to leave unless they risk a bullet
in the back as they scramble over barbed-wire barricades or
Berlin Walls.

So great is the power of the atheist propaganda machine,
nevertheless, that it enables world Communism to make con-
tinued progress despite the incredible handicap of these atroci-
ties and the miserably low standard of living — as is evidenced
by comparing East with West.

Communism advances solely on propaganda. Its space pro-
gramme, its training of athletes for the Olympic games, its
cultural exchanges with Western countries — all are designed
for propaganda, designed to distract people's attention and
hide the grisly reality that is Communism.

Catholics, on the other hand, seem disinterested in propa-
gating the magnificent idealism of their faith, the only antidote
to Communism. Charged with a solemn responsibility for
which we must surely answer on the last day, we hide this
resplendent Light under the bushel of our sloth and our
apathy, allowing murderers and robbers to take over political
control of the world.

The Fatima message is a treasure from Heaven given with
great love to the Church by the Mother of the Church in
1917. It is not the property of any little group within the
Church. It is a true aggiornamento of the Gospel and has
been certified by the Church as in perfect harmony with the
Gospel. The movement to crush Communism and all its ancil-
laries must come from the bosom of the Church and it must
be led by Our Lady who is appointed by God to crush the
power of the demon. The Fatima crusade is to be then a
conquering army which will inspire our youth and lead them
on to the most thrilling and total victory in history. But the
Church must marshal all its resources for this tremendous
struggle.

It is necessary to state that we need urgently the help of
all age groups, and above all that of priests and Religious.
Our Lady intended the urgent appeal to be addressed to all
Catholics without exception and, as observed elsewhere, She
also is looking with great motherly love, on Her sons and

120

daughters in other religious denominations to help according
to their consciences.

All who read this book are asked to make a serious exami-
nation of their lives to see if they can help the cause of peace,
to serve humanity, to work, in a spirit of brotherly love for
the countless millions who sit in utter darkness, in poverty,
in tyranny, in the shadow of spiritual death.

Stir up your generosity, obey the impulse to do something
noble, something worthwhile with this fleeting life. For soon,
we shall all be dead, absorbed in an eternity made glorious
with love and self-sacrifice in this life, or cursed and made
bitter with remorse and agonised despair, by a life on earth
of selfishness and degradation.

Those who would like to help are asked to write to Fatima
International, P.O. Box 8947 Richmond Va. 23225,

32

AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH

Deep harm to disobey, seeing that obedience is the bond of rule.
(Tennyson)

We read in Matthew's 23rd chapter that Our Lord severely
castigated the Scribes and Pharisees, calling them hypocrites,
whited sepulchres, serpents, generation of vipers, etc.

But just prior to this, He addressed these sobering words
to His disciples: "The Scribes and Pharisees have sat on the
chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall
say to you, observe and do."

He also angered the Jews by telling them to obey the hated
121

Roman conqueror: "Render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's ..." The Jews knew He had power to deliver them
from Caesar. But this He refused to do.

Of what sovereign importance must be the principle of
obedience if Our Lord ordered the Chosen People to obey
His arch-enemies, the very ones who were soon to be re-
sponsible for His crucifixion, simply because they sat on the
chair of Moses!

Obedience, the outward sign of humility, is, by general
agreement, the most indispensable of the virtues. It is by con-
tinual acts of obedience to lawful authority that one increases
in sanctifying grace and in all the virtues. The clearest thing
we know about the devil is that he was a rebel from the
beginning.

In the Religious life, this virtue of obedience is of particu-
lar importance because it produces that order in the com-
munity which is the sine qua non of coordinated and success-
ful action. The great generals of history, Julius Caesar,
Napoleon and the others knew well the cardinal importance
of an instinctive and generous obedience on the part of their
soldiers.

In the Religious life, there is a well-known principle that
the Superior is to be obeyed in all things, except sin. It is
certain that nothing is better for us spiritually than to obey,
providing the authority is lawful and there is no sin.

There are two well-known cases in religious history of
apparent disobedience to lawful authority which have aroused
considerable comment from theologians and sacred writers.

The first is in the Scriptures, the famous case where St.
Paul, writing to the Galatians, tells of his "confrontation"
with St. Peter the first Pope. St. Paul describes how he "with-
stood Cephas (Peter) to his face and rebuked him". St. Peter
was not, needless to say, guilty of error in doctrine. It was
simply a moral lapse, a weakness of character which had
shown itself conspicuously on that sad night before the Cruci-
fixion. St. Peter, with great humility, bowed to the rebuke of
St. Paul, even though it was public and a severe test of his
humility.

Arnaldo Vidigal Xavier da Silveira of Brazil quoted a num-
ber of interesting comments from famous theologians on this
case.

"In several Of his works," he writes, "St. Thomas Aquinas
says that in extreme cases it is right to publicly oppose a ruling

122

of the Pope, as Saint Paul did face Saint Peter: \ . . if the
Faith be in imminent peril, prelates ought to be accused by
their subjects, even in public. Thus, Saint Paul, who was the
subject of Saint Peter, (he) called him to task in public,
because of impending danger of a scandal concerning a point
of Faith. As the Glossary to Saint Augustine has it: ' Saint
Peter himself set an example for those who rule, to the effect
that if they ever stray from the straight path they are not to
feel that anyone is unworthy of correcting them, even if such
a person be one of their subjects?, (ad Gal. 2, 14) (Saint
Thomas, Summa TheoL, II-II, 33, 4, 2).

"The chastening was both just and useful and there was no
little cause; the truth of the Gospels was at stake. . . ."

"The reprimand took place aptly, for it occurred publicly
and openly. St. Paul writes: "I spoke with Cephas", that is,
Peter, "before air, for Saint Peter's pretence represented
danger for everyone. In 1 Tim. 5, 20, we read the following:
"those who sin ye shall chasten before all men". By this is
meant manifest sins and not hidden ones, for in the case of
the latter one should act according to the appropriate rule for
brotherly reprimands". (Saint Thomas, ad Gal. 2, 11-14, lect.
IE, nn. 83-84).

"Saint Thomas goes on to remark that the aforesaid pas-
sage from the Scriptures is a lesson not only for prelates but
also for subjects: "for the prelates it was one (an example)
of humility, so that they might not shun the reprimands of
their inferiors and subjects; and for the subjects it was one
(an example) of zeal and freedom, so that they might not be
afraid to correct their prelates, above all when the crime be
public and place many in peril", (idem, ibidem, n, 77).

"Cornelius a Lapide — This illustrious exegete points out
that, according to Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint
Bede, Saint Anselm and many other Fathers, Saint Paul
opposed Saint Peter publicly "so that thus the public scandal
brought about by Saint Peter might be remedied through a
reprimand, also public", (ad Gal. 2, 11).

"After having looked into the various theological and
exegetical questions incurred because of Saint Paul's attitude,
Cornelius a Lapide writes as follows: "that superiors may
be humbly and charitably reprimanded by their inferiors, so
that the truth might be safeguarded, is what has been affirmed,
based upon this passage, (namely Gal. 3, 11), by Saint
Augustine (Epist. 19), Saint Cyprian, Saint Gregory, Saint

123

Thomas, and others referred to above. They clearly state
that Saint Peter, though superior, was reprimanded by Saint
Paul. . . . Therefore was Saint Gregory right when he said
(Homil. 18 in Ezech.): "Peter fell silent so that inasmuch as
he was the first in the apostolic hierarchy he might also be the
first in humility". And Saint Augustine wrote (Epist. 19 ad
Hyeronymum) : "By teaching that superiors should not refuse
to let themselves be reprimanded by their inferiors, Saint
Peter set an example for posterity, an example more un-
common and more saintly than that set by Saint Paul when
he taught that in the safeguarding of the truth and if done
charitably, the lesser may dare to fearlessly resist the greater",
(ad Gal. 2, 11)."

The other celebrated instance in history where apparent
disobedience has been praised by saints and historians is that
of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, whose flock, it is
said, fled from the Church when he preached to them the
heresy that Mary could not be truly called Mother of God.

Here we have the flock instinctively and violently repudiat-
ing the teaching of their Bishop; and Nestorius was no
ordinary Bishop. He was second in rank to the Pope himself
at the time.

Nestorius was preaching formal heresy, as distinct from
material heresy which is not culpable and comes from lack
of erudition.

Some theologians, according to the eighteenth century
authority Spedalieri, hold that a Bishop who preaches formal
heresy, deliberately polluting the deposit of truth with error,
is automatically divested of his episcopal dignity. The Abbot
of Solesmes, Dom Gueranger O. S. B., puts it in even more
trenchant terms. In his book, St. Cyril of Alexandria, he tells
us that such a bishop (or priest) is a shepherd transformed
into a wolf. And he goes on to say, "it is his erstwhile flock
which must make all haste to defend itself against him",
(p. 340).

It may be held from the foregoing that the distinction
between when to obey and when to disobey is so fine that only
a subtle intellect could grasp it. On the one hand we have
Our Lord counselling the Jews to obey even the Scribes and
Pharisees and on the other hand we have St. Paul's stern
rebuke to St. Peter and the Nestorius incident.

Is there a contradiction?

Our Lord, in the eyes of the Jewish people, was the son of

124

a carpenter and a "layman". As such He would have been
considered the spiritual subject of the Scribes and Pharisees.
Nevertheless, He strongly condemned their moral lapses, their
hypocrisy, etc, but He upheld their position as dispensers of
the law of Moses, even though He pointed out that they were
obeying the letter of the law and not its spirit.

But the falsifying of doctrine is apparently quite another
matter. The Nestorius incident, the opinions of Spedalieri,
Gueranger and others— quoting necessary authorities — seem
to make it clear that, when a priest or bishop preaches formal
open contumacious heresy on serious points of doctrine, he
has, in effect, left the Church and is to be rejected forthwith
by the People of God.

St. Paul makes this clear in his serious warning to the
Galatians against those who would "pervert the gospel of
Christ".

// anyone preach to you a gospel besides that which you
have received, let him be anathema. (Gal. 1.9).

Here there is a serious responsibility placed directly upon
the People of God not to accept heresy, a responsibility that
was fully discharged by the Faithful at Constantinople when
they refused to listen to the heresy of Nestorius their Bishop.

It may be pointed out that the power of jurisdiction granted
to such a Bishop by the Pope has not been formally revoked
and therefore the Bishop should continue to rule the diocese
until the Pope takes such action.

But, if the people of Constantinople were right in rejecting
their Bishop when he preached to them an obvious heresy —
and the Church through her theologians and doctors seems
to have ruled that they were— then a Bishop or priest preach-
ing obvious heresy seems to be ipso facto divested of his office
and is to be refused the obedience and reverence due to his
office. However, it seems clear that the power of Sacred
Orders still remains in accordance with the principle, once a
bishop always a bishop.

The Fatima crusade throughout the world has been noted
for its unquestioning obedience to lawful authority and its
profound reverence and affection for its priests and bishops.
Its entire programme of prayer and penance is aimed at up-
lifting the Church, eliminating the darkness of error, enrich-
ing the People of God by an unquestioning obedience to
Christ and to His lawful representatives on earth.

125

33

FATIMA'S DOCTRINAL IMPORTANCE

'There shall he a time when they will not endure sound doctrine'
(2 Tim. 4.3)

Sometimes one hears the revelations of the Cova da Iria
referred to as "merely a repetition of the requests for prayer
and penance in the Gospels".

But Fatima is immensely more significant than that. Let us
consider for a moment the new light it throws on biblical
interpretation.

It has been held by many modern exegetes that the Bible
has been wrongly interpreted by our forefathers, that modern
science has thrown new light upon it, that its imagery and
idiom were suitable for an ancient primitive people but not
for us, that the Scriptures were not meant to be taken literally,
and so on. Some of these moderns, starting from this premise,
then go on to place new and unsafe interpretations on Holy
Scripture without waiting to get a clearance from Rome.

It is in helping to clear up this confusion that Fatima is
immensely important. For the revelations at the Cova give us,
in addition to the vital message, a compendium of the major
doctrines of the Church.

In an age when so many writers have cast doubts on the
Real Presence in the Blessed Eucharist, we find the Angel who
appeared to the three children leaving a Host and Chalice
suspended in the air whilst he prostrates himself and recites
the well-known prayer,

126

"Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore
You profoundly! I offer You the most precious Body and
Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, present in
all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for all the out-
rages committed against Him; and by the infinite merits of
His Sacred Heart, through the intercession of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, I beg for the conversion of poor sinners".

Not only does the vision of the angel adoring the Host and
Chalice reassure us in our belief in the beautiful doctrine of
the Real Presence, but the drops of the Precious Blood falling
from the Host into the Chalice confirm what the Church has
always taught, that Christ is present, whole and entire, in
either species.

How many so-called theologians, in this sad age, have taken
it upon themselves to dismiss the doctrine of a hell of eternal
fire as "not suitable for the mentality of modern man"? At
Fatima, as we know well, the children were given a terrifying
vision of that same hell of fire, proving that the magisterium
has not erred. And modern science, so often quoted in efforts
to discredit the Bible, tells us that the earth's centre or core
is a sea of raging fire with a temperature of at least 4,000°
centigrade. This is not without significance when one remem-
bers that the Bible itself (Num. 16.33) as well as many
saints and mystics have indicated that hell is in the centre
of the earth.

The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady was clearly im-
plied in the references to her Immaculate Heart. And thus,
by inference, the doctrine of Original Sin, so often challenged
today, is confirmed. If Our Lady is immaculate, then the rest
of us are conceived in sin as the Church has always taught.
And the ancient scripture, "I will put enmities between thee
and the Woman" (Gen. 3.15) is made comprehensible.

The doctrines of heaven, hell and purgatory, of the ex-
istence of angels and devils, of the need for prayer and
penance to attain salvation are all brought to the notice ef
the modern world at Fatima, and, of course, are confirmed
by the solar phenomenon. Our Lady urged the necessity of
compassion for our neighbours when She said, with a look
of great sadness, in the August apparition at Valinhos, "Many
souls go to hell because there is no-one to pray and make
sacrifices for them" By this She tells us that we are all, in
some sense, mediators of intercession for souls, many of whom
we can save if we pray and do penance for them.

127

The requests for the rosary are not without their signifi-
cance. The rosary is very largely made up of meditations on
various incidents such as the birth, death and resurrection of
Our Lord as related in the Scriptures, and as interpreted by
the Fathers of the Church. There seems to be some degree of
support for traditional Scriptural exegesis here.

And significantly, Our Lady, at Fatima, at least hinted at
the doctrine of Papal supremacy, for Her references to the
"Holy Father" left no doubt as to his prestige, his importance
and the great spiritual power of his office.

The fearful malignancy of sin, its power to scourge and
devastate the human race by wars, crimes of all kinds, by
disorders like divorce, alcoholism, broken homes, murders,
thefts etc., these things are beginning to make even our
present day materialists realise that their standard of living
is collapsing.

Our Lady warned that the course of sin which the world
was following so recklessly would carry it over the brink of
peace into the chaos beyond. It did this in 1939 and it is to
do it again with catastrophic results if men continue to refuse
God the filial love to which He is entitled. The damage to
society wrought by sin is underlined by Our Lady who is
so anxious to save us from the bloodshed and tragedy of war
and civil strife.

At Fatima also, Our Lady taught explicitly the ancient doc-
trine of reparation, a doctrine so powerful that it brought
the Son of God down from Heaven to die on a Cross to
repair the sin of Adam. In this instance, at the Cova da Iria,
the Mother of Christ warned that the same Divine justice re-
quired that reparation be made for the blasphemies and
abominations that were disgracing the erstwhile Christian na-
tions in this century. If just men were not found who would
make this reparation the fire and brimstone would come — in
the form of atomic bombs, as we know now. The atomic
bomb had not been invented when She spoke in 1917 but Her
words "various nations will be annihilated" can have only one
meaning in the present nuclear confrontation.

Thus our ancient faith has been ratified and brought "up-
to-date" by the Divine signature in the skies of Fatima in the
form of the solar miracle. If one admits, with the Church,
that this message is authentic, if one admits that the solar
phenomenon did take place, then what folly it is to follow
the lead of the so-called theologians who are denying the

128

doctrines referred to above, who say on their own authority
that there is no Real Presence, there is no hell of fire, etc.

It is appointed unto men once to die, Holy Scripture tells
us, and after that the judgment (Heb. 9.27). There is really
only one thing we should fear, and that is to be separated
from God forever, in the abyss of fire and in the torments
that have no end. The Mother of Christ has sent us the clear-
est and most urgent of warnings. What madness on our part
to reject it!

34

SALUTE TO PORTUGAL

The drama that took place at the Cova da Iria in 1917 was
destined to alter radically the history of Portugal.

At the time of the apparitions the country was ruled by
an anti-clerical oligarchy and religion was being attacked on
all sides as "outmoded superstition".

But Portugal has long been known as the "Terra de Santa
Maria" — the land of holy Mary, and Our Lady was not to
surrender lightly the country that had been Her own fief and
special possession. For the kings and queens of Portugal,
from the time of Blessed Nuno on, had refused to wear their
crowns in deference to the overlordship of Jesus and Mary,
who were held to be the true rulers of this blessed land.

In the third apparition at Fatima, on July 13, two coun-
tries were mentioned by name by Our Lady. Russia was
referred to three times, in the special warning of the grave
events happening there; and finally Portugal was mentioned
with this special promise, significant in these times of danger
for us all:

129

"In Portugal, the doctrine of the faith will always be
preserved"

This is recorded in the authoritative work by Father John
de Marchi I.M.C. It is interesting because the third seer,
Lucia, interviewed by a panel of journalists in 1 946, was asked
"at what stage are we in the evolution of the Fatima proph-
ecies?" She replied that Communism was about to spread its
errors throughout the whole world. Lucia was then a nun in
the Dorothean Sisters. She has since transferred to the
Discalced Carmelites, an enclosed order.

When she was further asked: "Does this mean that Com-
munism will succeed in overcoming every country in the
world" Lucia replied "yes". William Thomas Walsh, a jour-
nalist who was present was so shocked by this reply that he
repeated the question. He received the same answer. It may
be pointed out that the fulfilment of the Fatima requests
could stop this.

It may be asked why Lucia did not exempt Portugal in view
of the special promise of Our Lady that "the doctrine of the
Faith would always be preserved there".

Here we must touch on a prophecy of Jacinta, made by the
youngest seer not long before she died. It is based on the
hearsay evidence of Mother Godinho, her nurse, and therefore
does not possess the same validity as Our Lady's statement
But it is worth recording.

It refers to a statement by Jacinta that "a terrible social
cataclysm threatened Portugal, particularly the city of Lis-
bon". There would, she said, be sacking and violence and
devastation of all kinds.

This is not necessarily contradictory to Our Lady's state-
ment. It may mean that Communist successes in Portugal will
be only partial, whilst in other countries they may be able to
take over the entire reins of Government. In fact, they have
done that in the Iron Curtain countries of middle Europe, in
China, North Korea, North Vietnam and Cuba, since Lucia
spoke in 1946.

It cannot be denied that the revelations of 1917 constitute
a great honour for Portugal. Almost certainly the events in
the Cova represent the most important and significant private
revelations in the history of the Church. They do presage
a new and brighter age for all the world. And Portugal must
share in this.

A typical example of the latent power of the Cova da Iria

130

was given in 1965 when a Pilgrim Virgin statue of Our Lady
of Fatima was taken to Vietnam at the special request of
the Fatima crusade there. It was a desperate hour for South
Vietnam. It was recalled in a special despatch to the Daily
American, Rome 23.6.70 by its Saigon correspondent, Colonel
R. D. Heinl.

"It seems unbelievable today" wrote Col. Heinl, "to look
back on 1965 when the Vietcong were in the act of sawing
South Vietnam in two from Due To, Pleihu, and Am Khe
to the sea; when every bridge in the Delta was out and every
village was solid VC; when Buddhist monks were immolat-
ing themselves and the government being clawed to pieces by
internal factions at each other's throats."

It was precisely at this time, in October 1965, that the Pil-
grim Virgin arrived. It was received by the Apostolic Dele-
gate and other high-ranking clergy, carried with great pomp
and ceremony by an honour guard of senior army officers,
including a general, and placed on a decorated float for the
veneration of the great crowd that lined the three mile route
to the city and filled the piazza in front of the Cathedral. All
fifteen dioceses were consecrated to the Immaculate Heart,
each in the presence of the Pilgrim statue. The brave Bishops
of South Vietnam led by an outstanding Apostolic Delegate,
strongly supported the entire programme.

Within a few months the Buddhist riots subsided, the threat
to the government ceased. Elections were held soon after,
and, except for the Tet offensive there has since been no
serious threat to the government.

Of course South Vietnam is facing the greatest crisis of all
with the withdrawal of U. S. troops and America's new policy
of detente with Red China. South Vietnam must rely com-
pletely on Our Lady now and we can be sure the Blessed
Mother will not forget her suffering children there.

Certainly the intervention of the Fatima crusade in the war
made an indelible impression in South Vietnam. Communism
was challenged on its own spiritual plane by the force destined
ultimately to crush it. The Fatima crusade has much more
power than the U. S. Armed Forces although it does not seem
so to the confused world.

The people of Portugal are proud of this great honour paid
by Heaven itself to their country. They flock in hundreds of
thousands to the Shrine to pray there, to meditate on the pro-
found wisdom that was given to all the world there, and to

131

reform their lives. Some walk for days to make a pilgrimage,
and return the same way. They sleep out in the open in all
kinds of weather. Sometimes as many as 30,000 children visit
the Shrine to pray at the tombs of Jacinla and Francisco,
who are, we hope, soon to be beatified and honoured as the
modern heroes, of the youth of Portugal.

A striking example of how Communism can be overcome
by the superior spiritual power of the Christian faith has been
given in Portugal itself. It shows how Our Lady can change
the destinies of nations by changing the hearts of the people
of those nations.

35

THE STORY OF FATIMA

The great conflict which has passed into history as World
War I, was tearing apart the very fabric of Western Civilisa-
tion, when a light appeared in the Heavens over the bare
Serra da Aire in Portugal near a small village called Fatima.
Amazingly, it represented a mystic contact between Heaven
and Earth — it was the dawn of an event which was to play
a profound part in shaping the history of the twentieth-
century world.

On May 13, 1917, three small children, Jacinta and Fran-
cisco Marto, and Lucia dos Santos, aged 7, 9, and 10 respec-
tively, were grazing their sheep in a field a short distance
from their home, at Aljustrel, a tiny hamlet one mile from
Fatima. After they had found a good grazing patch for the
sheep they began to play. In the midst of their games a sudden
flash of light in a cloudless sky halted them. Believing it to

132

be the first sign of an approaching storm, they raced towards
the sheep in order to find shelter for them against the ele-
ments.

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY

On reaching the foot of a small slope, opposite the site of
the present basilica, their eyes were dazzled by a Heavenly
apparition. A lady, so beautiful that She could not possibly be
of this earth, looked at them with motherly kindness and
affection. "Fear not," She reassured them, "I shall do you no
harm." The children were enthralled by the Heavenly glory
of this apparition; She appeared to be about eighteen years of
age. Her dress, all of light, and the colour of snow, was tied
by a gold cord. A white veil laced with gold covered Her head
and shoulders and fell to Her feet like the dress. From Her
fingers, which were joined at the breast in an attitude of
prayer, hung a brilliant rosary, to which was attached a silver
cross.

After a while Lucia gained confidence and asked, "Where
do you come from?"

"I come from Heaven," replied the Lady.

"From Heaven! And why have You come here?"

"I have come to ask you to come here for six months in
succession on the thirteenth of each month, at this same hour.
In the month of October I shall tell you who I am and what
I want."

"are you ready to suffer?"

Then the Lady asked an important question: "Would you
like to offer yourself to God to make sacrifices, and to accept
willingly all the sufferings it may please Him to send you in
order to make reparation for so many sins, which offend the
Divine Majesty, to obtain the conversion of sinners, and to
make amends for all the blasphemies and offenses against
the Immaculate Heart of Mary?"

"Yes, we would like that very much."

This pleased the Lady and She replied, "You will soon have
much to suffer but the grace of God will help you and give
the strength you need." Then, telling the children to recite the
rosary devoutly every day in order to obtain peace, the Lady

133

glided rapidly towards the East, and was soon lost in the light
of the sun.

JUNE 13 th

One month later, the children were followed to this mys-
terious tryst by about 60 curious persons. After they had re-
cited the rosary the Lady appeared again. She again asked
for the daily recitation of the rosary, and told them to return
on July 13th. She also said that Our Lord wished to establish
in the world the devotion to her Immaculate Heart. And She
showed the three children a vision of her Immaculate Heart
surrounded by thorns — which represent the sins of men.

JULY 13th

On July 13th, after encountering much opposition, and suf-
fering much through the contempt and derision of the towns-
people, the children again returned to the scene of the
Apparitions. The Heavenly visitor again asked for the daily
recitation of the rosary. Oppressed by the trials she had under-
gone, Lucia asked Her to say who She was and to work
a miracle to convince the scoffers and the unbelievers. The
Lady made a promise which was soon to re-echo throughout
the whole of Portugal, and bring a great multitude to the
scene of the Apparitions. "Continue to come here on the
thirteenth of each month, and on October 13th I shall say
who I am, and what I want, and I shall work a great miracle
in order that all may believe."

THE VISION OF HELL

On this occasion the Vision opened Her hands from which
projected a beam of light which penetrated the depths of the
earth. "We saw a vast sea of fire," writes Lucia, "in which
were plunged, all blackened and burnt, demons and souls in
human form like transparent brands. Raised into the air by
the flames they fell back in all directions, like sparks in a huge
fire, without weight or poise, amidst loud cries and horrible
groans of pain and despair, which caused us to shudder and
tremble with fear. (It is probably at this scene that I cried
'Oh!* which those present say they heard.) The demons were
distinguished by the horrible and repellent forms of terrible

134

unknown animals, like brands of fire, black, yet transparent.

"This scene lasted an instant, and we must thank Our
Heavenly Mother who had prepared us beforehand by promis-
ing to take us to heaven with Her, otherwise I believe that
we should have died of fear and terror."

After this terrifying vision of the loss of souls, the Vision
said, "You have just seen hell, where poor sinners go. To
save them, the Lord wishes to establish in the world the
devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If people do what I shall
tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace."

CONSECRATION AND REPARATION

She added, "I shall ask for the consecration of Russia to My
Immaculate Heart, as well as communion of reparation on
the first Saturday of the month. If my requests are granted,
Russiai will be converted and there will be peace. Otherwise
Russia will spread her errors through the world, raising up
wars and persecutions against the Church. Many will be
martyred, the Holy Father will have to suffer much, several
nations will be wiped out. The outlook is therefore gloomy.
But My Immaculate Heart will finally triumph; the Holy
Father will consecrate Russia to me; she will be converted and
an era of peace will be conceded to the world. In Portugal
the faith will always be preserved"

The children were prevented from keeping the appointment
with the Heavenly visitor on August 13th, having been kid-
napped by the anti-clerical Mayor of Ourem, in whose district
the village of Fatima lay.

Our Lady did compensate for this by appearing to them
on August 19th at a place called Valinhos where they were
pasturing their sheep. Here She repeated Her promise to per-
form a miracle in October "so that all might believe**

She also made a heartrending appeal for sinners. "Many
souls go to hell" She said, "because nobody is willing to pray
and make sacrifices for them."

SEPTEMBER 13 th

On September 13th, about 30,000 people accompanied the
children to the site of the Apparitions. Again the Lady re-
newed Her promise to work a miracle on October 13th.
This was soon noised abroad, and the whole of Portugal
135

waited impatiently for the fateful day which would determine
for all time the authenticity of the much-talked-of events.
Newspapers sent their correspondents and photographers to
record the event. Believers and scoffers alike were thrilled by
the bold prediction of a public miracle to take place at a set
time in a set place.

THE GREAT DAY OCTOBER 13th

When the children, surrounded this time by a huge crowd,
variously estimated at from 70,000 to 100,000 were once
more comforted by the beautiful Lady, Lucia asked the direct
question, the answer to which had already been promised.

"Madam, who are you, and what do you want of me?"

The Lady answered immediately. "I am Our Lady of the
Rosary; I want a chapel built in My honour. The Rosary must
be recited every day."

"Men must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins."
Then with a look of intense sadness She added, "Men must
no longer offend Our Lord, Who is already offended too
much."

At the moment of Her departure She opened Her hands
again and threw a beam of light towards the sun. Then com-
menced the solar prodigy which is described hereunder.

But the children see another drama enacted in three scenes
beside the sun.

First they see the three members of the Holy Family, Our
Lady of the Rosary in a white dress and a blue mantle, and
at left, dressed in red is St. Joseph with the Infant Jesus bless-
ing the world.

Next Our Lord appears as a full-grown man, lovingly bless-
ing the world, and at the left Our Lady as the Sorrowful
Mother.

Finally, the Mother of God appears as Our I^dy of Mt.
Carmel, the scapular in Her hand.

THE GREAT SOLAR PRODIGY

October 13th was cold and dismal, rain was falling steadily
while the vast concourse of pilgrims gathered on the site of
this rendezvous with the Heavenly Visitor.

The following account of the great solar prodigy is written
by a free-thinking journalist Avelino d' Almeida, Director of

136

the Lisbon daily O Seculo. Only the previous day he had
written an ironical article on the so-called apparitions in which
he saw only superstition and fraud.

This is what he wrote in the morning edition on Monday,
October 15th, 1917, photostats of which are available to
interested students of Fatima.

"Then we witness a spectacle unique and incredible for one
who was not present . . . The sun resembles a dull silver plate
. . . It does not warm, it does not dazzle. One would say that
an eclipse had occurred. But now a loud shout is heard:

'Miracle, Miracle!'

"Before the astonished eyes of this crowd, whose attitude
takes us back to Biblical times, and who, pale with fear and
with heads bare, look at the azure sky, the sun trembles, the
sun makes abrupt movements, never seen before, and outside
all cosmic laws, the sun € begans to dance* as the peasants say
. . . Only one thing remains now to be done, namely, for the
scientists to explain from the height of their learning, the fan-
tastic dance of the sun, which today at Fatima, has drawn
'Hosanna' from the hearts of the faithful; and which, as trust-
worthy people assure me, had impressed even Free-thinkers,
as well as others of no religious convictions, who had come
to this spot, henceforth celebrated."

For the first time in recorded history, a miracle announced
months in advance for a set time and place was worked by
God.

This fact alone should alert us as to the tremendous impor-
tance of the message which this miracle was worked to con-
firm.

The prodigy in the skies points directly to the message.
There was no other reason for the miracle than to confirm
this vital communication from Heaven.

In the Gospels, we find Christ working miracles only to
confirm the vital doctrine that He taught. In this sense, the
events of the Cova da Iria are a repetition of the Gospel
method of communicating important truths to the sluggish,
unreceptive mind of man.

There are many descriptions of the solar miracle available
on research.

We will give here another description of a journalist who
was present. Journalists are, or should be, trained in objec-

137

tivity, trained to report facts and not let their imagination run
away with them. The journalists who came to Fatima were
professional observers of an openly anti-clerical daily press
who came above all to report facts, not only on behalf of
their own papers, but for the news media of the world.

The reporter from the Lisbon daily O Dia sent in the fol-
lowing despatch. It appeared on October 17, 1917.

"At one o'clock in the afternoon, midday by the sun, the
rain stopped. The sky, pearly gray in color, illuminated the
vast arid landscape with a strange light. The sun had a
transparent gauzy veil so that the eyes could easily be fixed
upon it. The gray mother-of-pearl tone turned into a sheet
of silver which broke up as the clouds were torn apart and
the silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy gray light, was
seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds. A
cry went up from every mouth and people fell on their
knees on the muddy ground. . . .

The light turned a beautiful blue, as if it had come
through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral, and
spread itself over the people who knelt with outstretched
hands. The blue faded slowly, and then the light seemed to
pass through yellow glass. Yellow stains fell against white
handkerchiefs, against the dark skirts of the women. They
were repeated on the trees, on the stones and on the serra.
People wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the
presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed
like hours, so vivid were they."

This story of Fatima has of course been reduced to a brief
summary. Fatima is a vast subject with a considerable bibli-
ography. Those who wish to learn more about it are advised
to enquire from the various religious bookstores for the story
in greater detail.

138

36

THE SECRETS OF FATIMA

It will be recalled by the reader that the three little seers of
Fatima were kidnapped by the sub-prefect of Fatima, Arturo
dos Santos, and taken to his house in order to prevent them
from being present at the August 13th rendezvous with the
heavenly Lady.

Under interrogation at the sub-prefect's office, they were
threatened with death — in a cauldron of boiling oil — if they
did not reveal a certain secret which the Vision had revealed
to them, the knowledge of which was then agitating the local
community — as secrets always do agitate people.

The sub-prefect may have suspected that the secret, if re-
vealed, would expose the whole story as a hoax. In the event,
he was quite unable to shake the determination of the three
little seers each of whom was prepared to die rather than
betray Our Lady's confidences. As Francisco and Jacinta had,
only two months previously, been told by the Lady that they
would die soon, the threat of the sub-prefect must have been
particularly terrifying for them.

Even Lucia, the eldest and much more mature than the
others, believed that the sub-prefect's threat was genuine.

The secret which the children guarded so jealously was
divided up into three parts. The first two were revealed in
documents released privately by Lucia in 1929. The third
secret is the well-known document which, it was widely
believed, was to be revealed in 1960.

The first secret was the vision of hell, which, for some
Providential reason, was not meant for release in 1917. Pos-
sibly, there were so many marvels associated with the revela-

139

tions that God did not wish to put too great a strain upon
our earthbound minds, which find supernatural truths difficult
to assimilate. Possibly God was reserving the knowledge of
the vision of hell for a time when the dread doctrine of eternal
damnation would be little thought of and discounted in the
preaching of the Gospel. For although the words of Our Lord
are absolutely unequivocal and unambiguous on this subject
of an eternal hell of fire, the modern world closes its ears,
turns away its eyes from the dreadful reality. By refusing to
think of hell, the modern world imagines it has abolished hell
— a pathetically unreasonable attitude to take in a matter so
serious. The doctrine was of course guaranteed by the solar
miracle : none of us will be able to complain, at our judgment,
that we didn't know that hell existed.

The second secret related to that remarkable series of future
events which Our Lady spoke of in the July apparitions but
which were not, as far as the world is concerned, prophecies
strictly speaking. For they were only published widely after
some of the events had happened. This allocution of Our
Lady was as follows:

"You have seen hell, where the souls of sinners go. It is to
save them that God wants to establish in the world devotion
to my Immaculate Heart. If you do what I tell you, many
souls will be saved, and there will be peace. This war will
end, but if men do not refrain from offending God, another
and more terrible war will begin. And when you see a night
that is lit by a strange and unknown light, you will know
it is the sign God gives you that He is about to punish the
world with war and with hunger, and by the persecution of
the Church and the Holy Father. To prevent this, 1 shall
come to ask that Russia be consecrated to my Immaculate
Heart, and I shall ask that on the First Saturday of every
month Communions of reparation be made in atonement
for the sins of the world. If my requests are granted, Russia
will be converted and there will be peace; if not, then
Russia will spread her errors throughout the world causing
wars and persecutions of the Church; the good will be
martyred, the Holy Father will suffer much, certain nations
will be annihilated. But in the end my Immaculate Heart
will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me,
and she will be converted, and the world will enjoy an era
of peace' 9

140

There was a warning added that this was not to be com-
municated to anyone but Francisco. Francisco was able to
see Our Lady but was never able to hear what She said.

It will be noticed immediately that the first part of this
warning by Our Lady has been fulfilled. Error did spread and
is still spreading from Soviet Russia. The second world war
has taken place. The Church has been persecuted as never
before in history, and the good have been martyred in millions.

The final series of the prophecies has still to be fulfilled,
namely the suffering of the Holy Father, the annihilation of
various nations, the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of
Mary, the conversion of Russia to Christianity and the
promised age of peace.

Lucia stated later that Our Lady appeared to her several
times subsequent to the events in the Cova da Iria. It was in
1 929, in the chapel of the Dorothean Sisters at Tuy in Spain
that Our Lady came to ask for the consecration of Russia to
her Immaculate Heart. It was to be made by the Pope in
union with all the bishops of the world. If this was made then
Lucia understood that the Second World War would have
been averted and the power of the Communist conspiracy
destroyed. Lucia passed this message on to two of her con-
fessors, according to the account by Father De Marchi; one
of the confessors informed the Bishop of Leiria, and arranged
that the matter should be brought to the notice of Pope Pius
XI, then occupying the throne of Peter.

The priest later informed Lucia that the message had been
graciously received by the Holy Father, and that it would be
taken into consideration. However, Pius XI did not act on it
in any way.

When Pius XII succeeded Pius XI in 1938 the world was on
the verge of the second World War. As is known, the new
Pope energetically promoted the message of Fatima in many
ways and he was affectionately known as "the Pope of Fatima"
in some circles. He consecrated the whole world to the Im-
maculate Heart of Mary in 1942 with a special mention of
Russia.

A great effort was made by world Fatima crusaders to have
Russia consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Pope
Paul in union with all the bishops at Vatican Council II. Pope
Paul did renew this consecration during the Council in the
presence of a considerable number of the bishops. However

141

this was not an explicit fulfilment of the request in the terms
outlined by Our Lady.

The third secret, the most widely publicised of all, was
written down in Lucia's own hand, placed in a sealed envelope,
and marked "to be opened in I960".

'This was generally interpreted "to be revealed in 1960" and
there was a flood of speculation in both the secular and re-
ligious press as to the nature of the contents of the envelope.

Photos of the Bishop of Leiria, Dom Jose Correia da Silva,
holding the "secret envelope" appeared in some large circula-
tion secular magazines, as well as innumerable religious
organs. Many thought that 1960 might be the year of the
third World War.

In 1957 the Vatican itself intervened by asking for the
secret letter. The Bishop of Fatima, Dom Jose da Silva, asked
his Auxiliary, Dom Joao Venancio, to take it to the Papal
Nuncio in Lisbon. It may be presumed that Pope Pius XII
who was then alive, read the Secret. But there is definite news
that it was opened in 1960.

John XXIII was on the Papal throne at that time and he,
according to the report by Cardinal Ottaviani who was
present, opened the letter, read its contents and ordered that
the communication be consigned to "top secret" Vatican
archives.

There are various versions of the Fatima secret current
but it seems that its contents have been well hidden. There has
been a vast amount of speculation, but nobody can say with
certainty what the contents of the secret letter are.

Conjecture centred, naturally enough, on Pope John's mo-
tives for not revealing the secret. Some students of the subject
concluded that the contents must be gloomy, alarming, or
perhaps embarrassing for the Church.

In fact, interest in the subject had developed to such an
extent that, had Rome released the secret, the authority and
prestige of the Vatican would necessarily have been involved,
seeming to be guaranteeing its authenticity. That, at least, is
how the world at large would have reacted. Irrespective of
what was in the letter, Papal authorities would not have liked
to be compromised in this way. Tens of thousands of devotees
of Our Lady of Fatima reacted understandably but unreason-
ably in drifting away from the crusade in disillusionment over
the failure to reveal the secret.

For some years after 1960 it was fashionable in certain
142

circles to denounce Fatima as a "fraud" although, in fact,
nothing whatever had happened to invalidate the revelations.
Rather to the contrary, for the Fatima outline of future events
was coming true exactly as stated.

In 1967 the visit of Pope Paul VI to Fatima for the Golden
Jubilee celebrations established once more, for Catholics, the
solid authenticity of the revelations, which had been taken
for granted under Pope Pius XII.

According to Father J. Da Cruz in his book More About
Fatima, the third secret appears to have been interpolated
between the words "various nations will be annihilated . . .
in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

If this is so the secret would deal with the great climax in
the modern collision of spiritual forces, throwing light on the
tremendous events immediately preceding the triumph of the
Cross over the enemies of Christ.

As to the third part of the secret, wrote Fr. John de
Marchi in his authoritative book The True Story of Fatima
"only in 1960 shall we know what the Blessed Virgin told the
children of Aljustrel. It is in the possession of the bishop of
Leiria, written by Lucia, and placed in a sealed envelope."

It will be noted that Fr. de Marchi expected the third
secret to be revealed in 1960. It may be inferred that Lucia
expected this also for she carefully studied Fr. de Marches
manuscript and passed it as authentic.

37

THE CHURCH AND FATIMA

The revelations of Fatima are presented to Catholics by the
Church itself, acting through Her responsible officials as
"worthy of credence",

143

They are part of private, not public revelation and do not
have to be believed under pain of sin. Nevertheless, many
reputable theologians hold that it is rash (temerarious) to
refuse to believe what the Church has declared worthy of
credence, particularly if the revelations are supported by
miracles. On earth, Christ cursed those who rejected His
miracles (Luke 10.13) and, in looking around us today, we
find that those who have openly rejected Fatima have not
fared well in the attack on the Church in our own times.

These revelations have the best of credentials as far as the
Church is concerned. A bulletin issued by the Consolata
Fathers in 1967 gives the following series of Ecclesiastical
approvals.

As early as April 29, 1918, Pope Benedict XV, in a letter
to the Portuguese Bishops, referred to the occurrences at
Fatima as "an extraordinary aid from the Mother of God".

Ever since the opening of the "canonical process" or official
ecclesiastical enquiry into the events of Fatima on May 3rd,
1922, by the Bishop of Leiria, Dom Jose A, Carreia da Silva
down to the present day the Church has not ceased to give
its attention to Fatima and approve it

FIRST OFFICIAL APPROVAL

On October 13th, 1930, the Bishop of Leiria passed judgement
on a 31 -chapter report after studying it for six months. It was
precisely at the Cova and in the presence of 100,000 expec-
tant pilgrims that he read his pastoral letter which ended with
this declaration: "We deem well: (1) to declare worthy of
belief the vision of the shepherds at the Cova da Iria, in the
Parish of Fatima, of this Diocese, on the thirteenth day of
the months from May to October, 1917; (2) to give official
permission for the cult of Our Lady of Fatima"

Rome went along with the findings of the Bishop, for in
recommending Catholic Action to the Portuguese Bishops,
Pope Pius XI, on November 10, 1933, wrote: "In your coun-
try so flourishing with the Christian spirit . . . which quite
recently the Virgin Mother of God has deigned to favour
with extraordinary benefits, it will not be difficult . . ."

Although Rome has followed her usual procedure and left
the formal declaration of authenticity of the Fatima appari-
tions to the Bishop of the locality where they occurred, she

144

clearly indicated her warm approval of these events through
a long and impressive series of public documents and acts.

1942, the year of the Fatima Silver Jubilee celebrations,
Pope Pius XII prescribed for the Universal Church a feast
intimately connected with the Fatima apparitions, the Feast
of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to be celebrated each year
on August 22.

The link between this feast and the Cova apparitions is still
more obvious especially since this same year, 1942, saw the
Pope consecrating the world and Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary.

THE CROWNING

Then on May 13th, 1946, His Eminence Card. A. Masella,
who acted as personal Legate of Pope Pius XII, crowned Our
Lady of Fatima as "Queen of the World** The impressive
ceremony took place in the presence of the entire Portuguese
Episcopate, several members of the Portuguese government
and over 600,000 pilgrims. And on June 13th of the same
year, the Pope issued an encyclical which explicitly refers to
the message of Fatima.

Then, in 1951, the Pope sent Cardinal Tedeschini to Fatima
as his Legate for the closing of the Holy Year. In revealing
to the crowds that Pope Pius XII had himself seen repeated
in Rome, the Miracle of the Sun which accompanied the last
appearance of Our Lady of Fatima in October 1917, he had
the occasion to make a connection between Rome and
Fatima. Asked he: "May not that have been a reward? May
not that have been a sign of the sovereign pleasure on the
part of God, at the Definition of the Dogma of the Assump-
tion? Was it perhaps an authentic sign of the connection be-
tween the Wonders of Fatima and the Centre, on earth , of
Truth and the Head of the Catholic Church? Perhaps all these
three are joined together!* 9

Then on July 7, 1952, Pope Pius XII consecrated Russia
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. On October 11th, 1954, he
issued the encyclical on the Queenship of Mary in which he
referred to her miraculous image at Fatima. That same year,
November 12th, the Pope elevated the Fatima Church to the
rank of a minor basilica.

145

JOHN AND PAUL VI

It was while still Cardinal Patriarch of Venice that Pope John
officially visited Fatima. As Pope John XXIII, he sent a tele-
gram of approval to Fatima, blessing not only those who
had gathered there for October 12th, 1960, but all in the
world who were observing this great night of universal
exercise of prayer which was sponsored by the Bishop of
Leiria, Dom Joao P. Venancio and in which some 300 dioceses
throughout the world took part.

Pope John also issued a proclamation designating Our Lady
of Fatima Patroness of the Diocese in which She had ap-
peared, with all liturgical right — an "official" recognition of
utmost significance. Pope John willed his pectoral cross to the
Shrine of Fatima.

Pope Paul has ever shown a favourable attitude toward
Fatima. His first major gesture in this line seems to have been
the renewal of the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary during the II Vatican Council on November 21st, 1964,
and the sending of the Golden Rose to the Shrine on May
13, 1965.

Then on May 3rd, 1967, at a general audience, the Pope
announced his plan to visit Fatima and gave reasons for doing
so. ". . . and we go to Her who for the preservation of our
present world has once again shown Her sweet and resplen-
dent maternal face to the children, to the poor. She recom-
mended prayer and penance as the sovereign remedies. This
is the reason for Our pilgrimage." Through his pilgrimage to
Fatima, the Pope preached more by example than by word.
He showed the way to peace; he placed his hope in Our Lady;
and he showed that there cannot be unity or peace without
Mary and the fulfilment of her message.

His Apostolic Exhortation, "A Great Sign", of May 13th,
1967, is precisely a defence of Mary as the way to Christ and
an invitation to the integral fulfilment of the message of
Fatima, including the idea of personal consecration to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Thus the Church itself endorses Fatima insofar as it can
and looks forward to the triumph that was foreshadowed at
Fatima.

It is a triumph of the Church, and it is a triumph of the
revelations and of the theology of Fatima. The two are in-

146

dissolubly linked. This Heavenly revelation represents then
the "light on the hill" for the weary Christian pilgrim of
today.

38

DOCUMENTATION

For the benefit of readers who are not of the Catholic faith,
it may be as well to point out that the Church adopts a
policy of great reserve and caution in dealing with private
revelations.

"Divine revelation in general is a supernatural manifesta-
tion by God of a hidden truth," according to Tanquerey. He
continues: "When such a manifestation is made directly, on
behalf of the whole Church, it is called public revelation;
when it is made to private individuals for their own welfare
or that of others, it is called private reve)ation."

It may be said with certainty that there have been authentic
private revelations in every age of Christian history. These
revelations do not form part of the deposit of faith, but the
Church puts them before the Faithful, after careful and pains-
taking examination, as worthy of credence and suitable for
uplifting and edifying the People of God.

The revelations of Fatima were treated no differently, in
spite of the great solar phenomenon which appeared to con-
firm them.

An official Theological Commission was set up by the
Bishop, Dom Jose Carreia da Silva, and it was only after nine
years of intense study of the entire question that this Com-
mission made a favourable report.

The Bishop himself made the final decision after six months
147

of careful and prayerful perusal of the documents of the Com-
mission

Dom Jose gave his reasons in the following simple and
moving document which launched the great Fatima crusade
upon the modern world:

"Our Holy Mother the Church having entrusted to our
care the Bishopric of Leiria, and it being our duty as Bishop
to care for the faithful entrusted to us, and following the
example of the venerable Prelates in such cases, after hav-
ing attentively studied the events for ten years, we now
pronounce our decision, while humbly declaring that we
submit our judgment to the Holy See.

"Referring to the smaller number of the wise, the power-
ful and the noble among the Christians of the primitive
Church, St. Paul adds: 'But the foolish things of the world
hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; And the
weak things of the world and the things that are not, that
He might destroy the things that are: that no flesh should
glory in His sight . . .*

"History upholds these observations with facts. The
Apostles chosen by Our Lord to preach the Christian doc-
trine to the whole world were fishermen: St. Gregory VIII,
the champion of the liberty of the Church, belonged to a
poor peasant family; St. Joan of Arc, who liberated France,
and St. Bernadette de Soubirous, the happy seer of Lourdes,
were poor shepherdesses.

"At Fatima it is the same. The place chosen for the ap-
paritions is stony, without any attractions whatsoever. The
child seers were humble creatures from our mountain lands,
modestly dressed, without instruction, not being able to
read, and with a rudimentary religious knowledge.

"They were not nervous, but affable and loving in the
midst of their rusticity, fond of the family, obedient to their
parents, happy! . . .

"One could not discern in them any self-interest or spirit
of vanity. They would not accept alms or presents which
people wished to give them. And when we decided to take
upon ourselves the direction of the works and the religious
movement, they honourably handed over to us, in their
original form, the money and the objects of value which
the people used to leave on the site of the Apparitions.

"Their parents possessed a little property, and today con-
148

tinue to support themselves as before. They worked for their
living, and continue to do so today. In nothing is their life
altered after the lapse of thirteen years.

"The children, when questioned jointly or separately,
answered with the same precision, without noticeable con-
tradictions . . .

"They were imprisoned by the representative of the ad-
ministrative authority, and threatened that they would be
roasted, but not even then would they deny what they had
declared.

"They said nothing against faith or morals, according to
the word of the Apostle: k No man speaking by the Spirit
of God saith anathema to Jesus.*

"Finally, the two younger children, brother and sister,
fell ill with the pneumonic influenza, which carried away
so many in the whole world, and both died edifying deaths,
while Lucia, the only surviving seer, freely and voluntarily,
without any coercion or persuasion, after obtaining her
mother's consent, embraced the religious life.

THE VISIONS

"It is likewise necessary to consider the circumstances
which accompanied the visions.

"The favoured children, being small, illiterate and lowly,
we must have proofs in order to believe their statements.
According to these children, Our Lady would appear to
them on a small holm-oak, stunted as the trees generally are
in these stony places, and hundreds, nay thousands of persons,
whose truthfulness we cannot doubt, saw a column of mist,
which used to envelop the tree during the apparitions. This
phenomenon, which cannot be humanly explained, was re-
peated several times.

"The solar phenomenon of October 13, 1917, described
in the papers at the time, was something marvellous and
caused a great impression upon those who had the happi-
ness to witness it. The children had previously announced
the day and the hour when it would occur. The news spread
rapidly over the whole of Portugal, and despite the day
being a tempestuous one, with copious rain, the thousands
who had assembled at the hour of the final Apparition
(October 13, 1917), witnessed all the manifestations of the

149

sun, paying, as it were, homage to the Queen of Heaven
and earth.

"This phenomenon, which no observatory had registered
and which was therefore not a natural one, was observed
by persons of all social ranks and classes, believers and un-
believers, journalists of the principal Portuguese dailies and
even by persons kilometres away, all of which destroys the
idea that it was a collective illusion.

"The argument of persecutions, which are a sign that the
works are of God, was not wanting either in Fatima.

"No one was persecuted more than Jesus, and the Church
has suffered contradictions in all ages.

"A countless multitude of Saints suffered martyrdom in
the midst of terrible torments.

"St. Peter of Alcantara used to say to St. Theresa, that
one of the greatest punishments in the world was the one
she had suffered; that is, the contradictions of well-intentioned
people.

"The holy Prophet Jeremias says: 'I became a laughing-
stock all the day; all scoff at me.'

"The seers of Fatima were imprisoned by the authorities,
and threatened with being cast into a cauldron of boiling oil.

"It is comrnan knowledge that the authorities did all they
could to prohibit the pilgrimages, creating difficulties in the
passage of the people, while certain publicists ridiculed and
scoffed at the ardent faith of the good Portuguese people.

"Belief in the apparitions resisted all violence, which, after
all, but served to increase fervour and to propagate the graces
and favours which Our Lady showers on those who invoke
her.

"Devotion to Our Lady of Fatima spread rapidly, as we
have said, in this diocese and in the whole of Portugal and
today it is extending to all parts of the world, not only among
Catholic nations, but among Protestant and even pagan ones.

"The multitudes, composed of persons belonging to all
classes, coming from all corners of the country, without ad-
vertisement of any kind, without any attractions, hasten to
Fatima after long journeys beset with the greatest difficulties
and discomforts.

"Where has one seen such multitudes meet in the best of
order and profound respect as at Fatima? And it is not once
in a way — the movement is continuous, constant, increasing
year after year.

150

"The voice of the people answers the Voice of God.

"The sick come here at the cost of so many sacrifices, so
much trouble!

"How many marvellous cures have not been wrought there
through the intervention of the Virgin most holy? And what a
spirit of resignation do the sick not manifest even when they
have not obtained the cure of their physical ills!

"And while the infirm of body come to Fatima in thou-
sands, greater still is the number of the morally afflicted. Our
Lady is the health of the sick and the refuge of sinners. How
many wayward hearts have not found pardon there! How
many of those who had abandoned the faith of their fathers,
or were indifferent to it, found it again there!

"Oh! if the confessionals of Fatima were not rigorously
sealed with the sacramental seal — ever inviolable — what
marvels of grace would they not be able to reveal to us!

"Blessed and praised be the Mother of Mercy!

"In virtue of the considerations explained, and others which
we omit for brevity's sake, humbly invoking the Divine Spirit
and placing our confidence in Mary most holy, after taking
the opinion of the Rev. Consultors of our Diocese, we have
the pleasure:

''First, to declare as worthy of credence the visions of the
children in Cova da Iria, parish of Fatima, of this Diocese on
the days of 13th May to October, 1917;

"Secondly, to permit officially the devotion of Our Lady of
Fatima.

"It now remains for us, beloved children in Our Lord, to
wanf*you that if the favour which the Virgin most holy has
bestowed upon us is a great motive of joy and consolation
to us, greater still is our duty to correspond with her good-
ness.

"In a special manner do we recommend to our beloved
Diocesans the love of Our Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist,
devotion to the most Holy Virgin, to St. Joseph, to the holy
souls in Purgatory, the daily recital of at least five decades of
the Rosary, flight from the sins of the flesh, from immodest
fashions and immoral reading, the practice of penance on
which Jesus so much insisted, and which the Virgin, Our
Lady, recommended so much, charity towards all our brethren
and especially towards the sick and the poor.

"If we do this, the words of the Prophet may well be ap-
plied to our country: Tor if you will order well your ways,

151

/ will dwell with you in this place in the land which I gave to
your fathers from the beginning and for ever more.'

"This Pastoral Letter of ours shall be sent to all the Rev.
Parish Priests that they may read and explain it to the
faithful in the customary way.

Jose, Bishop of Leiria."
Leiria, 13 October, 1930.

39

CONCLUSION

"Macushla, macushla, your red lips are saying
that death is a dream . . . that love is for aye . .

Poetic licence, perhaps, in the traditional manner of song-
writers. But these words of the old Irish song express the
profoundest truths of Christianity and tell us that the Chris-
tian gospel, inspiring, gloriously true and in perfect accord
with reason, promises to man the joys of a paradise of love
that will never end. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has
it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the bliss, the
ecstasy which God has laid up for His servants on this earth,
who merely are asked to manifest by a simple life of good-
ness, of virtue, of love offered to a loving Father, that they
desire this unspeakable boon, this tremendous harvest of
eternal happiness. Thus are the deepest yearnings of the
human heart satisfied by the Creator.

It is this above all which the revelations of Fatima prove,
for they constitute a twentieth century affirmation of the great

152

traditions, the lights, the wisdom, the insights of our Christian
ancestors. •

What thoughtful person is there who has not had his bright-
est hopes of success in this life, in merely natural ambitions,
dashed by the inevitability of death? How is it possible to
be unimpressed by this, as we see our friends, our relatives,
taken in sombre procession to the grave? How is it possible
for an intelligent man to spend himself in purely earthly
pursuits when he must face the bitter fact that he is destined
to die, that he knows not when, or how, or where? Is he then
going to build bigger barns, as the millionaires on Wall Street
do, to leave behind to a generally ungrateful and thoughtless
posterity? Is he going to exhaust himself acquiring money he
can never hope to spend whilst entering eternity with empty
hands as did the servant that buried the talent?

Christ cursed the barren fig-tree, and the Scriptural exegetes
tell us that this was to warn us that He expects from us the
fruit of our good works, that if we enter eternity without
these fruits, we also may expect to be cursed. For this is
justice.

The Spirit of love is ours during this life, the Spirit that
sanctifies. The Holy Spirit is sent to us as a direct fruit of the
sacrifice of Calvary, and Paradise is opened to us all.

"O Thou of comforters the best

O Thou the souVs delightful Guest
The pilgrim* s sweet relief

Rest art Thou in our toil, most sweet
Refreshment in the noon-day heat

And solace in our grief.

The Holy Spirit is balm to man's bleeding spirit, a precious
unguent for the soul, removing all the really deep sorrows
and bitternesses of life.

We Christians have achieved a conquest of death and the
fear of the unknown which haunted the Greek and Oriental
philosophers. They indeed sought such wisdom for it was
commonly said amongst them that the best philosophy was
that which taught a man to die well.

The Christian religion removes the bitterness, the dread of
death, makes it rather the sweet embrace of a Divine Lover.

"O grave, where is thy victory?" writes St. Paul. "O death
where is thy sting?" (Cor. 15. 55).

153

For centuries men have feared and hated this philosophy
of Christianity, moved often by some satanic force which they
scarcely comprehended — as were the Scribes and Pharisees.
And the triple concupiscence spoken of by St. John (I Jn.
2.16) has greatly enfeebled man's appreciation of this gift,
infinitely worthwhile, from the Divinity.

Nevertheless, Jesus Christ promised that the immense fruits
of His sacrifice would apply to every generation of the human
race, and He entrusted the deposit of these sublime truths by
which we are saved to a Church which was to subsist until the
end of time, which was, in spite of the tireless efforts of its
enemies, to be indestructible.

Christ sent His Mother to Fatima at a moment of supreme
crisis for the Church in fulfilment of this promise. The great
threat posed by worldwide Marxism was explicitly referred
to there, and a solution offered to us, the revelations being
confirmed by the solar miracle as we have seen.

In this extraordinary way did Heaven protect the Church
in the twentieth century, in this way was the attention of
modern man drawn to this age-old, indestructible and
venerable Institution that we call the Church.

Everybody has a preconceived image of the Church, formed
largely from members of the Church met in the course of
one's life. Some hate it because it is authoritarian, and there
is enough of the rebel in all of us to make this temptation a
powerful one at times. Some hate the Church because they
have read of the worldly and sinful lives of some Churchmen.
And some hate the Church by blind instinct, for they are
living in sin, and have a natural revulsion for the Institution
set up by God to promote virtue and denounce sin.

But, whether we know it or not, and irrespective of the vices
or virtues of Churchmen, the Church itself is our true Mother
and true friend in this life, the one Institution that can help
us, not only in this life, but for all eternity.

That sign of the Cross which we see atop our Church
buildings is the true sign of civilisation, and where it is, even
in the modern world, there is, not only liberty of the spirit,
but almost always, political liberty as well.

Our Lady Herself directed modern man's attention to the
Church at Fatima.

It is in the Church, She tells us, that harsh human nature is
transformed by grace, and grace is transmuted into glory.

154

It is the Church which can solve every problem that
troubles humanity in this age.

It is before the power of the Church, with its fountain-
sources of grace, that all the devils tremble, that the forces of
evil retreat.

It is this great, sublime, supernatural institution which the
agonised, despairing masses of humanity subconsciously seek
as they face the gathering storm.

It is our golden vocation and solemn responsibility to con-
vince men that the Christian Church, revitalised and renewed
in spirit, is the answer to their dreams, their hopes, their
aspirations.

It is the noble mission of the Church to save the world, to
give faith and hope to modern man, to save him from the
sorrow and desolation of his apostasy.

// is in the Church, wrote Belloc, that the human spirit
finds roof and hearth. Outside, it is the night.

155

ACT OF CONSECRATION TO

THE IMMACULATE HEART OF

MARY

O Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
and tender Mother of men, in accordance with thy ardent
wish made known at Fatima, I consecrate to thee myself, my
brethren, my country, and the whole human race.

Reign over us and teach us how to make the Heart of Jesus
reign and triumph in us, and around us, as It has reigned and
triumphed in thee.

Reign over us, dearest Mother, that we may be thine in
prosperity and adversity, in joy and in sorrow, in health and
in sickness, in life and in death.

O most compassionate Heart of Mary, Queen of Virgins,
watch over our minds and hearts and preserve them from the
deluge of impurity which thou didst lament so sorrowfully at
Fatima. We want to be pure like thee. We want to atone for
the many crimes committed against Jesus and thee. We want
to call down upon our country and the whole world the peace
of God in justice and charity.

Therefore, we now promise to imitate thy virtues by the
practice of a Christian life without regard to human respect.

We resolve to receive Holy Communion regularly and to
offer thee five decades of the Rosary each day, together with
our sacrifices, in the spirit of reparation and penance. Amen.

THE MEMORARE

Remember, O most gracious Virgin, that never was it known
in any age that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored
thy help or sought thy intercession was left unaided.

Inspired with this confidence I fly unto thee O Virgin of
virgins, my Mother. To thee do I come, before thee I stand
sinful and sorrowful. Do not, O Mother of the Word in-
carnate, despise my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and
answer me.

156

IT IS CERTAIN

that

Fulfilment of the Fatima Requests

can

Destroy Communism

Bring Liberty
and Brotherly Love to the World

Build the New Social Order
in Peace, Justice and Charity.

IT IS CERTAIN

that

NOTHING ELSE CAN

He cannot thrive,

Unless Her prayers, whom Heaven delights to hear,

And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath

Of greatest justice. — (Shakespeare: "All's Well That Ends

Well").

THE HAIL MARY

Hail Mary! full of grace the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou
amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus!
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and
at the hour of our death. Amen.

157

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The survival of Christian civilisation depends upon the
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We are at the eleventh hour in the battle of ideas, and this
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REMEMBER!
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158

Prayer To St. Joseph

(St. Joseph is the only saint, besides Our Lady, who appeared at
Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 when the world was warned that "Russia
will spread her errors throughout the world . . . " unless mankind
fulfilled certain requests for prayer and penance.

At Fatima, St. Joseph appeared holding the Child Jesus in his
arms and he blessed three times the more than 70,000 people
gathered there. It is of him that it has been said: "The sound of
victory will be heard when the faithful recognise the sanctity of
St. Joseph:*)

Tender-hearted Father, faithful guardian of Jesus, chaste
spouse of the Mother of God, model of all who labor, lover of
poverty, glory of family life, solace of the afflicted, hope of
the sick, patron of the dying, terror of demons, protector of
the Holy Church.

To thee, O Blessed Joseph, we have recourse in our tribula-
tions, and while imploring the aid of thy most holy Spouse, we
also confidently invoke thy patronage.

Appease the Divine anger so justly inflamed by our crimes;
beg of Jesus mercy for thy children. Amid the splendors of
eternity, forget not the sorrows of those who suffer, those who
pray, those who weep; stay the Almighty Arm which smites
us, that by thy prayers and those of thy most Holy Spouse,
the Heart of Jesus may be moved to pity and to pardon.

As thou did once rescue the Child Jesus from imminent
peril to His life, so now defend the Holy Church of God from
the snares of her enemies and from all adversity. Shield each
one of us with thy unceasing patronage, that imitating thy
example, and supported by thy aid, we may be enabled to live
a good life, die a holy death, and secure everlasting happiness
in heaven. Amen.

159