CHAPTER IV

IN PORTUGAL
THE DOGMA OF THE FAITH IS PRESERVED

N 13 July 1917, the vision of the Third Secret showed the blessed little shepherds several “bishops, priests, men and women religious”, who were “climbing a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with its bark”. This scene may be viewed in connection with Our Lady’s promise, reported by Sister Lucy in her Fourth Memoir: “In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc.¹”
 

THE “STEEP MOUNTAIN”

Brother Bruno writes: “Portugal, and Spanish Galicia, where Our Lady came to ask at Pontevedra for the reparatory Communion of the First Saturdays of the month, and at Tuy for the consecration of Russia, are fittingly presented as ‘a steep mountain’ whose altitude decreases between the Spanish border and the Ocean, and between the North and the South, right down to the Serra de Aire where Fatima is located. On this mountain, the Holy Dove was seen and heard in Her apparitions of 1917: ‘My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rocks, in the high recesses of the cliff.’ (Sg 2.14) But the ‘large Cross’ erected on the summit is even more reminiscent of Mount Calvary.

“It is here that the vision showed the children, in advance, ‘several other bishops, priests, men and women religious’ ascending in pilgrimage.²”

When he canonically recognised the apparitions of Fatima, on 13 October 1930, Mgr da Silva observed: “How prodigious is the power of the Most Holy Virgin who brings multitudes to a bare mountain (escalvada) and who, in just a few years, has transformed a place without life into a great centre of devotion, through the most astonishing miracle in the religious life of our times!³”

The apostolic nuncio of Lisbon, Mgr Beda Cardinale, who came to the Cova da Iria to preside over the pilgrimage of 13 May 1932, was amazed at the spectacle of “the immense crowd which acclaimed the Virgin Mary in a frenzy of faith and love. From a human point of view, there is nothing in Fatima to attract people. The pilgrimages are a real sacrifice; and yet, notwithstanding, the number of pilgrims is palpably growing […]. Fatima is a real blessing for Portugal. I am convinced that Mary will always protect this nation which, over the course of its millenary history, has won so many truly Christian glories. I am convinced that She will save it from the dangers which, at this grave hour, menace the whole of society.⁴”

The vision of the Third Secret presents these pilgrims in a hierarchical order, and this fits in with the chronology of the events which, following the spontaneous expansion of the pilgrimage, gradually brought bishops, priests, men and women religious to the mountain.

It would be otiose to publish the long list of prelates who made a pilgrimage to the Cova da Iria. It would however demonstrate the national and subsequently worldwide renown of Fatima, so aptly stated by Mgr Venancio in his pastoral letter of 14 April 1968: “Through the merciful choice of the Virgin Mary, our little diocese and, with it, Portugal has become a sign lifted up among the nations of the Earth (Is 5.26); and, in the Church of God, it is like an illustrious city set on a hill-top (Mt 5.14).”

But let us continue our reading of Brother Bruno of Jesus’ commentary on the Secret:

“The ‘cork-tree’ is the symbol of Portugal, just as the maple is that of Canada and the cedar that of Lebanon. The ‘rough-hewn trunks’, with their thick casing of cork, assembled to form ‘a large Cross’, represent the ‘dogma of the faith’ which will always be preserved in Portugal, under the rough bark we know it possesses, for want of liturgical dress! But ‘the bark’ protects a trunk that is perfectly smooth. When stripped away, one will discover saints: Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta, and one day Sister Lucy. They are sheltered from the world, under the bark of their apparent rusticity, while ‘several bishops, priests, men and women religious’ come to Fatima in large pilgrim crowds.⁵”

The preservation of the dogma of the faith is the first of Portugal’s privileges, whence flow others of a temporal nature: the stability and peace it enjoyed in the twentieth century, after having renewed, thanks to the apparitions of Fatima, its great tradition of public and official devotion towards the Immaculate, its Patroness, Protectress and Queen⁶.

The Abbé de Nantes writes: “Here is some surprising news: ‘In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved.’ So will it be lost elsewhere? Why will it be kept in Portugal? Because this land was consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by its bishops, its civil authorities and its unanimous people. Thus this Land of Mary, this pious People have become for the world the witnesses of Catholic fidelity and, in exchange, they remain the showcase of the graces and blessings which the Immaculate Mother of God is eager to shower on those – whether families, nations or Church – who declare themselves devoted to Her Heart.⁷”

In a conversation with Sister Lucy, probably in July 1946, Father Luis Gonzaga da Fonseca put the following question to her: “Our Lady guaranteed that the dogma of the faith would always be preserved in Portugal. What does the ‘Dogma of the faith’ mean?” Lucy replied: “True faith!”⁸
 

THE CATECHISM OF FATIMA

The Portuguese preserve the dogma of the faith in the exact measure that they hold fast with filial docility to the revelations of Our Lady of Fatima, “the best of catechists”⁹, as Mgr Venancio said. During his episcopate, he often recalled that “the message of Fatima encompasses a doctrinal content so vast that none of the fundamental themes of the Christian faith are missing”¹⁰. In his pastoral letter for the fiftieth anniversary of the apparitions, he declared: “Today people are searching, and with good reason, for new pastoral methods that are living and effective. But, allow me to say this, nothing is more effective than to show how Catholic dogma lies at the bottom of the Message confided to us at Fatima. Destined, by its content, for the whole world, it translates dogma and sets it before our eyes in a manner that is at once concrete and arresting.¹¹”

Observing the progress of apostasy within the Church, his successor, Mgr do Amaral, said, in 1975, in a strikingly pithy turn of phrase: “Fatima is a proclamation of faith for the Christian of our times. If there is no article in the Credo that is not questioned today, neither is there any truth of faith that is not affirmed by Fatima.¹²”

Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity published a demonstration of this in his first two volumes of The Whole Truth about Fatima. In commenting on the Angel’s words and the acts he taught the three little shepherds in 1916, and then in presenting Our Lady’s revelations at the Cova da Iria and Pontevedra, as well as the theophany of Tuy, our Brother shows, at every stage of his account, that the message of Fatima, by its theological content, is in opposition to the heresies which have invaded the Church since Vatican II: it can and it must preserve us from them.

If the Catholic dogma is always to be preserved in Portugal, it is not only owing to the catechetical teaching of Our Lady, but also to the cult of the Virgin of Fatima, which has strengthened the faith of the faithful in the Immaculate Conception.
 

THE FRUITS OF THE PILGRIMAGE

By appearing at the Cova da Iria on the 13^th of each month, from May to October 1917, the Most Blessed Virgin had fixed in advance the series of annual appointments. A more inspired strategy could not be conceived: the repetition of the ceremonies, on the 13^th of every month, favoured the rapid growth of the pilgrimage.

Having visited the Cova da Iria on 13 May 1930, Father Luis Gonzaga Cabral, the former Provincial of the Portuguese Jesuits, wrote to one of his confreres: “You should have seen it! You should have seen it!... I have been several times to Lourdes. I was in Rome at the time of one of its greatest ceremonies [probably the canonisation of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus which, in 1925, attracted 550,000 pilgrims to the Eternal City]. Well, I declare that neither Lourdes nor Rome can give any idea about what I saw at the Cova da Iria. The greatest miracle of Fatima is the fervent piety of these crowds, their solid faith, and their serene resignation which is particularly admirable among their sick.¹³”

Let us quote the testimony of Dr Fischer, Professor of History at the University of Bamberg, in Germany, who went to Fatima on 12 and 13 May 1929. He had already been very impressed by the prayer vigil, during which one hundred thousand voices recited the Rosary in unison. But he was even more impressed by the ceremonies of the following day.

“Scarcely had the statue of Our Lady appeared in the brilliant light of the sun than a shower of roses fell on us, the like of which I have never seen in all my life. The statue and all those surrounding it were literally covered in flowers. I do not believe that roses grow in this rocky soil. The pilgrims had brought them from their homes and kept them for this solemn moment. Their homage can only be most agreeable to Mary’s maternal Heart.

“But before I had recovered from my emotion, I heard a friend saying in my ear: ‘Turn round!’ I thought I had been transported to an immense field of snow. The whole Cova, from the lowest part where I stood to its outer boundaries, was one single moving field of white. Thousands and thousands of pilgrims were waving their white handkerchiefs to greet Mary. A further impressive spectacle and one which only the Cova can offer us.¹⁴”

An eminent professor who, in 1927, witnessed this scene for the first time, said with tears in his eyes: “If Our Lady had actually shown Herself at that moment, it would not have been possible to give Her a better welcome.¹⁵”

The most fervent pilgrims, and they were numerous, would return to the Cova da Iria on the 13^th of every month. “In March 1943, a Portuguese lady, Mrs Victoria Coxa, aged seventy-one, told a reporter from the Voz da Fatima that she had been there one hundred and fifty-two times, always on foot, except on nine occasions, and five times in bare feet. She lived in Azambuza da Massuça, eighty kilometres from Fatima. One of her companions was on her one hundred and seventh pilgrimage.¹⁶”

The reaction of the Portuguese people to a painful scandal that took place in 1949, shows just how far the Fatima pilgrimage had revived their faith in the signal privileges of their heavenly Padroeira¹⁷. That year, during the electoral campaign, the newspaper A Republica, which supported Salazar’s opponent, published a blasphemous article attacking the Virgin Mary. Spontaneously, “twenty thousand Portuguese people immediately went up to Fatima to make honourable amends to the nation’s great Benefactress. And the following Sunday, at the simple invitation of an improvised committee, three hundred thousand of the Portuguese gathered at Sameiro, near Braga, around the national Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, to make reparation for the insult committed by the impudent paper against their country’s Queen.¹⁸”

The number of pilgrims at this time has been calculated and compared to the total population of the country. Each year, one Portuguese person in six went to pray at Fatima, while one French person in twenty-four visited Lourdes.

At Fatima, there was no medical bureau, as there is at Lourdes, to record the rapid, complete, lasting and scientifically inexplicable character of certain cures. Nevertheless, miracles were no less striking¹⁹: firstly at the Cova da Iria, and then at the stations of the international Way of Our Lady. Let us recount, by way of example, a miracle which took place in Fortaleza, in Brazil, during the visit of the Pilgrim Virgin.

Mrs Laura Léan Borges, aged forty-nine, the daughter of the great orthopaedist François S. Léan, had had, since she was eight months old, a deformation of the right leg, which had remained about 10 centimetres too short. In 1917, her father arranged for her to receive treatment in Paris, but she was declared incurable.

On 14 October 1952, Laura was sitting in church, praying before the Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima, without even thinking of her old infirmity. Suddenly, she felt a slight pain in her leg. It felt as though it were being pulled toward the ground. Intrigued by this curious sensation, she thought only of returning home and asked her daughter-in-law to go and get the car. Then wishing to stand up, she was surprised to see that her leg really had just become longer. It had become quite normal. Ten centimetres of bone and muscle had suddenly been created.

This miracle, reported by the papers, caused a great sensation in the city, for everyone knew Mrs Laura Léan Borges, who had been lame since birth. It was a true triumph of the faith.²⁰

The liturgical feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Fatima, Patroness of the diocese of Leiria, a feast granted by John XXIII, was celebrated for the first time at the Cova da Iria, on 13 May 1963, by Cardinal Larraona, Prefect of the Congregation of Rites.

“As in every year”, wrote the Voz da Fatima, “it was impressive to see on this 12^th and 13^th May the sacrifices made in a spirit of penance by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who had travelled the length of Portugal’s roads to reach the Cova da Iria. Anyone who had to make a quick journey to Porto, Lisbon or the coast over the last few days can testify de visu to this sorrowful march carried out in voluntary penance.

“The pilgrims’ refusal to accept a lift, their appearance, their clear replies when questioned, everything proved that it was not for lack of means or through thrift, but resolutely to do penance, that these faithful were making their way to Fatima.

“A pious lady of our aristocracy, who had devoted herself through charity to the humble task of washing and tending the feet of crippled pilgrims, would ask them the reason for their coming on foot: not a single one failed to state that it was out of a spirit of penance. And from the 9^th to the 13^th, from within the section of the stretcher-bearers alone, the feet of 3,343 people had to be treated. Others made the journey there and back with no nourishment other than bread and water.

“Penance continues to be the most glorious characteristic of the Fatima pilgrimage.²¹”

After Vatican II, despite the progressivism and modernism that contaminated the Portuguese hierarchy and clergy, despite the liturgical reforms that led to a cooling of piety, despite the liberalism and secularism that penetrated the whole of society, the Portuguese faithful remained attached to Fatima.

It is notable that the Communists, after the Revolution of the Carnations, did not dare obstruct the great Fatima pilgrimages. It was impossible! They tried on just one occasion, on 12 and 13 May 1974, to erect barricades on the roads around the sanctuary. But they suffered one setback after another: they were quite unable to stop the Portuguese country folk running up in crowds to the feet of the Virgin of the Capelinha.

On 13 May 1987, for the seventieth anniversary of the apparitions, no fewer than six hundred thousand pilgrims could be counted. One year after the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, on 13 May 2001, the number was four hundred thousand.

It is very enlightening to note how the Portuguese have persevered with the Fatima pilgrimage. It lets us see how the divine promise has been fulfilled and is today still being fulfilled: it is their ancient belief in the Immaculate Conception, renewed and fortified by their cult of Our Lady of Fatima, that allows the Portuguese to keep the true faith. Yes, in the exact measure that they believe in this signal privilege of the Virgin Mary, they are preserved from apostasy because “all the great dogmas of our faith”, as the Abbé de Nantes remarks, “are so closely bound up with the glories and privileges of Mary that to believe in the latter is to avoid all error with regard to the former. The two most ancient dogmas, those of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity and Her Divine Maternity, as well as the most recent, those of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, in practice protect faith in Jesus, the God-man, and safeguard the prerogatives of the Father Almighty, able to intervene on matter itself, etc.²²”

That is why, ever since Pope Saint Leo opposed Eutyches by invoking Mary’s Divine Maternity, proclaimed in 431 at the Council of Ephesus, the Church has sung:

“Gaude Maria Virgo, cunctas haereses
Sola interemisti in universo mundo.
Rejoice, O Virgin Mary, Thou alone Hast destroyed
All heresies throughout the world.”

This ancient anthem expresses and proclaims the teaching that Saint Pius X would voice in his celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception:

“What in effect is the point of departure of the enemies of religion for the sowing of the great and serious errors by which the faith of so many is shaken? They begin by denying that man has fallen by sin and been cast down from his former position. Hence they regard Original Sin and all its consequent evils as mere fables. Humanity, vitiated at its source, has vitiated in its turn the whole human race; and thus was evil introduced amongst men and the necessity for a Redeemer involved. But once all this is rejected, it is easy to understand that no place is left for Christ, for the Church, for grace or for anything that is above and beyond nature; in a word, the whole edifice of faith is shaken from top to bottom.

“But once let people believe and confess that the Virgin Mary has been from the first moment of Her conception preserved from all stain; and it is straightway necessary that they should admit both Original Sin and the rehabilitation of the human race by Jesus Christ, both the Gospel and the Church, and finally the law of suffering: in virtue of which Rationalism and Materialism is torn up by the roots and destroyed, and there remains to Christian wisdom the glory of having kept and protected the truth.

“It is moreover a vice common to the enemies of the faith, especially in our times, to repudiate, and to proclaim the necessity of repudiating, all respect and obedience for the authority of the Church, and even of any human power, in the idea that it will thus be more easy to make an end of faith. Here we have the origin of Anarchism, than which no doctrine is more harmful and more pernicious to every kind of order, whether natural or supernatural.

“Now this plague, which is equally fatal to society at large and to Christianity, finds its ruin in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, through the obligation it imposes of recognising in the Church a power before which not only must the will bow, but also the intelligence. It is from a submission of this sort that the Christian people sing thus the praise of the Virgin: ‘Thou art all fair, O Mary, and the stain of Original Sin is not in Thee.’²³”

In times past, the Portuguese had manifested their faith in the Immaculate Conception by solemn vows and works of devotion, notably through the daily recitation of the Rosary. But, at the beginning of the twentieth century, this pious practice had been abandoned in the Land of Holy Mary by a part of the clergy and the faithful.
 

THE DEVOTION OF THE HOLY ROSARY RENEWED THROUGH FATIMA

“The Blessed Virgin”, remarks the Abbé de Nantes, “did not go through the hierarchical Church to give us Her command: ‘I want people to continue to say the Rosary every day.’²⁴” In 1917, she formulated this request, almost in identical terms, at each of Her apparitions. “People” meant all the faithful who would come to know the heavenly message.

Sister Lucy similarly interpreted Our Lady’s reply, which at first sight seemed only to concern her cousin, Blessed Francisco: “Yes, he will go to Heaven, but he will have to say many Rosaries.” (13 May 1917) The seer writes: “I think that the recommendation made to Francisco is for all of us.²⁵”

The daily recitation of the Rosary was the first of the Immaculate’s requests to be revealed by the three little shepherds to their parents, then to the pilgrims at the Cova da Iria. From 13 May 1917, Jacinta would say to her mother:

“I’m going to say the Rosary with Francisco. It’s what Our Lady asked us.” Having prayed, the little girl turned round to Olimpia and declared: “Mother, we must say the Rosary every day.

– That’s not the custom, remarked Olimpia. So how am I going to start saying the Rosary now?!

– Say it, mother, say it!” repeated Jacinta with authority.

Soon noticing that their children would say it every day, whether they were out walking with the flock or in the house, Olimpia and Ti Marto decided to say it every day as a family. If it happened, for some unusual reason, that it was neglected, Jacinta would become very sad and would say in a pained voice:

“Mother, I have already said the Rosary but your grace has not said it yet.²⁶”

It is not surprising that Father Francisco Cruz was one of the first priests to openly preach the cult of Our Lady of Fatima, given his great devotion to the Holy Rosary. Many anecdotes could be told on this subject. Let us quote the testimony of Mgr Freitas Barros:

Around 1923, I had the honour of accompanying the late lamented Patriarch Mendes Belo on his pastoral visit to the parish of San Domingos de Carmoes. In the evening, when it was already growing dark, His Eminence, visibly fatigued, got into his motor car to return to bishop’s house in Lisbon. As he was leaving the locality, the car suddenly stopped. Father Cruz then appeared and asked, in humble terms, for a seat as far as Lisbon, which the venerable Cardinal willingly granted him, inviting him to sit alongside him.

The car had only travelled about thirty metres when Father Cruz broke the silence, saying in a loud voice: “Do you know, Eminence, I haven’t said my Rosary today yet. If you will allow me, I will say it in private, because I know that Your Eminence is tired, as are your priests.”

Having received words of approval, Father Cruz began in a loud voice: “O God, come to my aid.²⁷” Here, he made a pause, as though he wanted to be accompanied. Then he continued the prayer, alternating with His Eminence and the priests. But “his Rosary” was not over yet! There would be one Rosary after another, while the car progressed at a crawl because the road was full of holes. One would have said there was a contest between the piety and indefatigable ardour of the holy priest and the regular whirring of the vehicle’s engine. Neither one nor the other wanted to admit defeat… His Eminence continued to join in this litany of chaplets.

After a two-hour journey, the car stopped at the door of the bishop’s house. At that precise moment Father Cruz was saying the fifth mystery of the ninth chaplet²⁸.

This man of God was clearly anxious to console the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary by following the recommendation which the Apparition had made to Blessed Francisco.

Our Lady wants the Rosary to be said in families. This can be inferred from Her reply on 13 July 1917 to the mother of a poor crippled child, Joao Carreira. “I asked Lucy”, Maria Carreira relates, “to let my son stay next to her. I brought him a rock and he sat down. When Lucy said that the Lady was coming, he slipped and fell. I asked the little shepherds to intercede for him. The Lady replied that he would either get better or that She would provide him with a livelihood²⁹, and that he should always say the Rosary with his family.³⁰”

The Bishop of Leiria, Mgr da Silva, had certainly understood the Virgin’s request. In 1938, he opened up, in the sanctuary of Fatima, the Golden Book of Our Lady of the Rosary to register those who promised to say the Rosary every day in their homes. Cardinal Cerejeira mentioned and praised this happy initiative: “Please God, there may be established and extended more and more among us the holy custom of saying the Rosary in the family, especially in these times of militant impiety.³¹” The first volume of the Golden Book, containing the names of twenty thousand families, was offered to Our Lady during the pilgrimage of 13 May 1939.

After Vatican II, Portugal was affected by the wave of diabolical disorientation which invaded the Church at this period. Nevertheless, in the Land of Holy Mary, the progressivists’ denigration of the recitation of the Rosary elicited a happy reaction: several periodicals organised a counter-campaign to extol the beauty and utility of the Rosary, and to ask for its recognition as a liturgical prayer of the Church³².

The seer of Fatima approved of this request, without however presenting it as a demand of the Virgin Mary. On 16 September 1970, she wrote to Mother Maria José Martins: “I am very hopeful that the day is not far off when the prayer of the Holy Rosary will be declared a liturgical prayer; yes, because it belongs entirely to the sacred Eucharistic liturgy. Let us pray, work, sacrifice ourselves, and have trust: ‘In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph!’³³”

In her book Calls from the Message of Fatima, Sister Lucy recalls the painful debates and controversies of the post-Council period: “Unfortunately, in our times of disorientation, there are many who dare to talk in unfavourable terms about the Rosary. For example, they criticise the Rosary for not being a liturgical prayer. Some time ago, I came across an article of this kind which gave me great pain. To someone who asked him how he had dared to write and publish such stupidities, the author of the article in question replied: ‘I was forced to do it!’ But how could he be unaware that there is no authority anywhere on earth that can oblige us to act against our own conscience?! Here lies the mystery of human weakness, which, in many cases, to please creatures or perhaps for certain worldly interests, is not afraid to incur God’s indignation and the sufferings with which He punishes sin.

“Contrary to what the author of this article wrote, or to what others may write along the same lines, I can tell you that the prayer of the Rosary is a biblical prayer and that this prayer is entirely one with that of the sacred liturgy.³⁴”

Sister Lucy has often recalled that the Rosary, in our “times of diabolical disorientation”, is a “powerful way of helping souls to preserve faith, hope and charity. There are people who do not know how, or are simply unable, to gather their thoughts and meditate. Ah well! the simple gesture of taking their Rosary to pray shows that they are mindful of God, and when they recall, in each decade, a mystery in Christ’s life, they go over them again in their mind, and this act will preserve in their souls the gentle light of the faith, it will keep the wick burning, which would otherwise eventually go out. However, those who abandon the prayer of the Rosary and who do not take part every day in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass have nothing to feed their souls on; how could they not eventually lose their way, due to the materialism of earthly life?” The seer explains moreover that “in the Holy Rosary or chaplet is contained the entire wealth of God’s truths, or, to put it better, God’s revelation to men”³⁵.

Father José dos Santos Valinho, who was closely acquainted with Sister Lucy, his aunt, told me when I met him in Porto on 16 June 1999: “For her, if a priest says the Rosary every day, it is a sign of orthodoxy in his teaching.”

Such was already the conviction of Father de Montfort:

“Believe me, my dear brother in the Rosary, if you want to arrive at a high degree of prayer without any affectation and without falling into the illusions of the devil so common to people of prayer, say your entire Rosary every day, if you can, or at least a chaplet. You have already reached this point by the grace of God, if you want to be faithful to it and to grow in it with humility. Keep saying the Holy Rosary, for a soul that says its Rosary every day will never be formally heretical nor deceived by the demon; this is a proposition that I would sign with my blood.³⁶”

Such thinking will be found among all the saints who saw the great apostasy of the end times coming. Mgr Sarto, the future Saint Pius X, taught nothing different to his diocesan faithful:

“The characteristic of our times is that indocility of mind which aims at the destruction of dogmas, and that corruption of the heart which leads to the subversion of Christian morals. There is only one way to defend faith and morals, and that is to meditate on the mysteries proposed by the Holy Rosary.” For, “if the world has forgotten even the vestiges of virtue, by contemplating the admirable examples put forward in the Rosary, we are better able to fight disordered passions within ourselves, we can rouse in our souls, along with a sincere regret for sin, a lively faith and a consoling hope, and we can help all the other virtues to blossom.³⁷”

If the Portuguese, at least the best of them, have kept and still keep the true faith fixed in their hearts, it is due in a very concrete way to the practice of the Holy Rosary, a devotion which gives supreme pleasure to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
 

THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE PORTUGUESE

It is notable that the statutes of the Fatima Crusaders movement, officially directed by the Bishop of Leiria, were reformed at the beginning of the Eighties. Nevertheless, the daily recitation of the chaplet remained the first obligation of its members.

In 1984, for the golden jubilee of the canonical erection of this “pious union”, the Portuguese bishops invited its members to satisfy Heaven’s wishes revealed at Pontevedra. A new campaign would be organised in the following year for the “bimillennium of the birth of the Immaculate Virgin Mary”. At the end of 1985, a census would be taken in each diocese of the faithful who had fulfilled the devotion of reparation, and in all seventy thousand would be counted. A message, dated 13 December 1985, was then sent to the Holy Father:

“For Mary’s bimillennium, the Fatima Crusaders movement, of episcopal institution, wished to launch an appeal to all good Portuguese people to offer Our Lady, as an ‘anniversary present’, the practice of the Five First Saturdays in order to make reparation to Her Immaculate Heart, in accordance with what She so insistently requested here at Fatima. We would love this present to be offered to Mary on Christmas day by Your Holiness, and that is why we take the liberty of sending it to you.”

The Voz da Fatima published this message to the Holy Father on 13 January 1986, without giving any indication of the Pope’s reaction. But clearly, had he seen fit to acknowledge receipt of it and to officially offer this present to the Virgin Mary, the Fatima sanctuary’s monthly would not have failed to advise its readers.

The great pilgrimages commemorating the apparitions underwent a decline during and after the Eighties. Nevertheless, statistics show that a far from negligible section of the Portuguese people remained practising Catholics and loyal followers of the cult of Our Lady of Fatima. A poll taken in 1991 indicated a national average of 97% Portuguese baptised, of whom 33% attended Mass every Sunday³⁸. Ten years later, in May 2000, a poll taken by the Catholic University of Lisbon³⁹ revealed that 90% of the Portuguese claimed to believe in Fatima⁴⁰ and 27% to go there every year.

During the pilgrimage of our Phalangist Communion on 12 and 13 October 1996, we observed with emotion the fulfilment of Our Lady’s promise.

Arriving on the afternoon of the 12^th on the immense esplanade, “we were immediately drawn to, indeed enveloped by the Portuguese piety: along the way of penance, we saw pilgrims of all ages advancing on both knees without any human respect, with or without knee pads, with or without someone at their side to accompany them, but with the Rosary in their hands. Our turn came to enter into this ardent furnace of prayer: is not this what we came for? Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation! Immaculate Heart, convert sinners!

“We had arranged to meet at the Hungarian Way of the Cross, the Via Sacra. What struck our French pilgrims straight away was that we of the ‘Counter-Reformation’ were not alone in these exercises of popular piety, as so often happens in France where we are gazed upon with astonishment, even at Lourdes, even at Montmartre! Here, ahead of us and behind us, we found groups singing and praying at the different stations. Led by priests? not always, but these people were giving full voice to the grave, profound, traditional chants: ‘A treze de Maio, na Cova da Iria, aparaceu brilhando a Virgem Maria. On the thirteenth of May, at the Cova da Iria, all brilliant appeared the Virgin Mary. Ave, Ave, Ave Maria!’ It was the Portuguese soul, the soul of a people whose unaltered religion venerates Christ the Saviour and His Holy Mother, the Rosary in their fingers. A treze de outubro, they come in their masses to where the Virgem came and made the sun spin. The piety of this people, faithful to their Rosary and their belief in the truth of the Apparitions, without waiting to be exhorted by the clergy, was the striking miracle of which we were the marvelling witnesses.

“During the evening of the 12^th, insensibly but irreparably, a discrepancy could be noticed between the ‘officials’ and their people, although the latter were well disposed, or perhaps simply resigned. Why? Because of the ‘liturgy of the word’ indefinitely prolonged by all the translations? It is true, the sermon given in Polish that evening by Mgr Piscz, and in Portuguese the next day by Cardinal Ratzinger, and translated or summarised in numerous languages, had very little in common with the displays of piety of the fervent, traditional people we saw praying.

“But there was something infinitely more serious: the violence of the situation. We would experience the same strong impression on the following day. This cardinal, who has just walked back up the esplanade and then left the ceremony, this cardinal who has so visibly come as a representative, whose fixed and vacant look fails to settle on anything, who has nothing, truly nothing of the captivating look of John Paul I, this cardinal, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has actually read the Secret; he has said he was highly disturbed by it. But now, having come to Fatima, he lied⁴¹ in the course of his interview with the journalist Aura Miguel. To us, lost in the crowd, to us who know these things and who for that reason are deprived of our head⁴², these good, trusting and ever so faithful people, still patiently awaiting the Secret, seem to be the victims of an odious deceit: his dignified silence, his gravity, stand in stark contradiction to the essential treason, that of the Virgin insulted and mocked. Between Her and this cardinal, as between this people and him, there is no communion: they are separated by a stubborn lie.”

And so, concluded Brother Bruno of Jesus, “we found ourselves united with the Portuguese people, who love their traditional devotions, who seem impervious to the conciliar novelties, and who, even if they lack our combative doctrine, remain free of all apostasy; their poverty preserves them from the ‘cult of man’”⁴³.

In the measure that the Portuguese bishops have embraced the conciliar reform, their devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary has little by little diminished.

In 1991, when John Paul II came to Fatima, there was no special ceremony to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Portugal’s national consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The following year, on 13 May, the Patriarch of Lisbon pronounced at Fatima a consecration to “Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of men”, but it was no longer a consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was not even mentioned in this act. As for the intentions addressed to Our Lady, they were all impregnated with the humanism of Vatican II.

Mgr Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, appointed Bishop of Fatima in 1993, was probably chosen by the Roman authorities to succeed Mgr do Amaral on account of his very progressive ideas. He unashamedly admitted “having received express instructions from the Pope to develop ecumenical and interreligious relations as fully as possible”⁴⁴. It is common knowledge that Portugal had remained aloof from the postconciliar ecumenical drift. This irritated the Portuguese progressives. “Our Catholic Church”, observed the Bishop of Viseu, “has always been in the majority in Portugal. The other non-Catholic, Christian churches are insignificant. Ecumenism appeared to be pointless, and so many people rejected it.⁴⁵” However, Mgr Ferreira complied with the Pope’s injunction. On 13 May 2000, the very day of the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, he declared in an interview given to the Diario de noticias:

“We would wish the sanctuary of Fatima to be a lung where one can breathe deeply or an oasis where everyone can find rest, be they Moslem, pagan or anything else, whether they believe or not. I have sought to build the whole pastoral character of Fatima on two coordinates: truth and freedom. Freedom involves this ecumenical, interreligious and interhumanist respect, in a tolerance of more than one hundred percent.⁴⁶”

So, in the Land of Holy Mary, the dogma of the faith has clearly not been preserved by the entirety of the hierarchy nor by a unanimous people. But Our Lady had not specified who, in the country, would keep the pure Catholic faith: “In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved.” The turn of phrase is impersonal.

Although the “true faith” was threatened and in great danger of being lost in Portugal, we can be in no doubt of Our Lady’s promise. “They tell me”, writes the Abbé de Nantes, “that this preservation of the Catholic faith in Portugal is already nothing but a fiction, whilst the faith is being reborn elsewhere in freedom. I do not believe either of these remarks. My conviction hinges on the heavenly message of 13 July 1917, not on the declarations of sociologists and tourists.⁴⁷”

Sister Lucy has always been very perceptive about Portugal’s infidelities, which have never ceased to afflict her. Ever since the Sixties she has observed in her country certain signs of a disturbing religious and moral degradation. Nevertheless, she remained convinced that Portugal was still favoured by Heaven. In her letter to Mother Cunha Mattos of 28 November 1968, she wrote:

“You speak to me of the critical moment we are passing through in Portugal; yes, but if only it were confined to Portugal! If we compare ourselves to other parts of the world, we may regard ourselves as fortunate, as faring far better than them, despite so many sad and lamentable things.

“Have trust, Our Lady must continue to protect and aid us. Her maternal love knows neither exhaustion nor fatigue. We must correspond to it with a livelier faith, a firmer hope, and a more ardent love, in order that, in some way and insofar as is possible to us, we may make reparation and compensate for the lack of faith of those who do not believe, the lack of trust of those who do not hope, and the lack of charity of those who do not love.⁴⁸”

Seeing how the divine promise has been verified for the better part of Portuguese Catholics, those remaining indefectibly attached to the cult of Our Lady of Fatima, we may draw a very consoling lesson: there still exists today a refuge for every soul, every family, every religious house of good will and avid for devotion. It is here that we must settle if we are to become “citizens of the holy city, Mary’s paradise, happy servants of the Immaculate in a fidelity preserved or recovered, and sworn for ever, beneath the wing of the Holy Dove”⁴⁹. But let us listen to our Father explaining this to us in a magnificent page which encapsulates the whole argument we have developed in this chapter:

“‘In Portugal’, says the Secret, ‘the dogma of the faith will always be preserved.’ Because in Portugal is to be found the Paradise of the new Eve and of Her divine Son, the new Adam, the Redeemer of the World, Jesus Christ: Fatima! Amid the universal ruin, Fatima will always remain standing, and nothing but Fatima, according to the special Will of the good pleasure of our dearest Heavenly Father […].

“So should we leave for Fatima? Sell all our goods and give them to the poor, to settle in Portugal, come what may?

“Such escapades would be folly! Nothing of the kind has ever been requested in any authentic revelation of the Virgin Mary! Rather Fatima is to be found wherever a soul, a family, a parish, a convent or a nation follows Heaven’s messages, which constitute a complete Catholic catechism, and fulfils Our Lady’s requests which, thanks to Her, represent the entire practice of the true, unadulterated religion. There is plenty of room in this ‘new Jerusalem come down from Heaven, from God’s presence, the perfect holy City, like a bride adorned for her Husband’ on her wedding day (Ap 21.2-3).

“There is room for all those ‘called to the marriage feast of the Lamb’. Rediscovering in the things and words of Fatima the memory of their first calling on the day of their baptism, namely ‘the dogma of the faith’, and a taste for the old Catholic piety without any distortion of the Gospel or any admixture of worldliness, they will enter into this Paradise. No longer can any demon act against the inhabitants of this holy City, neither will any chastisement strike them without the strength of the martyrs coming to their aid, nor will any temptation worst them.

“The Virgin will preserve them from all evil, miraculously, for they belong to Her. And if they are chosen for the suffering and death of the saints, some as victims of love, others as martyrs of the true faith, it will be to go straight up to Heaven to intone the canticle of the Lamb who was slain and of the Immaculate Conception, beneath the eyes of their Heavenly Father.⁵⁰”

APPENDIX I

SISTER LUCY’S SHORT TREATISE ON THE ROSARY

AT the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the crowning of the Virgin of Fatima, on 13 May 1971, Mgr Joao Venancio gave his imprimatur to a short text by the seer of Fatima, a commentary on Our Lady’s words on the Rosary. Published by Father Martins dos Reis⁵¹, under the title “The Message of Our Lady of Fatima: the Daily Rosary”, this text constitutes a short treatise on the Holy Rosary. Here it is in extenso.

“Say the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.” (13 May 1917)

All souls of good will can and should recite five decades of the Rosary every day. They can recite it in a church, be the Most Blessed Sacrament exposed or in the Tabernacle. They can also recite it with the family or alone, on the road or on journeys. The prayer of the Rosary is accessible to all, to rich and poor, to the learned as well as the ignorant. It should be everyone’s spiritual bread. By means of the mysteries we recollect at each decade, it nourishes and increases in souls faith, hope and charity.

“I want... you to say the Rosary every day.” (13 June 1917)

We must recite the Rosary every day for we all have need of prayer and we are obliged to pray. If we are not saved through innocence, we must needs be saved through penance. For that, let the small daily sacrifice of the recitation of the Rosary, which we offer to God, be united to this prayer of supplication: “Our Father who art in Heaven... Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

“I want… you to continue saying the Rosary every day.” (13 July 1917)

Our Lady insists and asks us to persevere in prayer. It is not enough to pray for just one day; we must pray always, every day with faith and confidence, for every day we do wrong and every day we need to have recourse to God, asking Him to forgive us and to help us.

“I want you to continue saying the Rosary every day.” (19 August 1917)

Our Lady insists because She knows how inconstant we are in doing good, how weak and needy we are; and, like a Mother, She comes towards us to give us a hand to support us in our weakness along the path we must follow to be saved. This path is that of prayer; it is there that we shall meet God. That is why She has asked us to say at the end of each decade: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.” That is to say those in danger of damnation.

“Continue to say the Rosary to obtain the end of the war.” (13 September 1917)

By this insistence, Our Lady indicates that it is crucial to pray in order to obtain the grace of peace between nations, amongst peoples, families, homes and consciences, and between God and souls.

It is only when God’s light, strength and grace penetrate our souls and hearts that we shall truly come to understand one another, to forgive and help one another; that is the only way we shall arrive at a true and just peace. But to obtain it, it is necessary to pray!

“I want... you to continue saying the Rosary every day.” (13 October 1917)

The Rosary is the prayer which will bring us close to God on a daily basis. This prayer is not exclusively Marian; it is also a biblical and Eucharistic prayer, addressed to the Most Holy Trinity. At each decade we recite the “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”, and the “Our Father” which Christ taught us to pray so that we might address the Father with confidence. And we recite the “Ave Maria” which is also a prayer of praise and of supplication to God through the mediation of Mary: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus.” Thus we greet Mary in the mystery of our Redemption, the mystery which God wrought in Her and through which Mary was made Mother of God, Mother of the Church and Mother of men.

That is why Mary was the first Tabernacle in which the Father enclosed His Word; the first Monstrance and the first Altar, where the Lord has remained for ever, exposed to our adoration and love.

APPENDIX II

SISTER LUCY’S LETTER TO FATHER UMBERTO PASQUALE:

“THE ROSARY, THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON…”

HERE is the full text of the letter⁵² which Sister Lucy wrote on 26 November 1970 to Father Umberto Pasquale⁵³. At that time, he was in Turin, engaged in the apostolate of spreading the Rosary and the reparatory devotion of the First Saturdays of the month. At the beginning of her letter, Sister Lucy mentions “the lamentable ruin caused by the devil”. She must therefore have had in mind, we can at least presume, the prophetic vision of the Third Secret.