Blogs
In the News: May 14, 2017
By Michael Duricy
Read recent items about Mary in both Catholic and secular news. Also see International Marian Research Institute news and updates.
Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute Features
Updates
Father Javier Alson, S.M.C., has been visiting The Marian Library to do research. While here, he posted a video on YouTube with a bilingual presentation on Mary and Mercy in Film, Ponencia de las Jornadas Marianas en Dayton, Septiembre 2016 por el señor Michael Duricy: "Marìa en el cine". Click here to view the 50-minute presentation. After speaking at the 2017 Annual Conference of the Mariological Society of America (MSA), his confrere, Father Antonio Larocca, S.M.C., also plans to visit Dayton in June.
Mary in Media: Books, Films, Music, etc.
Marian talk on EWTN recently
Keith Berube, author of Mary, the Beloved, shares a philosophical and theological message about the meaning of Mary by examining dogma, doctrine, and Mary's many apparitions. Click here to view the 52-minute episode of At Home with Jim and Joy [hosted by Jim and Joy Pinto] which was broadcast on May 8, 2017. Click here for more information or to order copies of the book.
From the Marian Treasure Chest
Brother John Samaha, S.M., sent us the article below with the following comments: "May 13, 2017, is the one hundredth anniversary of Mary's appearance at Fatima, Portugal. Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima, pray for us."
Our Lady of Fatima in Historical Context by Brother John Samaha, S.M.
Like the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes, her apparitions at Fatima are known far and wide across the world in both religious and secular circles. As we mark the one-hundredth anniversary of Our Lady of the Rosary's visit at Fatima, it is helpful to recall the circumstances. To appreciate more clearly the impact of Mary's appearances at Fatima, it is important for us to frame the situation with the conditions in Portugal at the time of the appearances May – October 1917. The events need to be placed in historical context.
For centuries Portugal had distinguished itself by its zeal for the spread of the Christian faith. But in the eighteenth century the government was influenced by anti-religious ideas and, from that time, Freemasonry set about de-Christianizing the country. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the moral and religious situation in Portugal was abysmal. In 1911, the separation of Church and State became official. The years from 1910 to 1913 were years of terror: priests and bishops were imprisoned or exiled; religious orders were suppressed; almost all the seminaries were closed and confiscated; missions languished or were abandoned. Freemasonry was in control. From 1910 to 1926 Portugal experienced sixteen revolutions with forty changes of government officials.
Then, on May 13, 1917, a shining Lady appeared to three little shepherds near Fatima, a Portuguese village. They were Jacinta, seven years old; Francisco, her brother, nine years old; and their cousin, Lucia, ten years old. The brilliant Lady identified herself as Our Lady of the Rosary and encouraged them to pray the rosary, a summary of the Gospel, and to offer acts of penance. Then she asked them to return on the thirteenth of the next five months. The children were faithful in coming, except for August 13, for the mayor, a Mason, had them imprisoned at that time. He had threatened to cast them into a caldron of boiling oil if they did not reveal the secret confided to them by the Lady.
At each meeting, the Lady revealed to them a little more of God's designs. She foretold future misfortunes which they were to keep secret for the time being, and which were recently revealed by the sole survivor, Lucia. These had to do with an even more terrible war than the current one of 1914-1918. The Lady asked for the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for only through her could the aid of God come to the world. On the last apparition, that of October 13, she promised a great miracle which everyone would be able to see.
Curiosity drew ever larger numbers that accompanied the little visionaries to each meeting: there were some 25,000 to 30,000 on September 13; about 70,000 on October 13.
That day, on which the great miracle promised by the Virgin Mary was to take place, rain poured all morning. The crowd was soaked. But at noon the skies cleared. Mary appeared to the three shepherds and revealed her name: Lady of the Rosary. She asked that people be converted and pray. Then, in the sight of the 70,000 spectators, the sun, which had just appeared through the clouds, began to rotate or spin three times. Each rotation lasted three or four minutes, illuminating the trees, the crowd, the earth, with all the colors of a rainbow. Then it zigzagged in the sky and descended as though to fall into the crowd. People fell to the ground crying for mercy. Then the sun returned to its proper place. The spectators noticed that their clothes were completely dry.
News of this miracle, witnessed by 70,000 people, including a number hostile to religion, spread like wildfire throughout Portugal and made a tremendous impression. The material miracle was but a sign of another miracle, the enlightenment of souls and the conversion of the country.
Less than two weeks after the last apparition, a first sign of a new attitude manifested itself in the protest by an influential antichristian newspaper against a sacrilegious attack by a group of sectarians at Fatima. In 1918, the bishops were recalled from exile and were able to hold a meeting at Lisbon. The military chaplaincy was reinstated and relations with the Holy See reestablished. At that point, the Masonic lodges had the president of the Republic of Portugal assassinated. They sought to reinstate the control of the anticlericals, but their efforts failed.
In 1926, the first National Council was held. In 1928, the renowned Oliveira Salazar rose to power. He was an outstanding Catholic and a great statesman, the providential man for the financial, civil, political, and religious restoration of Portugal.
Come 1936, a new great danger menaced the land. The Russian Bolshevists decided to establish atheistic communism in Spain and Portugal in order to spread it more successfully in the east and in the west, throughout all Christian Europe. We know what success they had in Spain. Portugal seemed unable to resist their activity, organized with satanic cleverness. To dispel the danger, the bishops saw salvation only in the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1936, they promised, by what was termed an anticommunist oath, to make a pilgrimage of the entire nation to Fatima if Portugal were preserved from the peril which was threatening it.
While, on the other side of the frontier in Spain, the "Reds" were massacring, profaning, pillaging, burning priests and men and women religious and churches and convents, trying to extirpate the last vestiges of Christianity, Portugal enjoyed the most profound peace. And so, in 1938, an enormous pilgrimage of a half-million faithful was on route to Fatima to thank the Virgin for her miraculous protection.
In 1940, Portugal signed with the Holy See the most perfect concordat, from the Christian point of view, ever signed in recent times. The faith was proclaimed throughout the entire country with pride, the sacraments were frequented, Catholic Action flourished, ecclesiastical vocations multiplied. In eight years the number of religious had quadrupled. In keeping with the prediction of the Virgin at Fatima, the Second World War was much more horrible than the first. Yet, though most of the nations of the world were involved in the indescribable calamities and anguish, Portugal continued with its tranquil life under the protection of Mary.
The ecclesiastical inquiry into the facts of Fatima was opened in November of 1917. However, because of circumstances, a verdict was rendered only thirteen years later, on October 13, 1930. Meanwhile, pilgrimages continued to arrive, always more numerous, and usually on the thirteenth of each month. Cures were taking place. In 1926, a board of review was established similar to the one at Lourdes. More than a thousand cures, scientifically unexplainable, had been registered by 1955.
On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima, the ecclesiastical authority judged the moment suitable for revealing in part what Our Lady of the Rosary had asked Lucia to keep secret for the time being.
In his radio message of October 31, 1942, to the pilgrims gathered at Fatima, Pope Pius XII consecrated the Church and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He renewed this consecration the following December 8 in Rome. The bishops of the whole world also made this consecration for their individual dioceses on March 28, 1943. We know that the Pope Pius XII confided to Cardinal Tedeschini that he himself had seen the solar phenomenon on October 30 and 31, and on November 1 and 8, 1954, on the occasion of the definition of the dogma of the Assumption.
The message of Fatima has been heard in Portugal, and Mary's goodness has marvelously repaid it. Has it been heard in the rest of the world? Certainly not enough. Otherwise wars among nations by armies, "cold wars," and fratricides within countries would have ended long ago.
However, not all have turned a deaf ear. The message of Fatima has been received in part, at least, by a great number of Christians. Devotion to the rosary continues to gain favor and reaches into many countries. As has been said, all the dioceses of the world have been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the bishops. The visits of the Pilgrim Virgin statues have been received with tremendous enthusiasm not only by Catholic populations, but by Protestants and Muslims as well.
The message of Fatima has moved many and has contributed to making our era an Age of Mary. It has not spoken its final word. What that word will be will depend on the cooperation which Our Lady of Fatima receives from us.
Marian Events
ESBVM USA presents its Fourth Annual Conference
Theme: Mary, Disciple of the Lord: Prayer and Holiness
Date: July 12-15, 2017
Location: Misericordia University, 301 Lake Street, Dallas, Pennsylvania 18612 [near Scranton and Wilkes-Barre]
Registration must be received by Wednesday, June 21, 2017. For information/questions, contact the ESBVM USA President at maura.hearden@desales.edu. When writing, please put "2017 ESBVM USA Conference" in the subject line.
Mary in the Catholic Press
Catholic Bishops of Canada invited to consecrate Canada to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops website) April 28, 2017
The Bishops of Canada are invited to consecrate the country to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary as part of the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Confederation. Each Bishop is invited to consecrate his individual diocese or eparchy on July 1, 2017 or at another date thereabouts that might better suit the local pastoral situation. Similarly, a Bishop may choose to invite pastors to consecrate their specific parish or mission as part of the celebrations marking the anniversary of Confederation.
Later in the year, all the Bishops of Canada will be invited to participate jointly in the consecration of the country to the Blessed Mother following the celebration of the Holy Eucharist during the CCCB Plenary Assembly in September 2017....
Click here to read the entire article.
Mary in the Secular Press
The director and editors of All About Mary under the auspices of the International Marian Research Institute do not necessarily endorse or agree with the events and ideas expressed in this feature. Our sole purpose is to report on items about Mary gleaned from a myriad of papers representing the secular press.
Pope Says that He doubts Medjugorje Apparitions are Authentic (Reuters) May 14, 2017
Pope Francis has voiced serious doubt about the authenticity of alleged continuing apparitions of the Madonna in Medjugorje, a once-obscure village in Bosnia boosted by the pilgrim business.
"These presumed apparitions don't have a lot of value. This I say as a personal opinion," he told reporters on his plane returning on Saturday night from Portugal where he gave the Catholic Church two new child saints.
Six children first reported visions of the Virgin Mary in 1981 in a scenario reminiscent of famous apparitions in the French town of Lourdes in the nineteenth century and 100 years ago in Fatima, which Francis visited on Friday and Saturday.
In the following years, the Bosnian village became a major pilgrimage site, giving many visitors a renewed sense of spirituality and locals a steady source of much-needed revenue.
It also became the focus of controversy as local Franciscan priests running the site promoted their claims in such open defiance of warnings from the Vatican that some were expelled from the order and the local bishop called them schismatic.
Some of the alleged visionaries, now adults, say they still experience apparitions regularly, and that the Madonna tells them ahead of time when she will appear to them....
Click here to read the complete article.