de-Christianisation

This is a huge day in the life of the Church. The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima is the greatest and most widely witnessed divine intervention since the Resurrection of Christ.

It is such a big day in fact that I feel somewhat forced to have some sort of commentary on the day itself, untrue to form. There are many much-better informed followers of Fatima, so I'll try and keep my statements brief.

The eminent historian Roberto di Mattei wrote a splendid piece which was published on Rorate Caeli. In it he writes a bit of what happened on that day, but much of his text has to do with how the 9 popes since the apparition have failed to honour the Virgin's request to have Russia consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.

There are some who feel that the consecration of Russia has been carried out and that the positive changes we see in Russia have occured as a result of that consecration. There were positive developments when Pope Pius XII consecrated the whole world to the Blessed Virgin, a fact Sister Lucia was keen to point out, but she was keen to point out that the consecration had not heeded our Blessed Mother's wishes. The Second World War did indeed end and we did indeed have a period of peace, but the world was soon plunged into the chaos of the Cold War, and the errors of Russia continued to spread. Indeed, Roberto di Mattei catalogues this.

Now some will say that Russia has changed and this and that.; facts hardly open to dispute. Anybody who argues that Russia is still communist is as ignorant as he is stupid, I would argue. Well, either that or you are accusing the Russian leadership of complete ignorance of what communism is. After all, communists specialise in destroying churches, not in building and re-building them. If you don't believe me, just as the Chinese and the Soviets!

One would think that people as wise as those in charge of Russia - people, it has to be admitted, who manage to outmanoeuvre the combined intellect of the entire Western world combined seemingly without even trying - would be in the know as to the basic tenets of communism, if that was the ideology that they secrectly espoused. The charge of the Russian leadership being crypto-communists really does not stand up even to the slightest bit of scrutiny.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has built over 10,000 churches, many if not most with government money, I would assume, since there is simply no way that the Orthodox Church in Russia, persecuted and infiltrated by communists for so long, with barely any Mass attendees, would be able to afford such an undertaking. Some reports I have seen have claimed as much as 28,000 churches have been built in Russia since the fall of communism, a figure that seems rather fanciful to me, but which I would happily accept if it were proved to be true.

The president, Vladimir Putin, routinely attends church services, as does prime minister  Medvedev and defence minister Shoigu. These, I would argue, are the 3 most important public figures in Russia and they are doing everything they can do to prop up the Russian Orthodox Church. Although there is much to go before Russia can be called a Christian nation - the abolition of abortion being the foremost - there is not much more that the current leadership of Russia could have done to help Christianity regain its place at the centre of Russian life.

That it is the Russian Orthodox Church being propped up and not the Catholic Church will offend some, but it does not offend me. To any impartial observer, the Russian Orthodox Church certainly appears more Christian than the Catholic Church. Only the learned will bother to find out that the claims of the Russian Orthodox Church are bogus, but few ever go that far. Externals matter and the fact of the matter is that the primate of Russia behaves in a much more Christian way than does our pope, or whatever Bergoglio is.

Furthermore, it has always been the role of the Russian leadership to support Russian Orthodoxy and I am at a loss to understand how these people think that the Russian leadership can impose the Catholic faith on people who have been hostile to the Catholic Church for centuries. These rifts have nothing to do with Vladimir Putin or even the communists, and they cannot be healed by political figures, although I grant that political figures can do much to push the re-unification. The fact of the matter is that the Blessed Virgin Mary provided us with a roadmap of how to convert Russia back to Catholicism, and that is through the consecration of Russia.

Rumour has it that Putin even asked the pope to consecrate Russia; so much for the politicians being communists. That the popes have failed to do this is to their eternal condemnation. It would be one thing if they did not believe in the Fatima message, but pope after pope has paid homage to the apparitions at Fatima so it beggars belief that they will not do what they were asked to do.

Back to the topic of the consecration and the accompanying warnings...

Whereas Russia can be said in many ways to have rejected the errors of Russia, these errors are all-pervasive in the West. Whether it is the attack on the Christian faith, the destruction of the family, the promotion of sodomy, fornication homosexuality and feminism, the attack on human nature through transgenderism and materialism, the attack on the sacredness of human life through euthanasia and abortion, the promotion of Islam, witchcraft, scientism and atheism, the errors of Russia have spread into the West like wild-fire and there seems to be no stopping them.

I repeat that I am no expert of Fatima but it is my understanding that...

We had the remarkable news that a large Germain supermaket chain has edited crosses out of its packaging. They claimed they were doing it out of diversity and so as not to cause offence. The chain was Lidl, one I have often used and one whose products I often find well-worth buying.

I have been informed that they repented and decided to stop editing crosses out of their packaging.  The Christian forgives those who repent, so I cannot hold much of a grudge against Lidl anymore but it is still telling that Lidl did this because the messages they have received from Christians is that Christians do not mind being airbrushed out of existence, as they have shown a willingness to go along with just about every assault on their heritage in the name of cordiality. As usual, I blame NOChurch, as it has led the way in dismantling Catholicism  to please everyone else. One can hardly be stricter on supermaket chains which choose not to flaunt Christianity than one can be on a pope who seems to hide his cross when in the company of non-Catholics, or schools which downplay their Catholic heritage, or any other number of actions against the faith.

I had intended to write a letter to Lidl and inform them that I shall not shop at their stores any more, but with their repentance, I feel I can in good conscience continue doing it. My letter to NOChurch informing them of my future non-contributions to 'bread and wine', bad music, ugly surroundings and bad teaching is still being drafted...

Speaking of NOChurch, Cardinal Kasper came out and asserted that “nowadays there are no more significant differences between Protestant and Catholic Christians”. I am forced to agree with him since most Catholics nowadays accept as many heresies as the protestants, and deny as many truths. Had say, Cardinal Burke said the same thing then it would have been a rallying cry to action, to get Catholics to believe and express their faith. With Kasper, it is a  proclamation of victory for the NOChurch revolution.

The differences between Catholicism and the various protestantisms are of course, vast, as Kasper well knows. However, we must sadly admit that he is right because most Catholics today do not know the difference between the divinely-inspired Catholic faith and the various other false faiths out there. As one commenter on Gloria.tv put it:

"No essential difference between Vatican II catholics and protestants." Fixed if for you there Cardinal. And for once this heretic is right.

Continuing with NOChurch, Ireland continues to be its prize jewel, the prime example of the Novus Ordo at work. This year, the main seminary in the country had the fewest candidates admitted to the seminary for 222 years. This is the same seminary which had a sodomy-scandal a while back when seminarians were found to be on a sodomite-hooking app. They were not even dismissed, and were instead sent to Rome by a bishop who we must assume is partial to that particular perversion.

Russia test-fired an inter-continental ballistic missile. The U.S. did the same either a few days after or a few days before. This again proves the hypocrisy of slapping sanctions on North Korea for doing the very same thing which the U.S., Russia, China and various other countries do all the time. The Trump administration is even talking of pulling out of the nuclear deal with Iran because Iran has a missle programme, something out of the scope of the agreement and something which Iran is, of course, entirely entitled to do.

While we are on the topic of hypocrisy, Bergoglio got a fresh chance to virtue signal aganist Donald Trump, insisting that if Trump were truly pro-life, he would allow the non-enforcement of U.S. law that is the DACA programme. The USCCB had predictably led the virtue-signalling charge on this one. Over at LaSaletteJourney, they were not slow to point out Bergoglio's hypocrisy in this, noting that if Bergoglio were truly pro-life, he would condemn the Castro brothers for various anti-life actions. Ont he same blog, they insist that if the USCCB is to be taken seriously regarding its stated opposition to sodomitical unions, it must condemn Bergoglio for giving the impression that they can be tolerated, so long as they are not referred to as marriage. This is in direct opposition to the teaching of the Church, of course.

We also received news that Turkey has paid off the first installment of the anti-missile system it purchased from Russia. As I wrote a while back, thiss is more significant than it might first appear, as it is yet more proof of a shift away from the U.S. and its Western puppets and towards Russia. Only the Western rulers and those who buy the propaganda in their countries think that Russia is isolated.

Finally we had some good news for a change, and these come from Syria where re-construction efforts have now begun. The war seems to be drawing to a close and planning for re-building of infrastructure is well under way, no thanks to the Western Islamists who have caused so much bloodshed in that poor country.  We hope to see an end to all confligt in Syria before long.

To round things off, we had the Belgian order which has voted to allow euthanasia at its hospices defying the Vatican and continuing that policy. It should be noted that Bergoglio is hardly in a position to judge here, because he has actually stated that one ought to ignore the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith if they insist on restricting one's activities.