Our Lady of Fatima, having asked for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart as well as the communion of reparation on the five First Saturdays, told Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta July 13, 1917: “If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.”
Now, more than a century later, Ukraine’s Latin Rite Catholic bishops petitioned Pope Francis to consecrate Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary due to the unspeakable suffering of the Ukrainian people because of the brutal Russian invasion: “we humbly ask Your Holiness to perform publicly the act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ukraine and Russia, as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima.”
Pope Francis will consecrate Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at 5 p.m. (Rome time) March 25 — the solemnity of the Annunciation — in St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, during the celebration of the sacrament of penance. He has invited the Catholic bishops and priests of the world to join him in the act of consecration. Special papal envoy, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, will simultaneously do the same in the Chapel of the Apparitions at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal.
On the same day, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge will celebrate the 12:05 p.m. Mass at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington and recite the act of consecration. Washington Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory will offer Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington at noon. The members of the diplomatic corps have been invited.
In anticipation of the act of consecration, the Pilgrim Virgin of Our Lady of Fatima — one of 13 official copies of the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima — was sent from the shrine in Fatima via Krakow, Poland, to Ukraine at the request of the Greek-Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop of Lviv.
This act of consecration or “entrustment” comes exactly 38 years after Pope John Paul II consecrated Russia and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in St. Peter’s Square March 25, 1984, during the Holy Year of Redemption. This was done in the presence of the first statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima, which is normally venerated in the Chapel of the Apparitions (“Cova da Iria”) but which had been brought to Rome, marking the seventh time it had left Fatima.
Various popes, including Pope Pius XII, Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, have consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Popes John Paul and Francis, along with Popes Paul VI and Benedict XVI, have visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.
Portugal was first consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary May 13, 1931, precisely 14 years after Our Lady’s first apparition, at the conclusion of the Portuguese Bishops’ first pilgrimage to Fatima.
Some dispute whether the act of consecration made by Pope John Paul II in 1984 fulfilled the requirements given by the Mother of God, but in a 1989 letter, Sister Lucia confirmed that the act of consecration was in conformity with what Our Lady desired. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith claimed the same.
Since Pope Francis’ intention to accede to the wishes of the Ukrainian Latin Rite Catholic bishops was announced, there has been remarkable interest, in both the Catholic and the secular media, shown around the globe.
We pray through the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima that the Ukrainian people will be delivered from harm and that “Russia will be converted, and there will be peace.”
Msgr. Mangan teaches at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md.
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