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Our Lady of Fatima and fall of Communism

Steve Hemler and Craig Turner

Pope Francis prays in front of the original statue of Our Lady of Fatima during a Marian vigil in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in this Oct. 12, 2013, file photo. The pope has invited “every community and every believer” to join him in consecrating and entrusting Russia and Ukraine to Mary March 25. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

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In the mid-1800s, Jesus began appearing to future saints and mystics warning them of a small group of people who, he said, posed grave danger to humanity. This tiny group, still unknown to the world, he called “Communists.” Sister Mary of St. Peter, a Carmelite nun not well known outside of France, reportedly received a request from Jesus to warn the local archbishop that a special devotion was needed to spiritually destroy the work of the Communists. The archbishop failed to act and none of the devotions requested by Jesus were implemented at that time.

At the same time that Jesus is appearing to Sister Mary, an unknown political theorist named Karl Marx is writing the Communist Manifesto. When he is finished, the Communist League of London publishes his tract, but it gets little attention.

By 1900, Karl Marx is dead, but the theories that he created, still in their infancy, are growing in popularity. Between 1911 and 1916, a severe religious persecution in Portugal kills 1,700 priests and religious, and the socialist persecutors are only a shadow of the evil that will come.

In 1917, the Virgin Mary appears to three shepherd children near Fatima, Portugal, and states that Russia will soon become Communist “and spread her errors throughout the world.” On her final apparition, Oct. 13, 1917, more than 70,000 people witness an amazing solar miracle, referred to today as the Miracle of the Sun, in which the gathering of people see the sun spin and dance in the sky for 12 minutes. No one’s eyes are damaged even though they stare directly into the sun.

Only weeks after this amazing spectacle, Russia falls to Communism, and Vladimir Lenin, the leader of this revolution, begins to stamp out religion from the country. By 1939, the Russian Orthodox Church claims only hundreds of parishes, down from 54,000 in 1917. Tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns are persecuted or killed.

As Communism and atheism rise during the 20th century, humanity undergoes sufferings at a level never seen before. World War II claims approximately 50 million lives. Following the war, the eastern half of Europe falls under Soviet domination, and the people living in these Communist countries lose even the most basic freedoms available to citizens of the West.

Then in 1978, a little-known cardinal from Communist Poland is elected Pope John Paul II. Through inspiring public appearances, private conversations and behind the scenes pressure, he manages to keep the Solidarity labor movement seeking greater freedoms from being squashed by Polish authorities.

May 13, 1981, the 64th anniversary of the first appearance of Mary at Fatima, Pope John Paul II is shot in St. Peter’s Square and nearly killed by a man with ties to Bulgarian Communism. The bullet’s trajectory, however, mysteriously curves around the main artery of his heart, sparing his life. The pope later credits the Virgin Mary for saving his life, saying, “One hand fired and another guided the bullet.”

Following the attack, the pope studies the Marian apparitions at Fatima. March 25, 1984, he performs the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as requested by Mary at Fatima, for the conversion of Russia and the end of Communism. What follows is an amazing series of events in which Communism in the Soviet bloc collapses.

Coincidently, many key events in the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred on Marian feast days. For example, Aug. 22, 1991, the feast of the Queenship of Mary, a military coup against reforms inside the Soviet Union failed. Dec. 8, 1991, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords to establish the Commonwealth of Independent States to replace the Soviet Union. Then, Dec. 12, 1991, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Supreme Soviet of Russia formally approved the Belavezha Accords and ratified the breakup of Soviet Union. The final domino to fall occurred when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union and announced that the Soviet Union was officially dismantled. The date was Dec. 25, Christmas Day.

As Pope John Paul II later noted, “In the designs of Providence there are no mere coincidences.” Many historians have held that Pope John Paul II “ignited” (to quote Gorbachev) and enabled the decadelong series of events, especially in Poland, that led to the collapse of Communism. And, since the pope’s life was saved by Our Lady of Fatima, then Mary essentially brought about the collapse of Communism in Europe and Russia. This amazing series of events gives us hope for the future, for if Mary’s powerful intercession can enable such significant and powerful events to occur then, the same can be true today.

Hemler and Turner are officers of the Catholic Apologetics Institute of North America.

Find out more

Learn more about events that led to the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and Russia and their links to Our Lady of Fatima at the Diocesan Golden Jubilee presentation, “Our Lady of Fatima and the Fall of Communism,” May 23, at St. Mary of Sorrows in Fairfax, 7:30 p.m.; May 25 at St. John the Evangelist in Warrenton, 7:30 p.m.; and June 10 at St. Patrick in Fredericksburg, 10 a.m. Go to arlingtondiocese.org/golden-jubilee-all-events.

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