Petition to Pope Francis
Tuesday October 4, 2016
Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi
Most Holy Father,
SAINT Bernardine of Siena, this Franciscan preacher who was a contemporary of our Saint Joan of Arc, did not hesitate to say that “ Mary has received a certain jurisdiction over all graces. ” It ensues from this universal Mediation that “ all gifts, virtues and graces of the Holy Spirit pass through Her hands and She administers them as She pleases. ”
The same is true for the graces of Mercy that She has been pouring out on our souls since the accession of Your Holiness. We have no difficulty in imagining this Queen standing at the right of Her Son “ as a suppliant, ” since she appeared at Fatima a century ago in deep sorrow, seeing “ souls going to Hell because they have no one to pray for them, ” and saying that “ to save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, ” by means of “ the consecration ” and “ the conversion of Russia. ” This is how, Most Holy Father, the divine design of grace and mercy for our time, the object of all your thoughts and therefore of ours, is to be fulfilled.
As you so often remind us, Most Holy Father, not only by your words but also by your radiant authority, the Church is hierarchical. Therefore the fulfilment of God’s great design depends on you, and on you alone. The sum total of the individual wills of the children of the Church is insufficient to replace the act of obedience of Your Holiness to God. That is why the Virgin Mary did not ask the Russian people to consecrate itself to Her Immaculate Heart, but She asked the Pope to order the bishops in communion with him to make this consecration with the purpose of obtaining the miracle of the conversion of this people, that is to say, its return into the bosom of the Catholic Church, thus showing forth the power of intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
After having made the acquaintance of Sister Lucy, your holy predecessor, John Paul I announced his firm intention to go to Fatima in order to do what the Virgin Mary had demanded, in the way that She had demanded it, for the sole reason that She had demanded it. There was one condition : “ If I live, ” he stated in a mysterious premonition. God had ordained otherwise. Yet there is still time, Most Holy Father, for his successor to do the will of the Blessed Virgin.
I make so bold as to ask you to do this, Most Holy Father, beseeching you in the very name of your own apprehensions concerning current world events in 2016 when so many unceasing wars and cruel persecutions devastate Christendom throughout the world. “ We are living through a third World War fought piecemeal, ” you say. “ The whole world is at war, here, there and everywhere. ”
Sister Lucy had already made the same observation as you in the 1970’s : “ Let us take a brief look at the world we live in ! What do we see ? What picture appears before our eyes ? Wars, hatred, ambition, kidnappings, robberies, vengeance, fraud, murder, immorality, etc. In punishment for all these sins : catastrophes, sickness, disasters, famine, and every kind of pain and suffering beneath which humanity groans and weeps. Men who consider themselves wise and powerful continue to foment an increasing number of wars, and deaths, woes, and calamities abound... with ever more blood, and it is in a sea of blood that they are drowning peoples. ” (Calls from the Message of Fatima, Book One, p. 96)
Yet these calamities had been announced by Our Lady of Fatima in Her great “ Secret ” of July 13, 1917 :
“ If what I am going to say to you is done, many souls will be savedand there will be peace. ” Otherwise, the world will be punished “ for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions against the Church and the Holy Father.... ”
In the 1970’s also, Cardinal Luciani, Patriarch of Venice, the future John Paul I, acquired the certitude after having met Sister Lucy in the Carmel of Coimbra, that she was saying the truth, notwithstanding the allegations made by Father Dhanis : no, twenty years after the apparitions, the seer had not invented, deformed or magnified the prophetic Secret of July 13, 1917. On the contrary, she had faithfully related the words of Our Lady, particularly when she divulged the first two parts of the Secret. The Cardinal Patriarch of Venice did not hesitate to describe Sister Lucy as a “ great saint ” whom the Church would one day venerate.
Moreover, the prophecies have been fulfilled to the letter, since the demands of the Blessed Virgin have still not been satisfied. If I take the liberty of writing to you today, Most Holy Father, it is out of obedience to the recommendation that Blessed Jacinta made before dying to Lucy :
“ Tell everyone that God grants us His graces through[that is to say : by the Mediation of] the Immaculate Heart of Mary, that it is from Her that people are to ask for them ; that the Heart of Jesus wants the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be venerated together with His ; that people are to ask the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God has entrusted it to Her. ”
It is clear ! The good God cannot grant true peace to impious nations, in revolt against Him, to a proud world that refuses to implore Mary, the Mother of God, the Universal Mediatrix of His graces.
It is through the Mediation of Mary, and only through the mediation of Mary, that the divine gift of peace can be brought about because it is God’s will that every grace of salvation should pass through Her Immaculate Heart.
It ensues, Most Holy Father, that only one Person in the world can put an end to so many wars and their train of miseries : You, Most Holy Father, You alone can obtain this miracle from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, by consecrating Russia to Her.
I am conscious of the fact, Most Holy Father, that the main obstacle that stands in the way of this consecration is the social freedom in matters religious that was proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council in the name of the transcendent dignity of the human person. On the contrary, this “ social ” consecration in fact entails recognising and proclaiming the social reign of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary not only over individuals but also over nations.
Thus it was that in 1980, your predecessor, John Paul II voiced his opposition to it by replying to Cardinal Wyszyński that “ the Russians would regard such a consecration as an interference in their internal affairs, that the Pope’s jurisdiction only encompasses the Catholic Church, and that the Holy Father was not Pope of all men ” ! Cardinal Wyszyński quite rightly replied that “ Christ being the King of the whole world, His vicar had jurisdiction over all men. ”
Consider, Most Holy Father, that what is at stake is peace in this world and the eternal salvation of your children in the next. It is only when Our Lady will be truly honoured as Queen that peace will be granted to the world. Our Lady will pour out Her graces not only on souls “ to save them ” from Hell, but also on the new Christendom that will be born from the conversion of Russia and the reconciliation of the great Slavic family in the unity of the Catholic Faith that will result from it.
This Eastern Christian Empire, restored with a splendour and power that it never had under Constantine and Theodosius, will put an end to the tremendous expansion of Islam throughout the world, under the authority of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Who alone is able to touch the hearts of the Muslims, as you yourself experienced, Most Holy Father, during your trip to the Central African Republic.
I can give you my witness as a French citizen. At a time when France is suffering a tragic Islamic invasion in punishment of its impious laicity, we must recall that in the early times of the French colonisation, before the Catholic clergy was persecuted, not even by Islam but by the laical and republican administration, which forbid them from evangelising the indigenous peoples, they, whether Arabs or Berbers, expressed an extreme benevolence towards the French “ marabouts, ” and offered their mosques to them for the celebration of Catholic worship :
“ Arabs flock to our ceremonies, ” related Fr. Suchet, the parish priest of Constantine at that time, “ They appear astounded by all that they see, all that they hear ; they take Holy Water and kneel down like us ; they move their lips as well when they see us praying.. ”
Archbishop Pavy of Algiers, used to say : “ The time will come when She Whom the Muslims venerate as the mother of a great prophet, will open their eyes to the Divinity of Her Son, and they will honour in Her, as we do, the Mother of God and men. ”
One hundred years later, after World War II, throughout the entire world, Muslims expressed marvellous enthusiasm to honour the pilgrim Virgin of Fatima. In Africa, in 1948, from Spanish Morocco to Cairo, the white Statue was the object of their incessant displays of homage. Muslim choirs sought the favour of following the processions. Imams taught canticles to the Christians of villages that had no missionary.
The Virgin of Fatima performed a great work of peace in Africa, obtaining by Her simple presence the fraternisation of conflicting ethnic and even religious elements : Blacks and Whites ; pagans, Muslims and Christians. Then when she entered Asia in 1949, She did not cease to do the same work of peace in the Indian peninsula.
In Hyderabad, messages of welcome were addressed to Her in five languages. The Virgin halted in a village where a few Christians lived. Soon twenty-five thousand people stood before Her to admire Her and pray to Her. Some rajahs gave Her magnificent gifts. Contrary to custom, the hymns and prayers of the processions continued while passing in front of mosques.
A missionary in New Deli stated that the passage of the Virgin in India had obtained an almost miraculous success. Before, Muslims could not associate with Christians without the risk of terrible reprisals from their coreligionists. Now they could be seen coming to learn in the missions without anyone standing in the way.
These were the felicitous results of the World Tour of Our Lady of Fatima. Even more recently, in June 2015, when the pilgrim Virgin came to Lebanon, numerous Muslims went to the Catholic ceremonies to honour, acclaim and pray to Her.
When we see the fervour of the crowds that come thronging during Your Holiness’visits to receive the grace of a blessing, a look, a smile, or even an embrace, I leave it to you to imagine the joy that would be brought to people, whether Christian or not, if you, Most Holy Father, were to recommend to the bishops of the whole world that they organise Marian tours of Our Lady of Fatima to establish the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in their dioceses.
This would also be a response to a desire that the Blessed Virgin expressed on August 19, 1917 to indicate what was to be done with the money that people were leaving at the Cova da Iria : “ Have processional litters made. ”
These Marian tours would be a means of propagating devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the clergy and among the faithful in each diocese, and to prepare for the solemn, worldwide act of the consecration of Russia that you must order the bishops to make with you.
Who am I, Most Holy Father, to dare to address this petition to you ? I am nothing, a mere no one, since our religious community, founded by the late Father de Nantes, is perhaps even unknown to You ! Nevertheless, it does strive to respond to your desire for restoring the consecrated life. In order that this grace may be obtained throughout the entire Church, I would further dare to beseech Your Holiness to raise the feast in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to the rank of a solemn feast in the universal Church and to proclaim the Holy Rosary – the daily recitation of which Our Lady insistently demanded at Fatima – a liturgical prayer. These would be the means of obtaining from the Immaculate Heart of Mary the graces that we need to prevent souls from falling into Hell and to obtain peace in this world. If Blessed Francisco was given the assurance of going to Heaven, but on the condition that he “ recite many Rosaries, “ I think, ” Lucy said, “ that this special injunction to Francisco is for all of us. ”
I cannot end without assuring you, Most Holy Father, that our Community, the Community of the Little Brothers and Sisters of the Sacred Heart, are reciting even more Rosaries for you, in order that Our Lady may incline your heart to accede to the desires of Her Immaculate Heart.
May your mercy deign grant us your paternal blessing,
Brother Bruno of Jesus-Mary.