Card. Burke calls for explicit consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart

In spite of official explanations of still hot topics concerning the Fatima apparitions and ongoing messages received by Sr. Lucia, I still have questions.

Concerning one of those questions…

At LifeSite I’ve read the following:

BREAKING: Cardinal Burke calls for Consecration of Russia to Immaculate Heart of Mary

ROME, May 19, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Raymond Burke issued a call this morning for the Catholic faithful to “work for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Cardinal Burke, who is one of the four Cardinals who have asked Pope Francis for a clarification of Amoris Laetitia, made his appeal at the Rome Life Forum, [prelude to Rome’s March For Life] in the month of the centenary of Our Lady of Fatima’s first apparition to the three shepherd children.

Burke is the former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and current Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

In a comprehensive address on “The Secret of Fatima and a New Evangelization,” Cardinal Burke, in the presence of fellow dubia Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, outspoken Kazakhstan Bishop Athanasius Schneider and over 100 life and family leaders from 20 nations, said that the triumph of the Immaculate Heart would mean much more than the ending of world wars, and the physical calamities that Our Lady of Fatima predicted.

“As horrible as are the physical chastisements associated with man’s disobedient rebellion before God, infinitely more horrible are the spiritual chastisements for they have to do with the fruit of grievous sin: eternal death,” he said.

He expressed agreement with one of the foremost Fatima scholars, Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, who said that the promised triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary undoubtedly refers firstly to “the victory of the Faith, which will put an end to the time of apostasy, and the great shortcomings of the Church’s pastors.”

Turning to the current situation in the Church in light of Our Lady of Fatima’s revelations, Burke said:

The teaching of the Faith in its integrity and with courage is the heart of the office of the Church’s pastors: the Roman Pontiff, the Bishops in communion with the See of Peter, and their principal co-workers, the priests. For that reason, the Third Secret is directed, with particular force, to those who exercise the pastoral office in the Church. Their failure to teach the faith, in fidelity to the Church’s constant teaching and practice, whether through a superficial, confused or even worldly approach, and their silence endangers mortally, in the deepest spiritual sense, the very souls for whom they have been consecrated to care spiritually. The poisonous fruits of the failure of the Church’s pastors is seen in a manner of worship, of teaching and of moral discipline which is not in accord with Divine Law.
The call for the consecration of Russia is for some controversial, but Cardinal Burke addressed the reasons for his appeal simply and straightforwardly. “The requested consecration is at once a recognition of the importance which Russia continues to have in God’s plan for peace and a sign of profound love for our brothers and sisters in Russia,” he said.

“Certainly, Pope Saint John Paul II consecrated the world, including Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, 1984,” said Cardinal Burke. “But, today, once again, we hear the call of Our Lady of Fatima to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, in accord with her explicit instruction.

The want for the ‘explicit’ mention of Russia in the consecration as requested by Our Lady was desired by Pope John Paul II, but not undertaken due to pressure from counselors. This fact was confirmed most recently by the official representative of Pope Francis at the Fatima anniversary celebration last week in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.

Speaking on May 13, Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, former president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, recalled his conversation with Pope John Paul II after the 1984 consecration, or “entrustment,” which took place March 25, when the statue of Our Lady of Fatima was in Rome.

“Obviously, for a long time [the pope] had dealt with that significant mission which the Mother of God had given to the seer children there,” Cordes said. “However, he held back to mention Russia explicitly, because the Vatican diplomats had urgently asked him not to mention this country because otherwise political conflicts might perhaps arise.”

For those who may still object to calling for the consecration of Russia, Cardinal Burke recalled the words of Pope St. John Paul II who in 1982 during his consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart noted: “Mary’s appeal is not for just once. Her appeal must be taken up by generation after generation, in accordance with the ever new ‘signs of the times’. It must be unceasingly returned to. It must ever be taken up anew.”

Instructing the faithful, Cardinal Burke taught that Our Lady of Fatima “provides for us the means to go faithfully to her Divine Son and to seek from Him the wisdom and strength to bring His saving grace to a profoundly troubled world.”

[…]

More great stuff from Cardinal Burke over there, including great spiritual tips.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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14 Comments

  1. chantgirl says:

    Well, maybe he should just go ahead and issue the formal correction. I doubt the dissenters from the faith could hate him any more than they already do.

  2. robtbrown says:

    Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité was a brother of the Little Brothers of Jesus (founded by Bl Père Charles de Foucauld). He later joined the Carthusians and was their Prior General until poor health caused him to resign.

  3. Liz says:

    God bless Cardinal Burke. We continue to pray for him every day.

  4. Rosary Rose says:

    Praying! God bless Cardinal Burke

  5. Semper Gumby says:

    God bless Card. Burke. Good point chantgirl.

  6. Serviam says:

    There are not enough words to express my gratitude for Cardinal Burke…….Deo gratias!

  7. Kevin says:

    Seems to me that if this report is correct we risk getting close to superstition by requiring a specific wording. Considering his country’s history and his people’s suffering growing up. you can imagine the depth of heartfelt focused inner prayer JPII would have prayed during that consecration. Our Lady never said the prayer had to be audible.
    To insist on an audible specific wording I feel is self serving, vain and calls into question the value of interior prayer.

  8. Gilbert Fritz says:

    So, what is it? Is sister Lucia right and the consecration has been done? Or is she wrong, and it was not done?

    In either case, we can’t expect the results to be immediate; we are dealing with the interaction of God’s will and 7.5 billion individual wills when we talk about a conversion of the world.

    [Let’s admit that the consecration was done. What harm does it do to perform it in exactly, explicitly, the way Mary described? Let’s posit that it was not done explicitly as Mary described (… trick point… it clearly wasn’t). Then what harm is it to do the consecration as Mary described? We might ask the late King of France what difference it makes.]

  9. Kevin says:

    A prayer petition for this re-consecration.
    Dearest Mother Mary, Pope Saint John Paul the Great and Blessed Lucia, we know you said the consecration of Russia has been accepted in Heaven, but we don’t believe you. Please show us a sign ….. oh, you did already; the total break-up of the Soviet Union, the increasing Christianity in Russia compared to the increasing atheism in the western world. Well, we don’t like this sign! Please show us another one. Oh yeah, by the way, Blessed Mother, next time you ask the pope to do anything like this, please tell him exactly what he has to say, how loud he has to say it and that he is under no circumstances to use mental prayer any more, ‘cause we know it doesn’t count.

    Sorry but Cardinal Burke will lose a lot of credibility if this report is true.

  10. Joseph-Mary says:

    “Our Lady never said the prayer had to be audible.
    To insist on an audible specific wording I feel is self serving, vain and calls into question the value of interior prayer.”

    The consecration was to be done in union with the bishops and not some secret inaudible thing. Our Lady make a specific request and it has not been done. Yes, a partial ‘entrustment’ was done and accepted and a partial response has come from it. I am with Cardinal Burke in seeking to follow exactly as the Mother of God requested.

  11. asburyfox says:

    Sr. Lucy let her thoughts on the subject be known publicly in the 1985 interview for Sol de Fatima magazine. A publication of the Spanish Blue Army. She said that the consecration of Russia had not yet been done properly, because Russia was not mentioned in the 1984 consecration, and all the bishops of the world did not participate. This was a public interview done before the 1989 Vatican order that all must acknowledge the 1984 consecration as complete. When she spoke freely, Sr. Lucy would repeat the conditions laid down by Heaven, a public consecration, which by its very nature is audible, and the participation of every single bishop in the world.

  12. Gilbert Fritz says:

    Kevin, that is pretty good!

  13. Matt R says:

    That this was not done by the pope at Vatican II shows the spiritual ruin of the Ostpolitik pursued by Vatican diplomats alongside their German counterparts towards the USSR and the other Eastern Bloc nations. It’s absurd, frankly. Paul VI betrayed Cardinal Mindszenty, both in the Holy See’s dealings with Hungary and the removal of the Primate from his see. The cardinal’s memoirs are fairly easy to find and are worth reading.

    Cardinal Burke made this request so reasonable that even the most viral defender of the 1984 consecration can’t refuse. It is also interesting that the consecration was done publicly but not explicitly. Pius XII always did it explicitly, but not publicly.

  14. Suburbanbanshee says:

    I think it is fine already. But given the doubts of some people, and given that it would not hurt to do stuff again, why not? Bishops are always traveling to Rome and can invest liturgy time, the Orthodox would not mind, and goodness knows that Russia needs prayers.

    And heck, we probably need a lot more consecration of individual countries and individual dioceses.

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