“Therefore, that of 1984 was not a proper Consecration of Russia. I was there, kneeling just a couple of meters ahead of the Holy Father…”
When I became a priest, I didn’t think that my priestly life would have been so affected by Our Lady of Fatima! As a child, I was delighted to read about the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, which occurred at the end of World War I, in 1917. She appeared to three little shepherds, but they were so young: Lucy was 10 years old, Francisco was 9 and Jacinta 7, but they received such a great message!
What an important prophecy it was, full of events that would manifest themselves only many years later! But I was immediately devoted to Our Lady of Fatima, and from Her I received the grace of being chosen to organize the Consecration of Italy to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which occurred in 1959! I was appointed by the Italian Bishops Conference to organize such a marvelous consecration, but time was so short and we didn’t know how to make it in time! Well, we were able to because for the first time we decided to bring the statue of Our Lady of Fatima to Italy!
Back then, the so-called “Peregrinatio Mariae” (that is, bringing a statue of Our Lady in pilgrimage across a nation or a diocese) was not as common as it is today! We opted to move the Statue of Our Lady by helicopter, through all the major cities in Italy. There was nothing faster than the helicopter, back then, to quickly move the statue, and we only had a few months to do it, from April 1958 until September 1959, to make sure that Our Lady could visit the whole country of Italy.
I knew Padre Pio for many years, and I was able to find a way to bring the statue of Our Lady to Padre Pio as well! So, this was my first adventure: the Consecration of Italy to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Then, in 1984, when John Paul II decided to consecrate the world – the most solemn ceremony, the one that occurred in Rome on March 25, 1984 – on the day of the consecration the Statue of Our Lady of Fatima (the main one, the statue that is never moved from the Fatima Sanctuary) was flown over from Portugal and was venerated in Saint Peter’s Square! I was appointed that day to organize Saint Peter’s Square, but there were so many pilgrims, so many people that day, that they entirely filled Saint Peter’s Square and the roads around it, so that most of them were not even able to see the Pope or the statue!
However, that day the Pope did something unusual while pronouncing the consecration prayer. He wanted to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. His entourage, however, was against it: “No, Holy Father, if you do this you’ll offend the Patriarch of Moscow”; or, “No, Holy Father, if you do this [you’ll go against the Soviets]”, etc.
So after several attempts to change his advisors’ minds, the Pope finally went along with them. He did not name Russia during the Consecration.
But he did do Our Lady of Fatima this service – he made it known very plainly and quite publicly that he was not performing that day the consecration requested by Our Lady of Fatima. And the Pope drew particular attention to this fact by alluding to it twice that day – first in the morning, during the prayer of consecration itself, and then again three hours later.
The text of the consecration prayer had been prepared many months before this ceremony. It was sent to all the bishops in a letter of December 8, 1983, and published in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, on February 17, 1984.
But on that morning of March 25, 1984, well after that part of the Act of Consecration at which the Holy Father had pronounced the consecration of the world to the Blessed Virgin – seven paragraphs later, to be precise – he unexpectedly broke away from the prepared text. After the words “Mother of the Church,” he added the following words:
“Enlighten especially the peoples of which You await our consecration and confiding.”
This was the only change that he made to the planned ceremony, and his words clearly indicate that he knows that the Consecration of Russia asked for by Our Lady of Fatima was not accomplished by that day’s consecration.
His words were a plea for a special group of people whose consecration the Blessed Virgin was still awaiting.
Our Lady of Fatima only ever specified that She wanted the Consecration of RUSSIA.
And if that was not clear enough, he repeated this same message several hours later, when he gathered with 10,000 of the faithful in St. Peter’s Basilica at 4 p.m. to say goodbye to the Pilgrim Virgin statue.
Even then, hours after the morning’s consecration ceremony, the Pope acknowledged in a public prayer to Our Lady of Fatima that the consecration which She had asked for is yet to be done. In his prayer, he drew Her attention once again to this certain group of peoples (the peoples of Russia) that has a special need of being consecrated – a group of peoples, he said: “for whom You Yourself await our act of consecration and of entrustment.”
Our Lady only asked for a Consecration of Russia, because at Fatima She never asked for a consecration of the world. The latter was asked through Blessed Alessandrina Maria da Costa and the Portuguese bishops and followed another path. Therefore, that of 1984 was not a proper Consecration of Russia. I was there, kneeling just a couple of meters ahead of the Holy Father, and mentally to myself I said the words to consecrate Russia.
If Our Lady wants, then Our Lady will go to Moscow! Our Lady is able to reach every place in the world and She will go to Russia as well, the country that spread the worst error of the last century (and of our century too): Communism! Our Lady predicted it! If Russia will not be consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart, that nation would spread its errors all over the world, and in fact atheist communism did spread all over the world, because we didn’t do what Our Lady requested!
Our Lady, however, despite what has and what has not been done, is still able to destroy all these errors and to come back through Moscow and Russia to bring back the world to the righteous path. This way, that nation which spread the most heinous errors all over the world, including Communism, will become a missionary nation instead, from which many missionaries will come, in order to bring devotion to Our Lady all over the world! Fatima – that is, Our Lady – loves us and wants to bring us to Jesus and to give peace to the world.
Having given you this message, I am happy to bless every one of you: may the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary bring upon you the blessing of the Most Holy Trinity, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost; and may the love of Mary bring us to truly love Her Divine Son Jesus, because it is through Mary that Jesus came to us, and it is through Mary that we will go to Jesus. Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!
Editor’s Note: Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the famous Italian exorcist who was the exorcist for the diocese of Rome for 30 years, died on September 16, 2016.
The rest of this article reproductions from the Pope’s own newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano of March 26-27, 1984 can be found in Signs and Wonders Volume 27#1/2, Spring 2017.
This article is reprinted with permission from The Fatima Center, Constable, NY.