Fatima visionary to Cardinal: “Final battle between God and Satan will be over marriage and family”

       

  Diane Montagna | Jan 17, 2017

Years ago, from her convent, Sr. Lucia wrote a letter to Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, saying: “Do not be afraid … Our Lady has already crushed his head.”

FROM THE ARCHIVES

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ROME — “The decisive battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be over marriage and the family,” Sr. Lucia dos Santos, one of the three Fatima visionaries, confided to Cardinal Carlo Carrara several years ago, as he was working to found the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Rome.

On February 16, 2008, Cardinal Caffarra, then Archbishop of Bologna, travelled to San Giovanni Rotondo to celebrate Holy Mass at the tomb of St. Padre Pio. After the Mass, the cardinal granted an interview to the Italian outlet, Tele Radio Padre Pio, which first appeared in the March 2008 edition of the magazine, “Voice of Padre Pio.”

In the interview, Cardinal Caffarra also speaks about his devotion to Padre Pio, and the deep significance he and other mystics have for the world today.

Cardinal Caffarra is the founding president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. He has also served as a Member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, Member of the Presidential Committee of the Pontifical Council for the Family, and Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

He was created a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in March 2006. Cardinal Caffarra was one of Pope Francis’ 45 handpicked delegates chosen to attend the Ordinary Synod on the Family in 2015.

Here we print an English translation of the original interview with Cardinal Caffarra.

Q. Your Eminence, recently in ‘Corriere della Sera’ you said that you have always had a great devotion to Padre Pio. Please tell us why.

I have had a great devotion to him since the beginning of my priesthood, because I had a rather unique experience. I had been a priest for some months and a brother-priest came to see me. He was much older, and was going through a serious crisis of faith. It is difficult to describe what a crisis of faith is like for a priest: a terrible thing! I told him: “Brother, I am too little; I don’t feel that I can carry such a burden. Go to Padre Pio.” He went, and while he was talking to Padre Pio he had a great mystical experience, in which he experienced, very strongly, the mercy of God. Now he is one of the best priests I know. There you have it. It all began like that.

Q. Did you ever meet Padre Pio personally?

No, because I never had the courage to go to him, thinking that I would be wasting his time! […] I believe that Padre Pio belongs to the series of great mystics who have this characteristic: the most profound participation in the Cross of Christ, as they bear upon themselves the great tragedy of mankind today – atheism. Padre Pio, St. Gemma Galgani, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Mother Theresa, the Curé d’Ars all had the profound experience of sitting at the table with sinners, of living their experiences, of carrying, in different ways, the weight of the Agony in Gethsemane, testifying to the love of Christ who takes upon himself the suffering of the man who has left his Father’s house and doesn’t want to go back, even if he knows in his heart that he is better off in his Father’s house rather than tending pigs… Man today continues to imagine that he can live as if God did not exist; and we see the devastation this has caused.

Q. There is a prophecy by Sister Lucia dos Santos, the Fatima visionary whose process of beatification began last February 13 [2008], which concerns “the decisive battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan.” And the battlefield is the family. Life and the family. Not everyone knows that you were given the charge by John Paul II to plan and establish the Pontifical Institute for the Studies on Marriage and the Family.

Yes. At the start of this work entrusted to me by the Servant of God [now Saint] John Paul II, I wrote to Sister Lucia of Fatima through her bishop as one couldn’t do so directly. Unexplainably however, as I wasn’t expecting a reply, seeing that I was only asking for prayers, within a few days I received a very long letter with her signature – now in the Institute’s archives. In it we find written: the decisive battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about marriage and the family. Do not be afraid, she added, because anyone who works for the sanctity of marriage and the family will always be fought and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. And then she concluded: however, Our Lady has already crushed his head.

In speaking to John Paul II, you felt too that this was the crux, as it touches the very pillar of creation, the truth of the relationship between man and woman, and among generations. If you touch founding pillar the entire building collapses, and we see this now, because we have arrived at this point, and we know it. And I’m moved when I read the best biographies of Padre Pio, on how this man was so attentive to the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of the spouses, even with justifiable rigor on occasion.

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Taken from: https://aleteia.org/2017/01/17/fatima-visionary-to-cardinal-final-battle-between-god-and-satan-will-be-over-marriage-and-family/

Pope Francis casts doubt on Virgin Mary apparitions at Bosnian pilgrimage site



The site at Medjugorje attracts a million pilgrims annually, but pope says ‘these supposed apparitions don’t have much value’


Pope Francis on Saturday expressed serious doubts regarding reported daily apparitions of the Virgin at Medjugorje in Bosnia, a site which attracts a million pilgrims annually.
In June 1981, six Bosnian children and teenagers said they had witnessed the appearance of the Virgin in the southern town, and allege she continues to visit to this day.
The woman they saw “is not the mother of Jesus,” the Pope said Saturday aboard the papal plane on his return from a trip to Portugal, where he canonised two young shepherds who had visions of the Virgin 100 years ago.

Pope Francis arrives in Portugal to canonise children at Fátima shrine

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The Pope said an investigation under way by the Church had thrown up doubts regarding the Medjugorje apparitions.
He said he preferred “’the Mother Madonna’ or ‘our Mother’, and not the ‘Madonna chief of service’, for sending daily messages.”
The remarks are likely to make waves in Bosnia, where Catholics make up about 10% of the population and the religious tourism at Medjugorje brings money into the poor Balkan country.
“These supposed apparitions don’t have much value – I’m giving my personal opinion,” the pontiff continued.
“But it is obvious, who thinks the Virgin would say: ‘come to this place tomorrow at this time and I’ll give a message to a seer’?”
However the pope was more circumspect about the original 1981 apparitions, which he did not immediately reject.
“On the original apparitions, the ones the children had, the enquiry says, more or less, that investigations need to continue,” he said.

War, peace and the Virgin | Andrew Brown

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Several investigations have already been carried out, the last in January 2014, but the pope had made no announcement since.
However, in November 2013, he did express some doubts. “The Virgin,” he said, “is not a chief of the post office who would send messages every day.”
The Vatican earlier this year sent a new envoy to “acquire a deeper knowledge of the pastoral situation” in Medjugorje, and “above all the needs of the faithful who go there on pilgrimage”.
The envoy, however, will not be tasked with verifying the authenticity of the apparitions, because that task falls to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.




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Taken from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/14/pope-francis-casts-doubt-on-virgin-mary-apparitions-at-bosnian-pilgrimage-site

Pope Francis arrives in Portugal to canonise children at Fátima shrine

Pontiff hopes message of young shepherds who saw Virgin Mary apparition 100 years ago still resonates with Catholics

Pope Francis has arrived in the Portuguese town of Fátima to honour two children whose visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago marked one of the most important events of the 20th-century Catholic church.
Tens of thousands of devotees lined the pontiff’s route and tossed petals as his motorcade drove past.
There was no official crowd estimate, but authorities were expecting 1 million people.
Francis is in the town to celebrate the centenary of the apparitions and to canonise illiterate shepherd children who saw them. He hopes the message of peace they reported 100 years ago, when Europe was in the throes of the first world war, will continue to resonate with Catholics.
  Church groups, families and individuals have made their way to Fátima, about 90 miles north of Lisbon. Carrying candles, rosaries and roses, many have visited the statue dedicated to Our Lady of Fátima or tossed wax body parts – ears, hearts and limbs – into a fire to pray for healing.
“It is the second time I am here with a pope; first with John Paul II and now with Papa Francisco,” said pilgrim Elisabete Fradique Conceicao.
On 13 May 1917, while they were grazing their sheep, the children saw the first of a half-dozen visions of the Virgin Mary. They said she revealed to them three secrets – apocalyptic messages foreshadowing the second world war, hell, the rise and fall of communism and the death of a pope – and urged them to pray for peace and turn away from sin.
At first doubted by their parents and the local Catholic church, the children’s story slowly gained believers and was eventually accepted as authentic by the Vatican in 1930.
The children being canonised, brother and sister Francisco and Jacinta Marto, who were nine and seven at the time of the apparitions, died of influenza two years later. Their cousin, Lucia dos Santos, who became the main raconteur of their tale, is on track for beatification, the first step toward becoming a saint. Her case could not begin until after her death in 2005.
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the importance of Fátima lay in the fact that poor, illiterate children – not the wealthy or learned – were able to convey a powerful message of love and forgiveness at a time of war, when “the talk was of hatred, vendetta, hostilities”.
Fátima has long been associated with St John Paul II. The Polish-born pope credited the Virgin Mary with having saved his life in 1981 when a would-be assassin shot him on Fátima’s feast day – 13 May – in St Peter’s Square.
He made the first of three pilgrimages to Fátima the following May, and one of the bullets fired at him now adorns the crown of the Madonna at the shrine.
Like John Paul, Argentinian-born Francis is devoted to the Madonna, thanks in large part to the strong role Marian devotions play in the popular piety of Latin American Catholics.
In a video message on the eve of his trip to Portugal, Francis urged all faithful to join him, physically or spiritually, in Fátima. He said: “With all of us forming one heart and soul, I will then entrust you to Our Lady, asking her to whisper to each one of you: ‘My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the path that leads you to God.’”

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Taken from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/12/pope-francis-pilgrims-flock-to-shrine-town-fatima-children

Join me at the feet of Mary, Francis asks ahead of Fatima trip

• In Catholic News Agency, Pope in Fatima, Vatican
• Hannah Brockhaus
  May 11, 2017
  CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY

In this May 12, 2010 file photo, faithful gather at Fatima’s Sanctuary for a candlelight vigil presided over by Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Francis is visiting the Fatima shrine on May 12 and 13 to canonize two Portuguese shepherd children who say they saw visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago. (Credit: Gregorio Borgia/AP.)

“I NEED TO FEEL YOUR CLOSENESS, WHETHER PHYSICAL OR SPIRITUAL; THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT IT COME FROM THE HEART. IN THIS WAY, I CAN ARRANGE MY BOUQUET OF FLOWERS, MY ‘GOLDEN ROSE,’” POPE FRANCIS SAID TO THE PEOPLE OF PORTUGAL IN A VIDEO MESSAGE AHEAD OF HIS FATIMA VISIT.

ROME – Wednesday evening, just two days ahead of his trip to Fatima, Pope Francis sent a video message to the people of Portugal asking them to be with him during his pilgrimage, whether physically or spiritually, as he presents flowers to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“I need to feel your closeness, whether physical or spiritual; the important thing is that it come from the heart. In this way, I can arrange my bouquet of flowers, my ‘golden rose,’” he said in the May 10 video message.

“I want to meet everyone at the feet of the Virgin Mother.”

In the message, Francis said he had received many messages asking him to come to people’s homes, communities and towns during his visit, but that he was not able to accept, as much as he would like to.

He also thanked the various Portuguese authorities for being understanding about his decision to restrict his trip to only the usual events associated with a pilgrimage to Fatima, such as praying the rosary at the prayer vigil and visiting the Chapel of the Apparitions.

“Only a few days remain before our pilgrimage, mine and yours, to the feet of Our Lady of Fatima,” he said. “These are days of joy in expectation of our encounter in the home of Mary our Mother.

“It is as the universal pastor of the Church that I would like to come before the Madonna and to offer her a bouquet of the most beautiful ‘blossoms’ that Jesus has entrusted to my care (cf. Jn 21:15-17),” he continued.

And this means everyone around the world, “none excluded,” he explained. “That is why I need to have all of you join me there.

“With all of us forming ‘one heart and soul’ (cf. Acts 4:32), I will then entrust you to Our Lady, asking her to whisper to each one of you: ‘My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the path that leads you to God’ (Apparition of June, 1917).”

In the video, Francis called the meeting “our pilgrimage,” the motto for which is ‘With Mary, a pilgrim in hope and in peace.’ The program for the visit contains many opportunities for prayer and conversion of heart, he said.

“I am happy to know that in anticipation of that blessed moment, the culmination of a century of blessed moments, you have been preparing yourselves by intense prayer,” he noted. “Prayer enlarges our hearts and makes them ready to receive God’s gifts. I thank you for all the prayers and sacrifices that you offer daily for me. I need them, because I am a sinner among sinners.”

Through prayer, he said, he receives light to his eyes, which “enables me to see others as God sees them, and to love others as he loves them.”

The pope makes the two-day pilgrimage to Fatima May 12-13 to celebrate the centenary of Mary’s appearance to three shepherd children in 1917.

During the trip, the pope will also celebrate Mass, presiding over the canonization of two of the child visionaries, Francisco and Jacinta Marta.

“In his name, I will come among you and have the joy of sharing with everyone the Gospel of hope and peace,” he concluded his message. “May the Lord bless you, and the Virgin Mother protect you!”

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Taken from: https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/05/11/join-feet-mary-francis-asks-ahead-fatima-trip/

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Fatima Centenary: awaiting Pope Francis

A pilgrim carries a candle at Fatima Sanctuary, central Portugal, on May 11, 2017 - AFP

11/05/2017 17:54

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is just hours away from his departure for Fatima, Portugal, where he will lead celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady there. Our special envoy Chris Altieri is in Fatima, and sent us this report.
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“If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.” That’s sound advice any time one finds oneself about 20 miles from the Atlantic coast at nearly 1,000 ft. elevation.
We took rain off and on all morning, as we went from one side of the shrine complex to the other: first getting an unscheduled stop at the Carmel where Pope Francis is to stay the night Friday, then our hunt for our lodgings and then the press centre for accreditation and then the refectory for a quick bite to eat.

Cick below to hear our report


That’s par for the course on a journey like this – a pilgrimage, really – though I promise to be here from start to finish, God-willing, to bring you all the story – and it is as a pilgrim that Pope Francis is coming to this place in the hills north of Lisbon, where 100 years ago this weekend the Mother of God appeared to shepherd children , in the midst of what was the most costly and destructive conflict yet in human history, to show the whole human race once again the way to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ.
“With Mary, as a pilgrim of hope and peace I travel to Fatima,” said Pope Francis in a tweet on the eve of his departure. “Let us see in her that everything is God’s gift and He is our strength.”
Here, in Fatima, there is an uncanny mixture of constant bustle and tense calm, with groups of pilgrims of every age and state of life in the Church milling about, now completing this devotion, now moving to another – some braving wind and rain to cross the plaza on their knees – others seeking shelter, others heading home – at least for the day.
The shrine complex is getting busier by the hour, it seems, with volunteers and the inevitable security checkpoints adding to the bustle.
The Rosary of Our Lady, meanwhile, is in the air – quite literally – visibly in the great white sculpture that rises some 80 feet high over the square – and audibly, in the prayers of the pilgrims, whether piped through the public address, or whispered at arm’s length.
In Fatima, awaiting Pope Francis, I’m, Chris Altieri

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Taken from: http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/05/11/fatima_centenary_awaiting_pope_francis/1311593

Catherine Lennon: Controversial abortion bill goes too far

Faruqi’s bill legalises abortion up to birth for any reason, which makes it one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world, says Dr Catherine Lennon.

Catherine Lennon, The Daily Telegraph

May 11, 2017 12:00am

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• Bryce Cartwright scandal: ‘No woman should be treated this way’
• Queensland abortion reforms scrapped

Abortion is readily available and accessible in NSW and is currently performed by doctors who are obliged to give counselling before a termination of pregnancy.

So why would NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi introduce a bill, to be debated in the Legislative Council today, which will actually put women and medical professionals at greater risk?
Faruqi’s bill legalises abortion up to birth for any reason, which makes it one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world.
The Greens’ simple slogans, such as “My life, my body, my choice” or “Decriminalise abortion’’, hide a radical agenda. This bill would legally allow non-medical people to perform abortions and totally removes the current legal safeguards for women.
Where is the consideration for the significant risk to women which increases when anyone can hand over some pills, or for late-term pregnant women facing an increased chance of significant pain, bleeding, infection, uterine rupture, infertility and mental health problems?
A Galaxy Research poll of 1003 NSW voters in April 2017, commissioned by Abortion Rethink, showed that 90 per cent believe a woman requesting an abortion should always be seen in person by a qualified doctor. The same poll found that 90 per cent of voters support independent counselling for women considering an abortion from a source that has no financial interest in the decision.

Dr Catherine Lennon is a Sydney GP specialising in women’s health.

Unfortunately, this is not occurring in the vast majority of cases because many women self-refer to commercial abortion clinics and are not offered proper counselling before the procedure.
As a GP who specialises in women’s health, I know how important a visit with a doctor can be to offer a personalised approach to a woman’s mental and physical wellbeing in that decision-making phase.
Most of the women I see who have had an abortion say they would have appreciated more information beforehand and may even continued their pregnancies had they experienced more support.
Already there is a huge problem of women with unplanned pregnancies feeling pressured, unsupported and sometimes coerced or forced into an abortion by a boyfriend or relative.
Some told their story at a panel event at Parliament House last week, but Ms Faruqi was not listening. Only 5 per cent of NSW voters support abortion up to birth, which is the extreme position taken by this bill.


Miranda Devine: “I think about the baby every single day”


Likewise, 83 per cent are opposed to the practice of terminating a pregnancy based on the sex of the unborn baby, usually when the baby is a girl in many cultures — known as sex-­selection abortion — which this bill would legalise.
Similar legislation passed in Victoria in 2008 resulted in Dr Mark Hobart being admonished by the medical board for “breaking the law” in Victoria because he refused to refer a woman for a sex-selection abortion when she was 19 weeks pregnant with a baby girl.
The “conscientious objection clause” of the Faruqi bill directly attacks doctors by threatening to charge them with professional misconduct if they do not refer to abortionists. This could lead to reprimand or deregistration by the medical board. This outrageous clause is in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
A woman doesn’t need a doctor’s referral in NSW to procure an abortion. In the landmark ruling in 1971, Justice Aaron Levine said that an abortion was not unlawful if a doctor honestly believed on reasonable grounds that “the operation was necessary to preserve the woman involved from serious danger to her life or physical or mental health which the continuance of pregnancy would entail’’.
“Mental health” has since been interpreted by the courts to include “the effects of economic or social stress that may pertain either during pregnancy or after birth’’.
In NSW, the only person in the last 40 years charged with performing an “unlawful abortion” was abortion provider Dr Suman Sood who was found guilty of “unsatisfactory professional conduct” after her patient gave birth to a 23-week-old baby in a toilet who subsequently died.

Dr Sood caused so much pain and suffering to women that she was named in NSW Parliament by then Health Minister Reba Meagher. We need to keep the current NSW laws on abortion to protect women from rogue abortion providers such as Dr Sood.

Only 16 per cent of NSW voters think the current abortion law is too restrictive. More than two-thirds are happy with the law as it is or want it to be tightened.
Faruqi’s Abortion Law Reform Bill focuses on only one option — open slather abortion, regardless of the cost to women. Instead, let’s keep the safeguards under our current NSW abortion law and focus on offering women with unplanned or problem pregnancies more counselling and support through improved funding for pregnancy support and counselling centres, so they can be well-informed about a range of choices.

Dr Catherine Lennon is a Sydney GP specialising in women’s health, counselling and fertility problems, and is NSW president of Doctors for Life

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Taken from: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/catherine-lennon-controversial-abortion-bill-goes-too-far/news-story/dd625d049d6e227fd43d0495990e6440?nk=b5fa60e1d27f6c2d52b29dc3c9ac844d-1494456446

Pope Francis: I will entrust the destiny of humanity to the Virgin in Fatima





A few days before his trip to Fatima, Pope Francis held his usual Wednesday General Audience in St. Peter's Square. He embraced affectionate gestures from the youngest pilgrims. 

The pope continued his catechetical cycle on hope. This time, the protagonist was the Virgin Mary, in which he said that she is the greatest example of courage and hope. 

POPE FRANCIS

"It was not easy to respond with a "yes” to the Angel's announcement; and yet she, a woman still in the midst of her youth, responds boldly despite not knowing the fate that lay before her. Mary is there, faithfully present, every time That you need to keep a candle lit in a foggy place.”

He also spoke about all of the mothers in the world, and their ability to abandon their fears and fight for their children, even in the cruelest moments. This is similar to Mary, when she had to watch her own child die on the cross.

POPE FRANCIS

"Mothers do not deceive, and in that moment, at the foot of the cross, none of us can say what was the cruelest passion: that of an innocent man who dies on the cross, or the agony of a mother who accompanies his son in the final moments of his life.”

He explained that the Virgin Mary is a model for Christians, because she teaches one to be patient even when nothing seems to be making sense. The Holy Father then concluded by asking for prayers for his upcoming trip to Portugal. 

POPE FRANCIS

"I will go to Fatima on a pilgrimage, to entrust to the Virgin the temporal and eternal destinies of humanity.”

May 13 marks the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary, and Pope Francis will canonize two of the visionaries.

AQ