More Problems with Fatima accounts (Remnant article)

Started by Gerard, June 15, 2017, 11:37:05 PM

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Michael Wilson

I found this information on another site http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr70/cr70pg12.asp
QuoteBefore claiming the Third Secret has been revealed in its entirety, Bertone's Lucy says that she "attentively read and meditated upon the booklet published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and confirmed everything that was written there". This is odd since even the Los Angeles Times recognized (and stated) that the Vatican's June 26 document on Fatima "gently debunks the Fatima cult".4 Further, the same June 26 Ratzinger/Bertone document floats the suggestion that Sister Lucy might have gotten the idea of the vision of the Secret from "images which Lucia may have seen in devotional books".5 This, in fact, is the thesis of Father Edouard Dhanis, the modernist Jesuit who contributed to the heretical Dutch Catechism,6 who made a career out of trying to debunk Fatima, and who suggested that Lucy might have inadvertently made up the entire matter of the "Third Secret".7
footnote 6: 6. See Hebblethwaite, Peter. Paul VI (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), pp. 490-91.
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

Kaesekopf

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on June 21, 2017, 04:23:26 PM
Quote from: Michael Wilson on June 21, 2017, 03:35:44 PM
I think that this needs to be addressed; it was a modernist priest, Fr. Dhanis S.J. That invented the "Fatima II" theory in order to diminish or undermine the Fatima apparitions and the necessity of performing the Colegial Consecration.

We keep hearing that Fr. Dhanis was a "modernist" but is there any real evidence for the claim?
Imho, who cares if he was a modernist.  If the argument is so bad, destroy the argument. 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

Wie dein Sonntag, so dein Sterbetag.

I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side.  ~Treebeard, LOTR

Jesus son of David, have mercy on me.

awkwardcustomer

Quote from: Michael Wilson on June 21, 2017, 04:59:53 PM
Here is something from the Angelus' review of Frere Michelle's books: http://www.angelusonline.org/index.php?section=articles&subsection=show_article&article_id=1494
QuoteEvents had taken this lamentable and generally unexpected turn because of the skillfully fomented opposition to the full implications of Our Lady's requests from within the Church. This work was the work principally of Fr. Edward Dhanis, S.J., a Belgian professor of theology at Louvain, who had published two articles criticizing Fatima as early as 1944. Brother Michel meticulously dissects Dhanis's arguments and concludes that his thesis is "unthinkable, unjustifiable and even scandalous" (p. 144). But tragically for Our Lady's cause, Dhanis was allowed to triumph over Our Lady's advocates in the Civilta Cattolica in May 1953, rose to influential positions in Rome, and henceforward became the authority for all the numerous adversaries of Fatima. Much of Brother Michel's original material is drawn from the numerous articles and books published by the late Fr. Joaquin Alonso, CMF, the renowned Marian theologian who was commissioned to write the definitive history of Fatima by the Bishop of Leiria i9n 1966. In his work, Fatima y la Critica, Father Alonso cites a very extensive list covering almost 30 pages of all those persons, from almost every country in Europe, who have repeated the deplorable thesis of Dhanis, and concludes: "Dhanis has forged a hypothesis which is as vast as a cathedral, and which can ruin, not only the history of the apparitions of the Angel, but also... absolutely the whole history of Fatima" (p. 200).

Isn't this exactly what you would expect from an Angelus Press review though?

Do you have any references for the two articles that Fr Dhanis wrote in 1944, outlining his
Fatima I/ Fatima II thesis?  Then we could actually read what he wrote.

This would be more imformative than yet another bitter condemnation of the man and his arguments.
And formerly the heretics were manifest; but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise.  
St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15, para 9.

And what rough beast, it's hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
WB Yeats, 'The Second Coming'.

mikemac

Quote from: Michael Wilson on June 21, 2017, 04:53:17 PM
Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on June 21, 2017, 04:23:26 PM
Quote from: Michael Wilson on June 21, 2017, 03:35:44 PM
I think that this needs to be addressed; it was a modernist priest, Fr. Dhanis S.J. That invented the "Fatima II" theory in order to diminish or undermine the Fatima apparitions and the necessity of performing the Colegial Consecration.

We keep hearing that Fr. Dhanis was a "modernist" but is there any real evidence for the claim?
I no longer have my Fatima trilogy by Frere Michelle of the Holy Trinity, so I will see if there is other information available elsewhere.

This site has the Fatima trilogy - The Whole Truth About Fatima by Frere Michelle of the Holy Trinity now.  Good site by the way.  Someone in the other Trad forum that I go to posted a good article about LaSalette from this site.
http://crc-internet.org/our-doctrine/catholic-counter-reformation/whole-truth-fatima/#Part_1_The_Facts
http://crc-internet.org/our-doctrine/catholic-counter-reformation/the-whole-truth-about-fatima-volume-2/

I'm not sure if they just have the first two volumes or whether they reformatted it.  I remember the site Frere Michelle used to have it on but I can't find it now.

You can also read it from here if you have a reader.
https://archive.org/details/TheWholeTruthAboutFatimaVol1
https://archive.org/details/TheWholeTruthAboutFatimaVol2
https://archive.org/details/TheWholeTruthAboutFatimaVol3
Like John Vennari (RIP) said "Why not just do it?  What would it hurt?"
Consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (PETITION)
https://lifepetitions.com/petition/consecrate-russia-to-the-immaculate-heart-of-mary-petition

"We would be mistaken to think that Fatima's prophetic mission is complete." Benedict XVI May 13, 2010

"Tell people that God gives graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God has entrusted it to Her." Saint Jacinta Marto

The real nature of hope is "despair, overcome."
Source

mikemac

Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 21, 2017, 02:41:12 PM
Quaremerepulisti, you summarized my thoughts on this precisely, especially the piggybacking of all kinds of things on a narrow approval window.

To this end, WHY has the novus ordo hierarchy supported and promoted Fatima, especially the areas referred to as Fatima II?  This has nagged at me for years. 

What's in it for the modernist wrechovators?   

WAF is the World Apostolate of Fatima, formerly Our Lady's Blue Army:
QuoteThe WAF/Blue Army has long broadcast the Vatican's Party Line on Fatima. Now an International Public Association of Pontifical Right, it claims it's "the only Fatima organization in the world which speaks 'in the name of the Church' and 'with the authority of the Church' on Fatima."

Its "charisma" is "the New Evangelization of the world through the authentic Message of Fatima." Its "responsibility" is to "guard the purity of the message."

The WAF summarizes the Vatican's corrupted Message of Fatima (evident in Card. Burke's talk) as follows:

"A new effort is needed to save the world and make possible a new era of peace and hope, promised at Fatima. To achieve this, the New Evangelization of the world is the main pastoral objective of the Universal Church for the XXI century and the new millennium."

"... the Message of Fatima continues to be crucial in the building of a better world, 'a civilization of love, a new springtime for the Church, a New Marian Pentecost.'"



The official post-V2 Church Fatima mouthpiece conveys that they are using the (primarily F2) messages for world wide equalization of religions.  Of course, we've all seen this coming for decades, but now it's so proudly proclaimed.

I have lots to say about this post.  I have to take care of something offline first though.
Like John Vennari (RIP) said "Why not just do it?  What would it hurt?"
Consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (PETITION)
https://lifepetitions.com/petition/consecrate-russia-to-the-immaculate-heart-of-mary-petition

"We would be mistaken to think that Fatima's prophetic mission is complete." Benedict XVI May 13, 2010

"Tell people that God gives graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God has entrusted it to Her." Saint Jacinta Marto

The real nature of hope is "despair, overcome."
Source

PerEvangelicaDicta

Thank you Mikemac.  Another reference for La Salette.  I've been moved to pursue this for a few years.
And thanks Michael Wilson for your information.  I'm off to read/explore.   :)
They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled
Psalms 36:19

Michael Wilson

A.C. Stated:
QuoteIsn't this exactly what you would expect from an Angelus Press review though?

Do you have any references for the two articles that Fr Dhanis wrote in 1944, outlining his
Fatima I/ Fatima II thesis?  Then we could actually read what he wrote.

This would be more imformative than yet another bitter condemnation of the man and his arguments.
I've never read the above articles so I cannot comment; but Fr. Alonso CMF a renowned Fatima expert appointed by the bishop of Fatima to be the postulator of the cause of Francisco and Jacinta did read them and his opinion was negative on them. 
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

Larry

Fr. Stanley Jaki, S.J , has a very intriguing and scientifically sound theory on the Miracle of the Sun.


http://www.catholicstand.com/fr-stanley-jaki-on-the-fatima-miracle/
"At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love."-St. John of the Cross

mikemac

Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 21, 2017, 06:20:23 PM
Thank you Mikemac.  Another reference for La Salette.  I've been moved to pursue this for a few years.
And thanks Michael Wilson for your information.  I'm off to read/explore.   :)

Your welcome PerEvangelicaDicta.  I did have some difficulty finding the page on La Salette on that site when I tried to find it again.  I couldn't even find it with their site map, I had to go back to get the link from the other Trad forum.  So here is the link to the La Salette page so you don't have to go searching for it.
http://crc-internet.org/our-doctrine/catholic-counter-reformation/secret-la-salette/apparition-of-la-salette/

I am not trying to confuse this discussion with more apparitions.  God forbid.  :)  Just giving the link to PerEvangelicaDicta.   
Like John Vennari (RIP) said "Why not just do it?  What would it hurt?"
Consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (PETITION)
https://lifepetitions.com/petition/consecrate-russia-to-the-immaculate-heart-of-mary-petition

"We would be mistaken to think that Fatima's prophetic mission is complete." Benedict XVI May 13, 2010

"Tell people that God gives graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God has entrusted it to Her." Saint Jacinta Marto

The real nature of hope is "despair, overcome."
Source

PerEvangelicaDicta

#264
QuoteDo you have any references for the two articles that Fr Dhanis wrote in 1944, outlining his
Fatima I/ Fatima II thesis?  Then we could actually read what he wrote.

AC, the answer to your question is here:
https://kevinsymonds.com/2016/10/08/barreto-dhanis-article/

Quote
Dhanis and Fátima: A Scholar's Perspective

Earlier this year I came across an interesting article written by Dr. José Barreto of the University of Lisbon on Fátima and Fr. Edouard Dhanis. Written in Portuguese, a friend of mine translated it into English for me. Unfortunately, I was not able to spend as much time going through it as I would have liked to do.

While in Fátima last month, Dr. Barreto's article came up during a conversation. I renewed my interest in the article and contacted Dr. Barreto to request permission to publish the translation. He has graciously consented to do so. I provide it below for your reading pleasure.

The topic of Fr. Dhanis and Fátima is a very volatile one in certain circles of Catholics. Dhanis is famous for being the founding father of a critical school of thought on Fátima. He also famously made a distinction between the "old" history of Fátima with a "new" history that was based upon the later writings of Sr. Lúcia's Memoirs.

No statement is herein made on the person or work of Fr. Edouard Dhanis. All that is being provided is Dr. Barreto's discussion of the events 50 or so years after the fact. If someone happens to notice any issue(s) with translation, please contact me.
-Kevin J. Symonds

Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon
José Barreto

Edouard Dhanis, Fátima and World War II

It may have gone unnoticed to most readers of the "Theological Commentary" of Cardinal Ratzinger, published at the time of revelation of the "third secret" of Fátima, the name which the author mentions there of the theologian Edouard Dhanis, praised by the current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as an "eminent scholar" on matters relating to apparitions and divine revelations to seers.[ii] For reasons I explain below, this mention is, in fact, something very significant and unprecedented. Moreover, Dhanis is the only theological authority cited in the text of Ratzinger, if we discount the eighteenth century Pope Benedict XIV and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, current Vatican Secretary of State.

The reference to Dhanis did not escape, however, the attention – and disapproval – of certain sectors of Catholic traditionalists and integralists, who hold a long and open polemic that is increasingly acute with the Vatican, even around the interpretation of the Fátima Message. These ultra-conservative currents, of a school of thought close to that of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (d. 1991), remain very active in America and Europe around, for example, the Fatima Crusader magazine, founded by Canadian Father Nicholas Gruner, and the Contre Réforme Catholique movement, directed by French priest Georges de Nantes. Such movements have developed great efforts to impose a particular interpretation of the Fátima message, particularly with an anti-ecumenical and anti-Vatican II sense. In that attempt to appropriate Fátima for the doctrinal purposes of their movements, the traditionalists do not tire of denouncing the critical work of the theologian Dhanis, who died a quarter century ago. They even accuse his writings of a harmfulness greater than the attacks on Fátima by atheist and anticlerical authors[iii] – despite Dhanis's having always been a theological authority recognized by the Church, with a reputation of being moderate, unlike the other theologians considered controversial. The praise for Dhanis in that "Theological Commentary" of 2000 provoked strong reactions in the traditionalist international media, who came to make insinuations of various kinds on the position of Cardinal Ratzinger regarding Fátima.[iv]

But who is Dhanis, anyway? The Belgian Jesuit theologian Edouard Dhanis (1902-1978) was a professor at Louvain, rector of the Gregorian University, a Holy Office consultant, Special Secretary of the Synod of Bishops and a member until his death of the International Theological Commission, presided over by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger. Father Dhanis has been for a long time rightly regarded as the founder of the Catholic critical interpretation of Fátima. It was his writings on the subject, published since 1944 by Belgian Flemish or French Catholic magazines, which opened up the international theological debate about Fátima.[v] Without ever putting into question the overall value of the apparitions or the good faith of the seers, Dhanis pointed out "shadows," "trouble," "difficulties and "doubts" that the reading of the new version of Fátima had caused him, in contrast to the old version. By new version Dhanis understands the version of Fátima such as it was written, since the end of the 30s, by authors who were taking notice of the said "Memoirs" written by the seer Lúcia since 1936, while the old version was, for him, that which was described in the previously elaborated histories, therefore without knowledge of the said "Memoirs" of the seer.[vi] This Fatimological dichotomy, which Dhanis was the first to point out, was later popularized in the abundant literature both of apologetical as well as a critical nature, under the names of Fátima I (old version) and Fátima II (new version).

This is not the place to try to explain, even summarily, the set of critical observations of Dhanis, especially developed in his original text of 1944-45, published in Flemish, strangely still inaccessible to most potential readers, never having been published in translation. Thus, of his thesis there are only known today summaries and excerpts in several languages, released mainly by its critics. According to what was rumored among the Belgian Jesuits, Dhanis would have written and published the article in Flemish "pour éviter de trop bruyantes reactions [to evade too noisy reactions]."[vii] What followed, however, was that his text will not be wider and more faithfully known, without avoiding, until now, those "too noisy reactions."

The Brotéria magazine collected in 1951-1953 in its pages multiple replies to the writings of Dhanis written by Portuguese Jesuits[viii], thus making known to the Portuguese public several important aspects of the debate elapsed in those postwar years in Catholic circles on the Message of Fátima. The ranks of the critical theology of apparitions and of Fátima in particular had however expanded with names such as the Spanish Carlos María Staehlin, the Swiss Otto Karrer, the German Karl Rahner (all Jesuits) or the Swiss Charles Journet, future theologian of the Council and Cardinal.[ix] Both the writings of Dhanis as well as of theologians that followed in the same critical line were never published in Portugal, thus leaving the public to know them through Brotéria, only selected excerpts that their Portuguese opponents cited, within the framework of their commentaries.

In the 60s, other outstanding Fatimologists have continued, particularly in the pages of Brotéria, an effort to refute the critical theology of Fátima, continuing, however, the situation in Portugal of translations not being published of these critical writings.


  • The allusion to Dhanis and his work by Cardinal Ratzinger in the recent document cited above can obviously not be considered casual or meaningless – in this the traditionalists and integralists are right. It contains, on the contrary, a public recognition – and, from the Roman Curia, unprecedented ­– of the value of the writing and the critical work of the Belgian theologian.[xi] With his being considered in any way, we repeat, an author marginal or unauthorized by the Church, Dhanis was much attacked and contested (and yet contemporaneously, as we have seen) by numerous Portuguese and foreign authors. He defended himself against these attacks alone, although certainly with the approval of his superiors to do so. Contemporary Vatican reactions are not known, neither favorable nor unfavorable, to his critical comments on the story of Fátima. We do not know in particular whether Pius XII, the Pope of Fatima, took note of Dhanis's work and, if so, which we found very probable, what he would have thought about it. It is known only that Pius XII declared on May 8, 1950 that "the time for doubting Fátima has passed,"[xii] which still does not prove that the Pope was referring specifically to Dhanis. It is from this silence that the laconic but significant mention by Ratzinger removes Dhanis, finally breaking the silence of the Vatican about him.

    It is not possible to understand the intervention of the Belgian Dhanis with regard to the message of Fátima, in 1944, outside the context of the war in progress and, in particular, without taking into account the different assessment that the various Catholic national communities (and, within these, the various Catholic political schools of thought) made of the role played in the war by the Soviet Union, integrated since 1941 into the Allied fight against Hitler's Germany and the other Axis countries. Indeed, Edouard Dhanis lived in Belgium under German occupation and it was there that in late 1944, at the time of liberation of much of the country by the Allied troops, published in the Catholic cultural magazine Streven, of Antwerp, his first written critical study about Fátima. Before writing, he had had the opportunity to consult not only the text of the first two parts of the "secret" of Lúcia, as it was originally released in Rome in the spring of 1942, but also the Portuguese version, published in Fátima in October of the same year, a faithful transcription of the manuscript of Lúcia.

    Here we need to make a parenthetical remark, before we return to the point we want to highlight in the work of Dhanis relating to World War II.  An interesting article, apparently little known in Portugal, of the American Jesuit historian Robert Graham, reports the impact that disclosure of the "secret" had in Europe at the time and in particular in Catholic circles within several countries.[xiii] The reference to conversion of Russia in the "secret" of Fátima was in fact the subject of different interpretations, especially after the radio message of Pius XII to Portuguese Catholics, on October 31, 1942, in which the Pope again took up this theme.[xiv] These divergent interpretations were understandable, especially if we consider the different attitudes that both the authorities and the Catholics of the belligerent countries, including those occupied by the Axis forces, became obvious in relation to the alleged "anti-Bolshevik crusade" that invading forces of the Germans, Italians, etc. then proclaimed they were carrying out in Russia. For example, Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop of Westminster, as well as Catholics of the French Resistance, the Catholics of the United States and, in general, the supporters of the Allies in this regard, held, according to Robert Graham, ideas different from and sometimes diametrically opposed to those of certain German, Italian or Spanish bishops. The theme of "conversion of Russia" associated with the achievement of peace, appearing in the "secret" of Lúcia and reappearning in Pius XII's broadcast speech was freely interpreted by the Archbishop of Westminster as a reference of the Pope to the "heroic defense by the Russian people of their homeland" against the invading forces. But Cardinal Schuster, Archbishop of Milan, on the other hand, understood that the prospect of the "conversion of Russia" in no way contradicted but joined with "the desires of our good soldiers [Italian]" on the Eastern front, clarifying with these words: "... this would be the most beautiful and complete victory of Roman Catholicism over Bolshevism."[xv]

    Robert Graham also relates the attempts made by the Nazis in 1942 to exploit, in favor of their supposed anti-Bolshevik "crusade" (or holy war), any anti-Russian dimension of the second "secret" of Fátima. The maneuver of the Nazi propaganda had not been successful, argues Graham, largely because the text of the "secret" published under the auspices of the Vatican had previously been subject to manipulation that eliminated two of the existing references to Russia in the original. For example, in the text as it was written by Lúcia in August 1941, Russia was explicitly presented as a promoter of wars (and, implicitly, of the ongoing European war), the persecutor of Christians and of the Pope and potentially causing the annihilation of "various nations."[xvi] In the text of the "secret" officially released in 1942 in two books published by the Vatican publishing houses[xvii], they took out such a direct accusation against Russia, replacing in this case the reference to that country with the expression "an impious propaganda"[xviii] a much more vague concept, eventually able to encompass under the same label both the Communists and the "neo-pagan" Nazis.[xix] On the other hand, the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart – a condition that the Virgin would have indicated to Lúcia in order to obtain the conversion of that country and peace – appears in the Italian editions of "secret" as consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart.[xx] Robert Graham maintains that the "manipulated and censored version" (sic) of the secret of Fátima published under the auspices of the Vatican in the spring of 1942 was "amputated of everything that could be used by the Nazis."[xxi]

    The authorship of the cuts and alterations to the "secret" from the message of the Virgin was never clarified by Rome, but was claimed or assumed by the author of one of two such books, the Portuguese Jesuit Luis Gonzaga da Fonseca, who said he acted in prior agreement with the Portuguese ambassador to the Vatican, Carneiro Pacheco. He also said he had received approval from the Pope himself.[xxii] By way of justification, Luis Gonzaga da Fonseca referred to the intention of avoiding criticism from the belligerents against the Holy See "in the most bitter period of global conflict."

    Robert Graham says that it was precisely Edouard Dhanis who first publicly noted the significant discrepancies between the published texts of the "secret" after comparing one of the versions edited in Italy with the Portuguese text – published in Fátima, as we have seen, months after the Italian editions. It was this English version that the Belgian theologian pointed out in 1944 as the original, coming from the handwriting of the seer.

    Furthermore, Dhanis also argues in his article at the end of 1944 – with World War II still in progress, but already close to its end and the final defeat of Hitler – that the attributing in the original text of Lúcia of the responsibilities for the war to Russia did not correspond to the historical reality. In fact, not only was Nazi Germany the trigger, with the invasion of Poland, of the world conflict, but it was the same Germany which, tearing up its non-aggression pact, invaded Russia, and not the opposite. Now the text of the "secret" as coming from the hand of Lúcia in 1941 would have lent itself to be exploited by the German war propaganda, vis-à-vis the Allied powers and the Catholic world, in support of the alleged "anti-Bolshevik crusade" in Russia. So argues Robert Graham in the article cited above, which states that German propaganda was deprived by the censorial gesture Vatican of a "very useful argument" for this purpose. The Allied powers, insensitive to the argument that the main threat came from Russia and not from Germany, never accepted even tacitly the idea of Hitler's alleged anti-communist crusade. The eventual publication by the Vatican in 1942, of the "Secret" of Fátima in the early version of Lúcia would certainly have been poorly received by those powers – not to mention the effect that such an act of the Holy See could have had on the mass of Catholics around the world who identified with the Allied camp. Note that with the end of World War II and the early Cold War, the early version of the "secret" of Lúcia obviously ceased to be an obstacle to the Western powers. Indeed, once the obstacle disappeared, censorship of the "secret" was lifted beginning in 1945.

    Dhanis, in 1944, even advanced an explanation for the lack of historical truth in the original text of the "second secret" as the seer had written it. He says: "We are led to believe that, over the years, certain external events and certain spiritual experiences of Lúcia were enriching the original content of the secret."[xxiii] And he further clarifies: "The insufficiently objective way in which the provocation of the [World] War is described in the secret [of Fátima] can only be explained by the influence the Spanish Civil War had on the thinking of Lucia."[xxiv]

    Dhanis alludes here to the long 21 years of the sojourn of the Portuguese seer in the convents of Pontevedra and Tuy in Galicia, between 1925 and 1946. Lúcia lived there relatively close to the Spanish Civil War, despite the circumstances of the cloister and the fact that Franco's alzamiento of 1936 had triumphed early in Galicia. Just before the Civil War, still living under the Second Spanish Republic, the seer had come to face the possibility of exile in Switzerland, fearing the closing of the convent in which she lived.[xxv] As is known, since May 1931, after the proclamation of the Republic, there had been in several regions of Spain (but not in Galicia) a first wave of street anti-clerical violence, with the burning and looting of numerous convents and churches.

    The year Dhanis published the theological critique of the self-styled new story of Fátima is, remember, the year in which Lúcia – obeying an order accordingly given in 1943 by the Bishop of Leiria – drafted the previously announced third and final part of "secret" of Fátima, which was dated January 3, 1944. It not being demanded by the Vatican that it be sent there, the third part would stay in Portugal until 1957, in the custody of the Bishop of Leiria, who then sent it to Rome. It was only publicly revealed, however, May-June 2000 by a decision of Pope John Paul II. The Popes who preceded him (John XXIII and Paul VI, at least) had not found its publication to be opportune after1960, the deadline set by Lúcia to maintain secrecy. Without wishing to speculate, for lack of concrete evidence, on the possible reactions and repercussions that the critical intervention Edouard Dhanis triggered at the highest levels of the Catholic Church hierarchy, we will always affirm that this intervention, later backed up and reinforced by other Catholic authors, introduced an important element in the dialectical construction of Fátima's history.

    The theological critique of Dhanis, never questioning the good faith of the seers, raised, among other issues, the problem of "filtering" the person of the seers (with their characteristics, human experiences and limitations) of "private revelations" and messages that the Church admits of supernatural origin. This issue is developed by Ratzinger in his above cited "Theological Commentary," when he speaks of the anthropological structure of apparitions and of the capacity for representation and knowledge on the part of the seers, to conclude that the subject of apparition (the seer) "plays an essential part in the formation of the image of what appears."[xxvi] Elsewhere, Ratzinger said that the third part of the "secret" of Fátima "uses images which Lúcia may have seen in devotional books and which derive from ancient intuitions of faith."[xxvii] One cannot help but see these passages of theological critique from Ratzinger as a link with the laudatory mention that he makes of Dhanis. Also this last passage recalls in 1944, for example, that the vision of hell reported by Lúcia would correspond to an idea strongly seized by the child seers about the horror of sin and eternal damnation and that, little by little, this notion would have evoked a "vision in their imagination."[xxviii] This reference of Ratzinger to Dhanis, we insist, is a form of recognition of the totality of the work of the first Catholic theologian who critically addressed the content of the Fátima message.

    It is true, however, that the cautious "Theological Commentary" of Ratzinger that accompanied the public disclosure of the "third secret" works around a concrete fundamental point made by Dhanis, namely the "enrichment" of the message of 1917 with elements coming from the further experience of the seer, including allusions to Communist Russia – allusions responsible for much of the brilliant international trajectory of the cult of Fátima from the 40s, starting after the war with pilgrimages of the statue of the Virgin across Europe and the world. In this matter, in fact, the official media of the Catholic Church do not seem even today to be willing to make public and explicit concessions to critical theology, not even to its more moderate wing, emblematically represented by Dhanis, who never questioned as a whole the authenticity of the message of Fátima.

    We leave a suggestion at the end of this note: to translate and publish the article of Edouard Dhanis who in 1944 opened the debate on the message of Fátima. Fifty-eight years later – with the Cold War meanwhile reduced to a chapter in the history of the last century – would perhaps be time to release it in its entirety and in an accessible language, in the case of an important work as often cited as it is insufficiently known. Especially as the author is now publicly referred to by the Vatican as an "eminent scholar" in matters relating to apparitions.

    [Revised version of the article published in the magazine Brotéria, vol. 156, No. 1, January 2003, pp. 13-22.]

    Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "Theological Commentary" of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima, Paulinas, Lisbon, 2000, pp. 39-55.

    [ii] Ibid, p. 43.

    [iii] About Dhanis the traditionalist Michel de la Sainte Trinité in Toute la verite sur Fatima (La Contre-Réforme Catholique Saint-Parres-lès-Vaudes, 1984, vol. I) says: "Nevertheless his apparent objectivity and prudent moderation [Dhanis] appear today as the most obstinate and terrible adversary of Fátima."

    [iv] See the interview of Father Nicholas Gruner The Fatima Crusader magazine of June 26, 2000.

    [v] The first of these writings, apparently the most important, is "Bij de verschijningen en de voorzeggingen van Fatima" [About the apparitions and prophecies of Fátima], Streven, XI, 1944, pp. 129-149 and 193-215. First published in two parts, the article was later reprinted in book form under a slightly different title: Bij de verschijningen en het geheim van Fatima. Een critische bijdrage [About the apparitions and the secret of Fátima. A critical contribution] De Kinkhoren, Brugge, 1945 (99 pages).

    [vi] On this topic see the articles Edouard Dhanis in the continuing controversy: "A propos of "Fatima et la critique ", "Nouvelle Revue Théologique, LXXIV, 6 (1952), pp. 580-606 (especially p. 598) and "Sguardo su Fatima e bilancio di una discussione" Civilta Cattolica, CIV, vol. II (1953), pp. 392-406.

    [vii] Testimony given to the author of this article by Father Henri Tihon SJ, the Centre de documentation et de recherche religieuse, in Namur, Belgium.

    [viii] In particular: Luis Gonzaga da Fonseca SJ, "Fátima e a crítica," Brotéria, May 1951, pp. 505-542; Agostinho Veloso SJ, "Ainda algumas confusões e erros sobre Fátima [Some confusion and errors about Fátima]," Brotéria, February 1953, pp. 170-191.

    [ix] Carlos María Staehlin, Apariciones: Ensayo crítico, Razón y Fe, Madrid, 1954 (there is an earlier version, 1949); Otto Karrer, " Privatoffenbarungen und Fátima " [private revelations and Fátima], Schweizer Rundschau, XVLII (1947); Karl Rahner, Visionen und Prophezeiungen [visions and prophecies], Innsbrück, 1952 (2nd ed, 1958, with notes and references to specific cases by Theodor Baumann SJ.); Charles Journet, " Dhanis, les apparitions et le secret de Fatima," Nova et Vetera, 14 (1948).

    • See, Joaquin Maria Alonso, História da Literatura sobre Fátima [History of Literature Fátima, Fátima], 1967 (reprint of Brotéria) and Sebastião Martins dos Reis, Síntese Crítica de Fátima, n.d. [1968?]. By J. M. Alonso, see also the chapter on " Fátima I" and " Fátima II" in Bernard Billet et alia, Vraies et fausses apparitions dans l'Église, Lethielleux, Paris, 1973.

      [xi] The allusion to Dhanis occurs in a specific context. Ratzinger relies on it to assert that the messages of the apparitions which enjoy ecclesiastical approval are not of obligatory acceptance for believers, which are only authorized "to prudently give it acceptance." In the mid-twentieth century, however, this doctrine was not anything new. Formulated in the eighteenth century by Cardinal Lambertini, the future Pope Benedict XIV, it is still of normative value for the Church. Besides Dhanis, many other theologians of the twentieth century could have been cited in this regard by Ratzinger. The praise and the citing of him cannot therefore fail to mean a recognition of the Belgian theologian's work well beyond the specific context of the reference to him.

      [xii] Sebastião Martins dos Reis, Síntese Crítica de Fátima, n.d. [1968?], P. 11. The statement was made by the Pope in audience to the directors of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fátima, an organization founded in 1947 by American priest Harold Colgan.

      [xiii] Robert Graham SJ, " Profezie di guerra. Fatima e la Russia nella propaganda dei belligeranti dopo il 1942," Civilta Cattolica, vol. 132, 1981. Graham was one of the main coordinators of the Actes et Documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, 12 vols., Vatican, 1965-1981.

      [xiv] Radio message of Pius XII to Portuguese Catholics for the 25th anniversary of the apparitions of Fátima, read the 31 October 1942. The allusion to Russia of this radio message will still be repeated by the Pope in St. Peter's, 8 December of the same year, during the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

      [xv] Robert Graham, art. cit., p. 17.

      [xvi] It is the Portuguese disclosure of the text (in Padre Galamba de Oliveira, Jacinta, 3rd edition, Fátima, October 1942) that the "secret" is for the first time fully and faithfully transcribed to the public. Foreign editions of "secret" of Fátima only after the end of the war restored the original text.

      [xvii] Luigi Moresco, La Madonna di Fatima, Rome and Milan, in 1942 (at least three editions in that year alone), with a foreword by the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Schuster, and the imprimatur of the general vicar of the Vatican. At the same time, the text of the "secret" of Fátima appeared also in Luis Gonzaga da Fonseca, Meraviglie di Fátima, 4th edition, Rome, 1942. Even before these editions, the contents of the "secret" were revealed in summary form by Cardinal Schuster (Pastoral of April 18, 1942).

      [xviii] This is the case in the book of L. G. da Fonseca, Meraviglie di Fatima.  Already in the version of "secret" given in the book of L. Moresco, La Madonna di Fatima, the subject of the sentence (Russia) was replaced by an indefinite pronoun: "... Great errors will be spread in the world, provoking wars and persecutions of the Church ...", etc..

      [xix] The term "neo-paganism" was often used by the Church to refer to anti-Christian positions of the Nazis.  According to an interpretation popular today, the secret of Fátima not only referred to the Communist threat, but the totalitarian threat in general. Never was this, however, the opinion of Lúcia. In a letter to the Pope dated 12 May 1982 Lúcia said that the third part of the "secret" was directly related to the prophecy of the second part where it says that Russia "will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church" (The Message of Fatima, Pauline, Lisbon, 2000, pp. 24:52). In April 2000, Lúcia "reaffirmed" to the Bishop of Leiria and the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, that "the vision of Fatima concerns above all the struggle of atheistic Communism against the Church and Christians" (ibid, p. 34).

      [xx] The same alteration appears in the pastoral of Cardinal Schuster of April 18, 1942, in which the summarized content of the "secret" is for the first time revealed to the world (R. Graham, "Profezie di guerra ...", cit., P. 16 ).

      [xxi] "Profezie di guerra ...", cit., P. 23. See also, on this topic, José Barreto, Religião e sociedade, Dois Ensaios, ICS, Lisbon, 2002, part 1, chapter "Os inícios da crítica católica de Fátima [The beginnings of the Catholic Criticism of Fátima]."

      [xxii] "Fátima e a crítica [Fátima and criticism]", cit, p. 528.

      [xxiii] "Bij de verschijningen ...", cit., Steven, XI, 1944, p. 201.

      [xxiv] Ibid, p. 203.

      [xxv] Antonio Maria Martins SJ, Cartas da Irmã Lúcia, 2nd ed., Liv. Apostolado da Imprensa, Porto, 1979, p. 45-46. The return of Lúcia to Portugal, desired by her, would be stopped by a decision from a superior (which Lúcia calls in the same letter, a "sentence").

      [xxvi] Cardeal J. Ratzinger, "Comentário teológico", cit., pp. 45-47.

      [xxvii] Idem, p. 53.

      [xxviii] "Bij de verschijningen...", cit., Streven, XI, 1944, p. 197.
They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled
Psalms 36:19

PerEvangelicaDicta

Quote from: mikemac on June 21, 2017, 09:31:28 PM
Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 21, 2017, 06:20:23 PM
Thank you Mikemac.  Another reference for La Salette.  I've been moved to pursue this for a few years.
And thanks Michael Wilson for your information.  I'm off to read/explore.   :)

Your welcome PerEvangelicaDicta.  I did have some difficulty finding the page on La Salette on that site when I tried to find it again.  I couldn't even find it with their site map, I had to go back to get the link from the other Trad forum.  So here is the link to the La Salette page so you don't have to go searching for it.
http://crc-internet.org/our-doctrine/catholic-counter-reformation/secret-la-salette/apparition-of-la-salette/

I am not trying to confuse this discussion with more apparitions.  God forbid.  :)  Just giving the link to PerEvangelicaDicta.   

You saved me a lot of time and trouble, Mikemac.  Here's a hug and Hail Mary  :)
They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall be filled
Psalms 36:19

mikemac

#266
Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 21, 2017, 09:34:09 PM
QuoteDo you have any references for the two articles that Fr Dhanis wrote in 1944, outlining his
Fatima I/ Fatima II thesis?  Then we could actually read what he wrote.

AC, the answer to your question is here:
https://kevinsymonds.com/2016/10/08/barreto-dhanis-article/

Quote...
It is true, however, that the cautious "Theological Commentary" of Ratzinger that accompanied the public disclosure of the "third secret" works around a concrete fundamental point made by Dhanis, namely the "enrichment" of the message of 1917 with elements coming from the further experience of the seer, including allusions to Communist Russia – allusions responsible for much of the brilliant international trajectory of the cult of Fátima from the 40s, starting after the war with pilgrimages of the statue of the Virgin across Europe and the world. In this matter, in fact, the official media of the Catholic Church do not seem even today to be willing to make public and explicit concessions to critical theology, not even to its more moderate wing, emblematically represented by Dhanis, who never questioned as a whole the authenticity of the message of Fátima.
...

The end of that paragraph is rather interesting.

So they didn't even mention Russia in the Fatima story until after WWII so as not to encourage the Italians and Germans, and because Russia was an ally.  Never heard that before either.
Like John Vennari (RIP) said "Why not just do it?  What would it hurt?"
Consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (PETITION)
https://lifepetitions.com/petition/consecrate-russia-to-the-immaculate-heart-of-mary-petition

"We would be mistaken to think that Fatima's prophetic mission is complete." Benedict XVI May 13, 2010

"Tell people that God gives graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Tell them also to pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for peace, since God has entrusted it to Her." Saint Jacinta Marto

The real nature of hope is "despair, overcome."
Source

awkwardcustomer

Quote from: PerEvangelicaDicta on June 21, 2017, 09:34:09 PM
QuoteDo you have any references for the two articles that Fr Dhanis wrote in 1944, outlining his
Fatima I/ Fatima II thesis?  Then we could actually read what he wrote.

AC, the answer to your question is here:
https://kevinsymonds.com/2016/10/08/barreto-dhanis-article/

Thank you PED. I found this last night and was about to post it myself. Fr Dhanis was certainly right about the "noise" that his views would create, which is why he published the first 1944 article in Flemish, according to the article.

Michael Wilson, it seems that the original articles by Fr Dhanis either aren't available or haven't been translated from Flemish. Kevin Symmonds is calling for translations to be made available.
And formerly the heretics were manifest; but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise.  
St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15, para 9.

And what rough beast, it's hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
WB Yeats, 'The Second Coming'.

spasiisochrani

There is no evidence that Fr. Dhanis was a "modernist", and he was, in fact, a staunch defender of the physical resurrection of Our Lord against the "He is risen in our hearts but His body remained dead" crowd of the 1970s.  His only involvement with the Dutch Catechism was that, on behalf of the commission of cardinals appointed to examine it, he co-authored a "supplement" designed to resolve its ambiguities in an orthodox direction.

jmjZelie

Quote from: Larry on June 21, 2017, 08:27:36 PM
Fr. Stanley Jaki, S.J , has a very intriguing and scientifically sound theory on the Miracle of the Sun.


http://www.catholicstand.com/fr-stanley-jaki-on-the-fatima-miracle/

THIS is what I was looking for!!!

Thank you!
Swam the Tiber 2010
Discovered traditional Catholicism 2014
Please forgive my ignorance or apparent impertinence.