Fatima's Portugal Problem

[james03]

First a recap: On another thread, Greg accused me of being inconsistent on Fatima.  Turns out I've been very consistent on it.  I went back and checked my posts and found an interesting post from long ago which sheds light on the Portugal problem, a problem I've acknowledged for a long time.  However I point out that there is a dilemma for both sides of the issue, because those who don't believe Fatima, which is their right as a Catholic, have a whole lot to sweep under the rug.  My position is that I can more easily explain the Portugal problem, than trying to credit everything right about Fatima as coincidence and luck.  For a summary of both sides of the arguments, see here:  https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=17989.msg400249#msg400249

My answer to the Portugal problem has been that adding "until" or "unless" fixes the problem, while admitting "always" makes this weak, usually followed by me saying I respect those who don't accept this explanation.  But then you have to answer for all of the problems in support of Fatima.  This post from February sums it up:  https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=25121.msg524648#msg524648 

That's been my position, until now.  It still might be correct, but I rediscovered evidence in support of a better explanation.  (cont'd).

[james03]

First, we have to fully state the Portugal problem.  It is something like this, which I've delineated with a quote box:

Fatima gives us this prophesy: "In Portugal, the Faith will always be preserved...."  This has failed as Portugal is just like every other European country, in fact, being one of the first with fag marriage, so this is a clear failure.  If you counter that there are still pockets of the Faith, then this is wasted ink, because that is true in most countries.  So Fatima is false.

Note the embedded assumption.  That this is a prophesy.  That's a critical assumption.  My view is that it was a reassurance to Lucy.  Why concentrate on Portugal?, because that is where Lucy is from.  And here is what I rediscovered, the last apparition of "Fatima":

'You console Me a great deal in asking Me for the conversion of those poor nations: Request it also of My Mother, while saying to Her often: Sweet Heart of Mary, be the salvation of Russia, Spain, Portugal, Europe and the whole world.

    'At other times say: By Thy Pure and Immaculate Conception, O Mary, obtain for me the conversion of Russia, Spain, Portugal, Europe and the whole world.

    'Make it known to My ministers, given that they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, they will follow him into misfortune. It is never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.'
        In another text she wrote,
    Later, through an intimate communication, Our Lord complained to me: 'They did not wish to heed My request! ... Like the King of France they will repent of it, and they will do it, but it will be late. Russia will have already spread its errors in the world, provoking wars and persecutions against the Church. The Holy Father will have much to suffer.'

The conversion of Portugal?  What?  So I reject the assumption that "In Portugal, the Faith will always be preserved..." was a prophesy.  The "..." means that this simple objection to Fatima is weak because we are missing most of what was said. 

The Faith being preserved refers to a group of people in Portugal preserving the Faith, and Portugal was singled out likely in response to a question from Lucy after hearing about The Great Apostasy and The Wicked Council.  "Even Portugal?"  "What will happen to Portugal?".

This is my current position, though the previous one might still be correct.

[TheReturnofLive]

I'm not a formal Catholic at this juncture of my life, so take my words lightly; however, I came to this conclusion:

I think it should be said that the Fatima secrets were never known by anyone outside of, supposedly, Sister Lucia herself until the reign of Pope Pius XII.

Malachi Martin stated that in Rome, there is a culture present where they never acknowledge their mistakes, they just try to live with them. In my opinion, there may be a reason why Sister Lucia was only given the title "Servant of God" while the other two children are canonized Saints.

[MaximGun]

So it is not a prophesy unless it is provisional and comes good with a outcome you like?  As you have stated before the word always is then an misleading addition.  There's simply no way of prooving that it would have always been preserved.

Currently as far as our 5 senses tell us the faith in Portugal is about a kaput as it is possible to be.  They are one of the worst examples in former Catholic Europe.

Are we dealing with God here or Gollum posing riddles? ?

What kind of divine message leaves out a critical piece of information which totally misleads the honest recipient of the message?

Such a message would be deception.  And we could never judge any prophetic statement or commercial contract or marriage vow if we allow for a speculative etc, unless, until.

If you pick and choose what is prophetic after the fact then even the Jehovah"s Witnesses have a 100 percent track record.

[Xavier]

Nice thread, James. It could be that the dogma of the Faith will be preserved in Portugal ONCE the Age of Mary begins. That is, in the future. Or it may just mean that the Angelic Pastor, the future prophesied holy Pope, is from Portugal. The Faith is preserved in the man who would become Holy Father. It is not even part of the main message. Greg errs here because he doesn't recognize that Communist errors were spread throughout the world on orders from the Kremlin (as Bella Dodd, Manning Johnson etc testified) during that time when Russia was Communist. Today, after the 1984 partial Consecration, Russia has partially returned to its historic Christian Faith.

It can still go both ways. Either Russia is still used as the instrument of chastisement, if enough prayer are not said and sacrifices not made; or, if we avoid it, Russia can be instrumental in the conversion of the world. This is what the Fatima message has promised.

Fatima is one of the reasons non-Catholics have become Catholics: "Non-Catholics, including Non-Catholic Christians, have become Catholic Christians thanks to Our Lady of Fatima's Public Miracle of the Sun. 70,000 astonished eyewitnesses saw the Sun move and their clothes dry. Even the secular press reported it. These astonishing miracles do not happen outside the Catholic Faith. They are manifest evidence of a Supernatural Power. Fatima has been called the "Greatest Public Miracle since the Resurrection of Jesus". It is a Great Grace God gave us!

To doubters and sceptics who try to explain away Fatima, a former Russian Orthodox Christian puts it like this: "The thing that initially triggered my move towards Catholicism is Our Lady of Fatima. One of my friends was telling me about the fruits Fatima had on her own life. She read what the Theotokos had said to the children about modesty, and it caused her to become more modest in her dress. She also told me about how her priest had visited Fatima and when he came back, he preached a fiery sermon about the reality of hell. I had been told by my fellow Orthodox Christians that Fatima was at best a hoax and at worst demonic, so I decided to investigate Fatima for myself.

The view that Fatima is simply a hoax cannot be the case. It has a miracle connected with it that was witnessed by thousands of people, many of whom were atheists who came to the event specifically to refute what the children were saying. Skeptics have argued that it was simply a mass hallucination, but Christians should be skeptical of this argument. Skeptics of the resurrection of Jesus often respond to the fact that there were 500 witnesses by pointing to Fatima. If Fatima was a mass hallucination, so could the resurrection of Jesus have been. No other mass hallucination has ever been recorded though. In reality, Fatima was actually the most seen public miracle since the time of the exodus about 3500 years ago." Fatima is God's Mercy revealed to a hurting fallen world.

Every day, as we pray Our Lady's Rosary, we should thank God for the Grace of having been born Catholics, or having become such later on. Our Catholic Faith is the most Priceless Grace of our life!" https://clarifyingcatholicism.org/2019/08/30/why-i-converted-from-orthodoxy/

1000s of people have become Catholics, and millions of Catholic have been edified and grown stronger in their Faith, thanks to Fatima.

[MaximGun]

99% of people, including Catholics, are walking around with completely useless masks on.  We are living through a time which shows us how easily people are fooled in a crowd when they see other people behaving that way.

Some people at the miracle of the Sun saw nothing at all.

Those who wrote the narrative controlled what witness statements were published about it.  One thing is sure, the Sun did not actually move, nor did the earth or it would have been recorded all over the hemisphere. It was at most a vision imparted in people's minds.   But that is difficult to distingush from auto suggestion, trust in government, lockdown and vaccines.  We have all witnessed mass mania panic and crowd psychology over a "pandemic" virus which most people have to be tested for to even know they had.

Many people are stupid and weak and won't go against the crowd.  Those who do either become leaders or are vilified.

[MaximGun]

James,

Fr. Gruner and Fr. Kramer both though Portugal would preserve something, which you admit has not been preserved.

https://fatima.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Crutial-Truths-to-Save-Your-Soul.pdf

If we have to keep revising prophecy to adjust to facts opposing the previous commonly held interpretation then it is completely useless.

[MaximGun]

These astonishing miracles do not happen outside the Catholic Faith.

Yes they do.  They happen every Orthodox Easter with the Holy Fire.  Those people are equally convinced of a miracle because they are shoulder to shoulder with other people who believe in the Holy Fire.

[Insanis]

There is no need to analyze this: it was spoken to a child and simply states that there will always be faith in that country.

Why analyze it to death?

If God would spare Sodom for the sake of a few just men, why not just accept that at least one faithful person will always be in Portugal?

Also, this statement has no real value to us. The message at Fatima for us is not about politics and other people's faith. It is about our own conduct and our own sins in this world.

Fixating on perceived prophecies and trying to interpret them and see if they are true or false according our understanding when it was never the point is a distraction.

[MaximGun]

Bella Dodd stuff is hearsay.  A Trad myth.  See below


https://kevinsymonds.com/2021/01/13/dodd-infiltration-priesthood/

1100 men personally overseen by her?

Logistics say this is nonsense.  A hardworking recruitment consultant would struggle to place that many people in jobs over a 10 year period.  1 in 1100 priests would make a deathbed confession and name Dodd as the recruiter and other infiltrators.

If she had claimed she recruited young sodomites to become Catholic priests then I would simply ask who her 5679 accomplices were.   But I think the sods in the seminaries did that so they had people to sodomize.  An obvious motive.

[diaduit]

There is no need to analyze this: it was spoken to a child and simply states that there will always be faith in that country.

Why analyze it to death?

If God would spare Sodom for the sake of a few just men, why not just accept that at least one faithful person will always be in Portugal?

Also, this statement has no real value to us. The message at Fatima for us is not about politics and other people's faith. It is about our own conduct and our own sins in this world.

Fixating on perceived prophecies and trying to interpret them and see if they are true or false according our understanding when it was never the point is a distraction.

I was just going to say something similar.  A very holy priest I know whom I believe one day will have books written about him said at a Marian retreat I attended said that one holy man can preserve the faith of a nation and change the people in it.  While yes Portugal is certainly atheist no more than my own, Gods power is infinite and how much more glorious it will be when He converts these countries.

[diaduit]

Bella Dodd stuff is hearsay.  A Trad myth.  See below


https://kevinsymonds.com/2021/01/13/dodd-infiltration-priesthood/

1100 men personally overseen by her?

Logistics say this is nonsense.  A hardworking recruitment consultant would struggle to place that many people in jobs over a 10 year period.  1 in 1100 priests would make a deathbed confession and name Dodd as the recruiter and other infiltrators.

If she had claimed she recruited young sodomites to become Catholic priests then I would simply ask who her 5679 accomplices were.   But I think the sods in the seminaries did that so they had people to sodomize.  An obvious motive.

She was the organ grinder, not the monkey....she got antifa socialist nitwits to do that.

[MaximGun]

How do you recruit 1100 men to dedicate their lives to be infiltrators?  Do any change their minds or decide to leave and write a book and name names?  That book would sell and make you a millionaire. Do any repent?  Any of 1100 people.

It is nonsense.  And there is zero evidence for it. She did not make the claim at the congressional hearings (look up the congressional record) .  She made it 10 years after that in a talk she gave.   And she named no names even then.

[Vetus Ordo]

"Em Portugal se conservará sempre o dogma da fé, etc."

In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc. We don't have access to the rest of the phrase, so it's impossible to tell. It seems clear, though, that there's a heavenly assurance that the faith will remain in the Land of Mary forever, even if it's reduced to a mustard seed. Although the modern Portuguese state is secular and there are many shortcomings in the practice of Catholicism everywhere in the country, there still remains a devout Catholic heart beating in the culture and the longings of its people. By God's grace and the protection of His Mother, it will never disappear.

[Prayerful]

"Em Portugal se conservará sempre o dogma da fé, etc."

In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc. We don't have access to the rest of the phrase, so it's impossible to tell. It seems clear, though, that there's a heavenly assurance that the faith will remain in the Land of Mary forever, even if it's reduced to a mustard seed. Although the modern Portuguese state is secular and there are many shortcomings in the practice of Catholicism everywhere in the country, there still remains a devout Catholic heart beating in the culture and the longings of its people. By God's grace and the protection of His Mother, it will never disappear.

One fifth of Catholics practice. And that is overwhelmingly Conciliar. Even Ireland has one third to forty per cent, and a moderate portion is traditional what with twenty regular Mass venues in a small country. The thing about judging the phrase is that it is a fragment. It is a bit silly to damn Fatima over a sentence fragment.