June 26, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – LifeSite readers, no doubt, have followed the Rome Life Forum, which this year was hosted online due to the multifaceted crisis we have been experiencing for the past few months. Voice of the Family’s annual Forum is usually held at the Angelicum in Rome, but – perhaps providentially – current circumstances led us to transfer the Forum online. This made it possible to share it with a vastly greater audience of 53,000 worldwide. Starting today, the summer issue of Calx Mariae (Heel of Mary), Voice of the Family’s quarterly magazine that covers the Forum fully, is also available. If you would like to have the talks of the Forum in print and much more, click here to order a copy or to subscribe.
This is a special edition of Calx Mariae, because of its length and the circumstances in which it has been produced. For the past few months, our temporal and spiritual life has been altered as never before. Many questions arising from the current crisis were addressed at our online Forum on the theme “Coronavirus in the light of Fatima: a tragedy and a source of hope.” Are we experiencing the aftermath of leaving Our Lady’s call made in Fatima unanswered? Do her requests still stand today? Is this a chastisement? What can we do to remedy the situation?
You will find the talks of Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Fr. Serafino Lanzetta, Fr. Linus Clovis, Professor Roberto de Mattei, and John-Henry Westen in this issue, as well as analysis and features produced exclusively for Calx Mariae. These are most helpful insights in moving forward from the current crisis as we continue to spread the truth of our faith, particularly in the areas of life and the family. These are the truths that transcend geographical and national borders even at a time of lockdown, always uniting us in prayer and action for the temporal and spiritual health of our families, our nations and our beloved Church.
In Fatima, on the eve of the Communist Revolution, Our Lady predicted that the errors of Russia would spread throughout the world, causing great suffering, unless Russia was consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart. The evil of atheistic communism, which first seized power in Russia, still spreads today, not least through the influence of the government of China. This ideological virus, of which COVID-19 could act as a symbolic reminder, has truly infected our society. Abortion, first legalised in communist Russia, is now promoted by the United Nations as “essential health care.” The strategic goals of communism also include breaking down all standards of morality by promoting pornography; presenting homosexuality as “normal, natural, healthy”; replacing revealed religion with “social” religion; discrediting the family; encouraging promiscuity and divorce, and “liberating” children from the “negative and suppressive influence of parents.”
Our Lady also told little Jacinta that more sinners go to hell because of sins of impurity than for any other reason. Today many of these sins are state policy of the most powerful nations. Abortion and so-called same-sex marriage – two of the four sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance – are enshrined in national constitutions of formerly Christian nations. And throughout the world, countless children are being corrupted by school sex education, often with the endorsement of Catholic bishops. And, we might ask, how many of the sacrilegious and irreverent Masses, which Catholics today accept, despite their countless acts of desecration of the body of Christ through the universal practice of Communion in the hand, are really an affront to God that surpasses even the atrocities just mentioned?
What would Our Lady say today? We don’t know that. But we do know what she said in Fatima and that her simple instructions have not been followed – at least not as a society and not with the devotion that corresponds to the seriousness of the offences.
In the fields of Cova da Iria, she gave the three little shepherds instructions to bring about the triumph of Her Immaculate Heart, so that a period of peace might be granted to the world, exhausted by war. First, prayer, particularly devotion to the Holy Rosary and the Brown Scapular; second, reparation for the sins and outrages perpetrated against God’s grace and blasphemies against the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary through the First Saturday devotions; and third, the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.
In this issue of Calx Mariae, leading Catholic thinkers and activists share how we can respond to the coronavirus crisis that has affected us all, and render our Blessed Mother obedience in fulfilling her requests so long overdue. She will keep her promises. The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph. Let us do our part and earnestly pray for the grace of being instruments of her Triumph.
Click here to see a preview of the contents page.
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