Why has the Vatican previously refused to consecrate Russia as Our Lady asked?

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — With all eyes now on the upcoming consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the question remains as to why the consecration has not yet taken place as Our Lady asked. The answers could well lie in the Vatican’s peculiar relation with Moscow since the 1960s, and its policy of, essentially, not rocking the boat at the expense of ignoring a divine request.

Following the Vatican’s shock announcement that Pope Francis would consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Catholic world has been taken by storm. The Ukrainian bishops’ request to the Pontiff to “perform the act of consecration to the Sacred Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ukraine and Russia, as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima,” appears to have been heard, after many years of requests. 

With the proposed consecration just days away, faithful Catholics are now petitioning their bishops to join the Pope in consecrating Russia — as well as asking the Pope to ensure the bishops join him — and in so doing, fulfill the request made by Our Lady of Fatima.

Dear @Pontifex, I beg you to please follow Our Lady’s specific instructions and “order … all the bishops of the world” to “make the consecration of Russia” together with you “at the same time” (June 13, 1929): https://t.co/uq4m0wPNbv pic.twitter.com/B7d1b30VfN

— Matt Gaspers (@MattGaspers) March 15, 2022

The wording of Pope Francis’ prayer of consecration, released March 22, has been deemed by Fatima scholar John Salza to “contain the necessary elements,” even though it is broader than merely Russia, with the text reading “we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity, especially Russia and Ukraine.” Fellow Fatima expert Christopher Ferrara suggested that, providing these lines are not changed, then “we can hope for the best” for the consecration, even though the planned 2022 prayer does not mention Our Lady of Fatima or Communism.

However, others disagree. While Pope Francis’ prayer does contain “two points that have not yet been met in the previous acts made by the popes, the mention of Russia and the union of a large part of the bishops — two of the six demands [of Our Lady] are not met,” writes Yves de Lassus.

De Lassus argues that since the “consecration does not concern only Russia and Ukraine,” and “reparative communion is neither approved nor recommended,” the specific conditions outlined by Our Lady have not been met. “In order to respect all the requests of Our Lord and Our Lady, it is necessary to modify and complete the prayer proposed by the Holy See,” he writes, proposing simple additions to the prayer as a way to heed Mary’s request.

God willing, the conditions outlined by Our Lady of Fatima are indeed met on March 25, 2022. Yet they are so straightforward, and so, leaving aside the questions surrounding this week’s consecration, the question remains — why has Our Lady’s request not been met before?

Chequered history of failed consecrations

Firstly, despite the recent attempt at diplomacy made by Ukrainian Archbishop Mokrzycki defending Pope John Paul II’s 1984 “entrustment consecration,” it is clear that the consecration has still not taken place in the manner Our Lady requested. 

That heavenly request, made first in July 1917, called for the explicit “consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays.” 

If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

In 1929 Our Lady subsequently asked Sr. Lucia for the Pope “to order that in union with him and at the same time, all the bishops of the world make the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to convert it because of this day of prayer and worldwide reparation.”

Yet despite the urgency of the request from the Blessed Virgin, the requested consecration has remained uncompleted, as attested to even just by the simple fact of the continued slaughter of the unborn in their mothers’ wombs. As the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) lamented in their petition to the Pope on this subject, “in the more than 90 years” since Our Lady’s request was delivered to the Vatican, “none of the successive popes made the consecration in the terms Our Lady had requested.”

As noted by Antonio Borelli in Fatima: Past or Future, the outbreak of World War II was not enough to instantly prompt the pontiff to perform the consecration. While Pope Pius XII then made a 1942 consecration of the Church and humanity to the Immaculate Heart, he did not fulfill the specific request, despite being faced with the global catastrophe and bloodshed of the Second World War. 

Sr. Lucia, in a revelation from Our Lord in 1943, responded to this action of Pope Pius XII: “Because of the act of consecration made by His Holiness, He [Christ] promises that the war will end shortly. But since it was incomplete, the conversion of Russia is postponed.”

During the Second Vatican Council, the Archbishop of Diamantina, Brazil, presented Pope Paul VI with a petition, written by TFP founder Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and signed by 512 prelates from 78 countries. The petition requested the Pope order all bishops to join him in consecrating the world, but explicitly Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Once again, the Pope was unable to bring himself to make the consecration as requested, and instead he “entrusted the human race” to the Immaculate Heart in November 1964.

Even the famous 1984 consecration, defended by many as having finally fulfilled the request, did not in fact name Russia.

Why has the consecration not happened?

Perhaps the most pressing question, then, is why has the consecration not yet happened? Indeed, while successive Popes have over the years mentioned “humanity” and avoided the explicit mention of Russia in their “consecrations,” what exactly does it take for a Pope to respond to the simple request of the Mother of God?

Why is it that on repeated occasions in the last century numerous Popes opted to half answer the request, but avoided explicitly mentioning Russia — the country which was the very object of the consecration itself? Why is it that when surrounded by the bloodshed of global war, the spread of the evils of Communism and a moral collapse across the world, successive Popes still couldn’t bring themselves to simply follow the request given to them by the Mother of God?

Such questions can be asked, and must be, even though the answers are not necessarily to be found in these lines. 

But it is important to note that bureaucracy, misplaced concern over ecumenical and political matters seems to have been uppermost in the Vatican’s priorities, rather than concern for heeding the warning of Our Lady. As Christopher Ferrara writes in False Friends of Fatima:

Why is it that the Vatican Secretary of State — not just one of them, but three of them in succession—has opposed Our Lady of Fatima and taken a stand against Her Message? All three (Cardinals Casaroli, Sodano and Bertone) have used their power, position and prestige to fight against the full Fatima Message.

After all, Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes confirmed in 2017 that in 1984, John Paul II actually “held back [from mentioning] Russia explicitly because the Vatican diplomats had urgently asked him not to mention this country because otherwise political conflicts might perhaps arise.”

Vatican’s subservience to communism 

Perhaps such a continued rejection of the divine request can be understood when examining the Vatican’s recent history with communism itself. Bear in mind that Pope Paul VI refused an appeal made by 218 bishops to explicitly condemn communism in Vatican II fearing that it would harm relations with Moscow. 

Such a catastrophic betrayal of Catholic teaching is due to the secretive Metz Pact, signed by the Vatican and Moscow in 1962. The terms, much like the Sino-Vatican deal, are shrouded in secrecy. It stipulates that the “Vatican Secretary of State, since October 1962, has agreed not to condemn the errors of Russia,” reports Ferrara.

As Romano Amerio noted in Iota Unum: 

[T]he Metz Pact was publicized in France Nouvelle, the central bulletin of the French communist party in the edition of January 16-22, 1963 in these terms: “Because the world socialist system is showing its superiority in an uncontestable fashion, and is strong through the support of hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, the Church can no longer be content with a crude anti-communism.

As part of its dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church, it has even promised there will be no direct attack on the Communist system at the Council.” On the Catholic side, the daily La Croix of February 15, 1963 gave notice of the agreement, concluding: “As a consequence of this conversation, Msgr. Nikodim agreed that someone should go to Moscow carrying an invitation, on condition that guarantees were given concerning the apolitical attitude of the Council.”

Pius XI, in 1937, warned firmly against the errors of Communism and any collaboration with them, stating thus:

Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error.

Yet this previous condemnation of working with Communists appears to have been ignored in the Vatican’s more recent decades. Thus the Vatican’s determination not to offend Moscow through condemning Communism could well explain its delicate approach to the consecration of Russia. Indeed, such a pact would readily explain, though not justify, why the Popes and their respective officials chose to repeatedly offend Our Lady rather than the Russian authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical. 

Commenting on the Metz Pact, Ferrara writes: “This policy, which is still in place today, is fundamentally and therefore directly opposed to Our Lady of Fatima’s specific condemnation of the errors of Russia.” 

It is “a betrayal of the faithful,” he adds, which has resulted in the message of Fatima being diluted and hidden, in order to prevent the truth from coming to light. Ferrara notes how “Fatima has been removed from our schools, our pulpits, our Catholic press, from the Second Vatican Council and from the counsellors of our bishops, their bishops conferences, and Papal Nuncios, etc., and the laity, for their part, do not even know to ask for what has been taken away from them.”

LifeSiteNews has noted recently how Our Lady’s message of prayer and penance, given at Fatima, is so crucial and necessary for our times. John-Henry Westen observed Monday how if Pope Francis becomes the latest in a long line of Popes who have refused to listen to Our Lady’s request, he will be “courting catastrophe.”

Whatever the motive behind the relentless succession of Popes who set out to fool the faithful and reject a plea from the Mother of God in making faux consecrations, prayer is now the chief weapon to ensure that Pope Francis might indeed become the Pontiff who finally obeys Our Lady, and performs the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

However, should he join the long line of Pontiffs who have failed in their duty, and choose to reject the heartfelt plea of the Mother of God and bow down to hidden forces he deems more important than Heaven — perhaps those emanating from Moscow — then we cannot rule out the possibility of a chastisement following yet another insult aimed at the Blessed Virgin.