Our Lady of Fatima

Our Lady of Fatima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora do Rosário da Fátima) is one of the best-known Marian apparitions in the world.

Controversies of Fatima

Fatima is not without controversy. The Apparition occured during the period when anti-Catholics and Freemasons ruled Portugal, following the 1910 revolution, and persecuted Catholics, leading to a sharp polarization of Portuguese society between the largely urban liberals and the largely rural Catholics. The three seers were strongly intimidated by the Freemasons who put tremendous pressure on them to deny the veracity of the apparition, and the Freemasons even sought to prevent public access to the apparition site.

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Following the rise of the counter-revolutionaries in 1928, under General Carmona, the newly re-established government, and especially that of Dr. António de Oliveira Salazar, made devotion to Our Lady of Fatima one of the three elements of popular Portuguese nationalism: "Fado, Fatima, and Football" (commonly referred to as "the three F's").

Related Topics:
António de Oliveira Salazar - Fado - Football

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Some Christians do not accept the Church's claim of veracity of the visions. Compare similar visions to shepherd children at La Salette in 1848, published in 1879.

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Still others cite that until 2001, Sister Lúcia had always insisted that the Consecration requested by the Virgin Mary was to be specifically of Russia, and all the Catholic bishops had take part. The communique of Archbishop Bertone around the end of 2001 seemed to contradict 84 years of her prior testimony.

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Also, there are accusations of a deliberate campaign to cover up the message of Fatima by ecclesiastical authorities within the Catholic Church, including imposing an order of silence against Sister Lúcia. As Lúcia was already under orders of silence as a Carmelite sister, giving no interviews or statements to the public without permission, and since Lúcia continued to write private diaries and personal letters up until her death, this claim seems doubtful.

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Also, in the years prior to the alleged revelation of the Third Secret in 2000, many tabloids used the Secret for their own purposes. They would publish articles on an almost regular basis saying that the Third Secret was a vision of the end of the world, or "earth changes" similar to those predicted by Edgar Cayce, which would come to pass in the very near future. Many of these articles, which were written prior to the year 2000, said the events contained in their version of the Third Secret vision would occur around the year 2000. Lúcia, when asked about these articles, denied that the third secret was anything like that.

Related Topics:
Edgar Cayce - 2000

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