Fatima

A Church Persecuted? Yes, by the Sins of Her Children

This is the "terrifying" relevance of the message of Fatima, according to Benedict XVI. But the last word in the story is the goodness of God. To be welcomed with penance and a spirit of conversion

by Sandro Magister




ROME, May 14, 2010 – Curiously, Benedict XVI spoke the most stunning words of his four-day trip to Portugal, centered on the visit to Fatima, before he landed in Lisbon, while he was still in flight, the morning of Tuesday, April 11.

And he spoke them in response to the journalists on the airplane, apparently improvising.

In reality, the words were carefully chosen. The questions had been presented to him ahead of time by the director of the Vatican press office, Fr. Federico Lombardi. And the pope had chosen three of them, the third of which concerned the "secret" of Fatima and the scandal of pedophilia.

Here is the third question with the pope's answer, in the transcript released by the Vatican offices, typical of spoken language:

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Q: And now come to Fatima, in some way the culmination, even spiritually, of this visit. Your Holiness, what meaning do the Fatima apparitions have for us today? In June 2000, when you presented the text of the third secret in the Vatican Press Office, a number of us and our former colleagues were present. You were asked if the message could be extended, beyond the attack on John Paul II, to other sufferings on the part of the Popes. Is it possible, to your mind, to include in that vision the sufferings of the Church today for the sins involving the sexual abuse of minors?

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