I have a question for more knowledgeable users of this forum. Of course I believe in Fatima, but nevertheless I always considered it to be a private revelation (albeit the most reliable one that can hardly be doubted), which at the end of the day is not formally binding on Catholics. Recently I read this article by John Salza:
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/feature-articles/Fatima/Presentation%20-%20Fatima%20Rome%202012%20Private%20Revelation%20or%20Public%20Prophecy.pdf

There is a third type of revelation, however, called public prophetic revelation, or public prophecy. It is unique in that God gives it through a prophet after the apostolic age, but intends the message for all of humanity. To deny the existence of public prophetical revelation would mean that God cannot continue to communicate with humanity after the period of general revelation on matters that affect their salvation. That, of course, is not true. Scripture reveals that God will in fact continue to speak to us during the Church age.
(...)
St. Thomas Aquinas elaborates by teaching that God sends prophets throughout the Church age to guide human actions to further His plan of salvation. So
when God intervenes in human history with prophetic revelations, He is telling us what we must do to save our souls. Those who listen and obey will be saved. Those
who hear and deliberately disobey will be damned, as Scripture says in Proverbs 28:19, “When prophecy shall fail, the people shall be scattered abroad.” This
revelation is confirmed by the Message of Fatima, which is a message of salvation or damnation, depending upon the actions of men (and especially the Pope). In fact, divine revelation (the first type) requires us to obey public prophetic revelation (the third type), because public prophetic revelation echoes and affirms divine revelation. God Himself imposes the obligation.
(...)
Therefore, the Deposit of Faith and the dogmatic teaching of the Church
obligate us to believe and obey approved public prophecy, which includes the Fatima prophecies above all. If we don’t, St. Paul says we “extinguish the spirit,” that is, we resist the Holy Ghost. In light of the Scripture, Lucia even said that
despising the Fatima message is a sin against the Holy Ghost, and Jesus revealed
that this is the unpardonable sin.
(...)
Whatever their motivation, to argue that Fatima is a “private revelation” is
lunacy at best, and a lie at worst.

Here Salza classifies Fatima as "public prophecy" and he says it is binding on everyone.

We also see the universality of the material chastisements warned of in the Secret. Our Lady reveals that if mankind does not cease offending God through
sin, God will “punish the world” through wars, famine, and persecutions of the Church. Our Lady also reveals that if Her requests are not heeded, Russia will spread its errors “throughout the world,” causing wars, martyrdoms, and the annihilation of various nations. Again, the Message of Fatima is addressed to the
world, for the world is the object of the prophecy, and thus the world will experience the benefits and burdens of the prophecy commensurate with the
world’s response (and, in particular, the Pope’s response) to Heaven’s requests.
There is nothing private about revelations that have and will continue to impact the entire world.

Here he says that it can't be classified as merely private revelation because the content of Fatima is about all of mankind warning about global chastisement. Well, there were many private revelations which warned about global chastisement and addressed whole of humanity - predictions of Three Days of Darkness by Bl. Anna Maria Taigi, prophecies of Anne Catherine Emerich and many others - nevertheless they remain private revelations.

”Because the Miracle of the Sun is “a most certain sign of a divine revelation,” the prophetic revelation of Fatima must be believed as a matter of faith and reason. The same council condemned anyone who says “that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs” and “that miracles are not possible, and hence all accounts of them...are to be banished among the fables and myths; or, that miracles can never be known with certitude.”Note that the council condemns anyone who dismisses “accounts” of true miracles, even if they have not
witnessed them firsthand. This means that any Catholic who denies the Miracle of the Sun and the Message of Fatima is anathema, according to the dogmatic teachings of the First Vatican Council.

According to Salza's interpretation of Vatican I Fatima must be believed with certainty of faith (that is how I understand his statement "must be believed as a matter of faith") and disbelieving in Fatima message incurs anathema of Vatican I.

Scripture also reveals that miracles obligate us to believe, and if we don’t, we risk everlasting punishment. For example, Jesus condemned the entire cities of Corozain, Bethsaida and Capharnaum for failing to repent on account of His miracles.

I find it unconvincing to compare Our Lord's condemnation of unbelieving Jєωs who saw the miracles to someone who does not believe in Fatima. The Catholic Church teaches that public revelation finished with the death of last Apostle, comparing the time of public revelation with today seems to be problematic to me.


Please note, I do not reject Fatima, after reading this I'm just curious about its status.

70,000 people witnessed the miracle of the sun. Not very private to say the least.

I know that, but I'm not asking about the circuмstances, rather the formal degree to which belief in Fatima is binding on Catholics. Majority of Catholics (both Novus Ordo and Traditionalists) claim that Fatima is not binding as private revelation (although hardly deniable), Salza here makes the case that is must be believed with certainty of faith and its rejection goes against Vatican I (or at least his interpretation of it).

You sound like you've been given the answer by Chrostopher67 and decided it wasn't what you wanted to hear, you wanted someone to second your exact thoughts.

Far from it. It is rather you who misunderstand my question. Of course the Miracle of the Sun occured in public, there is not question about it, but that is not what I was asking about. I'm asking not about your opinion, but Church teaching on that subject - let me rephrase the question:

1. Does the official teaching of the Catholic Church regarding revelation oblige Catholics to believe in Fatima with certainty of faith?
2. Is Salza correct in saying that denial of Fatima message incurs anathema of Vatican I?

If the answer to the above is affirmative it means that majority of both Novus Ordites and Traditionalists are wrong claiming that belief in Fatima is not binding.

Quote from: Iuvenalis

You sound like you've been given the answer by Chrostopher67 and decided it wasn't what you wanted to hear, you wanted someone to second your exact thoughts.

Far from it. It is rather you who misunderstand my question. Of course the Miracle of the Sun occured in public, there is not question about it, but that is not what I was asking about. I'm asking not about your opinion, but Church teaching on that subject - let me rephrase the question:

1. Does the official teaching of the Catholic Church regarding revelation oblige Catholics to believe in Fatima with certainty of faith?
2. Is Salza correct in saying that denial of Fatima message incurs anathema of Vatican I?

If the answer to the above is affirmative it means that majority of both Novus Ordites and Traditionalists are wrong claiming that belief in Fatima is not binding.

Yours is a very common question.  The late Fr. Gruner encountered this all over the world and he developed a calm, reasoned reply to it.

The Catholic Church teaches a third category of doctrine regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary that applies to her alone.  To God we render adoration, or latria in Latin.  We do not worship the saints, but we do appeal to them for their intercession before God, like asking a good friend to put in a good word for us to someone with power to whom we are in a weaker state of direct influence somehow.  This veneration of the saints is called dulia in Latin.

But in regards to the Holy Mother of God there is a third category, called hyperdulia in Latin, for it is above the veneration we give to the saints, but it is less than the adoration that we render to God alone.  This highest form of veneration is reserved for the one saint in all of human history whose influence with God exceeds all the influence that all the rest of the saints combined could ever be.  

Thinking about this third category, it makes sense that there should be a second category of private revelation too, considering that it entails a message from that one saint whose power with God is incomparable to all other saints.  

Furthermore, we are at a time in human history when God has already given us the Sacred Heart of His Son, through the apparitions of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 17th century, and we have seen first hand (or our ancestors did) what happens when the King of France ignored those entreaties, and neglected to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and did not put its emblem on the French flag (which really looks great, by the way).  What happened was the French Revolution (Freemasons pretty much destroying Catholicism in France, the Eldest Daughter of the Church), and with that the public execution of King Loius XVI (pronounced "LOO-ee") by guillotine.  His regal authority had been stripped from him on the very day that was 100 years exactly from the date that Our Lord gave the message to St. Margaret Mary.

Keeping all that in mind, your question of whether belief in the Fatima message demands the full assent of Faith for Catholics is one that overlooks the existence and importance of this third category.  In this time of history, God has sent His Holy Mother as a last resort, as it were, giving us the chance to listen to her and thereby avoid the consequences tied to not listening to her.  

Protestants oversimplify things and say that "Catholics worship Mary."  Well, it's not too hard to see that's a half truth and don't forget that a half truth is a whole lie.  We do not worship Mary.  But neither do we ignore her as if she is mundane and unimportant as Protestants do, for along with that goes errors such as "she had other children too" and "she has no power with God because she's DEAD."  Protestants ought to know they are listening to тαℓмυdic Jєωs when they say those things.

Oh lily of the valley, O mystic rose, what tree
No flower e'en the fairest was half so fair as thee
O let me, though so lowly, recite my Mother's fame
When wicked men blaspheme thee, I'll love and bless thy name.

Does everyone who blasphemes the name of Mary go to hell?  I don't know about you, but I'd rather not find out the hard way.  Appreciation is something you can't force from someone;  they have to give it freely and from their own volition, not because you demand it.  God cannot force us to love Him, and He can't force us to love His Mother.  But how can we love God and NOT love His Mother too??  How can man love God but despise whom God loves?  This is not an emotional question, but one of simple, right reason and intellectual honesty.

I caution you against going to Traditio in matters of the Blessed Virgin Mary because the author(s?) of that website retain a tinge of Jansenism regarding her, giving the impression that it is somehow unholy to render Our Lady a special category of veneration.  And this is not a Catholic outlook for it would seem to deny the fact of hyperdulia in Catholic teaching.  On a personal note, I know a man who is an avid Traditio fan who believes that he is a prophet and that Mary ought to CHECK WITH HIM before she goes and tells things to people like Sister Lucia of Fatima!

You can decide for yourself whether the anathema of Vatican I is the question to consider for someone who places himself above the power of the Mother of God.

There are some things that we can know for sure by what the Church teaches and there are other things that we can deduce from what the Church teaches.  For example, does the message of Fatima incur some manner of incredulity because it did not specifically explain its own theological perspective?  That is to say, are we "not required to believe in the Fatima message" because the Fatima message per se did not literally give us the John Salza interpretation of the Fatima message?  

John Salza had Father Gruner for a friend and they worked together at several Fatima conferences.  I think Salza paid close attention to Fr's instruction, but now that Father is gone, perhaps Salza has taken off a bit on his own, going to something of an extreme on this.  Father Gruner was a gift to our age, a humble and soft-spoken priest who gave his life for the fervent and pure veneration of Our Lady in all of her works throughout the ages, which includes the true message of Fatima (there are a lot of false versions afoot).  We do not live in the age of St. Maximilian Kolbe or St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, but knowing Fr. Gruner makes these other great Marian saints much more comprehensible and real to us, just as knowing all the saints makes the reality of knowing the Apostles and Our Lord not such an enormous enigma.  I had the great honor of knowing Fr. personally and his memory touches me positively for the rest of my life, I'm sure.  But I am not a lawyer like Salza and I don't have a lawyer's outlook on everything.  Remember that Salza came from Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ and I wouldn't put it beyond reasonable that Fr. Gruner may have told him something personally to SHAKE HIM UP so as to free him from the grips of his erstwhile state of unfaith.  But that doesn't mean he would have told the general public the same thing!  Sometimes lawyers need a kick in the rear.

IMHO we should not leap to the ultimate consequence saying that Fatima demands of Catholics divine and maximum assent of Faith, but at the same time that does not mean that Catholics can utterly ignore Fatima without any concern for what God wants of us as Catholics.  I think we should recognize the true message of Fatima for what is namely, God's act of mercy for us, such that we might avoid tremendous suffering consequent to ignoring Our Lady's offer of her intercession.  It is an intercession or help that only she can give us, and in fact, she said that literally:  "Only I can help you."

O Mary, destroyer of all heresies, come to our aid!

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Fatima is fundamentally different than the much more private apparitions of our Lady at Quito, Akita, Knock, etc.
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Knock was certainly NOT a private apparition Iuvenalis. It was perhaps the most public and important apparition in history. The story of Knock written by a friend of mine is fascinating and I am willing to let readers read it if they would like. Here is a taste of it:

In 1879, on a miserable wet night, in a meadow field outside the gable-end of the church of St John the Baptist, there occurred an active but silent (i.e., the figures were speaking but could not be heard) apparition at Knock (From the Gaelic word Cnoc, a hill), a small town in Connaught in the west of Ireland. The apparition, which lit the immediate area with a brilliant light, included magnificent images of the Virgin Mary, St Joseph, St John the Evangelist, the Lamb on an altar, it of course representing Christ and the Sacrifice, and some angels in attendance. This vision, mounted on an invisible platform on top of the tall grass, showed the Blessed Virgin, with her hands held up looking and praying to heaven. It showed a vested St John, superimposed between Mary and the Lamb, holding a book (the Roman missal - now redundant in the post Vatican II era, or perhaps St John's book of Revelation) in one hand while gesturing in a preaching stance with the other. St Joseph, with his head bowed and glancing sideways, was isolated, separated by a mysterious black line, noticed only by a few of the selected observers and seldom mentioned in books on the apparition.
     
‘Though the Knock witnesses experienced various emotions – happiness, wonder, devotion, exaltation of spirit, one being moved to tears – not one of them was rapt in ecstasy. None of them heard a word; neither did they receive any interior message or sign. That the Mother of God, who bade Bernadette pray for sinners, who had pleaded for conversion of life at La Salette, for prayers and penance at Fatima, should have remained silent to her devoted Irish children was, and still is, a stumbling block to many. There was no message, they say, so the Apparition is devoid of meaning,’ --- Mary Purcell, Our Lady of Knock, p.18.  

Of course there was a message. Heaven does not indulge in meaningless pictures, but few, if any, could/can interpret it. The main reason for this is because Knock was not a ‘Marian’ message but a Johannine one, and, like his Apocalypse, has to be read in an allegorical sense.  Thus a considerable amount of research on the place and its history is needed to begin to try to interpret the message or warning. So, we can ask: (1) Why Knock: (2) To whom was it addressed: (3) Why was it silent: (4) What was it trying to tell us?  

So, we can ask: (1) Why Knock: (2) To whom was it addressed: (3) Why was it silent: (4) What was it trying to tell us?

Let me guess!

(1) Why Knock?  I don't know anything about the history of this part of Ireland called Knock, but in English, one knocks on a door to get an answer from the occupant within.  Our Lord said, "Knock and the door shall be opened."  Well, maybe that could mean that the door to understanding God's message to man is accessible through the Knock apparition.

(2) To whom was it addressed?  I see no reason that it would not have been addressed to the whole world, but especially the people of Ireland upon whose soil it appeared.  And such apparitions are aimed at the people of the future (not the past) because they should remember and think about it.  Perhaps it has meaning regarding what was soon to happen in the world, and some of which has now (in 2015) taken place.  One obvious meaning could be that the vast and prolific vocations that were then coming from Ireland for the benefit of the whole world would slow down and eventually cease entirely, such that not even one priest would be ordained in a given year in the future.  Also that the sad day would come when abortion would be legalized in the erstwhile Isle of Saints, and so-called ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ marriage would become somehow socially acceptable.

(3) Why was it silent?  Not long after this apparition, the Mass that is represented by the lamb on the altar would be nearly suppressed worldwide with the Newmass and the desecration of many churches worldwide.  The liturgy has been changed and the voice of the Apostles is largely silenced, and love, symbolized by the Apostle whom Jesus loved, has grown cold, as Our Lord foretold would one day happen.  You could also ask, "Why was it cold in Knock that day?"  But maybe the Irish don't think of that as "cold" or "wet" since that's quite normal there.

(4) What was it trying to tell us?  This apparition took place behind the chapel at Knock, as it were "outside."  It seems to me that Knock was telling us that this apparition, occurring OUTSIDE THE CHURCH, is a prophesy that the Mass of Ages would soon be expelled from what appears to be the Church, and that the authentic interpretation of the Apocalypse of St. John even as it approaches its fulfillment, would become SILENCED and REMOVED from the ostensible Church, and that we would be reduced in the future to asking such questions as "what could this mean?"  Not long after this St. Joseph's name would be added to the erstwhile untouchable Canon of the Mass, which seems to have been a TRIAL BALLOON for the Freemasons to see what Catholics would do in reaction to it.  Since nobody reacted, they saw that as a GREEN LIGHT to go ahead full-bore with their Vat.II plans to wreak havoc on everything in sight.  Furthermore, since nobody rebelled openly to the infamous and most regrettable speech of John XXIII on the Feast of the Maternity of Mary, 1962, they recognized that they could go ahead and foist a FALSE COUNCIL on the Church pretending all along that it is an authentic Ecuмenical Council just like the previous 20 of them when it in fact was no such thing.  


Now, please, cassini, let me know what you think Knock meant because I'm all ears!!

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Quote from: Arvinger

I have a question for more knowledgeable users of this forum. Of course I believe in Fatima, but nevertheless I always considered it to be a private revelation (albeit the most reliable one that can hardly be doubted), which at the end of the day is not formally binding on Catholics.

Please note, I do not reject Fatima, after reading this I'm just curious about its status.

First of all I agree with those who state Fatima was not a private apparition, it was a public message from heaven. The Church judges the status of such apparitions and in the case of FATIMA ruled it a genuine message from heaven. There is no question of its being 'binding' on Catholics, but any who doubt or deny it happened should go see a doctor. Fatima did not reveal anything new, it reminded Catholics how to be Catholics and warned what would happen if prayer and sacrifice was neglected.

What will always remain a mystery is the miracle of the sun. 70,000 saw the sun dance and come towards the earth to such an extent that it dried up the ground sodden with rain. But the rest of the world saw nothing, the sun remained as it was. So how does one explain this? Did God play mind games or what.

Personally I believe the omnipotence of God is such that He could do both at the same time, that the movement was real and its staying on its course for the rest of the world was real.

(to the bolded part)

It's curious how the Church judges the status of Fatima as genuine and from heaven, even while the same Church seems to continue hiding the keystone message (the Third Secret) from the world.

As for going to see a doctor because one doubts it or denies that Fatima happened, I suspect the doctor won't believe in Fatima either, so that's not going to help!!!

I can find a video I recently saw where a bunch of Protestants sit around a table and conclude (like in a Bible study!) that what the 70,000 witnesses saw for the Miracle of the Sun was actually a UFO.  How about them apples?

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Personally I believe the omnipotence of God is such that He could do both at the same time, that the movement was real and its staying on its course for the rest of the world was real.

It's funny to see people try to impose limits on God's power.

Doubters of Fatima say that there is no way the sun could have moved like that in the sky, therefore it didn't happen.

When 70,000 people all saw the same thing while staring at the sun without hurting their eyes, we ought to be able to believe that SOMETHING happened to give them that common visual experience.  

Not to mention all the other things that happened at the same time:  hundreds of lame, blind, deaf, dumb, sick and feeble were healed instantly while the sun came careening down on the vast crowd;  their muddy, wet, stinking clothes (there were no out-houses there in the Cova) and shoes (ankle deep in mud from 2 days' rainfall) suddenly were not only clean but FRESHLY LAUNDERED.  

The soil that had been trampled flat was restored to pristine condition as if there had been no rainfall or foot traffic by tens of thousands of people for 2 days on it.

Stop and think of this seldom spoken fact:  if their feet had been in ankle-deep mud, and the approach of the sun had simply dried the soil (which is physically impossible anyway because the people would have been cooked alive from such heat), then why were their feet not stuck ankle-deep in the mud with everyone hobbling around in stocking feet without shoes because their shoes would have been ensconced in hard dirt impossible to pull out?  

Put it all together and what you have here is, the real miracle of the sun was not what happened in the sky, which only distracted everyone's attention for a moment.  No, the real miracle of the sun was the complete restoration of everything on the ground below, the clothes of the people, their shoes free from being stuck in the mud and the people as if lifted up from the mire, the sick and lame cured, and the land restored to natural beauty.  The Immaculate Heart of Mary had restored everything to its immaculate purity.  The best mother ever took care of her children.  

She who was conceived without sin wiped away all vestige of dirtiness for 70,000.


Okay, so that's pretty impressive.


But what about the sun?  Who are we to say that our omnipotent God, Who created heaven and earth, whose Mother could clean up a seventeenth of a million people in the blink of an eye and make it seem that there had been no rain at all, could not leave the sun in the sky as normal for the purposes of cosmic order and to the appearance of people far away from one small region of Portugal while at the same time bending space and all the laws of physics as applies to that one small Fatima region making all the colors of the rainbow spill around and the sun itself to waver and dance as if it were a puppet on a string for a few minutes?

Who are we to say that God, Who created the sun out of nothing, could not play with it like a child plays with a yo-yo for a few minutes, even while only allowing one small region of Portugal see that happen?

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