God knows your intentions when you pray.  He knows that 99% of the people that pray this prayer, want to pray it as Our Lady told us.  Whether we say "all souls" or "souls in purgatory"...it's not our fault the prayer was (mis)translated one way or the other.  God knows that the people who pray this prayer care about both sinners and the poor souls.

We can't get OCD about it.  The devil wants us to get distracted about details.  God knows our hearts, which is the essence of prayer anyway.

Biggest promoter of the "wrong" theory here is the same guy who keeps posting links to his website where the main reason Ratzinger couldn't have resigned and was still pope was because he had to be given a funeral and buried first (despite having been still very much alive), i.e. interpreting away the early parts of the docuмent (due to a lack of knowledge about the Latin involved), where it clearly says that the See could be vacated by a resignation.  This would mean that if a Pope resigned, the Church would have to remain in sedevacante until he died and was buried.  Despite the absurdity of this having been debunked, he persisted and continues to post that link.

Sometimes people can get lost into their own strange mental constructs to the point that they become detached from Purgatory.

If the Fatima prayer was a reference to Purgatory, it would be the only time that Our Lady would have mentioned poor souls in the entire context of the Fatima message, whereas she was most concerned about souls going to Hell (as per the 2nd Secret).

I was always troubled by the Fatima prayer. Something about it never sat right with me, and it was always regarding the "lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy."

Why would some souls heading to hell have more need of mercy than others? All souls who end up in hell are need of the same mercy - saving grace - before they go there.

The damned are out of the range of the mercy of God.

Why do you assume the prayer is talking about DEPARTED souls exclusively? Aren't there 7 billion+ SOULS on earth right now? Those are souls too, are they not? Aren't they all in need of God's mercy, some more than others?

And yes, some men need God's mercy more than others. A man on death row is in a much more miserable state, a lower state, and so it could be said he "needs God's mercy more" than the average Trad Catholic who goes to Mass every Sunday. We all need God's grace to be saved -- but some are in more desperate need of it than others.

We all need justice. But a falsely accused man, on death row for murder, is in more need of Justice than you or I. That's the sense in which some "are more in need of God's mercy".

And no, all mercy is not equal. Imagine a king forgiving a man for a petty theft vs. a king forgiving another man who murdered a member of the Royal Court. Yes, all are guilty of sin, and on the receiving end of God's mercy. But we're not all equal! Not even close. What have you been drinking? No two sinners are equal in their guilt before God. So again, those with one foot in hell are asking a LOT more from God's mercy than a "petty crime" sinner. Our Lord spoke about this on more than one occasion. About how "he who is forgiven more, loves more" citing Mary Magdalene as an example.

And it's a fact that the whole Fatima serious of apparitions was about saving SOULS from Hell. Not shortening the stay in Purgatory or assuaging the sufferings of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. That is a good work, a praiseworthy work, but not the focus of the Fatima apparitions AT ALL.

Our Lady showed a vision of Hell to the children, and said that "Many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray for them", etc. She did not show them a vision of Purgatory.

Fatima had *nothing at all* to do with Purgatory. Only the souls on earth, most of whom are in danger of going to hell.

Why do you assume the prayer is talking about DEPARTED souls exclusively? Aren't there 7 billion+ SOULS on earth right now? Those are souls too, are they not? Aren't they all in need of God's mercy, some more than others?

And yes, some men need God's mercy more than others. A man on death row is in a much more miserable state, a lower state, and so it could be said he "needs God's mercy more" than the average Trad Catholic who goes to Mass every Sunday. We all need God's grace to be saved -- but some are in more desperate need of it than others.

We all need justice. But a falsely accused man, on death row for murder, is in more need of Justice than you or I. That's the sense in which some "are more in need of God's mercy".

And no, all mercy is not equal. Imagine a king forgiving a man for a petty theft vs. a king forgiving another man who murdered a member of the Royal Court. Yes, all are guilty of sin, and on the receiving end of God's mercy. But we're not all equal! Not even close. What have you been drinking? No two sinners are equal in their guilt before God. So again, those with one foot in hell are asking a LOT more from God's mercy than a "petty crime" sinner. Our Lord spoke about this on more than one occasion. About how "he who is forgiven more, loves more" citing Mary Magdalene as an example.

And it's a fact that the whole Fatima serious of apparitions was about saving SOULS from Hell. Not shortening the stay in Purgatory or assuaging the sufferings of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. That is a good work, a praiseworthy work, but not the focus of the Fatima apparitions AT ALL.

Our Lady showed a vision of Hell to the children, and said that "Many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray for them", etc. She did not show them a vision of Purgatory.

Fatima had *nothing at all* to do with Purgatory. Only the souls on earth, most of whom are in danger of going to hell.

Dear Matthew,

Do you not understand that Purgatory, flames included, is part of Hell, as is Limbo of the Just?  It certainly is not part of Heaven.  Why are you so adverse to praying for the "little souls" in Purgatory, the original phrase chosen by Our Lady?

We all need to be wary of the humanistic spirit of modernism that "is in the very air we breathe", as Bishop Williamson often says.

Dear Matthew,

Do you not understand that Purgatory, flames included, is part of Hell, as is Limbo of the Just?  It certainly is not part of Heaven.  Why are you so adverse to praying for the "little souls" in Purgatory, the original phrase chosen by Our Lady?

We all need to be wary of the humanistic spirit of modernism that "is in the very air we breathe", as Bishop Williamson often says.

Our Lady showed a vision of Hell to the children. Purgatory might be "connected" to Hell, or have similar fire/pains, but it is a DIFFERENT PLACE hence a DIFFERENT NAME.

Since you're bringing up semantics and trying to find a loophole, how about this: In the children's vision of Hell, they saw CONDEMNED SOULS in HELL, not saved souls in Purgatory. You can try to say it's the same place, but the fact doesn't change: Fatima was about saving souls -- making souls end up in Heaven rather than Hell -- rather than any kind of campaign to mitigate the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory.

Do not try to misrepresent me, or strawman my position by suggesting I'm "averse" to praying for the Poor Souls, which I do all the time.

As I said earlier in this thread, every single Catholic prayer doesn't have to explicitly mention the Poor Souls in Purgatory. That's not how it works. The Hail Mary doesn't mention purgatory either. Are you "averse" to praying for the Poor Souls if you don't modify the venerable Hail Mary prayer to include an explicit mention of purgatory?

It has nothing to do with a humanistic spirit or Modernism. Both of which I condemn as errors.

And Our Lady's original Portuguese version of the prayer said nothing of purgatory. Read the thread. "alminhas" does not mean "Poor Souls in Purgatory". So you're begging the question (logical fallacy) by presuming your point is proven, whereas it was actually DISproven.

And stop trying to influence me by bringing Bp. Williamson into it. He is not in this thread; please leave him out of it.

Answer: Through Sister Lucia’s explicit clarification.

In a 1946 interview with Canon Barthas on this controversy, Sister Lucia set the record straight. The Fatima Decade Prayer does not refer to the Holy Souls in Purgatory at all, she assured him, since they are on a sure path to Heaven, but rather to unrepentant sinners since they are in grave danger of damnation. (See Frère Michel’s account of the interview linked below.)

Moreover, it was in the manner in which the prayer is currently recited that the child Lucia related it to her pastor, Father Ferreira, in an interrogation of August 21, 1917, only a little more than a month after Our Lady had taught it to the children. This is also the way Sister Lucia recorded it in her Third and Fourth Memoirs in 1941, noting explicitly in her Third Memoir, “Now Your Excellency will understand how my own impression was that the final words of this prayer refer to souls in greatest danger of damnation, or those who are nearest to it.” We reproduce here the relevant lines from the manuscript of the Fourth Memoir:

(See António Maria Martins, S.J., Memórias e Cartas da Irmã Lúcia, pp. 340-343.)

This here SHOULD have been the end of this thread.

When I’m praying the rosary with people I know it will be the “lead all souls” version. When I’m by myself sometimes I use one, sometimes the other. I’m offering the rosary for the conversion of sinners, and for the souls in Purgatory anyways. 

Yeah just skimming through this thread here makes this whole thing seem that this controversy is of the devil. Sorry for bringing it up again, guys. 

One condemned man doesn't need "more" of that precious Blood than another.

   So an atheist who rejects God is not in worse shape than a catholic who struggles with anger?  Certainly the atheist is more in need of God's mercy, as he (humanly speaking) has 0.01% of salvation in his present state.  He’s not even “in the ballpark” of salvation.