The War in Ukraine and the Errors of Russia

 

+Pochaev Icon of the Mother of God.+

[Editor's Note: I am reposting this from my FB page here, since I intended it to post on the blog for my archives. The information does not add to nor detract from the official documents of Sr. Lucia nor the Holy See regarding the events at Fatima, nor is there any link to the so-called Fatimist conspiracy theories or traditionalists with their claims of a different message/secrets and so on. Bishop Sus adds nothing to the the message either - he simply explains how the Church in Ukraine understands the relevance of Our Lady's message to the current war.]

Something Dawn Eden Goldstein wrote.

Dawn Eden Goldstein did a series of posts recently regarding Fatima. Normally Fatima isn't discussed very much online, among some academics and those who accept Magisterial definitions of the 1917 Apparitions and subsequent message. This may be due in part to a few traditional groups who reject Vatican authority and conclusions regarding details of the events. Frequently, they reject the Pope as well as Vatican II reforms, yet remain in communion with Rome.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised Dawn thought of the message of Fatima in relationship to 'the errors of Russia' in the current climate of aggression and influence Putin exerts over the West and in particular, our current President and the Administration he has set up.

Dawn was a guest at the Prayer Breakfast VP Vance spoke at last week. Her posts on X formed her response to that encounter.

> I was present at

@JDVance's speech yesterday at the

@NatCathPrBrkfst

.And I watched later as Vance belied his pious peacemaking pose by berating the president of the country that Pope Francis has repeatedly called "martyred Ukraine" (https://vaticannews.va/.../pope-on-ukraine-war-a-painful...).

>[ Specific remark from Trump War Room regarding the speech:

Feb 28

Vice President @JDVance: “When President Trump talks about the need to bring peace, whether it’s in Russia and Ukraine or in the Middle East, we have to recognize that as a policy oriented toward saving lives and carrying out one of Christ's most important Commandments.” Vance's address was on the importance of protecting religious liberty.]<

Responding to his statement explaining that he was still learning about Catholicism, although the door was open to talk with him, Dawn wrote that she would like to tell him about the Third Secret of Fatima.

I was pleasantly surprised Dawn brought that up online, especially since I feel it remains relevant in our day. I believe Pope Francis does as well, as did Pope Benedict.

Dawn posted some excerpts of the secret with links to the Holy See documentation. She quoted Sr. Lucia, one of the seers, now deceased, who decades later wrote: "The 3rd part of the secret is ...conditioned by whether we accept or not what the Message itself asks of us. ... Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see that it has been fulfilled; Russia has invaded the world with her errors. ..." If we have not yet seen [the prophecy's complete fulfillment], we are going towards it little by little with great strides, if we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality & violence, etc. ..."

I let Dawn know I thought she was right in making the connection between Fatima and current events regarding Russian aggression and expansion, not to mention 'infiltration' in the West. (I for one believe it has been going on since the onset of the Cold War.)

Notes from an interview with an Archbishop.

That said - this is one long introduction to what a Ukranian Archbishop had to say, pointing to Fatima, suggesting we are now seeing fulfillment of aspects of what the Blessed Virgin foretold at Fatima and later, to Lucia in the Monastery.

From Bishop Stepan Sus, Curial Bishop of Kyiv-Halyč, Ukraine, Titular Bishop of Zygris:

Bishop Sus: First of all, we understand that Russia will not respect our Church. We see that from what is happening in the occupied territories. The Ukrainian Catholic Church was expelled from the territories. The priests were persecuted or imprisoned, so it means that for Russia, respect for other churches, respect for human dignity and life in a democracy do not exist. We don’t relate to Russian points of view, and so we hope that Ukraine will stay, and we will defend ourselves as much as we can. For the last few years, Russian forces moved very slowly in the Donbas area, and we lost approximately 15% of our territory. But we hope that that will be the end of this war.

Ukrainians are praying every day for peace. That’s our main intention because we understand that prayer is the weapon of Christians. We need to defend ourselves, our families and our homes, but at the same time, the most successful weapon of the faithful is prayer. We pray a national rosary on our Ukrainian Catholic television every evening at eight. It is live, with approximately 550,000 people gathering to pray. Everyone understands that it is necessary to pray and ask God for peace and pray for our soldiers, wounded soldiers and civilian people, and also pray for our migrants, people who had to leave their homes.

For us, this message of the Virgin Mary of Fatima (ie, the errors of Russia) is, of course, some sign to understand the conditions of this war. If the Virgin Mary talked about the conversion of somebody or nations, it means that this group of people can bring something dangerous, something not acceptable for us, and could be a source of evil. Our soldiers who were captured experienced torture and other terrible things. One soldier mentioned that he saw the real face of evil. I understand that today, evil has a human mask so that we can have different imaginations of evil, and sometimes the source of evil can be human beings. So that might be the vision that Mary foresaw with this war, which is caused by Russia. Russians say that they want to reestablish the Soviet Union, but from a new point of view, like the Russian world, which is dangerous because everybody knows how it was.< - Bishop Stepan Sus

I've always agreed with Sr. Lucia's statement, " If we have not yet seen [the prophecy's complete fulfillment], we are going towards it little by little with great strides." It seems to me we are there.