THE TRUTH ABOUT HINDUS AT FATIMA SANCTUARY

 

To be an investigator of demonic or supernatural phenomina as I have been doing for over 35 years, you must be patient and get all the facts first.  This requires you to listen to all sides of a situation.  For weeks now my email friends have been sending me photos and comments by the Father Gruner groups, by by John Vennari and Micheal Brown on the Hindu prayers at the Shrine at Fatima.  I have been slow to answer because I had not heard the statement from the Rector of Fatima or the Bishop, who were there with the Hindu group.  Listening to only those attacking Fatima is not Christian.  It is true that some of my articles sound like calumny even against Micheal Brwon, but I have always given them what I wrote first so that they could respond to it.  These accusations against the Shrine of Fatima and the Rector are calumny because they were printed world wide without asking for clairification from the Bishop or the Rector of Fatima and in fact are not true.  Pictures can mislead unless you have all the facts.  Just based on Pictures and without any other information Fatima has been attacked and in my opinion Our Lady has been attacked also.

Protecting the Shrine

The Hindus were welcomed into the sanctuary simply to offer flowers and  prayers to The Queen of Heaven, the Universal Mother. There was no  question of any pagan ritual, incense, incest or sacred cows. This is fitting and proper and doesn't defile the altar.  

Oh you of little faith, do you not know what protects Fatima?  Not only Our Lady and Our Lord, but the Angel of Fatima and the Porutugese saints.  If you stand in the Recinto facing the Basilica there are four statues larger than the rest. They are Portuguese saints. Left to right they are St. John of God, St. John de Brito, St Anthony and Blessed Nuno. Of interest here is St. John de Brito who was martyered by Hindus.  We have come a long way baby.

St. João de Brito and the Hindus

The opposition Joao de Brito encountered in the evangelization of Southern India was staggering. As an example, on one occasion, in 1686, after preaching in a particular region, he and his Indian catechists were seized and ordered to pay homage to the Hinu god Siva. They refused and were subjected to prolonged tortures. One, which is recorded, took the form of being hung from trees by chains which bound a hand and a foot, and plunged repeatedly into fetid, stinking water.

Seven years later, still in his mid-forties, he was arrested for upholding the Christian teaching on marriage to the indignation of a polygamist Rajah and was beheaded.

The statue of João de Brito, standing noble and erect, was (and is) overlooking the Capelinha with an almost proprietorial interest, at the time a bus load of Hindus arrived from Lisbon.  With television cameras in train they brought flowers to the Shrine and their priest stood at the altar in the Apparition area and offered prayers to the Queen of Heaven. There was no formal Hindu rite, no dancing, no invocations to strange deities, no sacred cows. They came to pay homage to the Queen of Heaven, and the local Bishop on the Shrine Rector rightly allowed them to.

The vociferous adversaries, who seem to view everything relating to Fatima through the distorted mirror of demons, claimed that the First Commandment had been spectacularly broken, as had the Canon Law which forbids pagan rites at altars consecrated to the celebration of Holy Mass. The hierarchy were personally vilified and represented as enemies of the Church. Even many Catholics, formerly strong champions of Our Lady of Fatima, were turning away and ‘walking no more’ with Her. 

But what was João de Brito thinking as he stood sentinel above the Apparition Chapel?  Did a life time of struggle to sow the Spirit of Truth in the souls of the Indian peoples, and ultimate death at their hands, stand on his pedestal appalled as their representatives came to offer flowers to the Queen of Heaven, and to pray for her protection?  On the contrary, I reckon the Portuguese Jesuit was overjoyed to observe how those seeds he had sown  were now ripening for harvest.  It was men like João de Brito who were responsible for the paradox that it is now the Hindus who are teaching the Catholics that Mary is the spiritual mother of all human beings.  

We are all created by the same God for the same purpose. The Hindus acknowledgment of our common spiritual mother at the Fatima shrine is possibly more in tune with heavenly thinking to bring all to a unity of faith than centuries of separation and hatred.

Letter To Spirt Daily by Leo Madigan

Dear Spirit Daily,

The following is from the current issue of the official Shrine of Fatima paper, Voz de Fátima.

The translation is faithful to the original Portuguese. It is a pity if your readership is encouraged to accept the erroneous and uncharitable slant suggested by the pictures printed – in all innocence, I am sure - on your site today. Perhaps you might care to do truth a service and counterbalance it by the official explanation.

With best wishes for the future,

Leo Madigan,

Fatima, Portugal.

Clarification from the Rectory of the Fatima Sanctuary

Readers of the Voz de Fatima will remember an article by the Rector of the Sanctuary published in January 2004 entitle “Fatima Sanctuary for all religions?”

The movements which have sprung up which had sprung up in opposition to our October conference were recorded there are now taking advantage of having seen a group of Hindus at the Sanctuary at the sanctuary, as recorded in the “Voz de Fatima” of May 2004, to launch their massive anti-ecumenical campaign which is coupled with their opposition to inter-religious dialogue. 

We have been sent many requests for an explanation and in order to answer everybody quickly we are using this method of communication. We have already given the reasons for welcoming our brothers of other confessions or religions and are here concentrating on the two points currently under scrutiny, the welcoming of the Hindus at the Sanctuary and the function of the new church of the Most Holy Trinity

1. The Hindu group wrote to us in advance , saying that  they wished to re-enact a visit made by Mr. Morari Bapur to His Holiness Pope John Paul II in May 1982.

2.. The Hindi priest, together with a translator which he had brought with him, went up to the image of Our Lady while the other Hindus remained below.

3. Altar. The translator explained that he was asking “the Most Holy Mother grant the rulers of nations wisdom and discernment, and that she might grant the world peace, peace, peace.  For some minutes the priest sung a prayer.  He made no gesture, nor did he perform any rite either at or near the Shrine.

4. We note that this plea for peace, because it is universal, is the same that brings other non Catholic world figures to the Sanctuary, for example the Dali Lama, the President of the Republic of India, the wives of Presidents Clinton and Arafat. Groups of non-Catholic Christians also come to ask for church unity and not infrequently the Sanctuary receives representatives of the Orthodox churches. Recently a dozen Anglican priests, accompanied by their Bishop, made a spiritual retreat in one of the Sanctuary buildings.

5. Having made their prayer in the Capelinha the Hindus were received in a private room by the Bishop of Leiria-Fátima and the Rector of the Sanctuary. They said that they had come out of devotion for the “Holy Mother”. They did not speak of a similar object of worship, or transpose this name from any entity of their religion. It would appear that misleading accounts of these actions have been given by the media, for whose presence we were unable to prepare because it was too late when we learned of it.

6. With regards to the Church of the Most Holy Trinity, which some persist in calling an “ecumenical temple” we are able to say that this term, which is susceptible to various interpretations, is not from the Sanctuary. It is not our term and it never has been, in intention or in practice, to hold, in the church at present under construction, any services that are not prescribed in the directories of the Catholic Church. The Sanctuary seeks to be faithful to the message which God has made the Deposit of Faith and cannot abandon the clear catholic character that established the Sanctuary in the first place,  as is seen in the Apparitions of the angel, which inspired the choice of name for the future church, and in that of Our Lady, which contained dramatic allusions to the mediating role of the Pope and the Bishops, in the unity of the Church and for the peace of the world.

7. In the hope that all our brothers understand that we desire and pray for the union of all Christians, and of all believers, and of all men, we also raise our prayer to Our Lady of Fatima that she may fortify us in the quest for unity, completely free from a spirit of dissention and controversy.

 

Santuário de Fátima, 29 de Junho de 2004, solenidade de S. Pedro e S. Paulo.

Rector: P. Luciano Guerra

Translation, research, and writings taken from Leo Madigan. 

For more on Leo Madigan go to http://www.theotokos.org.uk/leomadigan/