The Church Could Have Averted WWII

So in 2016-2017, I did a bunch of reading, research, and writing about Fatima. It was the 100th anniversary of the apparitions, it was timely, and it was interesting.

As I was doing this work, one thing came into clear focus for me: World War II was an optional event.

I mean, living in the world that World War II created, it can easily be mistaken (by American eyes like mine) an inevitable, apocalyptic clash in which the Allies took on the forces of Anti-Christ, goodness won, and a free world was reborn. The world was saved, and blessed are we if we have leaders as great as those who then strode the earth.

But I realized that's not the view of the world given by Our Lady of Fatima.

Rather, the second part of the secret of Fatima indicates that World War II was avoidable if her requests were heeded, if the Church reacted in a timely fashion, making the First Saturdays of reparation and the consecration of Russia. If the requested devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart had spread, then the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart would have come before the start of World War II. Indeed, there never would have been a war. Millions of lives could have been saved. An ocean of suffering could have been avoided.

Studying Fatima further, I even encountered the turning point in history, the year when the Church could have redirected the world away from war, according to Our Lady of Fatima. As Fr. Apostoli's excellent book Fatima for Today lays out, drawing on Sr. Lucia's own writings, the apparitions of Fatima didn't just come in 1917. There were the apparitions of the angel of peace, the angel of Portugal in 1916, and there were a number of subsequent apparitions to Sr. Lucia--as of course there had to be.

When you read the 1917 secret, look at it as though for the first time, as though we didn't know anything more than the events up to July 1917. You'll notice that she promises she will come again (emphasis added):

... If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. ...

Our Lady did not ask for the consecration of Russia in 1917, nor did she then ask for the first Saturdays of reparation. 1917 was not the turning point toward or away from World War II.

When, then?

She came in 1925 to ask for the First Saturdays, and for the first time explained what they entailed. The Church could not have responded to this request until then. And Our Lady came to ask for the consecration of Russia in 1929.

And then she and Jesus both came to Sr. Lucia in 1930, complained that "they"--the hierarchy--were not listening. They said that the consecration would be made, but it would be made late.

And here we have the crucial year, the hinge, the turning point. 1929-1930. Perhaps the progress toward war could still have been arrested till the predicted unknown light shone in the sky Jan. 25-26, 1938. Perhaps we had our chance for several years.

But these are the crucial years when we could have averted WWII.

And that forced me to another conclusion: The errors of Russia can't have merely been the errors of Communism. More on that tomorrow.