Pius XII’s Fatima vision and the widespread apostasy we see today

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Pius XII’s Fatima vision and the widespread apostasy we see today
When explaining what his 1954 vision of Fatima’s miracle of the sun meant, Pope Pius XII replied with one word: apostasy.



Our Lady of Fatima
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Robert Morrison
Nov 4, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — On a recent episode of Faith & Reason, Fr. Charles Murr told John-Henry Westen about Pope Pius XII’s vision of Fatima’s miracle of the sun. As Fr. Murr recounted, Pius XII had the vision while walking in the Vatican gardens in 1954. When asked what it meant, the pope replied with one word: apostasy.

Pope Pius XII was not the only high-ranking cleric to use the word “apostasy” in connection with Fatima. In his The Secret Still Hidden, Christopher Ferrara quoted two cardinals who used the same term in connection with the Third Secret of Fatima:

• Cardinal Luigi Ciappi: “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top.” (p. 43)
  
• Cardinal Silvio Oddi. “[The Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.” (p. 42)
  

Although these cardinals used the word apostasy in connection with Fatima, Pope Pius XII’s reference appears unique because he was speaking of the miracle of the sun rather than the Third Secret of Fatima. This invites us to consider whether there might be some deeper connection between the miracle of the sun and the Third Secret of Fatima.


Miracle of the Sun

Dr. José Maria de Almeida Garrett, professor at the Faculty of Sciences of Coimbra, Portugal, witnessed the miracle of the sun at Fatima and described it as follows:

… I could see the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed without hurting the sight. It could not be confused with the sun seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was neither veiled nor dim. At Fatima, it kept its light and heat, and stood out clearly in the sky, with a sharp edge, like a large gaming table. . . During the solar phenomenon, which I have just described, there were also changes of color in the atmosphere. . . . Everything both near and far had changed, taking on the color of old yellow damask. People looked as if they were suffering from jaundice and I recall a sensation of amusement at seeing them look so ugly and unattractive. My own hand was the same color. Then, suddenly, one heard a clamor, a cry of anguish breaking from all the people. The sun, whirling wildly, seemed all at once to loosen itself from the firmament and, blood red, advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge and fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was truly terrible.

In this description, the loosening of the sun from its firmament appears to correspond to Pius XII’s vision of the dancing of the sun. After the sun appeared to dance, people witnessed it plummet toward the earth before it was restored to its previous position, stable in the sky.


Metaphorical connection between the Sun and the Church

If there is indeed some connection between the miracle of the sun and the Third Secret of Fatima, we would need to see some basis for seeing the sun as representing the Church. In his Catena Aurea, St. Thomas Aquinas cited St. Augustine’s commentary on the following passage from the Gospel of St. Luke:

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves. (Luke 21:25)

As we can see from the following commentary, St. Augustine likened the Church to the sun, the moon, and the stars:

But that the Lord may not seem to have foretold as extraordinary those things concerning His second coming, which were wont to happen to this world even before His first coming, and that we may not be laughed at by those who have read more and greater events than these in the history of nations, I think what has been said may be better understood to apply to the Church. For the Church is the sun, the moon, and the stars, to whom it was said, Fair as the moon, elect as the sun. (Cant. 6:10.) And she will then not be seen for the unbounded rage of the persecutors.

Thus, St. Augustine saw a metaphorical connection between the sun and the Church. This connection does not conflict with the more common associations of Our Lord with the sun. Indeed, because the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, it is fitting to associate it with many of the same symbols that represent Jesus.

Applying this to the miracle of the sun at Fatima, we can say that a dancing sun could correspond metaphorically to a situation in which the Church appears to abandon its immutable nature and begin to follow beliefs and practices that are contrary to what it has always taught and practiced. We must say that this abandonment of immutable truth is only apparent because the Church itself cannot err or fundamentally change. For an eloquent and prophetic description of what this apparent abandonment of immutable truth might look like, we can turn to the words of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) while he was Pope Pius XI’s Secretary of State:

I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the faith, in her liturgy, her theology and her soul . . . I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past. (The Secret Still Hidden, p. 31)

These words appear to describe the current situation with Francis and his Synodal Church, but we know that these changes did not happen overnight. Already during his papacy, Pius XII was fighting the evils he had foreseen during his time as Secretary of State.


Pius XII’s Humani Generis

In 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote his encyclical “concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine,” Humani Generis. Professor Romano Amerio wrote the following about Pius XII’s Humani Generis in his Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century:

The encyclical reproves the modern mentality, not inasmuch as it is modern, but inasmuch as it claims to detach itself from the firmament of unchangeable values, and to give itself over wholly and solely to present existence. Even with corrections, this mentally cannot be reconciled with Catholic dogma. The following articles [in the encyclical] trace the descent of further errors, relating them all back to the error of creaturely independence. Historicism, being the consideration of existence detached from any fixed essence, finds reality only in movement, and gives rise to a universal mobilism. (p. 43)

Professor Amerio’s description reminds us of the dancing sun metaphor: Pius XII was fighting against the errors that threatened to detach Catholic dogma from “the firmament of unchangeable values,” leading to a mobilism, which Professor Amerio described as follows:

Mobilism is a characteristic of the post-conciliar Church, in which as Cardinal Alfrink says, everything has been put in motion and no part of the Catholic system is free from change. (p. 360)

Going back to the metaphor as the Catholic Church as the sun, Pope Pius XII’s encyclical sought to preserve the Catholic doctrine in its position of stability by condemning the errors that sought to “free dogma,” setting it in motion to follow the modern world.

Aside from this high-level consideration of the purpose of Humani Generis, it is worth noting one of the specific errors Pius XII addressed, relating to the need for souls to belong to the Catholic Church:

Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the Sources of Revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation. Others finally belittle the reasonable character of the credibility of Christian faith.

As we know today, the proponents of false ecumenism have sought to eliminate the requirement that members of the Mystical Body of Christ “profess the true faith” — but of course no human consensus can change what God has established for His Church. Pius XII’s Humani Generis was the last papal opposition to the false ecumenism that has been pushed on Catholics for over sixty years, but his words remain true today and always will.


John XXIII’s rejection of the warnings of Humani Generis

John XXIII delivered his opening address of Vatican II on October 11, 1962. In it, he set aside the Church’s constant practice of condemning the errors opposed to the Faith:

The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions and dangerous concepts to be guarded against and dissipated.

Whereas Pius XII and his predecessors had continuously insisted that shepherds must guard their flocks against ravening wolves by forcefully opposing errors, John XXIII opened the Council with a new orientation toward accommodation of the wolves. Even worse, John XXIII took several theologians who had been condemned under Pius XII and made them Council experts, including Hans Küng, Karl Rahner, Henri de Lubac, and Yves Congar.

Why might John XXIII have done this? In hindsight, we can see that these previously condemned theologians attempted to break Catholic doctrine from the constraints that stood in the way of the ecumenical goals John XXIII announced in his opening address:

In this regard, it is a source of considerable sorrow to see that the greater part of the human race—although all men who are born were redeemed by the blood of Christ—does not yet participate in those sources of divine grace which exist in the Catholic Church. . . Venerable brothers, such is the aim of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which, while bringing together the Church’s best energies and striving to have men welcome more favorably the good tidings of salvation, prepares, as it were, and consolidates the path toward that unity of mankind which is required as a necessary foundation in order that the earthly city may be brought to the resemblance of that heavenly city where truth reigns, charity is the law, and whose extent is eternity (cfr. St. Augustine, Epistle 138, 3).

Pius XII and his predecessors had insisted that the path to achieving unity consisted of non-Catholics accepting the entirety of Catholic teaching — the Church cannot evolve to suit error, so those in error must convert to the truth. Conversely, John XXIII and many of the Council’s leading figures believed that it would be far more effective for the Church to do precisely what Pius XII had condemned in Humani Generis, which amounts to breaking free of fixed doctrine to embrace the perpetual change needed to satisfy those outside the Church:

In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. . . Moreover, they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that his can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted.

Over and over — during Vatican II and in its aftermath — the proponents of ecumenism have told us that this is the necessary path for the Church: no longer can it remain “fixed in the firmament” as it was prior to the Council; it must have the doctrinal mobility to satisfy modern needs and unify mankind. Like the sun at Fatima, the religion of the post-conciliar innovators must be free to dance around.


Yves Congar’s assessment of the Council

The trajectory of Yves Congar’s career and legacy tells us much of what we need to know about the crisis in the Church. Although Humani Generis did not name any theologians, Congar was among those whose ideas were condemned by Pius XII. As mentioned above, John XXIII rehabilitated Congar, who became one of the leading figures of the Council.

In his small book from 1976 attacking Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Congar reflected on how Vatican II had ended the “inflexibility” that prevailed under Pius XII:

By the frankness and openness of its debates, the Council has put an end to what may be described as the inflexibility of the system. We take ‘system’ to mean a coherent set of codified teachings, casuistically-specified rules of procedure, a detailed and very hierarchic organization, means of control and surveillance, rubrics regulating worship — all this is the legacy of scholasticism, the Counter-reformation and the Catholic Restoration of the nineteenth century, subjected to an effective Roman discipline. It will be recalled that Pius XII is supposed to have said: ‘I will be the last Pope to keep all this going.’ (Challenge to the Church: The Case of Archbishop Lefebvre, pp. 51-52)

With these words, Congar was gloating that he and his fellow innovators had successfully achieved what Pius XII sought to prevent. In his mind, the Church was no longer stuck with the inflexibility that stifled development under Pius XII.

Congar was even more clear in his revised preface to True and False Reform in the Church:

Between 1947, when the book was first written, and 1950 the church—especially in France—sought to respond pastorally to the actual situation in which it found itself. But some initiatives worried Rome. Pius XII, a great pope, was not fundamentally opposed to change, but he wanted strict control over any change and even wanted all initiatives for change to be his alone. . . In a few short weeks John XXIII created a new climate in the church, and then came the council. This most significant breakthrough came from on high. All of a sudden, forces for renewal which had scarcely had room to breathe found ways to be expressed. The cautious suggestions for reform mentioned in my text of 1950 have been surpassed by far. What is happening right now, insofar as it is positive, is certainly in line with what I had intended, yet it goes a great deal further, well beyond what one could have hoped for in 1950. . . But more than anything, two great changes already characterize the climate within the church and will continue to do so more and more: an ecclesiology based on the ‘People of God’ and ecumenism.

From Congar’s perspective, John XXIII and his Council overcame the stultifying control exerted by Pius XII and his predecessors, leaving free rein for the forces of “renewal” that have dominated for the past sixty years. If we see widespread apostasy today, which corresponds to Pius XII’s explanation of the meaning of his vision of the sun, we can thank the “new climate in the church” created by John XXIII.


Waiting for restoration

Of course the miracle of the sun did not end with the dancing of the sun — the sun then plummeted toward the earth before being restored to its stable position in the Fatima sky. In the eyes of many, it appears that the Church (in its human element) is plummeting, threatening to bring great calamity to mankind. God alone knows how much worse it will get. But if Pope Pius XII had been shown a vision of Francis’s Synodal Church, which is inspired by Congar’s dream of creating a “different church,” it seems that he might respond with one word: apostasy.

What would restoration look like? Even if we dismiss the possible connection between the miracle of the sun and the current crisis, it seems entirely reasonable to believe that restoration will consist of eliminating all of those errors that Pius XII condemned in 1950 with his Humani Generis. And if that is the case, then perhaps we can better understand why God is permitting the crisis to grow worse: we are learning by painful experience that Pius XII was correct, so we should be more convinced than ever that we must cling to the immutable Catholic Faith and combat all the errors opposed to it. If we do that, we have every reason for confidence in God’s Providence, even if we reach a point at which all seems lost. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!