Explore 7 questions and answers about Fatima and Apparitions, answered by Dr. Robert Sungenis.
I used to hold the position most traditional Catholics hold on Fatima, and I held it in print. In 2013 I co-wrote a book with John Salza arguing that seven popes had failed to carry out what Our Lady asked at Fatima, that the consecration of Russia had never been done correctly, and that none of the promises had therefore been given. I no longer believe that, and this hub reflects where I ended up rather than where I started.
What changed was looking hard at what was actually required and what was actually done. The common account says a valid consecration must name Russia explicitly and must have every bishop in the world take part, and that no pope has managed both. Pius XII consecrated Russia by name on 7 July 1952. Traditional Fatimaists set that aside. When I stopped assuming it had to be set aside and examined it, the case for dismissing it did not hold.
I am also less comfortable than I was with the shape of the argument I had been making. We were watching the world and the Church come apart, we wanted Heaven to intervene, and the quickest route to that hope was to decide the fault lay with the popes. That is a motive, not an argument, and I had not separated the two.
So my position now is the one the title carries. The consecration was accomplished and what followed from it followed. The Third Secret is a different matter: it reads as a prophecy with no fixed terminus, which is why the book says fulfilled and still foreboding rather than fulfilled and finished.
The questions below work through the apparitions themselves, the 1917 and 1929 requests, the successive consecrations, and what the Third Secret does and does not say.