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The Pope and Fatima

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Peter Hebblethwaite
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Extract

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The admirable work edited by Fr Alberic Stacpoole OSB, Mary’s Place in Christian Dialogue (St Paul Publications, 1982), makes no mention of Fatima. Even Archbishop Eugenio Cardinale’s paper on ‘The Mariology of Pope Pius XIF does not allude to it, which is strange because in Portugal he is known as ‘the pope of Fatima’. Clearly, Fatima has no place on the agenda of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary whose papers are collected in this volume. The reason for the omission is evident: Fatima represents the kind of mariology that most alarms and scandalises our Christian brothers and sisters. With its banal ‘messages’, its improbable miracles and its resolute anti-communism, it makes the faith ‘risible’, and St Thomas says we should not do that.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 63 , Issue 748 , October 1982 , pp. 422 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

Footnotes

*

Apologies to feminists for the concentration on the son‐mother and mother‐son relationship. It echoes the emphasis of John Paul and most mariologists, who have usually been male. Perhaps the reason why daughters are left out is simply that they can themselves become mothers and thus, having experience of both terms of the relationship, are less likely to be misled by fantasies about it.