St. Pope John Paul II on Fatima

When Pope John Paul II visited Germany in November 1980 he held a meeting with around 300 people. He was confronted with three questions which were:

1. Do you agree with the receiving of the Holy Eucharist in the hand?

2. What happened to the third secret of Fatima?

3. What is the future of the Catholic Church?

His answers were:

1. "No I do not agree. However my predecessors gave the hand receiving of the Holy Eucharist to some countries. I am not going to revoke the privilege."

2. "I and the Popes before me did not reveal the third secret of Fatima because we did not want to make the people give up and say "then what is the use to continue living". Furthermore, we did not want to create a sensationalism in the news media. Regarding the third secret of Fatima every Christian should know the following: Continents will disappear beneath the oceans. Whole Nations will be destroyed from moment to moment." 

3. The future of the Catholic Church is the following:

a) "The Church shall be greatly persecuted. Where the martyrs of the past are nothing compared with those of the future. This is the weapon (the Rosary) that the Christian must use against the terrible future. Not to stop what shall happen but, but, but perhaps to soften what is predicted to happen." 

b) "... the chastisements cannot be averted, it is too late... the die was cast. The chastisements can be mitigated by praying the Rosary."

On 13 May 1981, Pope John Paul II was seriously wounded. He missed two bullets aimed at his skull as he bent down to look at a medal of Our Lady of Fatima worn by a young girl in the crowd. In the recuperating room he read everything he could about Fatima, and he reread the Third Secret.

While recovering from his surgery due to the gun shot, the Pope stated that:

"... in these months, I have come to understand that only solution to all problems of the world, the deliverance from war, the deliverance from atheism, and from the defection from God is the conversion of Russia. The conversion of Russia is the content and meaning of the message of Fatima. Not until then will the triumph of Mary comes."

On 13 May 1982, Pope John Paul II publicly thanked the Blessed Mother for saving his life, during his visit to Fatima.

 

Archives of the Order (7) - Proclamation appointing the Tsar Paul I as Grand Master of the Order of St. John

 

We, the Bailiffs, Grand-Crosses, Commanders, Knights of the Grand Priory of Russia, and all other members of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, present in this imperial city of St. Petersburg, reflecting on the disastrous situation of our Order; its total want of resources, the loss of its sovereignty and chief place of residence, the dispersion of its members, wandering through the world without a chief or any fixed spot of rendezvous, the increasing dangers by which it is threatened, and the plans formed by usurpers to invade its property and win it entirely; being desirous and in duty bound to employ all possible methods to prevent the destruction of an Order equally ancient and illustrious, which has ever been composed of the most select nobility, and which has rendered such important service to the Christian world; whose institutions were founded on such excellent principles as must not only be the firmest support to all legitimate authority, but tend to its own preservation and future existence; animated by gratitude towards His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias for the favours bestowed on our Order, penetrated with veneration for his virtues, and confidently relying on his sacred word ”that he will not only support us in our institutions, privileges, and honours, but that he will employ every possible means to re-establish our Order in its original independent situation, where it contributed to the advantage of Christendom in general, and of every different state in particular.”

Knowing the impossibility in our present circumstances, the members of our Order being generally dispersed, of preserving all the forms and customs prescribed in our constitution and statutes; but being nevertheless desirous to secure the dignity and the power inherent to the sovereignty of our Order, by making a proper choice of a successor to D’Aubusson, L’Isle Adam, and La Valette:

We, the Bailiffs and Grand-Crosses, the Commanders and Knights of the Grand Priory of Russia, and all other members of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, assembled at St. Petersburg, the chief place of residence of our Order, not only in our own names, but in those of the other languages, grand priories in general, and all their members in particular, who shall unite themselves to us by a firm adhesion to our principles, proclaim His Imperial Majesty the Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Paul I., as Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

In virtue of this present proclamation, we promise, according to our laws and statutes, and that by a sacred and solemn engagement, obedience, submission, and fidelity to His Imperial Majesty, the Most Eminent Grand Master.

Given at St. Petersburg, the residence of our Order, this present Wednesday, the 27th October 1798.

Source: A History of the Knights of Malta, Vol 2., Porter, Wintworth., (c) 1858, Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, London.