Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Pax Christi!
I am writing this urgent message because Pope Francis has announced that he will join with a papal envoy to Ukraine, Cardinal Krajewski, in Fatima, to consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25, in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. According to a report from the Catholic News Agency:
Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Vatican announced on Tuesday.
The Holy See press office said on March 15: “On Friday, March 25, during the Celebration of Penance at which he will preside at 5 p.m. in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
“The same act, on the same day, will be carried out in Fatima by His Eminence Cardinal Krajewski, Apostolic Almoner, as envoy of the Holy Father.”
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski was one of two papal envoys sent to Ukraine last week in an expression of the pope’s concern for the war-torn country’s population.
March 25 was the day in 1984 that Pope John Paul II consecrated Russia and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It is also the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.
Ukraine’s Latin Rite Catholic bishops asked Pope Francis earlier this month to consecrate Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.In a letter to the pope, the Ukrainian bishops said that they were writing “in these hours of immeasurable pain and terrible ordeal for our people” in response to many requests for the consecration.
“Responding to this prayer, we humbly ask Your Holiness to publicly perform the act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ukraine and Russia, as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima,” said the letter, published on the bishops’ website on Ash Wednesday, March 2.
I am writing to ask all readers of this newsletter to urge you or anyone known to you who has any influence with his local Ordinary or with any other Ordinary to please implore the Bishops to ask the Pope to invite Pope Benedict XVI and all of the Bishops of the world to join him in the consecration on March 25th "to avert a Third World War." It would be very easy for Pope Francis to send an invitation to all of the Bishops of the world, inviting them to join him in making the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
But time is short.
If the Pope does not invite the Bishops to join him (as Our Lady of Fatima requested), individual Bishops could still consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in their own cathedrals on March 25, as an act of solidarity with the Pope. Ideally, if Pope Francis does not invite the Bishops of the world to join with him in consecrating Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, individual Bishops could still inform him of their intention to unite with him in making the consecration and respectfully request that he invite the rest of the Bishops to join them.
In the three days that remain before the Feast of St. Joseph, Guardian of the Church, let us ask him to obtain the grace of an invitation by Pope Francis to Pope Benedict XVI and to all of the Bishops to participate in the consecration on March 25—and the added grace of a generous response by all of the Bishops. Then we would see at last the complete fulfillment of Our Lady of Fatima’s promise: “In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph, the Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, Russia will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata in union with St. Joseph,
Hugh Owen
