Our Lady of Fatima and the Jewish Holocaust

In describing Our Lady of Fatima, Sr. Lucia stated that she always wore a yellow star on her tunic

As we have noted previously, when describing the content of the Secrets of Fatima during one of her rare interviews, Sr. Lucia explicitly stated that they concerned chapters 8 to 13 of the Book of Revelation (See De la Sainte Trinite, M. The Whole Truth About Fatima, Volume III p533). So in order to discover the central essence of the secrets of Fatima, we are encouraged to draw comparisons with this portion of Scripture. Doing so is no easy task, given that there are no obvious or immediate parallels to Rev 8-13 given in the secrets. But it is fairly obvious that much of the content of the secrets is directly related to the tumultuous events of the 20th century - with an especial significance attached to the two World Wars. The apparitions at Fatima occurred in the midst of the First World War, at the exact moment of the rise of Soviet Russia - which is a central focus of the secrets. In addition, the Second Secret famously predicted the great Aurora Borealis of 1938, which heralded the dawn of the Second World War. It would thus logically follow that Our Lady of Fatima has communicated to us that chapters 8-13 of the Apocalypse are largely concerned with the events of the wartime period - including the Jewish Holocaust. This was a factor which I took into serious consideration when writing my book Unveiling the Apocalypse: Prophecy in Catholic Tradition, and helped to steer the development of the interpretations given in it. If the secrets concerned both the world wars and Revelation chapters 8-13, then it allows us to concentrate any interpretation of this section of the Apocalypse on these past historical events. And when we do so, the interpretations begin to take a life of their own.
If we look at the relevant portion of the Second Secret of Fatima below, we can see that its primary focus is on the Second World War and its aftermath in the spread of communism throughout the world:

The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
(The Second Secret of Fatima)

In the book, I attempt to show how chapters 8-13 of the Book of Revelation are indeed related to the events of the two world wars, which are represented by the first two "woes" of the Apocalypse described in Rev 9 (see the posts The Jewish Holocaust in Biblical Prophecy and The Four Beasts and the Four Horsemen for more details on this connection).  So if the secrets of Fatima correspond to the events of the two world wars and Rev 8-13, it stands to reason that they would also concern the single greatest travesty to emerge during this time period, and indeed in all of human history - the mass extermination of one-third of world's total Jewish population in the concentration camps of the Third Reich. The very people chosen by God since the dawn of creation to bring salvation to the world through His Son Jesus Christ, were raged against by a demonic entity bent on their total annihilation - the False Prophet of the Apocalypse and "Little Horn" prophesied in the Book of Daniel. This truly was quite literally, an event of biblical proportions - since it was foretold thousands of years in advance by the words of Holy Scripture:

...Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
(Dan 10:13-14)

The prophet Daniel was told that his people (i.e. the Jewish people), or "the saints of the Most High", as he also refers to them, would be attacked and prevailed over by the "Little Horn" - who is to be equated with the False Prophet in the Book of Revelation. But Daniel states that God would intervene to save His chosen people, and the "Little Horn" would be destroyed. The dominion of the "kingdom" possessed by the beast like a leopard would then be given to the "saints of the Most High", and the "kingdoms" represented by the other three beasts would be allowed to continue for a while, minus control over this dominion.

As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.
(Dan 7:21-22)

As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
(Dan 7:12)


These events were foreshadowed in the persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who perpetrated the original "abomination of desolation" by erecting an altar dedicated to Zeus on the Temple Mount. Epiphanes was eventually overthrown by Judas Maccabeus and the Holy Land was restored to the Jewish people circa 165BC. So it is important to keep in mind the relationship between the "abomination of desolation" and the Jewish restoration.

If the Jewish Holocaust was foretold in the Bible (as I argue in my book), could it be possible that it was also predicted in the greatest prophetic event outside of Scripture - in the Secrets of Fatima? This certainly seems to be the opinion of the current Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisco Bertone. It will be worth quoting some material dealing with Sr. Lucia's view of this subject given in Card. Bertone's book The Last Secret of Fatima:


Giuseppe De Carli:

What value can prophecy such as Fatima possibly have if it doesn't mention the Shoah, the extermination of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis? Why is the prophecy so lopsided? But now even the hypercritical are satisfied. A recently published booklet for the use of pilgrims to Fatima contains a sort of spiritual diary written by Sister Lucia at the request of the then general of the Carmelite Order, Anastasio Ballestrero, who went on to become cardinal archbishop of Turin. In this diary, Sister Lucia adds an interesting---sensational?---coda to the second part of the message, which predicts that World War I is about to end and warns that another war may break out during the ponificate of Pius XI.
"The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI." In what sense would it be worse? Sister Lucia asks. "In the sense that it would be an atheistic war that attempted to exterminate Judaism, which gave the world Jesus Christ, Our Lady, the Apostles, who transmitted the Word of God and the gift of faith, hope, and charity. The Jews are God's elect people, whom he chose from  the beginning: 'Salvation is from the Jews.'" This passage is surprising. Lucia wrote these words in 1955. The text was then sent to Rome by order of Paul VI, where it ended up forgotten in the Vatican Archives (where else?). I won't swear to this, but Sister Lucia's words do sound as if they could be a completion of the Secret as a whole...

Card. Bertone:

What you are saying is something of a surprise to me. They certainly do introduce a new aspect of our topic. They also give us a better insight into how interaction with the supernatural worked in Sister Lucia's life. The words referring to the extermination of the Jews are italicized and appear in quotation marks. This means that Sister Lucia considered them to have a prophetic meaning. So they may be part of the interpretation of the Secret, or perhaps they are a further development of it. In 1955, knowledge about the Shoah was still pretty shaky. It would have been even more confused in a place like Coimbra, where Lucia entered Carmel on March 25, 1948. The horrific discovery of what the Nazis had done, and the ensuing debate about the Holocaust that shook the world's conscience, happened only afterward...

(Card. Bertone, The Last Secret of Fatima, pp85-86)

So Card. Bertone - who we must remember is one of foremost experts on this subject, having been the highest level official sent to interrogate Sr. Lucia directly after the publication of the Third Secret, and one of the few people privy to her entire writings - believes that the events of the Holocaust may be either a part of the interpretation of the Secret, or "a further development of it". This insight prompts us explore this suggestion further, in an attempt to discover any other references to the Holocaust in the words and writings of Sr. Lucia concerning the Secrets of Fatima. And we find that one of the most obvious links between the Secrets of Fatima and the Jewish Holocaust is in the appearance of Our Lady herself - who in an apparent act of solidarity with the future plight of her fellow Jews, bore a yellow star on her tunic during her appearances to the shepherd children.
Sister Lucia gave detailed descriptions of Our Lady of Fatima to Fr. Thomas McGlynn, an American sculptor who was commissioned to make the official statue that would be used to decorate the front of the Basilica. This statue, sculpted under the direct supervision of Sr. Lucia herself, is a more accurate representation of Our Lady of Fatima, and is to be differentiated from the more famous pilgrim statue. 
We find a highly detailed account of the Virgin Mary's appearance given in the writings of Fr. Thomas McGlynn, who elaborated how Sr. Lucia would be at pains to mention the yellow star worn of the tunic of the Blessed Mother:


"Her feet rested on the azinheira (a small holm oak tree). The leaves of the azinheira were small, as it was a young tree. The leaves did not bend down." This was a shock to Tom who thought that Our Lady had appeared on a cloud, a form he considered to be appropriately artistic. Lucy added, "She always had a star on her tunic. She always had a cord with a little ball of light,' and she indicated an imaginary pendant around the neck falling down near the waistline."
She explained that there were only two garments visible, a simple tunic and a long veil or mantle. The tunic had no collar and no cuffs. Nor was there a cincture or a sash around the waist, although the tunic was drawn in at the waist. The sleeves were not wide, and the mantle and the tunic were a wave of light. When Tom asked her how one distinguished between the mantle and the tunic, she said, "There were two waves of light, one on top of the other." When Tom asked her if there was a line of gold on the mantle, she explained "It was like a ray of sunlight all around the mantle." She further explained that this ray around the mantle was like a thin thread. The mantle in Tom's sculpture was a long, oval contour, which he treasured. Lucy said, "It seemed to be straighter. It was a thing all made of light and very light, but it fell straight down. The clothing was all white. The cord was a more intense and yellow light.... The light of Our Lady was white and the star was yellow."

It is interesting to note that Fr. McGlynn thought to correct Sr. Lucia on the colour of the star, which to his artistic instincts should be represented as a more appropriate, regal gold-colouring. But Sr. Lucia was quite adamant that the star should be yellow in colour:


Fr. McGlynn asked if she meant gold. "No. Yellow! She was all of light. The light had various tones, yellow and white and various other colours. It was more intense and less intense. It was by the different tones and differences of intensity that one saw what was hand and what was face and what was mantle and what was tunic."

(Vision of Fatima, by Thomas McGlynn, O.P., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1948)

Fr. Thomas McGlynn, standing next to the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which is now situated in front of the Basilica

 

 

This attention to detail was obviously of great importance to Sr. Lucia, who must have considered every last feature of the apparition to be of deep symbolic importance. And the fact that she insisted that the star was yellow and not gold in colour immediately conjures images of the yellow star that would be forcibly imposed upon the Jewish population of the Third Reich. Every Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe was forced to wear a yellow Star of David with the word Jude (or its equivalents in other countries, e.g. Juif, Jood, etc.), which was intended as a "badge of shame" in order to distinguish them from the rest of the population.

Icon of Jewish Catholic convert St. Edith Stein, bearing the yellow Star of David

In the previous post, we have already noted how after Sr. Lucia's death on the 13th Feb, 2005, a connection was made between the star on the tunic of Our Lady of Fatima and the Star of Esther, in an article titled Hidden Revelations: The Star of Esther and the Secrets of Fatima by Marianna Bartold. It will be worth recapping the main thrust of this argument again here, as the central theme of the biblical story of Esther is her role in rescuing the Jewish people from the threat of total annihilation - which in many ways prefigures the looming threat of a Jewish Holocaust in the 20th century. In her article (linked to above), Bartold connects the star depicted on the tunic of Our Lady of Fatima to the biblical tale of Esther, the famed Jewish Queen who interceded to save her people from destruction on the 13th of the month of Adar - an event which is still remembered by Jews today during the festival of Purim. Bartold notes that the Hebrew month of Adar roughly corresponds to February in the Gregorian calendar, highlighting the significance of this connection in relation to the date of the death of Sr. Lucia on 13th Feb, 2005. Because of a use of a lunar calendar system, the Hebrew months shift back and forward slightly each year, as opposed to the Gregorian calendar which has dates that are firmly fixed. So the 13th February would certainly be the best (and perhaps only) date in the Gregorian calendar that could be used to symbolically point to the 13th Adar.
We have already noted how Queen Esther's name is etymologically linked to the Morning Star - being a variation of the name Ishtar (see here). Additionally, Queen Esther was given the Hebrew name Hadassah at birth - a word meaning "myrtle", which is a small evergreen tree known for having a star-like flower with five petals. So in both her given names, Queen Esther was associated in some way with a star, making this symbol doubly apt in referencing this biblical tale.

The connection between the Star of Esther and Our Lady of Fatima is further bolstered by the fact that the apparitions always occurred on the date of the 13th of each month - which once again recalls Esther interceding to save the Jewish people from destruction on the 13th of Adar.
The Book of Esther is set during the reign of King Ahasuerus of Persia (who has been variously identified with Xerxes I, Artaxerxes I and Artaxerxes II), and focuses on the Jewish diaspora of the post-exilic period. We are told that Esther was orphaned at a young age and raised by her cousin Mordecai, who brought her up at his own daughter. When King Ahasuerus was spurned by his queen Vashti, the ruler sought to replace her with a new queen, and ordered for all the beautiful girls of the land to be presented to him. Keeping her Jewish identity hidden, Esther was taken before Ahasuerus, and the enamoured monarch made her queen in Vashi's stead.
The plot thickens when Ahasuerus appoints a new prime minister - the wicked Haman, who becomes enraged at Mordecai when he refuses to bow down to him. When Haman learns that Mordecai is Jewish, he then plots to annihilate all the Jews of the Achaemenid Empire - which up to this date was the world's largest ever empire. It is here that the parallels with the Jewish Holocaust of the 20th century first begin to emerge:


So, as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.
(Esther 3:6)

Haman convinced King Ahasuerus that the Jews were a seditious people, and persuaded him to issue a royal edict ordering for all the Jews of the land to be slain and their goods plundered. So still unaware of the Jewish identity of his queen, Ahasuerus agreed. Seeking to find the most opportune date to destroy the Jews of the empire by consulting pagan oracles, Haman then casts lots (Hebrew pur) to determine the date of 13th Adar as the most auspicious moment to strike:

Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.
(Esther 3:13)

When the 13th Adar would come round, each citizen of the empire would be free by royal command to slaughter the Jews and despoil their property. Upon learning of this plot to destroy all the Jews in the empire, Mordecai beseeches Queen Esther to intercede for them to the King. And at great risk to her own life, Esther then bravely entered unbidden into the the royal court in an attempt to save her people.


Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.”
(Esther 7:3-4)

It has rightly been noted that on a symbolic level, each of the main characters of the Book of Esther correspond to heavenly counterparts - which is something to keep in mind here. King Ahasuerus represents God, while the evil Haman symbolises the Devil. Queen Esther in turn parallels the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven who intercedes for her people - while the good, fatherly-figure of Mordecai can be equated with St. Joseph.
When the king learns of Esther's lineage, and that Haman's plot would see her slain along with the rest of her people, Ahasuerus then makes provisions to spare the Jews from the coming slaughter:

Then Esther spoke again to the king. She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. When the king held out the golden scepter to Esther, Esther rose and stood before the king. And she said, “If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I am pleasing in his eyes, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king. For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming to my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?” Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, “Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows, because he intended to lay hands on the Jews. But you may write as you please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king, and seal it with the king's ring, for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked.”
 The king's scribes were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day. And an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language. And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king's signet ring. Then he sent the letters by mounted couriers riding on swift horses that were used in the king's service, bred from the royal stud, saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods, on one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
(Esther 8:3-12)

We are then told of the complete reversal of the fortunes of the Jews on the 13th Adar, when their enemies' plans were turned on their heads.

Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king's command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.
(Esther 9:1)

This sudden turnaround in fortune - bouncing back from the threat of total extermination to consolidate the highest ranking subordinate political role in the imperial court, at the very seat of the current world-power, resonates quite strongly with the fate of the Jews in the wake of the Holocaust in the 20th century. The birth of the modern state of Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War saw one of the sharpest, and indeed greatest political reversals in human history. The Jewish people had went from the extreme of the very real threat of total annihilation under the boot of Nazi tyranny, to being reborn once again as a nation after enduring millennia of aimless wandering amongst gentile nations. The guiding hand of God was surely at work here...

So instead of being destroyed on the 13th Adar, the Jews won victory over their enemies. The next day, when news of this victory began to spread (on the 14th Adar), is still celebrated today as the feast of Purim.
In directing us to Queen Esther interceding to spare the Jews from complete annihilation in the words of Holy Scripture, it seems almost certain that Our Lady of Fatima (bearing the yellow star of Esther in sympathy with her fellow people) was warning of the horrors of the Holocaust that was to come. The story of Queen Esther, which tells of the threat of the Jews being completely destroyed, but is then turned into a moment of victory, directly parallels the situation under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, when the persecution of the Jews by this wicked Seleucid ruler was turned on its head, and the Holy Land was restored to the people of Israel under the Maccabees.
It is interesting then to note that just after the last apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, coinciding with the Miracle of the Sun on 13th October, 1917, preparations for the restoration of Israel were already under way, with the issue of the Balfour Declaration by the British government on November 2nd, 1917 - calling for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in the land of Palestine. When control of Palestine fell into the hands of the British government in the wake of World War I, the Balfour Declaration was drafted into the British Mandate for Palestine. By rather ominous happenstance, a decisive victory that allowed Britain to take control of Palestine was won just a year later, during the Battle of Megiddo in 1918. And in the post Our Lady of Mt. Carmel: The Visions of Fatima and the Battle of Har Megiddo, we have already established how the Virgin Mary's appearance as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel during the Miracle of the Sun pointed to the significance of the Battle of Armageddon in the Book of Revelation (which as I argue in the book, will take place in the future as a direct consequence of these events).
These occurrences, taking place in the same period as the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima, paved the way for the restoration of Israel in the aftermath of the Second World War. It may be no coincidence then, that the Israeli Declaration of Independence was made on May 14th, 1948 - just a day after the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima on May 13th, 1917. This correlates with the way in which the Feast of Purim is celebrated on 14th Adar - the day after the intercession of Queen Esther to save the Jews from destruction.
Given the fact that the restoration of Israel took place exactly 1,260 years after construction began on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (see the post The Abomination of Desolation), it seems inescapable from concluding that these events were highly prophetic in nature. Indeed the Third Secret itself appears to allude to the abomination of desolation spoken of in Scripture. The city on a hill with a large cross on top is a clear reference to Jerusalem, and the actions of the angels -gathering up blood and sprinkling it on the souls of the deceased, echoes the inner workings of the Temple performed by the Levite priesthood. The city being "half in ruins" points to one of the original, preterist meanings of the "abomination of desolation", when the Romans ransacked Jerusalem, destroying the Temple in 70AD.

Although we can conclude that the Secrets of Fatima appear to have foretold the Jewish Holocaust, which was conducted under the auspices of the forerunner to the Antichrist - the anti-Elijah or False Prophet (who Our Lady of La Sallete foretold would arrive "before twice fifty years would go by" - i.e. before 1946); they also look beyond this to the time of the final persecution of Christians under the Antichrist. As Qoheleth informs us, history, especially prophetic history, has a tendancy to repeat itself:

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done...
(Ecc 1:9)

Just as the Book of Daniel tells us that the False Prophet, or "Little Horn", was prefigured in a persecutor of Jews - Antiochus IV Epiphanes; the Book of Revelation models the person of the Antichrist on a persecutor of Christians - the Emperor Nero (whose name forms the basis of the prophecy of the number of the Beast). Rather frighteningly, it appears that the Jewish Holocaust foreshadows a future Christian Holocaust under the Antichrist, in a manner which echoes the words of St. Paul: "first for the Jew, then for the Gentile" (Rom 1:16).
Turning back to the connections between Fatima and the Jewish Holocaust, there seems to be further confirmation of this relationship in Sr. Lucia's memoirs, which describes Jacinta's visions of the Second World War:


Jacinta's Visions of the Holy Father
 
One day we spent our siesta down by my parent's well. Jacinta sat on the stone slabs on top of the well. Francisco and I climbed up a steep bank in search of wild honey among the brambles in a nearby thicket. After a little while, Jacinta called out to me:
"Didn't you see the Holy Father?"
"No."
"I don't know how it was, but I saw the Holy Father in a very big house, kneeling by a table, with his head buried in his hands, and he was weeping. Outside the house, there were many people. Some of them were throwing stones, others were cursing him."
I have already told you how, one day, two priests recommended to us to pray for the Holy Father, and explained to us who the Pope was. Afterwards, Jacinta asked me:
"Is he the one I saw weeping, the one Our Lady told us about in the secret?"
"Yes, he is," I answered.
"The Lady must surely have shown him also to those priests. You see, I wasn't mistaken. We need to pray a lot for him."
At another time, we went to the cave called Lapa do Cabeco. As soon as we got there, we prostrated on the ground, saying the prayers the Angel had taught us. After some time, Jacinta stood up and called to me:
"Can't you see all those highways and roads and fields full of people, who are crying with hunger and have nothing to eat? And the Holy Father in a church praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary?
And so many people praying with him?"
Some days later, she asked me: "Can I say that I saw the Holy Father and all those people?"
"No. Don't you see that that's part of the secret? If you do, they'll find out right away."
"All right! Then I'll say nothing at all."

Visions of War

One day, I went to Jacinta's house to spend a little while with her. I found her sitting on her bed, deep in thought.
"Jacinta, what are you thinking about?"
"About the war that is coming. So many people are going to die, and almost all of them are going to hell! Many homes will be destroyed, and many priests will be killed. Look, I am going to heaven, and as for you, when you see the light which the Lady told us would come one night before the war, you run up there too."
"Don't you see that nobody can just run off to heaven!"
"That's true, you cannot! But don't be afraid! In heaven I'll be praying for you, for the Holy Father, for Portugal, so that the war will not come here, and for all priests."

(Fatima in Lucia's Own Words, Third Memoir, pp112-113)

Here we are told that part of the secret concerns the sufferings of a pope, who while weeping and praying in the sanctuary of his own house (devastated by the plight of those hungering and thirsting as a result of the war), is slandered and heckled by those outside. The endnote to Lucia's Third Memoir identifies the pope of Jacinta's visions as Pius XII, stating: "There is every reason to assume that this refers to Pope Pius XII, the great Pope of the Immaculate Heart of Mary."(Third Memoir, n17). It was Pius XII who made the first attempt to fulfil Our Lady's request to consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, having done so on October 31st, 1942, just before major turning points in the war. Although it was acknowledged that this consecration didn't fulfil all the criteria specified by Our Lady (since it wasn't performed by all the world's bishops as well as the pope), it appears to have gained certain graces. The fall of Stalingrad began a few days later, on 19th November, 1942; with the surrender of the German forces on 2 Feb, 1943 - the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.
Could the Secrets of Fatima be connected with the plight of Pope Pius XII during the war? This saintly pontiff has been wrongly lambasted by some elements of the media as "Hitler's Pope", for allegedly failing to condemn Nazi Germany's systematic slaughter of the world's Jews. The truth of the matter was that this holy Pope worked fervently to save thousands of Jews - which appears to be a truth reflected in Jacinta's vision. (See here for a neutral debate on Pius XII and the Holocaust). Is this the real meaning behind Jacinta's vision of those outside the pope's house, throwing stones and cursing him? The vision of the Holy Father weeping bitterly inside his own house perhaps provides an insight to the impossible dillemma Pius XII was presented with during this time.

It seems then that Hitler was prevented from achieving his goals during the Second World War due to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who like Queen Esther, interceded to save her people from complete annihilation. The great aurora borealis of 1938, which looked to many like flames reflected in night sky threatening to set the world ablaze, appears to have symbolised the flames of the angel's sword in the Third Secret - which die out upon contact with Our Lady's protective splendour:

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand...


See also the related post: The Prophetic Symbolism of Our Lady of Knock