This blog refuses the Fátima visions as a contravention of the Assumption of Mary, therefore outside the Church. Among its own assumptions, if you will, is the notion that the Church can "consecrate" a nonCatholic nation that didn't ask for it in advance. That is nothing more or less than placing an enemy under the herem. This is an act fit for the Fourth Crusade, anathema to Christians.
So as I read this foul act of arrogance, I (literally) fear for the souls of the Church. The sheer presumption is all the more jarring in that it starts with an admission of guilt; making the reader wonder, what grounds have we for placing herem upon others. I think, though, we might salvage some reconciliation, if we stick with the Confession. If the bishops diagnose the symptoms, by name, they might be able to prescribe a remedy.
So let us read what the bishops have offered:
Yet we have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young. We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.
We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons. We stopped being our neighbor’s keepers and stewards of our common home. We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war, and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters. We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves. Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord!
As noted, Russia is the outsider from a Latin (and much Orthodox) perspective. "We" cannot apply to a "them". That Mary is "queen of the rosary" further cements this in the Latin tradition, given the Greeks' employment of a different rosary entirely. Thus at stake is our conduct: greed and inattention. And aggression: expanding NATO, even unto Catholic Poland, without also bringing Russia into NATO, was an aggression.
Did the bishops ever speak out against insulting and exploiting post-Cold-War Russia? Did they show anything other than condescension to these "wayward brothers of our Faith"? I don't recall it. And the bishops don't admit it. So they have not offered a good Confession.
The "act of consecration" starts with a hollow confession of vague guilt and goes on to insult the Russians some more. It is worthless and the best we may all pray for is that our Lady does not hear it.
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