NOTE at 4:00 pm Jan. 13, 2023: The link to the Lab Leak Hypothesis is restored. Thank you for calling it to my attention.
The following is an essay previously published in our Newsletter, Evensong Reflections. in about 2020, if I recall correctly. The newsletter contained much that I did not post on Return to Fatima, and if there is interest, I’ll publish more.
“Man has the power to unleash a cycle of death and terror, but he is not able to stop it . . . The faith in vast regions of the earth risks being extinguished, like a flame without fuel.”
(Pope Benedict XVI, May 13, 2010 at Fatima)
Ten years earlier, as Cardinal Ratzinger he had spoken differently. Now, though, he reversed course, affirming that, “He deceives himself who thinks that the prophetic mission of Fatima is concluded.” He added: “There are indicated future realities of the Church which little by little are manifesting themselves… and therefore it is the sufferings of the Church which are announced.”
Three times, popes have come to Fatima on May 13 to speak of the prophetic meaning of Fatima; that is, Pope Paul VI on May 13, 1967, for the 50th Anniversary of Our Lady’s first visit, May 13, 2000, then 33 years later in 2000, Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the Beatification of Saints Jacinta and Francisco Marto, and lastly, in 2010, the above mentioned visit by Benedict XVI.