CNS STORY: Half a century later, still answering Fatima questions

I have a personal connection to this issue, if only ephemerally as May 13th is the date I was ordained to the priesthood. It was not a conscious connection when I negotiated the date with my Bishop back then, but I was a happy discovery of serendipity that I've come to  love deeply and value in  my life as a blessed confluence of events.

As a child, I knelt with my family before the Fatima Statue we owned to pray the rosary every month, and every night during Lent and Advent. Learning about this apparition, her message of love, and her call to holiness  at my parents knee. It helped form my understanding of the extent of God's love and grace for me as a sinner. I continue to believe the same throughout the past 24 years of my priesthood.

But...

I've always been uncomfortable with the piety of some Catholics that seem to exaggerate the lessons and devotion to the Fatima apparition. The fixation on the secrets received... the belief that what the Virgin asked for has not been thoroughly, fully, or complete as regards the consecration of Russia and the world.... These always struck a discordant note within me. It conflicts  with the belief I possess in our Lady of Fatima,  and in her love for us and Jesus. It is the belief which prayer, devotion, study, and parental love have graced me with.

I'm glad to read that the last extant Church official who participated in the actual event shares that I have been right in believing in the Church's teaching on the subject... and in the love of the Blessed Virgin which aids in bringing me to her Son. 

I'm posting both the source video and its companion source article.

CNS STORY: Half a century later, still answering Fatima questions