UNDOUBTEDLY, many readers will switch to another story upon seeing that headline. Salvation after death holds far less importance these days than, say, the latest antics of US President Donald Trump or the juiciest news or videos going viral.
But endless happiness with God in heaven remains infinitely more valuable. And thank heaven, the Almighty never turns His gaze and grace from His saving plan for humanity.
So, even as our last column, citing history, recounted how heaven stopped global war at least thrice in the last century after then popes Pius XII and St. John Paul II did consecrations instructed by God through Mary’s 1917 apparitions in Fatima, Portugal, His real goal is always salvation.
War blocks salvation by undermining faith, love and morals. Conflict makes swaths of humankind seek security in state power and arms, not God, and violate divine edicts on caring for one’s fellowmen, forgiving transgressions, and reining in hatred and cruelty.
Also showing God’s overarching goal of saving humanity is the other outcome from Fatima’s mandate for papal consecration of Russia and the Five First Saturdays devotion of praying and meditating on the Rosary and going to confession and communion: stopping the spread of “the errors of Russia.”
Russian errors spread
From 1917 to 1991, the Russian empire — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) under communist rule — instituted and propagated atheism, state supremacy and curtailment of human freedoms, including religion, speech and private property. The regime also persecuted Christians, leading to the martyrdom of countless priests, nuns and lay people.
Soviet Russia also undermined Christian family values, legalizing abortion ahead of any other country, facilitating divorce and teaching family members, including children, to report to authorities prohibited actions by parents, siblings and other relations.
State controls on media and discourse not only suppressed dissent but also spewed propaganda, hiding or distorting truths deemed unfavorable to Marxist rule and ideology. And communist autocrats thought little of eliminating opponents and pursuing destructive policies, causing or leading to more than 10 million deaths under despot Josef Stalin from 1930 to 1953.
Thus, Russia’s errors directly contravened the Ten Commandments to adore God, honor His holy name and day, protect life, marriage and the family, uphold truth, and use possessions without avarice and with respect and concern for others. Instead, communism worshiped the state, subjected all to it, including human rights, family life, property, thought and speech.
These errors spread through Soviet dominance over Eastern Europe and socialist allies around the world, including China, North Korea, Vietnam and the Central Asian republics that became part of the USSR. And communist ideology spread to non-communist nations, including Western countries allied against Moscow.
Atheism, statist policies, legalized abortion and easy divorce, socialist economics, and even control and manipulation of mass media and now social media with opponents censored, canceled or de-platformed — those and other Marxist tenets have gained ground in the Americas and Europe even after the 1990s Soviet collapse.
The socialist concept of structural change to liberate the poor has expanded in Western woke ideology to include racial, ethnic and gender groups seen as oppressed. Marxist concepts also influenced the Catholic Church with clergy and laity, especially in Latin America and the Philippines, adopting class warfare, political activism, and the preferential option for the poor in the 1970s “liberation theology.”
What’s worse, in the 1930s, said communist-turned-Catholic Bella Dodd, Moscow issued a directive to infiltrate Catholic seminaries with communist agents. The aim, explains Catholic professor Taylor Marshall in his book Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within, is rising to top hierarchy posts — reprising a similar plot by Freemasons since the 1840s.
None of this was even imagined when Mary warned about Russia’s errors. It was not even communist during her last Fatima apparition on Oct. 13, 1917. Rather, revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin took over Russia on Nov. 6 and 7, eventually establishing the USSR, the first communist state, which became a world superpower challenging the United States in the ideological Cold War.
The conversion of Russia
With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet empire after the liberalizing reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, many prophecy watchers wonder if Russia has been converted, as Our Lady of Fatima promised if God’s instructions are heeded for papal consecration and the Five First Saturdays devotion.
While Russia has not turned Catholic — the common understanding of conversion — it has certainly revived its Russian Orthodox Christianity after over eight decades of communist suppression. Under Vladimir Putin’s rule since 1999, Moscow restored to the Russian Orthodox Church much of the property seized by the Soviets.
He also ordered Russian state companies to fund the building of Russian Orthodox churches, which reportedly topped 39,000 by 2016. That’s 13 times the 3,000 before then Pope St. John Paul II’s consecrations in 1981, 1982 and 1984.
Also in 2016, Putin unveiled in Moscow’s vast square — where Lenin’s monument once stood — a 56-foot bronze statue of Vladimir the Great, Father of the Russian Nation, who united Russian tribes and converted to Christianity in 899. Putin declared then: “Christianity is the starting point of the Russian nation.”
Putin himself is a Marian devotee like millions of Russians. He is said to have asked then-Pope Francis during his 2019 visit to Rome to consecrate Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. And under his rule, Russia passed laws restricting same-sex relationships and advocacies in defense of “traditional family values.”
Notably, too, after papal consecrations by Pius XII in 1952 and Saint Paul VI in 1964, Moscow and Beijing had intense policy differences, dividing and weakening global communism.
So, is Russia converted? It is certainly no longer spawning godless totalitarian communist regimes, though its allies include repressive states. It eschews anti-religion liberal ideologies dominant in Europe and, until President Trump pushed conservative Christian tenets, across North America.
Of course, all that Christian revival goes south if global conflict breaks out. Let’s see next week how heaven may rein in the dogs of world war.