Russia Converting: to Sects and Astrology

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        Now that Archbishop Bertone has revealed the latest Secret Sister Lucy Interview^©, in which "Sister Lucy" says, in essence, "don’t worry, be happy," I suppose the Vatican thinks we should simply disregard the almost daily reports of the "former Soviet Union’s" precipitous decline since the "consecration of 1984." Sorry, but no can do.

        Oddly enough, not even the supposedly "mainstream" Catholic press can refrain from reporting the true situation. As just one of innumerable examples, on October 22, 2001 Zenit.org reported that "Christians in former Communist countries are facing a new crisis: an influx of sects and a rise in astrology." As Zenit reveals, during a conference on religions in Budapest in October, one Father Laszlo Lukacs "lamented the trend that has hit his country since 1989. ‘Astrology is so popular that even mediums are on the TV screen ... and several non-Christian groups have registered as churches, including the Church of the Hungarian Witches and the Church of the New Fresh Wind.’"

       Father Lukacs added: "It is an attack against God himself." What? An attack against God in Russia and the rest of the "former Soviet Union"? Impossible! Have we not heard from Archbishop Bertone at the Vatican that the Secret Sister Lucy Interview^© has laid all such concerns to rest? And is this not the same Archbishop Bertone who informed us in his commentary on the Message of Fatima back in June 2000 that publication of the ostensible Third Secret "brings to an end a period of history marked by tragic human lust for power and evil…"? What should we believe - the assurances of Archbishop Bertone or the mere evidence of our senses?

       Strange to say, Father Lukacs is identified by Zenit as "a priest with close ties to the Vatican." Well, how can the Vatican apparatus ignore the testimony of this priest in favor of the Party Line that the conversion of Russia need no longer concern us because Russia was "consecrated" to the Immaculate Heart seventeen years ago?

       Father Lukacs went on to say: "We have to rediscover the figure of Jesus and the Bible itself. I often see that our language, our phrases, our rituals do not open up the hearts of the people to Christ. It is a false picture of Christ that is shown to them." Here Father Lukacs admits what Catholic "traditionalists" have been saying for decades, since the "reforms" of Vatican II replaced Latin with English, the altar with a table and evangelism with "ecumenism."

       But while Father Lukacs can see reality, the rest of us are supposed to ignore it and rely instead on the newest product put out by the Fatima Revisionist Store: the new, improved, and quite low-calorie Secret Sister Lucy Interview^©. Catholics, however, are entitled to something more substantial - that thing which is commonly known as the truth.