Zenit news reports that on April 11, 2003 Pope John Paul "entrusted the world's youth to the Blessed Virgin Mary during a festive gathering of 40,000 young people from Rome and neighboring dioceses." During this gathering the Pope read aloud a so-called "Act of Entrustment of youth to Mary," which contains the following declaration: "O Mary, help them to respond to their vocation. Lead them to the knowledge of true love and bless their affections. Sustain them in the moment of suffering. Render them intrepid messengers of the greeting of Christ on the day of Easter: Peace be with you! With them, I also entrust myself once again to you and with confident affection I repeat to you: I am all yours!"

        Fine words, indeed — but, once again, not what the Virgin of Fatima requested when She called for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart. Notice, also, that the ceremony was characterized as "an entrustment" rather than a consecration. The Pope’s advisors have apparently convinced him that one must no longer consecrate anything to Mary.

        This advice was revealed by Msgr. Bertone (Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) in connection with the Pope’s "entrustment" ceremony on October 8, 2000, during which "the world," "all people," "the young in search of meaning" and even "the unemployed" were "entrusted" to Mary. As Msgr. Bertone declared: "The word ‘consecration’ is traditionally used — most notably by St. Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort — to convey the desire of the faithful to ‘participate in the consecration that Christ himself made to his (sic) Father before his (sic) death on the Cross.’"

        So, in Msgr. Bertone’s view, the most fervently Marian saint in Church history supports the suggestion — never made by de Montfort himself — that a consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary would be contrary to the "traditional" use of the term. It would seem, then, that according to Bertone the Virgin of Fatima Herself was insufficiently schooled in correct theological terminology. She ought to have requested the "entrustment" of Russia so as not to trench upon the Atonement of Her Son.

        This is the same Msgr. Bertone, one recalls, who assured us in his commentary on the Third Secret of Fatima that "The decision of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to make public the third part of the ‘secret’ of Fatima brings to an end a period of history marked by tragic human lust for power and evil…" Only someone who has taken leave of his senses could believe that today, as Russia persecutes the Catholic Church, Red China rises, North Korea rattles its nuclear saber and the Arab world seethes with rage over our invasion of Iraq.

        My good friend Jim Bendell said it best: "Why don’t they just have one massive collegial Consecration of everything in the world EXCEPT Russia?" That is how silly — and how utterly dangerous for the safety of the Church and the world — this perverse avoidance of the Virgin’s simple request has become.