Fátima, compendio de la fe

The Portuguese preserve the dogma of the faith in the exact measure that they hold fast with filial docility to the revelations of Our Lady of Fatima, “the best of catechists”, as Mgr Venancio said. During his episcopate, he often recalled that “the message of Fatima encompasses a doctrinal content so vast that none of the fundamental themes of the Christian faith are missing”10. In his pastoral letter for the fiftieth anniversary of the apparitions, he declared: “Today people are searching, and with good reason, for new pastoral methods that are living and effective. But, allow me to say this, nothing is more effective than to show how Catholic dogma lies at the bottom of the Message confided to us at Fatima. Destined, by its content, for the whole world, it translates dogma and sets it before our eyes in a manner that is at once concrete and arresting.11”

Observing the progress of apostasy within the Church, his successor, Mgr do Amaral, said, in 1975, in a strikingly pithy turn of phrase: “Fatima is a proclamation of faith for the Christian of our times. If there is no article in the Credo that is not questioned today, neither is there any truth of faith that is not affirmed by Fatima.12”