By Plinio Correa de Oliveira
On 11 February, we will celebrate the centenary of the first apparitions at Lourdes.
No one is unaware of this fact, in its simplest terms. In 1854, in the papal bull ‘Ineffabilis’, the great Pope Pius IX defined the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady as dogma. In 1858, from 11 February to 16 July, Our Lady appeared eighteen times in Lourdes to a girl of the people, Bernadette Soubirous, declaring herself to be the Immaculate Conception. From that moment on, miracles began to occur. And the great wonder of Lourdes began to shine in the eyes of the whole world, even to this day. The miracle confirming the dogma, this is, in summary, the relationship between the events of 1854 and 1858.
What is less known to the general public, however, is the relationship between these two great events and the problems of the mid-19th century, so different from those of today, but at the same time so very similar to them.
By defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Pius IX aroused reactions throughout the civilised world that were both disparate and profound.
On the one hand, among most of the faithful, the definition of the dogma aroused immense enthusiasm. To see a Vicar of Jesus Christ rise in the fullness and majesty of his power to proclaim a dogma in the middle of the 19th century was to witness an admirably lofty and bold challenge to the triumphant scepticism that was already corroding Western civilisation to its core. Moreover, this dogma was Marian. Now, liberalism, another plague of the 19th century, tends by its very nature towards interconfessionalism, the affirmation of everything that the various religions have in common (which ultimately boils down to a vague deism), and an underestimation, if not a formal rejection, of everything that separates them. Thus, the proclamation of a new Marian dogma – precisely as occurred in some quarters with the recent definition of the Assumption – appeared to the hidden or declared interconfessionalists of 1854 to be a serious and unexpected barrier to the realisation of their designs. Moreover, the new dogma, considered in itself, deeply shocked the essentially egalitarian spirit of the Revolution that, since 1789, had reigned despotically in the West. To see a simple creature elevated in such a way above all others, by an inestimable privilege granted at the first moment of its being, is something that could not and cannot fail to hurt the children of the Revolution, which proclaimed absolute equality among men as the principle of all order, all justice, and all good. Non-Catholics, like Catholics more or less infected by the spirit of 1789, found it painful to accept that God had installed with such prominence in Creation an element of such marked inequality.
Lourdes: A Lesson in Suffering
Finally, the very nature of privilege is unpalatable to liberal minds. If one admits original sin with all the consequences of disorder of the soul and misery of the body that it has brought about, one must accept that man needs an authority to whose dominion he must live subject. Now, the definition of the Immaculate Conception implied an implicit reaffirmation of the Church’s teaching in this regard.
However, as much as all this may be, it was not only in this that we would dare to call the salt of the glorious event of the definition of the dogma. It is impossible to think of the Immaculate Virgin without at the same time remembering the serpent whose head she triumphantly and definitively crushed with her heel. The revolutionary spirit is the very spirit of the devil, and it would be impossible for a person of faith not to recognise the part that the devil has played in the emergence and spread of the errors of the Revolution, from the religious catastrophe of the 16th century to the political catastrophe of the 18th century and all that followed. Now, to see the triumph of its greatest, its unchanging, its inflexible enemy thus affirmed was, for the power of darkness, the most horrible of humiliations. Hence a concert of human voices and satanic roars throughout the world, like an immense and thunderous storm. To see that against this storm of unconfessable passions, threatening hatreds, and furious despair, stood alone and intrepid the majestic figure of the Vicar of Christ, stripped of all earthly resources and relying solely on the help of Heaven, was a source of joy for true Catholics equal to that felt by the Apostles when they saw, in the storm unleashed on the Sea of Galilee, the divinely manly figure of the Saviour, commanding the winds and the sea with sovereignty: ‘venti et mare oboediunt ei’ (Mt. 8:27).
Just as all the generals and governors of the Roman Empire allowed themselves to be defeated or fled before the Huns, so too, in the face of the Revolution, those who in temporal society were supposed to defend the Church and Christian civilisation were in deplorable defeat or flight, in countless numbers.
In this situation, of noble and solemn drama, Pius IX, like St. Leo the Great, was the only one to face the adversary and force him to retreat.
Retreat? The proposition seems bold. However, nothing could be truer. From 1854 onwards, the Revolution began to suffer its greatest defeats.
It is true that, in appearance as in reality, it continued to develop its empire on earth. Egalitarianism, sensuality, and scepticism achieved ever more radical and extensive victories. But something new emerged. And this something, which is modest, unassuming, insignificant in appearance, has in turn been growing unstoppably and will eventually kill the Revolution.
To understand this fundamental point well, we must keep in mind the role of the Church in history and the devotion to Our Lady in the Church.
The Church is, in God’s plan, the centre of history. She is the Mystical Bride of Christ, whom He loves with a unique and perfect love, and to whom He wanted to subject all creatures. It is clear that the Spouse never abandons His Bride, and that He is extremely jealous of Her glory.
Thus, as long as its human element remains faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church has nothing to fear. Even the greatest persecutions will serve Her glory. And the most marked honours and prosperities will not diminish the faithful people’s sense of duty and love for the Cross. This is on the spiritual level.
On the other hand, on the temporal level, if men open their souls to the influence of the Church, the path to all prosperity and greatness will be open to them. On the contrary, if they abandon her, they will be on the path to all catastrophes and abominations. For a people who once belonged to the Church, there is only one normal order of things, which is Christian civilisation. And this civilisation, superior to all others, has the Catholic religion as its vital principle.
THE CONDITIONS FOR THE FLOURISHING OF THE CHURCH
In turn, there are three conditions for the flourishing of the Church that are so essential that they take precedence over all others. I have already spoken at length about them. However, it will never be enough to insist on them.
First of all, there is Eucharistic piety. Our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament is the sun of the Church. All graces come to us from Him. But these graces must pass through Mary. For she is the universal Mediatrix, through whom we go to Jesus, and through whom Jesus comes to us. Intense, enlightened, filial Marian devotion is therefore the second condition for the flourishing of virtue. If Our Lord is present in the Blessed Sacrament but does not speak to us, His voice is heard through the Supreme Pontiff. Hence, docility to the Successor of St. Peter is the proper and logical fruit of devotion to the Holy Eucharist and to Our Lady.
When these three devotions flourish, sooner or later the Church triumphs. And, a contrario sensu, when they are in decline, sooner or later Christian civilisation declines.
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
For a long time, the Catholic media in Europe and America had been afflicted by a veritable leprosy, which was Jansenism. This heresy aimed precisely to weaken the Church by undermining devotion to the Blessed Sacrament under the guise of false respect. It demanded such conditions for approaching the Holy Table that the people, unfortunately very numerous, influenced by it, almost completely stopped receiving Communion.
On the other hand, Jansenism waged an insistent campaign against devotion to Our Lady, which it accused of diverting people from Jesus Christ instead of leading them to Him. Finally, this heresy waged a relentless struggle against the Papacy, and especially against the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff.
The definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was the first of the great setbacks suffered by the internal enemy. In fact, from this arose an immense outpouring of Marian piety, which has been growing ever since.
To prove that everything comes to us through Mary, Providence willed that the first great triumph should be Marian.
LOURDES
But to glorify his Mother even more, Our Lord did more. In Lourdes, as a resounding confirmation of the dogma, he did what had never been seen before: he established miracles in the world, so to speak, in series and on a permanent basis. Until then, miracles had appeared sporadically in the Church. But in Lourdes, the most scientifically proven and authentically supernatural healings have been taking place for a hundred years, in a continuous stream, in the face of a confused and bewildered century.
INFALLIBILITY
From this brazier of faith, lit by the definition of the Immaculate Conception, an immense longing burst forth like a flame. The best, the most learned, the most qualified members of the Church desired the proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibility. More than anyone else, the great Pius IX wanted it. And from the definition of this dogma came a surge of devotion to the Pope, which constituted a new defeat for impiety.
THE HOLY EUCHARIST
Finally, came the pontificate of St. Pius X, and with it the invitation to the faithful to receive Communion frequently, even daily, as well as to children. And the era of great Eucharistic triumphs began to shine radiantly for the whole Church.
With all this, the Jansenist atmosphere was swept away from within Catholic circles. The modernist outbreak and, later, the neo-modernist outbreak failed to nullify the great victories that the Church had achieved against its internal adversaries.
AN IMMENSE AND FRUSTRATED TRIUMPH
But, one might ask, what was the result of this for the Church’s struggle with its external adversaries? Wouldn’t one say that the enemy is stronger than ever, and that we are approaching that era, dreamed of by the Enlightenment thinkers so many centuries ago, of raw and integral scientific naturalism, dominated by materialistic technology; of the fiercely egalitarian universal republic, of more or less philanthropic and humanitarian inspiration, from whose environment all remnants of a supernatural religion are swept away? Is this not communism, is this not the dangerous slide of Western society itself, supposedly anti-communist, but which is also moving towards the realisation of this “ideal”?
Yes. And the proximity of this danger is even greater than is generally thought. But no one pays attention to a fact of paramount importance. It is that while the world is being shaped for the realisation of this sinister design, a deep, immense, indescribable malaise is taking hold of it. It is a malaise that is often unconscious, vague and undefined even when conscious, but which no one would dare to contest. It would seem that the whole of humanity is suffering violence, that it is being forced into a form that does not suit its nature, and that all its healthy fibres are writhing and resisting. There is an immense longing for something else, which is not yet known. But, in short, perhaps a new fact since the decline of Christian civilisation began in the 15th century, the whole world groans in darkness and pain, just like the prodigal son when he reached the lowest point of shame and misery, far from his father’s home. At the very moment when iniquity seems to triumph, there is something frustrated in its apparent victory.
Experience shows us that it is from such discontent that the great surprises of history are born. As the contortion becomes more pronounced, the malaise will become more pronounced. Who can say what magnificent surprises may come from this?
At the extreme of sin and pain, there is often, for the sinner, a moment of divine mercy…
Now, this healthy and promising unease is, in my view, a fruit of the resurrection of the Catholic spirit with the great events I have listed above, a resurrection that had a favourable impact on what remained of life and sanity in all areas of world culture.
THE GREAT HISTORICAL MOMENT
It was certainly a great moment in the life of the prodigal son when his spirit, dulled by vice, acquired new lucidity, and his will new vigour, as he meditated on the miserable situation into which he had fallen and the stupidity of all the mistakes that had led him away from his father’s house. Touched by grace, he found himself, more clearly than ever, faced with a great alternative. Either repent and return, or persevere in error and accept its consequences, even the most tragic ending. Everything that a proper education had instilled in him as good was wonderfully reborn in that providential moment. On the other hand, the tyranny of bad habits asserted itself in him, perhaps more terribly than ever. An internal struggle ensued. He chose good. And we know the rest of the story from the Gospel.
Are we not approaching that moment? Will all the graces accumulated for sinful humanity by this new surge of devotion to the Holy Eucharist, Our Lady and the Pope not produce, precisely in the tragic events of an apocalyptic crisis that seems inevitable, the great conversion?
THE TEACHING OF LOURDES
Only God knows the future. However, we humans are allowed to conjecture it according to the rules of verisimilitude.
We are living in a terrible time of punishment. But this time can also be a wonderful time of mercy. The condition for this is that we look to Mary, the Star of the Sea, who guides us through the storms.
For a hundred years, moved by compassion for sinful humanity, Our Lady has obtained for us the most stupendous miracles.
Has this piety been extinguished? Are the mercies of a Mother, and the best of mothers, at an end? Who would dare to say so? If anyone were to doubt, Lourdes would serve as an admirable lesson in trust. Our Lady will come to our aid.
LOURDES AND FÁTIMA
She will come to our aid. This statement is partly true and partly false. For in reality, She has already begun to help us. The definition of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility, the renewal of Eucharistic piety, have their continuation in the Marian celebrations of the pontificates subsequent to St. Pius X. Our Lady appeared in Fatima under Benedict XV. Precisely on the day that Pius XII was consecrated bishop, 13 May 1917, the first apparition took place. Under Pius XI, the message of Fatima spread gently and surely throughout the earth. On that same occasion, the 75th anniversary of the apparitions at Lourdes was celebrated by the Supreme Pontiff with unusual joy, and he delegated the then Cardinal Pacelli to represent him at the festivities. The pontificate of Pius XII was immortalised by the definition of the dogma of the Assumption and the Coronation of Our Lady as Queen of the World. During this pontificate, Cardinal Masella, so dear to Brazilians, crowned the image of the Blessed Virgin in Fatima on behalf of Pope Pius XII.
These are so many lights that, from the grotto of Massabielle to Cova da Iria, constitute a shining thread.
And this article focuses on Fatima. Our Lady perfectly outlined the alternative in her apparitions. Either we convert, or a tremendous punishment will come. But in the end, the Reign of the Immaculate Heart will be established in the world.
In other words, in any case, with more or less suffering for men, the Heart of Mary will triumph.
This means, after all, that according to the Message of Fatima, the days of the reign of wickedness are numbered. The definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception marked the beginning of a succession of events that will lead to the Reign of Mary.
