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THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE JESUITS
before the doors of Saint-Peter in penitent garb with the halters around their necks. What went wrong? Had christains not 'told' sufficient beads on their rosaries? Were Heaven's requisite number of 'tens' not fulfilled? We would be tempted to believe this to be the cause if there wasn't that rather scabrous detail in the wonderful story of Fatima. The promise of Russia's conversion, sensibly given to the clairvoyant Lucia in 1917, was "revealed" by her in 1941 only, when she had become a nun, and made public in October 1942 by Cardinal Schuster, a keen partisan of the RomeBerlin Axis; it was made public by request, or shall we say order, from Pius XII—this same Pius XII who, three months later, expressed the aforementioned call for a Crusade. Very "enlightening" indeed: One of Fatima's apologists admits that, because of it, the matter "evidently loses some of its prophetic value..."(144) This is the least one could say about it! A certain canon, great specialist in the matter of the "Portuguese miracle" tells us in confidence: "I must confess that, as far as I am concerned, it is only with great reluctance that I added to my first editions the text revealed to the public by His Eminence Cardinal Schuster..."(145) We certainly understand the good canon's feelings: So, the Holy Virgin told the shepherdess Lucia, in 1917: "If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted...", while charging her to keep this "secret" to herself. How, then, could the Christians have come to know these "requests" and meet them? "Credibile quia ineptum". It seems that, from 1917 until 1942, "unfortunate Russia" did not need to have prayers offered on her behalf, and that they were urgently needed only after the Nazi defeat at Moscow and when von Paulus was trapped in Stalingrad. At least, it is the only conclusion this late revelation allows. The supernatural—as we have said already—is a powerful thing, but it must be handled with some care. After Montoire, the Jesuits' general, Halke von Ledochowski, already spoke haughtily about the general meeting the Company would hold in Rome, after England had capitulated, the importance and brilliance of which would not find an equal in all its history. But Heaven had decided otherwise, in spite of Saint-Theresa and the Lady of Fatima. Great Britain braced herself against the enemy, the United States entered the war, (even though the Jesuit Father Coughlin had (144) Michel Agnellet: "Miracles a Fatima" (Ed. de Trevise, Paris 1958, p.54). Imprimatur 1958. (145) Canon Barthas: "Fatima, merveille du XXe siecle", (Fatima Editions, Toulouse 1957, p.81) Imprimatur 1957.