A movement calling itself Mary-is-God-Catholic Movement poisons the internet. One Dominic Sanchez Falar of Cebu City, Philippines, promotes the idea that “Mary is God -  Mary is the soul of the Holy Spirit,” and prompts people to join in an effort to proclaim the “true message of Our Blessed Mother at Fatima better known as the Third Secret of Our Lady of Fatima.”

 The movement pursues three objectives:

 1. To declare Mary as God, soul of the Holy Spirit, and Co-Creator with God.

 2. To attack the Church for “malevolently concocting its own version of the Third Secret of Fatima” thereby withholding its true content which – how convenient! – allegedly states that “Mary is God.” The movement accuses the Vatican generically of leading an “Anti-Fatima Campaign.”

 3. To attack Pope Benedict XVI accusing him personally of misleading Fatima Devotees and putting “an end to popular belief that the Third Secret of Fatima concerns the Dogma of Faith (which dogma?) of the Holy Catholic Church.”

This movement is a typical example of how heresy develops and thrives.

1. We have a proposition of faith which blatantly contradicts the Church’s ongoing and most authoritative teaching: Mary is not God. She is a creature of God and a human being. She is neither Co-Creator with God nor soul of the Holy Spirit.

The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (LG) states:
Because of this gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth. At the same time, however, because she belongs to the offspring of Adam she is one with all those who are to be saved.
LG 53. See also LG 56, 59,

This most Holy Synod … exhorts theologians and preachers of the divine word to abstain zealously both from all gross exaggerations as well as from petty narrow-mindedness in considering the singular dignity of the Mother of God.(23*) Following the study of Sacred Scripture, the Holy Fathers, the doctors and liturgy of the Church, and under the guidance of the Church's magisterium, let them rightly illustrate the duties and privileges of the Blessed Virgin which always look to Christ, the source of all truth, sanctity and piety. Let them assiduously keep away from whatever, either by word or deed, could lead separated brethren or any other into error regarding the true doctrine of the Church. Let the faithful remember moreover that true devotion consists neither in sterile or transitory affection, nor in a certain vain credulity, but proceeds from true faith, by which we are led to know the excellence of the Mother of God, and we are moved to a filial love toward our mother and to the imitation of her virtues. LG 67

2. To lend authority and credibility to this heretical proposition, the movement refers to personal revelation from God, the highest and most unverifiable of all sources of knowledge and authority.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, article 67 states:

Throughout the ages, there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church."

"Christian faith cannot accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such "revelations."

4. But how could and would Fatima vouch for the declaration that Mary is God? There is, of course, this famous Third Secret, a longtime topic of manifold interpretations and wild speculations. Although unveiled and commented upon by the official Church in 2000, the movement for “Mary-is-God” denies this, and proclaims that the Church’s “final dogma” (Mary is God) remains undisclosed because “faithless church officials preferred to contradict it in favor of earthly concerns.” 

The Third Part of the “Secret”     

“J.M.J. 

The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on  July 13, 1917. 

I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine. 

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God. 

Tuy-3-1-1944.”

5.   Secrets, immediate divine interpretation and legitimization, as well as conspiracy are the typical ingredients of heresies. Add to this the claim of orthodoxy, namely the orthodoxy of the promoters of the final truth about Mary – she is God! – who call themselves “faithful Catholics devoting our lives to the Proclamation of the true Message of Our Blessed Mother  at Fatima.”  It goes without saying that if orthodoxy is the apanage of the Mary-is-God Catholic Movement, then it cannot exist where the official Church is concerned. This is the point where demonization begins.  Benedict XVI is –“not known to many Catholics’!- Our Lady of Fatima’s “greatest adversary.”  He “concocted blatant lies and misinterpretation” on behalf of the Third Secret. He insinuated “that the seers of Fatima were just hallucinating.”  He was the “mastermind of John Paul II ’s cover up of the Third Secret of Fatima.” What about Sister Lucia? Not only did the Vatican “order her silence;” she was incarcerated. The attack against Benedict XVI escalates with these questions: “Why is he against Fatima? Is not one who is anti-Mary also anti-Christ?”

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
Theological Commentary on the Third Secret

The criterion for the truth and value of a private revelation is therefore its orientation to Christ himself. When it leads us away from him, when it becomes independent of him or even presents itself as another and better plan of salvation, more important than the Gospel, then it certainly does not come from the Holy Spirit, who guides us more deeply into the Gospel and not away from it.  The interpretation [of the Third Secret] belonged not to the visionary but to the Church. After reading the text, however, she said that this interpretation corresponded to what she had experienced and that on her part she thought the interpretation correct. And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the “secret” of Fatima as a whole (in its three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all, we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: “... the events to which the third part of the ‘secret' of Fatima refers now seem part of the past.” Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the “secret”: the exhortation to prayer as the path of “salvation for souls” and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.   

I would like finally to mention another key expression of the “secret” which has become justly famous: “my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” What does this mean? The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Savior into the world—because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world.”(Jn 16:33)  The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise. 

IN CONCLUSION:
Blatant as it may be, the message of the Mary-is-God-Movement is a dangerous ideological concoction. It takes advantage of the people’s genuine love for Mary, exploits a widespread craving for the supernatural and religious sensationalism, and entices our natural penchant for Da Vinci-type fabrications. Mixed into the blend are some anti-Roman sentiments and the not-so-faint echoes of a still fashionable Goddess-talk.

 by Fr. Johann G. Roten, S.M