08/31/2026
"After seven years of vain efforts to convince Pope Pius XI to honor Our Lady of Fatima's urgent request [that the Pope, in union with all the bishops of the world, consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart], Father Goncalves (Sister Lucia's confessor) was at a loss for how to proceed. He wrote to Sister Lucia and asked her, 'Should I still insist on the consecration of Russia?' In a letter of May 18, 1936, she replied:
'Should you insist? I do know know. Recently I was speaking with Our Lord and asked Him why He would not convert Russia without the Pope doing that consecration. Jesus replied, 'Because I want My whole Church to recognize that consecration as a Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that later on, it will put the devotion to the Immaculate Heart beside devotion to My Sacred Heart.'
-from: "The True Story of Fatima, A complete account of the Fatima apparitions" by John de Marchi, I.M.C., page 90