Bishops ask Pope Francis to consecrate Ukraine and Russia to Immaculate Heart of Mary

Rome Newsroom, Mar 2, 2022 / 09:05 am (CNA).

Ukraine’s Latin Rite Catholic bishops have asked Pope Francis to consecrate Ukraine and Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In a letter sent to the pope, the Ukrainian bishops said that they were writing “in these hours of immeasurable pain and terrible ordeal for our people” in response to the many prayer requests for the consecration.

“Responding to this prayer, we humbly ask Your Holiness to publicly perform the act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Ukraine and Russia, as requested by the Blessed Virgin in Fatima,” said the letter, which was published on the bishops’ website on March 2.

“May the Mother of God, Queen of Peace, accept our prayer: Regina pacis, ora pro nobis.”

The request comes as Russian forces are moving to encircle Kyiv, where multiple blasts were reported early Wednesday morning, and troops are laying siege to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

More than 453,000 people have fled to Poland to Ukraine in the past six days, according to Poland’s border guard agency. On March 1 alone, 98,000 people crossed the border into Poland.

The Ukrainian bishops have also posted an updated text of an act of consecration of Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on their website in Ukrainian that they ask to be recited privately and after each Mass.

About 1% of the Ukrainian population are Latin Rite Catholics. They are concentrated in the west of the country, with six dioceses being suffragan to the Archdiocese of Lviv of the Latins, and it has cultural ties to Poland and Hungary.

Most Catholics in Ukraine are Greek Catholics, meaning they are Catholics who belong to Churches of the Byzantine rite. Greek Catholics make up about 9% of Ukrainians (about 3.6 million persons). The majority of the Ukrainian population is Orthodox Christian.

Before the revolutions of 1917 which overthrew the Russian Empire and led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, Russia was colloquially known as the “house of Mary” because there were more shrines and churches dedicated to Our Lady than in any other country at the time.

During the Fatima apparitions in 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary revealed three secrets.

The second secret was a statement that World War I would end, and a prediction of another war that would start during the reign of Pius XI, if people continued to offend God and if Russia were not consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.

Sr. Lucia recalled in her memoirs that Our Lady asked for “the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays” to prevent a second world war.

“If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated,” Sr. Lucia wrote that the Blessed Virgin Mary told her.

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”

More than a century after the Fatima apparitions, controversies remain. One of which is whether or not Russia has been adequately consecrated to Mary.

As Mary promised in the second secret, she came back to ask for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. On June 13, 1929, Mary reappeared to Sr. Lucia, asking for the consecration of Russia, “promising its conversion through this means the hindering of the propagation of its errors.”

There were three “conditions” of the consecration, explained by Mary in the second part of the secret: The Pope must consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with a special mention of Russia, in union with the bishops of the whole world.

Pius XII and Paul VI both made consecrations of the world and the people of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but these were done without fulfilling the requirement of being in union with the bishops of the world.

According to Sr. Lucia, the consecration was complete during the pontificate of St. John Paul II, who several times attempted to fulfill the requirements of the Russia consecration.

It was finally considered fully complete after the consecration he made on March 25, 1984, as confirmed by Sr. Lucia.

In recent years, Catholic bishops have continued to call for Marian consecrations of their country during times of violence.

In 2018, an archbishop said that Mexico said that Mexico should be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary due to the violence, poverty, and corruption in the country.

For the Latin rite Catholic bishops of Ukraine, this time of suffering facing their people also led them to request the pope to ask the Blessed Virgin Mary’s intercession for peace.

On Feb. 24, the day that Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the bishops’ conference also asked for all Latin rite Catholics in Ukraine to pray to Our Lady.

“Now is the time to unite in prayer: in our families, with our neighbors, in our prayer communities, and in every parish. We encourage priests from today, after each Holy Mass, in addition to singing the supplication, to pray the Act of Consecration of Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God,” the bishops’ conference wrote in a letter on its website.

“We pray the rosary together or other prayers for peace, for the rulers of our state, for our army and all those who defend our homeland, for the wounded and the dead, as well as remembrance for those who started the war and were blinded by aggression,” it said.

“Let us protect our hearts from hatred and anger against our enemies. Christ gives a clear instruction that we should pray for them and bless them.”