La aprobación de la Iglesia: qué se declaró en 1930 y qué alcance tiene

Marian devotion

The question that almost no one asks well

"Did the Church approve Fatima?" Yeah. But that answer, alone, says nothing useful, because approving a private revelation is not what people think it is. This page explains exactly what was declared, who declared it, with what words and with what consequences.

And he does it with the document in front.

The canon process (1922-1930)

Thirteen years of instruction. The essential, with its location in the critical edition of the Sanctuary:

Date	Done	Document
3 May 1922	Provision of Bishop D. José Alves Correia da Silva creating the process	DCF. Selection, doc. 68, p. 239
4 May 1922	Acta de la first meeting of the Canon Commission	doc. 69, p. 246
23 September 1923	Interrogations by the Commission to several witnesses	doc. 80, pp. 291-313
8 July 1924	Official interrogation of Lucia in the Vilar Asylum (Porto), by the doctors Manuel Nunes Formigão y Manuel Marques dos Santos, con el P. Manuel Pereira Lopes de notario	doc. 82, pp. 315-322
13 April 1930	Official Rapporteur of the Canon Commission — 76 pages of report	doc. 120, pp. 428-503
14 April 1930	Minutes of the closing meeting	doc. 121, p. 504

Thirteen years and seventy-six pages of report. That is the difference between ecclesiastical approval and popular enthusiasm. And it should be said, because the topic is exactly the opposite.

⚠️ A detalle sin verir: the decree to open the process is sometimes quoted with the title "Of all the evidence. "We have verified that the committee was set up in 1922 and that there is a provision of Mr José of 3 May 1922, but the title is not verified. We don't use it.

The pastoral letter of October 13, 1930

There are two primary sourcesAnd they both deserve to know each other:

(a) The contemporary facsimile. Voice da Fatima, year VIII, No. 97, Leiria, 13 October 1930 — PDF oficial del Santuario: https://www.fatima.pt/files/upload/voz_da_fatima/VF0097_1930-10-13.pdf (HTTP 200). En su portada, el sumario dice:

«Su Excelencia Reverendísima el Señor D. José Alves Correia da Silva, Obispo de Leiria, declares as credible the visions of the children in the Cova da Iria, Felligresía of Fatima, from 13 May to October 1917, and officially allows the worship of Our Lady of Fatima.»

(b) The critical editionwhich is the one that sets the text: DCF. Selection, Doc. 133, pp. 539-552.

The literal heading

«CARTA PASTORAL SOBRE EL CULTO DE NUESTRA SEÑORA DE FÁTIMA
Mr José Alves Correia da Silva, for the Grace of God and the Holy See, Bishop of Leiria.
To whom our pastoral letter is seen, health, peace and blessing in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior.
Divine Providence, which governs and rules all creatures, has for man, endowed with immortal soul, special tenderness.»

⚠️ CORRECCIÓN DE UN ERROR MUY EXTENDIDO. This pastoral is constantly quoted with the title "Divine Providence». It's not called that. In the critical edition of the Sanctuary the document is entitled "Pastoral Letter on the veneration of Our Lady of Fatima», y «Divine Providence..."are their first words - and in inverted order in respect of what is usually cited. It's a incipit, not a title.

THE APPROVAL FORM, word for word

This is what the Church declared about Fatima. Not one more word:

"By virtue of the considerations expressed and others that we omit for a short time, humbly invoking the Divine Holy Spirit and confident in the protection of the Most Holy Mary, after hearing the Rvdos. Consultants of this our Diocese:
We're good at:
1. To declare as credible the views of the children in the Cova da Iria, the feligresy of Fatima, of this Diocese, from 13 May to October 1917;
2. To officially allow the worship of Our Lady of Fatima.»
— DCF. Selection, doc. 133, pp. 550-551. Self-translation, literal.

And the data and the signature (p. 551):

"This our Pastoral Letter will be sent to the Rvdos. Pars to read and explain it to the faithful, in the usual way.
Leiria, October 13, 1930. † José, Obispo de Leiria»

What level of approval is this, exactly?

Son two actsand only two:

1. A statement of credibility of the visions.

2. Un Permiso of veneration.

Lo que NO es:

It's not a definition of faith. No es dogma.
It is not a statement from the Holy See: es del diocesan bishop.
It doesn't make you believe to no Catholic.
No garantiza that every detail of the story is accurate - the official edition itself records date errors of the seer.

The Holy See itself, by the mouth of Cardinal Ratzinger, in the document of 2000, quotes theologian E. Dhanis:

"the ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation contains three elements: the message in question contains nothing that goes against faith and good customs; it is lawful to make it public, and the faithful are authorized to give it their commitment in a prudent manner. […] It is an aid that is offered, but it is not mandatory to use it.»

And, quoting Prospero Lambertini, the future Benedict XIV:

«A concurrence of Catholic faith is not due to such approved revelations; it is not even possible. These revelations rather require a concurrence of human faith, according to the rules of prudence, which presents them to us as likely and pious credible. "

Interestingly, one of the best makers is an author who proposes a natural explanation of the miracle of the sun, the physicist Auguste Meessen:

"an official recognition by the local bishop, pronounced according to Rome, means only that a supernatural origin is humanly credible and a cult is allowed. Catholics are not obliged to believe that apparitions are true, as they do not have the same dogmatic status as divine revelation. "

Ecclesial State of Fatima, in the three terms this project always uses


ABOBAT	✅ Yeah. Diocesan approval of 1930, actually ratified by the later pontifical magisterium: pilgrimages of five potatoes, consecration, coronation of the image in 1946, beatification (2000) and canonization (2017) of the seers
Scope	Private disclosure. Visions credible and veneration permitted
NO es	Dogma. It does not require Catholic faith. It's not infallible in your details.
His prophetic contention	Admits different readings; the Holy See itself interprets it "in symbolic key»

How it was received, in the following days

Documented in the same critical edition:

13 October 1930, A Voice (Doc. 134, pp. 552-556): chronicle of the first great pilgrimage "after having been given, as credible, the visions of the pastoralists and granted official approval to the cult."
15 October 1930, Pius XI grants indulgences (Doc. 135, p. 557),Visa. Leiria, October 15, 1930. † Joseph, Bishop of Leiria».
17 October 1930, A Guarda (Doc. 136, pp. 558-560): "The Lord Bishop of Leiria has just declared true the apparitions of Our Lady in the Cova da Iria and made official the worship of Our Lady of Fatima."
18 October 1930, The Messenger (doc. 137, p. 560).

The argument that the bishop himself used on the solar phenomenon, read in the facsimile of Voice da Fatima (p. 2; transcription with the exception of facsimile OCR):

"This phenomenon that no astronomical observatory recorded and, therefore, was not natural, was witnessed by people of all categories and social classes, believers and disbelievers, journalists of the main Portuguese newspapers and even individuals miles away, which destroys every explanation of collective illusion.»

And the other half of history: the ecclesiastical skepticism of 1917

Because the 1930 approval did not fall on a unanimous ground. Part of the Portuguese clergy was openly skepticaland the critical edition of the Sanctuary o publish. El century José Castro wrote to The Order (Lisbon, 15 November 1917), in a letter contained in the report of the canonical committee itself:

"Defend V. E. good doctrine. Aquellos que quieren imponer a la fuerza el «milagro» son sus peores enemigosAnd you can't take your testimony... Only subsequent facts can authorize the supernatural.»
— DCF. Selection, doc. 120, p. 454.

And the Professor of Coimbra Gonçalo Xavier de Almeida Garrett, in favour of the apparitions, wrote to Dr. Formigão in December 1917 proposing an explanation meteorology of the solar phenomenon.

That all this is published by the Shrine of Fatima itself says a lot in his favor. An institution that hides the objections in its own file is not sure of it. Fatima publishes them.

Sources of this page

Critical Documentation of Fatima. Selection of documents (1917-1930), Santuário de Fátima, 2013 — PDF oficial, ficha F001: https://www.fatima.pt/files/upload/fontes/F001_DCF_selecao.pdf (HTTP 200). Documentos 68, 69, 80, 82, 120, 121, 133, 134, 135, 136 y 137.
Voice da Fatima, año VIII, n.º 97, Leiria, 13 de octubre de 1930 — facsímil oficial: https://www.fatima.pt/files/upload/voz_da_fatima/VF0097_1930-10-13.pdf (HTTP 200).
Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, «El mensaje de Fátima», 26 de junio de 2000: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_sp.html (HTTP 200).
MEESSEN, A., «Apparitions and Miracles of the Sun», Cons-Sciences 2 (2005), pp. 199-222: https://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/Apparitions_and_Miracles_of_the_Sun.pdf (HTTP 200).

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