Wednesday May 13th marked the 103rd anniversary of the Virgin Mary’s first apparition at Fatima but this year for the first time, no pilgrims were permitted to be present at the shrine in the Portuguese town due to the Covid-19 lockdown with the military deployed in large numbers to enforce it.
Director of Operations for the National Republican Guard (GNR) Vítor Rodrigues told Rádio Renascença, that as part of operation “Fátima at Home” the GNR would station 3,500 troops from the GNR to “monitor, sensitize and deter possible movements, whether on foot or in a vehicle.”
Rodrigues welcomed the “fantastic collaborative posture” of the Episcopal Conference of Portugal, with whom the GNR has been working “for many weeks” but some have expressed dismay with Catholic historian Roberto de Mattei telling Church Militant:
“The moral culpability of the scandal, however, does not fall on the Portuguese military, but on the ecclesiastical authorities who offered, and even collaborated with the civil authorities to prevent pilgrims from accessing the sanctuary on May 13,”
Going further Prof. de Mattei, who is director of the Lepanto Foundation went on to say
“Today’s spirit of submission to the world and its powers by the bishops, not only Portuguese, suggests that in the future these very churchmen will be ready to submit to Islam, willing to live under Sharia and total subordination to those who would like to make Europe the land of Muhammad.”
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