The Hindus and Our Lady of Fatima

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the Portugal News, May 22, 2004, with the headline, “Hindus Worship at Fatima—Arriving in Fatima, the pilgrims made their way to the Chapel of the Apparitions, where from the altar a Hindu priest led prayer sessions. A commentary on the service was given by the TV reporter who explained, ‘This is an unprecedented unique moment in the history of the shrine.’ The Hindu priest, or Sha Tri, prays on the altar the Shaniti Pa, the prayer for peace.

“The Hindus can be seen removing their shoes before approaching the altar rail of the chapel as the priest chants prayers from the altar sanctuary. During the newscast, director of the shrine, Luciano Guerra, says, “These meetings give us the opportunity to remind ourselves that we live in community.’

“After worshiping their gods and praying in the chapel, the Hindus are shown being escorted to an exhibition hall where a model of the controversial new basilica currently being constructed is on display. In a setting described as ambassadorial by the commentator, each Hindu is personally greeted by the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, who bows to the Hindu priest, repeating his gesture of greeting.

“The Hindu priest is then seen clothing the rector of the Fatima Shrine and the bishop with a Hindu priestly shawl. ‘On the shoulders of the highest representatives of the church in Fatima, the Hindu priest places a shawl with the inscriptions of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the sacred books of Hinduism,’ the reporter tells his viewers.

“The newscast finishes with scenes of the Hindu priest lighting a candle at the shrine while his followers dance outside the Chapel of the Apparitions, chanting praises to their gods. The TV commentator concludes by saying, ‘In 1982, a guru, a high priest of Hinduism, came from Bombay to Fatima. He signed the Book of Honor right after Pope John Paul II and on the same page as Mother Theresa of Calcutta.’

“In other reactions to the Hindu ritual, a longstanding member of the Fatima diocese was less accepting of the opening of the sanctuary to other cults and religions, telling the Giornel Deliria, I understand the opening of the site to other religions, but I disagree with the practice of non-Catholic rituals at the sanctuary’s holiest site.

“Diocese de Serafim Ferreira e Silva has a different opinion. The bishop told the regional newspaper, ‘We don’t want to be fundamentalist but sincere and honest.”’

Tom: Dave, the Portugal News, which reported this, reported earlier when Fatima was going to be used this way, that they were going to build a basilica for all religions right here at Fatima. And we’ve explained in the past how important Our Lady of Fatima is in Islam, and certainly Our Lady and her apparitions throughout the world has influenced many other religions. But they took a lot of heat for this article. They said it’s not happening, so they got pretty excited when Hindus actually showed up and began to manifest this ecumenism in a way that could not be denied.

Dave: Yeah, well, Tom, I don’t know why any Catholic would be upset, because you remember in 1985 in Assisi….

Tom: In Italy.

Dave: In Italy…the Pope gathered, I think, 160 leaders of the world’s major religions. There were Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs—there were even North American Indian witchdoctors in their paint and feathers and fetishes and rattles. We show a part of that scene in A Woman Rides the Beast, and you will see a North American Indian witchdoctor coming to the microphone to pray for peace. On that occasion, the Pope allowed his good friend the Dalai Lama to take his Buddhist monks into St. Peter’s. That’s not St. Peter’s in Rome, but St. Peter’s in Assisi, and they put the Buddha on the altar. They had their Buddhist worship ceremony going on while the Shintoists were tinkling their bells and chanting and so forth. So, Tom, this is nothing new.

Now, to be taking place…that they’re actually building a permanent sanctuary, or basilica, for this sort of thing is just another step in that direction—in the direction of the one-world religion. And the pope, of course, has been the major leader in this. He went to Africa.

Tom: But what about India? We’re talking about Hindus here. Didn’t he say that the religion they could learn—that we and the West—could learn from—

Dave: Right.

Tom: …the wisdom, the spiritual wisdom of Hinduism?

Dave: Right. When he went to India, spoke to large Hindu audiences, he said, “We haven’t come here to teach you anything. We’ve come here to learn from your ancient wisdom, and we do well to give heed to this.”

He told the voodoo priests in West Africa, “You worship ancestors, we worship ancestors. You don’t have to change anything.”

What the pope wants is that all the world’s religions will come under his direction. Not that they change—they don’t have to change. And you know that Vatican II and other Catholic documents say that they’re all within the fold, so long as they will come under the direction of the pope. You know, they’ve been dialoging with Muslims for twenty-some years. What is there to dialogue about? You don’t dialogue about truth.

Tom: Well, they haven’t gotten very far with Islam either. That’s been part of their problem.

Dave: The Catholics and the Muslims got along very well at the Conference on Abortion. And they worked together, and of course, they’re working together against Israel right now. The Catholics are not in favor of the Jews having autonomy over Jerusalem. Again, another fulfillment of biblical prophecy.