Korea Blest as Pope Francis Sends Marian Group on Urgent Worldwide Peace Mission
New Era World News and Global Intelligence
THIS YEAR THE CHURCH IS CELEBRATING the centenary of the appearance of the Mother of God at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Since that time Fatima has become the world’s most prominent center of Marian devotion, a place that John Paul II referred to as the “Marian capital of the world.” Our Lady of Fatima precisely foretold the outbreak of World War II, the rise of Communism, the persecution of the Church and the world-wide spread of Communism before the Bolshevik Revolution ever occured, Her other prophecies concerning the conversion of Russia to be correlated with a promised “Era of Peace” are of especial importance since, unlike the former that have already occurred, these prophesied events are in the process of occurring. Any impartial observer of global events can discern the Hand of God at work in the world as Russia is being converted and the nations of the world are one by one in the process of rejecting global liberalism while many are reasserting their Christian identities (Eastern Europe, Africa, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia France, Austria, Asia, Argentina, Middle East).
As stated, the universal church is in the midst of celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance at Fatima. Perhaps one of the most astounding events of the the centenary is the reconciliation of North and South Korea following a visit of a pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima to the Korean demilitarized zone. Although not reported by any of the mainstream media, on January 11, 2017 Pope Francis conducted a ceremonial blessing of six statues of Our Lady of Fatima to be sent on a world-wide mission of Peace and Reparation to the six populated continents of the world. During the blessing of these pilgrim statues, Pope Francis also renewed his declaration that the Centenary of Fatima be a Jubilee Year, with plenary indulgences available under the normal conditions for those who participate in memorial celebrations, including pilgrimages, public veneration and rosary prayers before any image of Our Lady of Fatima and also for the infirm and elderly who unite their suffering and prayers to those of Jesus (Colossians 1:24).
This video is an essential watch during this 100th Anniversary of Fatima:
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Broiling Problems in Korean Conflict
According to Professor Americo Lopez Ortiz, International President of the World Apostolate of Fatima,
“The Message of Fatima has it all: The doctrinal richness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; its freshness, images, gestures of the primitive Christian catechesis; the calls to penance from Saint John the Baptist, preparing the way for the Redeemer; the strong eschatological accents of Christ before the ruins of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44); the didactic force of Jesus’ parables; the simple life of the villagers, their emotional gestures and learned prayers; the prophetic contents of the Book of Revelation with the confrontation between “the Woman clothed with the sun… and the red dragon”; as well as God’s seal with the Miracle of the Sun October 13, 1917 (video 5:32) and the profound spiritual peace found in that holy place where heaven and earth meet for the welfare of humanity.”
Our Lady of Fatima also promised the conversion of Russia and an Era of Peace:
“In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”
The conversion of Russia and the promised Era of Peace are contingent upon two things:
- The faithful performance of First Saturday Devotion (see note below), which has called the “hidden part of the Message of Fatima” and
- The Papal Consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart, which was accomplished by Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1984.
Following the 1984 papal consecration, as promised, Communism was toppled, the Solidarity movement gained momentum in Poland, the Berlin wall came down and one after another the nations behind the “Iron Curtain” were given political and then religious freedom – Russia is being converted as Our Lady of Fatima promised.
Communism, however, continues to influence North Korea. Its influence was manifest in 1950 when Communist Soviet and Chinese leaders supported North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. Within two years, United States led UN forces suffered horrendous casualties: 93,000 prisoners of war, 118,000 dead and another 265,000 wounded; by the time UN troops withdrew, over 3,000,000 men had died on the battlefield. After the fighting ceased, Korea became a pivotal state in the global cold-war fought between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR). Americans lined up behind South Korea while North Korea became a proxy of the USSR.
The cold-war conflict in the Korean peninsula has been exacerbated by another little recognized fact: The war never officially ended; a final peace treaty has never been achieved. Instead, facilitated by the United Nations, North Korea and South Korea agreed to an armistice, which was signed by representatives of the three parties on July 27, 1953. Since that time, the US has maintained a significant troop presence and, along with South Korea, has manned what has become known as the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The DMZ is a 2.5 miles wide and 160 miles long area that divides the Korean Peninsula in half. Although referred to as a demilitarized zone, a large contingent of troops are amassed along each side of the line within 2.5 miles of each other. The conflicting zones are surrounded by barbed wires, fortified by walls and protected by mines.
From its inception until the year 2000, over 50 US soldiers, 500 South Korean soldiers, and 250 soldiers from North Korea have been killed along the DMZ. Both sides have violated the territorial integrity of the other: South Korea has discovered four tunnels crossing the DMZ that have been dug by North Korea. In 1976, William Clements, the US Deputy Secretary of Defense reported to US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, that South Korea had conducted 200 raids into North Korea from the South.
As stated above, the war between North and South Korea never formally ended. Instead, it has been the front of a Cold War that is recently growing hot. In September, 2017, North Korea launched a ballistic missile over northern Japan thereby triggering a widespread emergency alert across that island nation. Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, then warned North Korea to relinquish its nuclear weapons programmes, emphasizing that the regime faces “destruction” if it continues its threatening behaviour and forces the US to defend its allies.
“If North Korea keeps on with this reckless behavior, if the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed” (Washington Post).
President Trump then referred to North Korean President Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man“. The President of North Korea, however, could not humble himself to be upstaged; Kin Jong fired back:
“Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say” (BBC News).
He ended his analysis of President Trump and summarized his intentions toward him:
“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.”
A stated above, the definitive Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary has two requirements. The pope has fulfilled his requirement. However, the other part, the part concerning First Saturday Devotion, requires the participation of the lay faithful. Prof. Ortiz has referred to First Saturday Devotion as the “forgotten part of the Message of Fatima” “The forgotten part of the Message of Fatima”, that is, the Eucharistic and Marian reparatory practice of the First Saturdays Devotion, (is) the missing link needed to pass from one stage of the Message of Fatima to the next and definitive one, making possible the announced Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Neither God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, nor the pope, are expected to bring about an Era of Peace all by themselves. Jesus will not build His Kingdom by Himself. He expects His people to participate – to be co-creators of His kingdom (Ephesians 4: 11-12; 1 Corinthians 12: 24-26; Matt 28: 18-20; Matt 24:14). Likewise, from the beginning of the Fatima Message, the Virgin Mary has asked for the participation of the Church, both the pope and all the faithful. The 100th Anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance at Fatima is also the 50th Golden Jubilee of the World Apostolate of Fatima’s appearance in Korea. Korea is among the fastest growing Catholic nations in the world. It is a land soaked with the blood of Catholic martyrs, over 8,000 along with 103 saints whom Pope John Paul II canonized in 1984. Thirty years later, before a throng of 800,000 Koreans, Pope Francis beatified 123 more. Korea thus exalts in having the fourth largest number of saints of any country in the world. Because the martyrs are also viewed as patriots liberating Korea from injustice, Francis beatified them on Korea’s National Holiday celebrating its liberation. Three years following his pastoral visit to Korea, Pope Francis commissioned one of the six Fatima statues he blest for the Fatima Centenary to tour Asia. The statue began its Asian journey in January by traveling to Hong Kong; it then proceeded to Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines. It arrived in Korea on May 17, 2017. Our Lady was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd at the Jesuit Sogang University. Then on June 5, after touring the country, she proceeded to the Demilitarized Zone. Rather that write about the events, I prefer and request that you watch the embedded video. Please do not stop at the 4:00 mark but continue to the end. Leaders of North and South Korea Proclaim They are Ushering in an “Era of Peace” (5:56 in Video): F l Korea Today Today, roughly one third of Korea is Christian. The Catholic church is booming. Between 1997 and 2007, it increased its membership by a phenomenal 70%. “‘Over the past ten years, the Catholic Church in Korea has gone from three to five million faithful’. Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk, archbishop of Seoul, has said in an interview. The Catholic Church in South Korea is the one that is growing most vigorously in Asia.” But, according to the New York Times, “Not everyone in South Korea welcomed the pope” or is happy about the exponential growth of the Catholic Church: “And it is not Buddhists or Confucians (the country’s two major non-Christian religious groups) who publicly expressed unhappiness with his visit, but members of Protestant groups who fear Catholic encroachment in a country where Christians make up 29 percent of the population.” A fundamentalist pastor named Rev. Song Choon-gil, could not restrain his dispensational and apocalyptic anti-Catholicism: “The enemy king has appeared at the center of our nation!”, (he) shouted during a rally of hundreds of Protestants who gathered a few blocks from the papal Mass on Saturday. Accompanied by a band, the evangelical Protestants sang hymns and danced, shouting that they were sounding “the trumpets of spiritual war” against the “idol worship” and “satanic forces” they said Roman Catholicism represents” (New York Times). In addition to, and perhaps related to, these troubles, Jeong Se Hyun, South Korea’s unification minister from 2002 to 2004 and a former envoy to North Korea stated that: “In order for the peace treaty (signed by the two Korean leaders) to be an effective safeguard that can prevent U.S. military action against North Korea, there needs to be more than a two-party deal….China needs to be a signatory, in addition to the United States, South Korea, and North Korea,” Peace is a very real possibility, but will the Neocon warhawks in the Trump administration, the deep-state bureaucrats and pro-Zionist Christian Fundamentalists (the vocal core of Trump’s Christian supporters) support a Peace Treaty that is intended to initiate a “New Era of Peace“? Our Lord and Our Lady want peace, but dispensational fundamentalist preachers in Korea (as throughout Latin America), along with the warmongers of the world, are intent to spread their rapidly fading tide of neoliberalism. They want to hold onto their solipsistic money machine. They seem to prefer the Gospel of Prosperity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ who commanded his followers to love all men and to lay down their lives for each other; they seem to forget or ignore the fact that Jesus was born into poverty and died naked on the Cross, and that He preached that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Mark 10:25). Francis, who has criticized capitalism and alluded to it as the “dung of the devil,” is clearly not to their liking. Speaking in Bolivia, the pontiff said: “There is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called ‘the dung of the devil’. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.” Francis might not be the friend of neoliberalism and warmongers who support it, but the important thing is that he is the friend of Jesus and His mother, the Virgin Mary. As indicated in article after article during this 100th Year anniversary of Fatima: Liberalism is failing. First challenged in Eastern Europe, the challenge is spreading to Western Europe and rapidly taking root in Africa and Latin America as well. The peace process has now reached the Christian blood-stained Korean Peninsula. However, just last week, National Security Advisor Robert Bolton in an interview with FOX News, stated that the US has not made any commitment to remove its military presence from the Korean peninsula. “There’s nobody in the Trump administration who’s starry-eyed about what’s happening here (in Korea).” Men and women who want peace are anathema to those who want war. Being anathema, the warmongers can’t stand looking at the peace advocates, especially if they carry a rosary. If so, they certainly have disdain for the Mother of God, the “Queen of Peace” who has been decreed by the Holy Trinity to bring and an end to war, to usher in an Era of Peace and triumph over the world’s greatest warmonger: “And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and the beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” l “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Genesis 3:15). The enmity between Satan and the Woman was decreed at the beginning of time (Genesis). It is to be fulfilled at the end: “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation 12:1). NSA Bolton does not see any stars in Korea – “no one” he says, “is starry-eyed about what’s happening” in Korea. Neoliberal warhawks are apparently not looking in the Virgin Mary’s direction. The stars that grace her crown are not hard to miss. North Korea and South Korea’s Nine-Point Reconciliation Plan: l __________________ NOTE: “The First Saturday’s Devotion in reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a devotional practice that includes sacramental reception of Confession (at least one per month), Holy Communion on Five Consecutive First Saturdays of the month; meditation of the Holy Rosary, including 15 minutes reflecting on its Mysteries, to accompany Mother Mary in her solitude, with the intention of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” “The Apparitions began on December 10, 1925 while Sister Lucia was at the Dorothean Convent in Pontevedra. Our Lady of Fatima in the company of the Sacred Heart of Infant Jesus appeared to her while the Child Jesus said to Lucia: “Have compassion on the Heart of your most holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.” “Then, the Most Holy Virgin said: “Look, my daughter, at my Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me” (Quoted from Americo Lopez Ortiz).