Father Lombardi: … Your Holiness, what meaning do the Fatima apparitions have for us today? … Is it possible, to your mind, to include in that vision the sufferings of the Church today for the sins involving the sexual abuse of minors?

Holy Father: …I would say that, here too, beyond this great vision of the suffering of the Pope,… an indication is given of realities involving the future of the Church, which are gradually taking shape and becoming evident.

…it is sufferings of the Church that are announced.

The Lord told us that the Church would constantly be suffering, in different ways, until the end of the world.

…the message, the response of Fatima, in substance is … directed … precisely to the fundamental response, that is, to ongoing conversion, penance, prayer, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.

Thus we see here the true, fundamental response which the Church must give — which we, every one of us, must give in this situation.

As for the new things which we can find in this message today, there is also the fact that attacks … the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin existing within the Church.

This too is something that we have always known, but today we are seeing it in a really terrifying way: that the greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without, but arises from sin within the Church,…

…we need to relearn precisely this essential: conversion, prayer, penance and the theological virtues.

…we are realists in expecting that evil always attacks, attacks from within and without,… in the end, the Lord is more powerful than evil and Our Lady is for us the visible, motherly guarantee of God’s goodness, which is always the last word in history.

…today's stringent state will not allow the Church to make a single step in the direction of independence, even if it renounces all preferences and privileges.

In case if anything happens the state will use kompromat (compromising materials) to control the Church. Such kompromat, in comparison with which «nano-dust», hegumen (Abbot) in a sportscar and the entire «media campaign to discredit» (which is no more than a myth, a defensive reaction to the error of PR people which serve the Church) will seem like childish prattle.

We have a large Church, as Russia itself, and anything can be found in it. It knows this «anything» and more or less able to cope with it. But shown to the society at once and under the certain sauce this «anything» can cause such a conflict which no one can dare to do.

Sister Lucy also told me: [to Fr. Fuentes]: Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that most offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.

That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to hell… The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of laypeople and thereby lead them to final impenitence. He employs all tricks, even going so far as to suggest the delay of entrance into religious life. Resulting from this is the sterility of the interior life, and among the laypeople, coldness (lack of enthusiasm) regarding the subject of renouncing pleasures and the total dedication of themselves to God.