Russia and Ukraine will be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25

Russia and Ukraine will be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25

Pope Francis will carry out the consecration in St Peter's Basilica and Cardinal Konrad Krajewski will carry out the consecration in Fatima, as Papal Legate

At the request of Pope Francis, Russia and Ukraine will be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25.

The Holy Father will carry out the consecration during the Celebration of Penance that he will preside at 5 p.m. (Rome time) in St. Peter's Basilica. In Fatima, as a Papal Legate, the Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, apostolic almoner, will carry out the act of consecration in the Chapel of the Apparitions, at a time yet to be determined.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the Pope's personal emissary to Ukraine, called for a “dialogue to stop a cruel war” and for prayers for peace.

The Pope’s almoner met the head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, and the Metropolitan of Lviv, Mieczyslaw Mokszycki. The three had a telephone conversation with Pope Francis.

This “prayer for peace in the world and, concretely, for peace in Ukraine” is an “act full of meaning in these troubled times in which we live. An act deeply linked to Fatima and its Message, (...) because Fatima is a place where peace is prayed for daily, because it is a will expressed by the Pope and because, in this very place, Our Lady asked for the consecration to Her Immaculate Heart,” said the rector of the Shrine of Fatima, Father Carlos Cabecinhas, a moment before, near the Chapel of the Apparitions, in a reaction to the request made by the Holy Father (see video below).

The Image number 13 of the Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima will arrive tomorrow in Ukraine, at the request of the Greek-Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop of Lviv.

It is to be recalled that on this same day, 38 years ago, Pope Saint John Paul II consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, before the image of the first sculpture of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima, which is now venerated in the Chapel, and which, for the occasion, had been transported to the Vatican, for its seventh journey out of Cova da Iria.

The Pontiff who most frequently visited Fatima, in response to the appeals of the Message of Fatima, decided to make an act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on March 25, 1984, one year after the beginning of the Holy Year dedicated to the Redemption.

On March 25, 2020, Cardinal D. Antonio Marto consecrated Portugal and Spain, and 22 other countries, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, asking for help and protection in these times of pandemic.

On October 20, 2019, at the Shrine of Fatima, the Portuguese Catholic bishops consecrated the Catholic Church to the Sacred Heart of Jesus during the closing Mass of the Missionary Year, also marking 175 years of presence in Portugal of the Apostleship of Prayer.

The first consecration of Portugal to the Immaculate Heart of Mary took place on May 13, 1931, eight months after the official recognition of the apparitions by the bishop of Leiria, at the end of the first national pilgrimage of the Portuguese episcopate to Fatima.

Reaction of the Shrine of Fatima to the announcement of the request for the consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary