Nicholas Gruner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page. |
Nicholas Gruner (1942- ) is a Roman Catholic priest and a promoter of the message of Our Lady of Fatima, a manifestation of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal in 1917, particularly its anti-communist aspects during the Cold War.
Contents |
[edit] Origins of Fatima Anti-Communism
In 1929, Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children entrusted with alleged revelations from the church-sanctioned Marian apparition at Fatima, Portugal, revealed that the Virgin Mary had requested that the Soviet Union should be consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart. If that did not happen, Sister Lucia explained, coummunist "subversion" would triumph, the Catholic Church would be persecuted, the Papacy would enter a period of tribulation, faithful Catholics would be martyred and whole nations would be destroyed. In accord with Sister Lucia's avowal, Pope Pius XII consecrated the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942. However, that proved to initially be insufficient for Sister Lucia, who indicated that Pius XII's actions had not been specific enough, and that when this specific observance was to be repeated, the Pope and all the bishops of the Church should do so simultaneously. In 1984, Pope John Paul II followed his predecessor in consecrating the entire world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but this time, he met opposition from a new source of Fatima piety, within the United States.
[edit] Gruner and the Fatima Crusader
Born in Montreal in 1942, Father Nicholas Gruner was ordained at Avellino, Italy on August 22, 1976 by Bishop Pasquale Venezia[1]. In 1978, he launched a periodical dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima, which was an unremarkable journal mostly dedicated to praying the rosary, until Father Gruner became focused particularly on the consecration of the Soviet Union controversy.
Gruner held that John Paul II was held by the consent of his predecessor, Pope John XXIII, to an alleged Vatican/Moscow concordat, which had been signed between His Holiness and then-Premier Khrushchev of the Soviet Union. This was primarily due to the fact that the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, also supported this alleged concordat. Throughout the eighties, the Fatima Crusader made further frequent allegations that the Vatican had been subverted, and that the Soviet Union was engaging in deliberate deception when it depicted Mikhail Gorbachev and perestroika as initiators of internal communist reform after the Afghan War fiasco of the eighties. In 1988, he urged a letter writing campaign against arms control talks.
When the Soviet Union finally disintegrated in 1991, more orthodox Fatima pietist groups, like the Blue Army and Fatima Family Apostolate, rejoiced, regarding this as evidence of the efficacy of the dedication of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that John Paul II had conducted nine years beforehand, but which Gruner and the Fatima Crusader discounted.
Father Gruner initiated a radio and television campaign for his message, leading his organisation's claimed membership to reach an estimated four hundred thousand by the early nineties. Since then, the "Crusader" has continued to argue for the Consecration of Russia and maintained that such action is urgent.
[edit] Gruner and Traditional Catholicism
 |
The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
Today, Gruner's publications are popular among some Catholic traditionalists, particularly those in association with the SSPX, and it is said that he owns the Catholic Family News, a major Catholic traditionalist publication based in Buffalo, NY, where Gruner's Fatima operations are based. However, there is controversy about Gruner among some traditionalists, for several reasons. First because Gruner not only recognizes the Conciliar Church and its hierarchy, but he has repeatedly praised its leadership in the pages of the Fatima Crusader, John Paul II in particular. Secondly while most Catholics, in union with today's Rome, only attend the Novus Ordo Mass, it is said that Gruner only celebrates a version of the Latin Mass (possibly the modified version according to the missal approved by John XXIII in 1962). Therefore, his practices conflict with both the staunch traditional Catholics who only recognize pre-Vatican II Church Sacraments, as well as those modern Catholics who are fully obedient to Rome. (The Traditional Latin Mass in any of its forms — either the unaltered Tridentine Mass or the modified one from 1962 — is generally forbidden in the modern Church, unless an indult has been granted.[dubious — see talk page]) Compounding the issue is the question of Gruner's own priestly status: a 1976 ordination in Italy, in full union with Rome, would most certainly mean that Gruner was ordained with the New Rite of Ordination. But according to official documents of the post-Vatican II church, his status in that church is also rejected.
[edit] See also
[edit] Bibliography
- Michael Cuneo: "The Vengeful Virgin: Studies in Contemporary Catholic Apocalypticism" in Tim Robbins and Susan Palmer (ed) Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem: New York: Routledge: 1997: ISBN 0-415-91649-6
- Nicholas Perry and Loreto Echevarria: Under the Heel of Mary: London: Routledge: 1988: ISBN 0-415-01296-1
- Sandra Zimdars-Swartz: Encountering Mary: Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1991: ISBN 0-691-07371-6
