Russia Must Be Consecrated to the Immaculate Heart
By Father Gregorius D. Hesse, STD, JCL, JCD (Cand.): Vienna Austria
“Russia would have to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart,
even if Our Lady had never mentioned it at Fátima.”
The purpose of this article is to show that a consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is of a theological necessity or at least a theological convenience, even if Heaven had never mentioned it. Therefore, in this article and for the sake of argument we pretend that Our Lady never appeared at Fátima and that there was never a message.
Consequently we have to examine the following questions:
1. Why a consecration?
2. Why to Our Lady?
3. Why to Her Immaculate Heart?
4. Why Russia?
5. Why not just by the Pope, but by all bishops?
1. The Purpose and Necessity of Consecration
The word "consecration" is derived from the Latin word consecrare and in the times of Cicero it meant a dedication to the service of a god, and — in a derived meaning — to devote, to make holy. In Christian times the meaning was deepened and extended at the same time. To consecrate now means to: (1) Sanctify, hallow, recognize something as holy. (2) Dedicate or consecrate a person to God, devote one’s life and prerogatives to the service of God. (3) Set some person or thing apart as sacred or dedicated to sacred things. (4) Administer, perform the ceremonies of consecration (5) Consecrate, exercise the power conferred on a priest at ordination by changing bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at the consecration of Mass.
The third meaning, in a definition by St. Thomas Aquinas, is the most important for our consideration. As St. Thomas explains in his Commentary on the Sentences of Petrus Lombardus: "For whatever eminence of state the sanctification will be given, because there, a special help of grace is necessary, as in the consecration of kings, monks, and nuns ..."
Consecration as such has been required by God many times in Holy Scripture, as in the consecration of Joshua:
So the Lord said to Moses, "Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is the adventurous spirit and lay your hand on him. Have him stand before Eleazar the priest and the entire assembly and commission him in their presence. Give him some of your authority so the whole Israelite community will obey him. He is to stand before Eleazar the priest, who will obtain decisions for him by inquiring of the Urim before the Lord. At his command he and the entire community of the Israelites will go out, and at his command they will come in". Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and had him stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole assembly. Then he laid his hands on him and commissioned him, as the Lord instructed through Moses (Num. 27:18-23).
And Joshua told the people: "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you" (Jos. 3:5). In order to obtain a petitioned extraordinary grace, the Lord prescribes consecration:
Tell the people: "Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed: ‘If only we had meat to eat. We were better off in Egypt!’ Now the Lord will give you meat and you will eat it" (Num. 11: 18).
What is consecrated is set apart, it is holy, and it is set apart and sanctified for a specific purpose:
Moses said to the Lord, "The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, ‘Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy’ (Ex. 19:23). ‘I am the Lord your God, consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy’ (Lev. 11:44). And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes’ ... After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them and they washed their clothes (Ex. 19:10, 14). He has declared that He will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations He has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as He promised (Deut. 26:19).
The concept of setting one apart from all the rest is a fundamental precept of the Mosaic Law:
Set apart for the Lord your God every firstborn male of your herds and flocks. Do not put the firstborn of your oxen to work, and do not shear the firstborn of your sheep. (Deut. 15:19). Even the priests, who approach the Lord, must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them (Ex. 19:22).
The people have been set apart and consecrated, yet the priests are to be further set apart and consecrated for their specific mission which they do not share with the common people:
In this way you are to set the Levites apart from the other Israelites, and the Levites will be mine (Num. 8:14). Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near Himself to do the work at the Lord’s tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? (Num. 16:9).
Any consecration is specific. As it is not sufficient to consecrate the world as a whole to have Russia, Austria or any other country consecrated, it is not sufficient to have the people of Israel consecrated, it suffices even not to have the Levites consecrated, the individual must be consecrated namely, as we can see in the example of Aaron:
"And thou shalt speak to all the wise of heart, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s vestments, in which he being consecrated may minister to me ... And Aaron shall bear the iniquities of those things which the children of Israel have offered and sanctified, in all their gifts and offerings. … And with all these things thou shalt vest Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him. And thou shalt consecrate the hands of them all, and shall sanctify them, and they may do the office of priesthood unto me."Ex.28:3, 38, 41
It is important to understand that a consecration renders something or someone acceptable to God, as the child becomes acceptable through baptism and the baptized is set apart at the ordination to the Sacred Priesthood.
A consecration is not done in any vague or haphazard manner, but it has to be celebrated according to detailed instructions, as the 29th chapter of the book of Exodus shows in 34 sentences. Similar instructions can be found in other books of the Pentateuch. For the last of our questions it will be important to understand that a consecration has to follow a solemn rite: There is a difference in graces granted for wearing a medal cursorily blessed by a mere sign of the cross or a Medal of St. Benedict, consecrated by a Benedictine equipped with faculties, Ritual and Holy Water!
The purpose of consecration is also atonement:
Moses slaughtered the bull and took some of the blood, and with his finger he put it on all the horns of the altar to purify the altar. He poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. So he consecrated it to make atonement for it (Lev. 8:15). They are to eat these offerings by which atonement was made for their ordination and consecration. But no one else may eat them, because they are sacred (Ex. 29:33). For seven days make atonement for the altar and consecrate it. Then the altar will be most holy, and whatever touches it will be holy (Ex. 29:37). "Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. And they have even taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and deceived. Moreover, they have also put them among their own things. Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand before their enemies, they turn their backs before their enemies, for they have become accursed. I will not be with you any more unless you destroy the things under the ban from your midst. Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the Lord, the God of Israel has said’: There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst." (Joshua 7:11-13).
The final purpose of all creation and, therefore, also of consecration is the greater Glory of God: "... there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by My glory" (Ex. 29:43). God requires His glory not for Himself, but because of us, as St. Thomas says (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.132, a. 1, ad.1).
Whatever is consecrated, belongs to God, unless it is desecrated:
And the Lord said to him, "I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually" (1 Cor. 9:3). Any consecration is indelible, remaining in the subject (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.39, a.3). The consecration of a church must not be repeated, unless burnt down, or polluted by blood or seed (Summa Theologiae, III, q.83, a.3, ad 3). Therefore if a man cleanses himself from these things he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work (2 Tim. 2:21).
The entire history of the Church and her liturgical customs are definite proof of the necessity of consecration:
While a chapel may be blessed, the altar stone and the sacred vessels have to be consecrated. A church has to be consecrated in addition to the altar. A bishop is consecrated, a priest, a monk, a nun, and a virgin. Certain medals and holy objects have to be consecrated and until the reform of 1949 the palms on Palm Sunday and the Easter Candle were consecrated with consecratorial prefaces.
Whenever something is desecrated, it has to be made holy again by reconsecration. This is also true for ourselves as sinners who are - in a way - reconsecrated by the Sacraments if fallen into the state of mortal sin.
For the scope of this article the concept of consecration as atonement will be of utmost importance.
2. The Necessity of a Consecration to Our Lady
Who is God, is it Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or is it Our Lady? Doesn’t God, Holy Scripture, and Church Tradition require a consecration to God Himself?
Yes, definitely. It would certainly be less than appropriate to consecrate a church or an altar stone as such to anyone but God Himself. A mere rock used as a grave for human bones, even the holy bones of holy martyrs must be set apart, sanctified, dedicated and surrendered entirely to God by consecration, in order to be worthy for the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The same is analogically true for a church and ultimately the members of the priesthood.
But, these consecrations, just like the consecration of Baptismal Water are necessary to render some matter worthy of the Holy One by sanctification. An altar stone is not consecrated to convey graces, but to allow the celebration of the sacrament that will convey the most potent sacramental graces. Neither an altar stone nor Baptismal Water are consecrated for the purpose of atonement in the strict sense, but for the purification needed to render the matter worthy of the proper sacrament.
Are all consecrations only to God? Ultimately, yes, but not always exclusively. God rewards the saints with a share of His Glory. The Medal of St. Benedict is consecrated in honor of St. Benedict asking for his intercession. It is consecrated to God Almighty, but in honor of St. Benedict.
God’s Holy Will to share His Glory with all the Saints is firmly established in the Tradition of the Church:
An altar stone must not be consecrated without relics of martyrs; a church is usually dedicated to a saint; most feasts in the Roman Calendar are of saints; a Novena may be said as well to a saint, for Christmas or for the Coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (which is the oldest of all Novenae); a nun may be consecrated as a Sister of the Sacred Heart as much as a Sister of St. Joseph; during the Council of Trent three books were placed on the altar: the Bible, the Missal and the Summa Theologiae, written by a "mere" saint, but the Doctor Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, the Doctor Doctorum. Thus one of the most fruitful gatherings of the bishops, one of the most inspired Councils ever was dedicated and consecrated to God in His Holy Writ, to the Church in Her Missal, and a little fat saint in his huge book containing at least four mistakes, but written in a glowing love incomprehensible for most of us.
Thus, God wanted the consecration not exclusively to His Perfection and Divinity (somewhat lessened by St. Jerome in the Vulgate), much less to the mistakes of Popes in the Proprium of the Mass (the Canon is without errors or faults!!!), and still less to the intellectual shortcomings of the magnificent fat saint in his magnificent fat book, called the Summa Theologiae. It can easily be seen that God wanted the Fathers of Trent to share in these three books’ inspiration, wisdom, information and insights, but foremost in the Divine Love shared with saints like St. Jerome, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas.
We will see in the next chapter how important this consideration is. Hope will be satisfied, Faith will be superceded, Love will remain.
While consecration is an act of Faith, set in Hope, it must be caused by Love, be it in obedient or choosing Love. Charity loves "thy neighbor" in obedience, friendship loves by choice. St. Thomas says: "Of all the things that pertain to love, friendship is the most perfect" (Summa Contra Gentiles, III, d. 27, q.2, 1).
We have seen that God wants His Glory for our sake, not for Himself, no matter how infinitely it is due to Him. His perfect Friendship is the purpose of all consecration. "Vos autem dixi amicos, but I called you friends," said He to the disciples (John 15:15) and friends we are when consecrated by dedication, atonement and especially obedience to His Will (John 15:13).
The Church in Her venerable Tradition of countless canonizations of saints and Her benevolent protection of their cults and consecrations in their honor illustrates and witnesses the firm will of Christ to share His Glory and merits with the ones consecrated to Him.
The conclusion is inevitable that His Mother not only is part of this sharing, but in the very first place of all saints ever to Whom we may consecrate. Her merits and role in the History of Salvation are praised and exalted in Holy Scripture as well as in Church Tradition, the writings of the saints and an uninterrupted twenty centuries of true devotion and cult. So exalted is (or was) Her position among the faithful that G.K. Chesterton thankfully reminded us of the wisdom of the Church that always knew to emphasize the distinction between the God-Man Himself and a perfect human being (The New Jerusalem, last chapter).
The occasional exaggeration can be benevolently considered as comprehensible in the light of the Blessed Virgin’s position as Mother of God, Queen of all Martyrs, Queen of Heaven, Queen of the Angels, and Mediatrix of All Graces.
Let the quotations of a few saints suffice as a substitute for all the countless and often deep volumes written about Her glory:
... in the first place the memory of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord and God Jesus Christ (Canon Missae); The humanity of Christ inasmuch as it is united to God, and the created beatitude inasmuch as it is fruition of God, and the Blessed Virgin inasmuch as She is Mother of God in a way have infinite dignity out of the infinite good, which is God (Summa Theologiae, I, q.25, a.6, ad 4) and from this part cannot be better (Summa Theologiae, III, q.7, a.12, ad 2); To be the Mother of God is the utmost grace conferable to a mere creature. The same is where God cannot do more. God can make a bigger world, a greater heaven, more than a Mother of God He cannot make (St. Bonaventura).
Our Lady’s function in the economy of salvation is not merely passive, She is not merely used by God, She devoted, with all of Her heart and not lessened by any sin, all of Her life and Herself completely as the ancilla Domini to God and His Divine Son in the mystery of the Redemption. She is, as St. Irenaeus says, the cause of salvation. St. Epiphanius calls Her the "Mother of the Living" and She is indeed our mother in the order of grace, because She is the GRATIA PLENA, full of grace, and the Mediatrix of All Graces:
From the time that the Virgin Mother conceived the Word of God in Her womb ... She obtained jurisdiction in all temporal processions of the Holy Spirit; so that no creature obtained any grace from God, unless according to His pious Mother’s dispensation (St. Bernardine of Siena).
All consecrations for the purpose of obtaining graces, must, therefore, be directed towards Our Lady, inasmuch as She is the Mediatrix of All Graces!
3. The Necessity of a Consecration to the Immaculate Heart
It would seem at first that a consecration to Our Lady as such might be more than sufficient, and, indeed, for many centuries it did appear so. In a way we face a mystery, when we consider the elapse of time that was needed for Divine Wisdom to decide to reveal the adoration of the Sacred Heart and the Veneration for the Immaculate Heart to mankind. Both may seem somewhat strange at first sight:
I ask it with respect and in no blasphemous intention whatsoever: Why the adoration for the Sacred Heart, why the blood pump and not His hands that transmitted the Holy Spirit to the Apostles?
St. Thomas Aquinas calls the heart "the first principle of movement in the animal" (Summa Theologiae, I, q.20, a.1, ad1) and he says: "Every good disposition of the body overflows to the heart, as to the principle and end of bodily motions" (Summa Theologiae, I-II, q.38. a.5, ad3). This does not answer our question, as long as the heart is seen in its bodily function of pumping blood.
Twice, however, St. Thomas talks about the dispositions of the heart towards the passions of the soul (Summa Contra Gentiles, III, d. 34, q.2, a.1; De Veritate, q. 25, a.2) and then he indicates the solution to our problem in his article about concordia, togetherness of hearts, mutual agreement, harmony:
Concordia namely, properly understood, is towards someone else: that is, inasmuch as the wills of various hearts come together in one agreement ... The heart of an individual human being tends towards different things; and this in a twofold way. In one way according to the various appetitive potencies, ... in another way according to the ... various desirables (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.29, a.1).
St. Thomas does not answer our question, but the correct solution can and must be based on his connecting the will and the heart:
Traditionally we speak about the TWO faculties of the soul, namely the intellect as faculty for the intimate penetration of the truth (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q.8., a.1) as a passive potency of the soul (Summa Theologiae, I, q.79, a.2) and the will as the rational appetite (Summa Theologiae, I, q.78, a.1) in the highest part of the soul, belonging to the active life (Summa Contra Gentiles, III, d.3, q.1, ad6).
The heart has always been the symbol of love as can be seen in the most frequently used idioms: "I love you with all my heart," "My heart is yours," "You are in my heart." In this case the will and the heart agree, but what about the often found contradiction between the heart and the TWO faculties of the soul: "Okay, I’ll do it, but my heart is not in it." The will says YES, the heart says NO. "I know this in my heart, but I do not understand it." The heart conceives, but not the intellect.
Are the TWO faculties of the soul a sufficient explanation?
St. Pius X’s soul is in Heaven (his blood pump is to be found somewhat dysfunctional in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome). His intellect is completely filled up and penetrating ever more the ultimate and only Truth: God. His will is completely absorbed by the everlasting YES to God and the Beatific Vision. Where is his beatitude? Where is his love?
To simplify matters for the sake of argument we can bluntly say that the human will says YES or NO to what the intellect recognizes as true. The intellect of the child recognizes the parents as authority and the will agrees with the authority, but this is still not love.
What distinguishes the newborn babe from an animal? Newborn animals recognize parents and desire them, BUT THEY DO NOT SMILE OR LAUGH! Man was often called the animal risibilis, the animal capable of laughter. Smile, laughter, amusement, and humor are never to be found within the creatures without a rational soul. No tiger and no tree ever smiles. St. Thomas says there is laughter in the blessed (Quolibet, 11, 6, 1), but the "risible adds some extraneous nature to man, which is outside the essence of man" (De Veritate, q.1, a.5, ad 20; q.21, a.1, ad1l).
The great Angelic Doctor - and this is very rare - does not sufficiently answer our question. His indications, however, will help us towards the solution as much as his own method, which is, as Gilbert Keith Chesterton says, common sense "the sense for the probable" (The Incredulity of Father Brown [1926; rpt. The Penguin Complete Father Brown, New York: Penguin Books, 1982, pp.319-460], "The Curse of the Golden Cross," p.402, Father Brown speaking):
The essence of the Thomist common sense is that two agencies are at work; reality and the recognition of reality; and their meeting is a sort of marriage. Indeed it is very truly a marriage, because it is fruitful. It produces practical results, precisely because it is the combination of an adventurous mind and a strange fact. Upon that marriage the whole system of St. Thomas is founded; God made Man so that he was capable of coming in contact with reality; and those whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder (Saint Thomas Aquinas, "The Sequel to St. Thomas," pp. 184-185).
Chesterton understands the term "common sense" the way St. Thomas does. "Common sense is the native good judgement, sound ordinary sense, also the set of general unexamined assumptions, as distinguished from specially acquired concepts" (American Heritage Dictionary). St. Thomas sees it as the root and principle of the exterior senses. "Sensus communis fertur in omnia sensibilia secundum unam communem rationem." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. l, a.3, ad2) "Ultimum iudicium et ultima discretio pertinet ad sensum communem, quis iudicium aliorum [sensuum] perficit." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q.78, a.4, ad2).
We know and believe that man has been created according to the image of God. This is especially true for the human soul, the form and essence of man. The image of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is in the THREE faculties or potencies of the human soul: The will, the intellect, and the heart, that is in the decisive, the cognitive, and the appetitive faculties.
Thus, St. Pius X’s soul in Heaven agrees forever with the Beatific Vision, has this Vision in his intellect and the Beatitude in his heart. Ignis ardens, he was called on earth, the "burning fire." Where does this fire burn? In his will that said YES and NO? In his intellect that recognized? No! It burns in his heart, the third faculty of the soul.
And in this is the image of the Most Blessed Trinity: In an analogy to be understood carefully, the will could be seen as the image of the Father, the Creator, the intellect as the image of the Son, the Logos, the Word, and the heart as the image of the Holy Spirit, the burning fire of Love.
The heart is not only the third, but also the highest of the faculties of the soul:
In another analogy we can compare the three potencies of the soul with the three theological virtues:
The will corresponds to Hope, where I will to be in Heaven and hope to succeed through Christ’s mercy and my submission to His Will. The intellect corresponds to Faith where I understand with Whom I want to be in heaven, and the heart corresponds to Charity, where I love what I will and know. Charity is the greatest of the virtues (Cf. 1 Cor. 13:13).
Christ did not need Hope, He knew His future, He did not need Faith, He IS the Truth, but His Charity redeemed us.
This must be the reason why we adore His Sacred Heart.
And this is the reason why we must consecrate Russia to the most important potency in the soul of the Immaculate Conception: Her Immaculate Heart!
There remains one question indirectly pertaining to the considerations above: Why was this found out only centuries after the Angelic Doctor’s life and incredible insights?
The answer to this question is ultimately a mystery and cannot be given with absolute certainty, but it seems that Chesterton, again, has found the answer in the last lines of his book Orthodoxy:
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian ... The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual ... He never concealed his tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something ... He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something … there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth (Orthodoxy, Authority and the Adventurer, p. 160 [last paragraph of the book]).
4. Russia must be Consecrated
Why Russia? We have seen that one of the foremost purposes of consecration is atonement or reparation. As a church is desecrated by crime, blood, and seed and needs a reconsecration, so the world needs reconsecration, especially after the unspeakable crimes in the Twentieth Century.
Nevertheless a simple consecration of the world would be too simple. The necessity of atonement is obviously directly proportional to the number and gravity of crimes committed. At the same time any fireman knows that the hose must be pointed at the source of the fire or its center. Just as the thundering flame of a burning oil well is extinguished by the correct placing of the right amount of high explosive, so the sinful hellfire of this world must be extinguished by converting its center.
There can be no doubt that after the breaking up of Christendom by Luther in 1517, the grouping of the Church’s enemy, Freemasonry, in 1717, the reign of the Antichrist to come was initiated by the events in Russia in 1917. The moment the Bolsheviks were established, the completely atheistic empire was set to work: churches were shut down, torn down and desecrated; bishops and priests were arrested, tortured, killed, and exiled; the nobility and the bourgeoisie were practically wiped out; and the Russian people decimated (Stalin alone is responsible for an estimated SIXTY million dead during his reign of evil). With the help of corrupt and evil American businessmen the Soviet Union started to preach the satanic religion of Atheism to the whole world. The world’s largest country became "the evil empire" as Ronald Reagan called it so aptly. Its evil influence was extended rapidly by dedicated and fanatical dictators, agents, and the evil allies of communism in the West. American businessmen built factories for the Russians, World War II and criminal politics in the West delivered the Eastern countries directly and the Western countries indirectly through capitalistic corruption. China, Asian countries, Africa and South America were next. Already in the 1930’s Stalin sent secret agents into the Western seminaries and into the Vatican, until communism finally flooded the Sacred Aula of St. Peter’s Basilica during the Second Vatican Council, where the petition to speak out against communism disappeared together with any further intention to dedicate an entire document to the Mother of God. The incessant attacks against Christendom by the communists and their allies were so efficient that by the time the Iron Curtain was torn down, this barrier against the formerly Christian West was not needed any more, the latter having become a cesspool of atheism, abortion, sin, corruption, liberalism, and blasphemy.
Russia has spread her errors in various degrees, but worldwide.
There can be no doubt for any informed person that the source of all this evil was Russia, not — as those trapped by Soviet propaganda want us to believe — America.
It can easily be seen why RUSSIA has to be consecrated more than any other individual country.
The crimes committed and propagated by Russia are particularly offensive against Our Lady as they are all crimes against life, motherhood, chastity, purity, and filial devotion to God. Every single virtue particular to Our Lady is offended by this system of power that still cannot touch God Almighty, but delights in the abuse of power against the humble and defenseless Virgin, whose total submission to God’s will is contemplated in the first of the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary.
Therefore it is Russia that has to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart.
6. The Pope Together with the Bishops has to Consecrate Russia.
Only the Pope, the Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter enjoys the full and universal jurisdiction, the primacy, "not only in matters of faith and morals, but also of discipline and government of the Church" (Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, 3, DS 3060). It is, therefore impossible to prove (without a special revelation from God) that the Pope alone could not do the consecration.
But the Tradition of the Church knows the word convenit, frequently used by the Church Fathers and St. Thomas: it comes together, it is fitting, proper, convenient. St. Thomas calls the Incarnation "convenient" (Summa Theologiae, III, q.1, a.1). Convenience is never to be taken lightly in theology, especially when necessity is relative. God is perfect and needs nothing, anything due to Him is, therefore, of a relative necessity, absolute for us, non-existent for Him. This is also the reason why priests should celebrate Mass every singe day of their life: It is not necessary in the strict sense, but convenient. Hence objective convenience can constitute a subjective necessity.
Any consecration is by nature the competence of bishops. Only a bishop can consecrate bishops and priests, and only a bishop can consecrate an altar and a chalice. Any consecration of whatever person or thing by a simple priest is delegated by the bishop or the Universal Church, while a bishop is the ordinary minister for most consecrations. It is, therefore, convenient to ask all the bishops to join in the consecration of Russia.
While the Pope enjoys the primacy, he is not the Universal Church. At Pentecost for the first time and at all Ecumenical Councils, Peter is joined by all Apostles in order to represent the entire Church. If the Pope alone was to consecrate Russia, he would do it in the name of the Church, but if all bishops join — even if only in obedience — the entire Church Herself consecrates. Russia has almost succeeded to wreck the entire world, it is therefore convenient to have the entire Church consecrate Russia.
One of the greatest offenses against Our Lady is the betrayal of the Una Sancta, the ONE and HOLY Church in the name of ecumenism, postulated especially by Russia, because it makes a liar of Her Divine Son, Who is Truth Himself. Today’s ecumenism is a perversion of the term, originally meaning that which belongs to the house: oiko-menos. At all Ecumenical Councils until this century, no heretic, no schismatic, no apostate, and no pagan was invited, but only those united in the Faith, Worship, and under Peter. Today’s indifferentism under the same name has enabled Russia — freed from the menace of the One Truth — to succeed almost universally. The cleansing and correction of the term "Ecumenical" is of an absolute necessity. It is, therefore, convenient to consecrate Russia in the theologically correct sense of an ecumenical action: the Pope and all bishops united with him.
In the light of the rather ambiguous and doubtful concept of collegiality, created by the authors of Vatican II, the Pope’s own authority has been considerably weakened, especially in the public’s mind. Lumen Gentium 22 creates an exaggerated concept of the importance of the college of all bishops in the Church, which prompted Pope Paul VI to add an explanatory note to the document, a rather unique occurrence in history. In the light of the public understanding, however, and until a future Pope has corrected this above-mentioned and dangerous concept, it would be convenient to have all bishops join the Pope in the consecration to present a unity, which nowadays usually the "unity" of the Catholic Church leaves something to be desired.
Finally, and with great chagrin, it has to be understood that Russia’s errors have penetrated the Vatican, the Papacy, and the College of all bishops. When Peter sins, Peter has to go to confession, nobody else can do it for him. It is, therefore, convenient to have all bishops join in the consecration.
Inasmuch as it is convenient to command all bishops to join the Pope in the consecration of Russia, it is, therefore, also of a relative necessity.
Russia, under the name of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the united republics, the C.I.S., has caused more damage to the world and the Church than any other nation during the last 100 years. For the purpose of atonement, she must hence be consecrated by the Pope and all the Catholic bishops to the one and most exalted of all mere creatures Whose Immaculate Heart always belonged to God and, while on earth, has suffered immeasurably for all sins ever committed, including the ones to come. She transmits all graces through Her Immaculate Heart. Only She can save the world.