Dear Teen Logo,
Very good points!
From my own personal viewpoint, I think there was no Pope more devoted to Fatima than John Paul II.
And I simply don't trust Fatimite Catholics who feel that Fatima is a part of the deposit of Catholic faith for one and all.
The EC Churches don't even have the feast of Our Lady of Fatima in their calendars - I know mine doesn't. It is entirely a matter of private revelation, as is Lourdes et al.
And what has always been troubling for me is how Fatimites have insisted that our Lady came to Fatima to preach the conversion of Russia to Catholicism, even Eastern Catholicism.
I just don't see how her recorded words (which no Catholic need accept if he or she doesn't want to) can be stretched to that limit.
The Fatimites I've sometimes come across are traditional papal supremacists and have little appreciation for Orthodoxy - except as a mission field to "convert" to the Roman Papacy.
To his credit, the Pope brought in much needed balance on Fatima and how its message is distorted by overzealous devotees today who wish to get Eastern Catholics to have devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary - something that Eastern tradition would reject outright as a purely Latin devotion.
The respect the Pope paid to other faiths was not at all blasphemous or whatever. He followed the cultural proscriptions of each faith in doing what he did. And when it seemed strange to us, it really was because we didn't understand the contexts he was working within.
The Roman Rite precisely allows for the kind of acculturation that we see today. It was designed like that to begin with (the NO). I don't personally care for Masses said in the lotus position, but if that is what a particular culture regards as appropriate, that's fine.
But I respect your views!
And the Pope certainly raised a few eye-brows in his time, didn't he?
A dynamic leader, to be sure.
Alex
