During meetings with visiting cardinals in 1992 and 1993 Sister Lucia dos Santos, lone surviving visionary of the famous Fatima revelations, made several remarks that have not been widely reported but that should have caused huge headlines in Catholic movements.

         They were not meant to be dramatic pronouncements but have deep implications for those who have followed the events of 1917, when the Virgin Mary appeared to Lucia and her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, about ninety miles north of Lisbon.

         Now in her nineties and cloistered at a convent in Coimbra, Sister Lucia told an audience headed by Cardinal Antony Padiyara of Ernaculam, India, on October 11, 1992, and another exactly a year later, lead by Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of the Philippines on October 11, 1992, that a consecration conducted of the world and implicitly Russia by John Paul II had been accepted by heaven as fulfillment of a request by the Virgin that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart to prevent it from spreading its errors around the world.

         The issue has long been contentious among Marian groups in the United States and elsewhere, but Sister Lucia seemed clear on the matter during the talk with Cardinal Padiyara as well as a Fatima historian named Carlos Evaristo, who recorded the encounters.

         "When I return home to my diocese, people will ask me many things," said the cardinal, "among which will be if the consecration of Russia has already been done according to the request made by Our Lady. Was this accomplished by Pope John Paul II on March 25 of 1984?"

         "Yes, yes, yes," reponded Sister Lucia in a low affirmative voice, as if anticipating the question. "The consecration was already partially done. Pope Pius XII made it in 1942, on October 31, but it lacked the union with all the bishops of the world, which ope John Paul II finally managed to unite in 1984."

         When asked about those bishops who didn't participate -- long an objection of those who assert that the consecration was not accomplished -- Sister Lucia said only, "We cannot say that these bishops that did not participate committed a sin or a fault. The majority of the bishops were united to the Pope in this act. The people, worldwide, in every diocese, were united to the bishops and the bishops in turn to the Pope. So, this consecration was a great union of the people of God. It was all of this that made this consecration accepted."

         "But did not Russia have to be specifically mentioned, and did not Our lady say that?" asked Evaristo.

         "The Pope's intention was Russia, when he said, `Those peoples...' in the text of the 1984 consecration. Those who knew of the request for the consecration of Russia, knew what he was referring to as did God Who is all-knowledgeable and can read the minds of men. God knew that the Pope's intention was Russia and that he meant `Russia' in the consecration. What is important is the intention, like when a priest has the intention to consecrate a host."

         "But didn't Our Lady want Russia to be specifically mentioned?" persisted Evaristo, who works from St. Anne's oratory in Fatima and who recorded the conversations verbatim in a pamphlet, "Two Hours With Sister Luia."

         "Our Lady never requested that Russia be specifically mentioned by name," said Sister Lucia. "At the time I didn't even know what Russia was. We thought she was a very wicked woman. What matters is the Pope's intention and the bishops knew the intention the Pope had was to consecrate Russia."

         "In that case, there is no need to consecrate Russia again?" a bishop who was also present, Francis Michaelappa of Mysore, India.

         "There is no need to consecrate Russia again, but each bishop can consecrate his own diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary if he wants to," said Sister Lucia, sounding very lucid despite her age.

         "Our Lady is content and has accepted it?"

         "Yes," said Lucia, ending a controversy that has raged for decades and as I have mentioned in previous aticles, adding in her 1993 interview with a contingent from the Philippines that the consecration "prevented an atomic war that would have occurred in 1985."

         "Has the conversion of Russia then taken place?" she was asked by Evaristo.

         "Yes," said Sister Lucia. "The news speaks for itself."

Thursday: what Sister Lucia said about the third secret, the "era of peace," and the triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart