One month after Our Lady of Fatima’s final apparition in October 1917, Freemasonry openly declared war on the Catholic Church in a series of protests in Rome. Posters depicting the Archangel Michael defeated on the ground trampled beneath a triumphant Lucifer were strewn across Rome by the Freemasons. In their anti-Catholic Church protests, Freemasons also carried the black flag of heretic Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar who promoted materialistic pantheism, a core belief of Freemasonry. Bruno also denied fundamental Christian doctrines such as the Most Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, and Our Lady’s perpetual virginity. St. Maximilian Kolbe was a student in Rome at the time and witnessed the violently anti-Catholic celebrations of Freemasonry’s 200th anniversary.
His first account appeared in the November 1935 issue of Japanese Militia of the Immaculate magazine:
“Years later, the freemasons in Rome began to demonstrate openly and belligerently against the Church. They placed the black standard of the “Giordano Brunisti” under the windows of the Vatican. On this standard the archangel, St. Michael, was depicted lying under the feet of the triumphant Lucifer. At the same time, countless pamphlets were distributed to the people in which the Holy Father was attacked shamefully. Right then I conceived the idea of organizing an active society to counteract Freemasonry and other slaves of Lucifer.”
Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s second account was published in 1939:
“In the years leading up to the war, the masonic ‘clique,’ disapproved of on several occasions by the Sovereign Pontiffs, governed in Rome, the capital of Christianity, with ever greater impudence. It did not even hesitate to brandish in the streets of the City during the festivities in honor of Giordano Bruno, a black flag showing the Archangel St. Michael beneath the feet of Lucifer; still less did they hesitate to brandish masonic insignia beneath the windows of the Vatican. A reckless hand felt no repugnance in writing: Satan will rule in the Vatican and the Pope will serve him in the uniform of a Swiss Guard, and other things of that kind. This mortal hatred for the Church of Jesus Christ and for His Vicar was not just a prank on the part of deranged individuals, but a systematic action proceeding from the principle of Freemasonry: Destroy all religion, whatever it may be, especially the Catholic religion.”
After witnessing the freemasons’ hostility toward the Church in 1917, St. Maximilian Kolbe decided to establish the Militia Immaculatae [The Knights of the Immaculate] to counter Lucifer’s actions.
An expert on Fatima, Timothy Tindal-Robertson, believes that the 1917 Marian apparitions were a manifestation of the conflict between Our Lady and the forces of evil at work in the world. He had stated to Church Militant media portal:
“Our Lady’s apparitions were heaven’s answer to the furious attack on the Church in Portugal unleashed after the Masons murdered the king in Lisbon in 1906, and then a totally secular anti-Catholic Republican government was installed in 1908, which seriously persecuted the Church. A few years later, a government minister declared in their assembly that in two generations they would have eliminated Catholicism in Portugal.
However, word spread all over Portugal and Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, and despite the efforts of the government to prevent it, 70,000 people came to the Cova in October 1917. Overjoyed at the stupendous Miracle of the Sun, the people went home and complied with our Lady’s request for the Rosary to such an extent that it brought about the resurrection of the Church, while the republican party simply withered away. The same thing happened in Austria in 1955, and again in Portugal when there was a threat of a Communist uprising in 1975.”