Are you tired yet of all the “all Coronavirus, all of the time” news coverage? I certainly am! Well, here’s some relief: this article is not about the Coronavirus. It’s about what comes after.

Mom’s Sage Advice

My mom was a perceptive observer of humanity. Often, when one of her children would have a problem with someone or something, she would casually remark, “Well, consider the source.” That observation forced said child to develop the habit of looking to the origin of the problem.  Sometimes the origin was the child himself.  Mom wanted us to learn to address root causes, not just symptoms.

Mom was wise. Very wise. But are we?

The future will tell whether or not we are a wise nation with regard to the origin of the Coronavirus problem. All but the mainstream media recognize that Communist China is the source of the pandemic. In fact, China is the worst of the many bad actors on the world stage right now. Anyone with eyes cannot fail to see this.

Wisdom in Governance

Politics aside, the first thing to note is that every single one of President Trump’s observations about China for the past five years (actually longer) has been proven not just correct, but extremely perceptive. After so long, we finally have some wisdom at the top level of our government.

One of my favorite commentators, Victor Davis Hanson, told Laura Ingraham that the President’s Coronavirus policies (particularly on manufacturing and borders) have become “conventional wisdom” with regard to handling the menace of a viral disease. Professor Hanson was saying that Trump has been proven right about China time and again without getting any credit for having his eyes open while everyone else is blind.

Credit, however, means little at a time like this. What matters is truth.

Russia Will Spread Its Errors…into China

The truth is that Communist ideology is the real underlying cause of the Coronavirus malaise that is currently blanketing the entire world. And it appears to be spreading rapidly.

Our Lady of Fatima told us as much in 1917. Her message to the world through the shepherd children, Lucy, Francisco, and Jacinta, was not about a disease of body. It was a warning about the virus of godless Marxism that was about to take over Russia at that very moment.

She could see it with the clear eyes of heaven. The rest of the world had to take it on her word. If not counterbalanced through spiritual means like prayer, fasting, and conversion of heart, she suggested, Russia would eventually spread the horrific Communist ideology everywhere.

Less than ten years later, a radical Chinese community organizer named Mao Zedong caught the bug.

China has been a Communist nation, officially, since 1949. Mao, the mass-murdering father of Chinese Communism, created his own political ideology from the malleable doctrines of Marxism-Leninism that were current at the time. Then he imposed Maoism on close to a billion people in a typically Chinese totalitarian fashion.

Mao’s motto was this happy thought: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” That pretty much sums up how Mao did everything.

Consider the Source

The terrible irony is that the Neanderthal Mao most likely would not have read word one of the writings of an obscure German philosopher like Karl Marx had not the Russians turned Marx’s errors into a totalitarian political system.

The Russian communists were proficient at the only thing that impressed Mao: killing people.

On a visit to China about fifteen years ago, I met a nun who spoke English very well. She told me that there is something in the Chinese spirit that wants a strong leader.  “We know we need to be kept in line,” she said (her words not mine).

That may be their perception of their own cultural needs, but at the same time, I don’t think the Chinese asked for a totally evil man to rule over them and leave a legacy of death and destruction. Mao is responsible for the deaths of a minimum of forty million of his own people.

And that’s being kind to the sociopath. But let’s not forget that the errors of Communist Russia are the hidden root of all that evil.

The Legacy of Russian Errors

Most of humanity didn’t listen to Our Lady in 1917. The world was not converted from its godless ways. In large part, the Church’s upper leadership, including a number of popes, also ignored her words. Her urgent requests for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart went unheeded. As a consequence, for about seventy years, Russia did “spread its errors” throughout the world with toxic effects.

The fruits of Russia’s evil are many and ugly.  Mao Zedong is only one of them.

  • Regional agitation, infiltration, and Communist mini-revolutions in smaller countries;
  • The export of socialist ideology to most of the world through leftist activists and sympathizers; and
  • The proliferation of ideological photocopies in the leftist guise of cultural and political leaders (hello Bernie Sanders!) whose common mottos only differ from Chairman Mao’s in the instruments they use to gain political power.

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19

Here’s another strange parallel to our current situation. In the aftermath of the First World War (1914-1917), the influenza virus raced around the world infecting – literally – five hundred million people, and killing millions, including two of the little seers of Fatima.

Does this put the Coronavirus pandemic into perspective?

Communism wasn’t responsible for that (as it is for COVID-19), but the worldwide flu pandemic will forever be tied to the advent of Russian Communism that Our Lady warned us about. Materialists and most scientists wouldn’t see it that way. Those with the eyes of faith would.

It’s almost as if the pandemic was a message itself, a confirmation of the warning she brought the world concerning something infinitely more dangerous:

I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one. (Luke 12:4-5)

Even after the devastation of the flu pandemic, the world still did not heed Our Lady’s message. The destruction of godless Communism continued throughout the course of the twentieth century.

The researchers who compiled The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression in the late ’90s, estimate the total deaths caused by Communism as a political system at 94 million. In their estimate, China has been responsible for 65 million of those deaths. The Soviet Union comes in a shabby second at a mere twenty million.

What’s the Big Deal?

China has dealt with the Coronavirus problem – which it caused – with textbook Communist procedures. They launched a propaganda campaign blaming the American military for the virus. They covered up the source of the problem and (are still covering up) the real number of dead. Now China is spreading the viral illusion that they are both the victims and the heroes of the virus battle.

Communism never changes its stripes. Lies and deceit, manipulation and murder are as old as the devil. “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

For Communism’s sympathizers, when they’re not blaming Trump for the virus, their attitude seems to be rather flippant:  What’s the big deal?  The country with the world’s highest population can afford to lose a few hundred thousand, heck, a few million for that matter.

Behind that attitude is the reality that Coronavirus losses are a blip on the radar screen. China logs 13 million abortions every year, a reality that is just too horrible to fathom.

What’s the big deal? All of this evil is a very big deal to God. And it should be a very big deal to us.

Where We Go From Here

For the moment in America, we don’t need to do anything except follow the guidelines of medical experts and our political leaders. However, in our forced downtime of “social distancing” and relative human isolation, we should go back to the messages of Fatima and take them to heart.

If President Trump was prophetic about China, Our Lady was first prophetic (a century ago) about the virus of Communism. It is not dead. Its viral toxicity is alive and well, particularly in all the areas I mentioned above. Like a broken sewage pipe, it continues to pump toxic waste into our society.

Nonetheless, there are a couple of practical and spiritual things we all can do to provide an anti-virus for the evil that Our Lady warned us against over a century ago:

  • Believe: pray, fast, do penance, and reject sin;
  • Pray: recite the Rosary especially, as Our Lady’s special weapon of protection from the assaults of all enemies, human and spiritual;
  • Teach: instruct your children and other young people how to live upright and decent lives in expectation of God’s judgment (a very strong element of the Fatima message);
  • Act: vote for candidates who will reject the Communist infiltration into our nation and culture; and know that if you vote for anyone on the left wing of the political spectrum, particularly if that person revels in the title of “socialist,” you are simply part of the problem; and finally,
  • Fight back: “Reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises,” which in practical terms means tuning out every lie of the Communist-sympathizing media that saturates our culture.

Post Script

Okay, this article was a little bit about the Coronavirus. But mostly, it’s about the more important issues that will follow this pandemic – the salvation of our nation and of our souls.

This article was originally published at Catholic Stand.