Marian devotion versus Christianophobia: Our Lady of Fatima comes to Strasbourg. The twelve stars on the EU flag are a homage to her and yet this will be her first “visit” to the political headquarters of the EU.
Tomorrow at 10 am, the statue of the Virgin Mary will be brought to the cathedral of the city that symbolises European technocracy, by a group of pilgrims from all across the continent. The statue is also expected to come past the European Parliament building.
Lorenzo Fontana and Mario Borghesio said the arrival of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima in Strasbourg is “a unique event.” “Few people know that the symbol of unified Europe has exquisitely Marian origins, as the European Union’s official flag proves with its twelve stars and the Virgin Mary’s blue and white colours”.
“Unfortunately - the two Italian Northern League MPs said – Europe has deviated dangerously from the symbol’s original source of inspiration, veering in a different direction, to benefit interests that have little to do with those of our people and with the Christian values the vast majority of Europeans uphold.”
Fontana and Borghezio presented a written statement in support of the requests which Our Lady of Fatima became a bearer of in order to save Europe and the world and ensure peace and prosperity. Fr. Nicholas Gruner, founder of the Our Lady of Fatima Association, a non profit organisation, presented the proposal to the European Parliament.
Mario Mauro, leader of the Italian People of Freedom Party (PDL), one of the parties that form part of the the European People’s Party (EPP), stressed that the EU flag has twelve golden stars that form a circle set against a blue backdrop.
The number of stars has nothing to do with the number of EU states but is an ancient numeric symbol that stands for harmony and solidarity. A competition was held in order to choose the flag and French Catholic designer Arsène Heitz won. The meaning of the flag’s symbolism can be found in an image of Marian devotion which appears in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation: “Then a huge sign became visible in the sky – the figure of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head.”
The President of the competition commission was a Belgian Jew who had converted to Catholicism and was acutely sensitive to the biblical symbolism of the number 12. In ancient symbology, this number stood for completeness and perfection: the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 months of the year, the 12 Apostles, the 12 Tables of Roman Law.
Heitz was inspired by the “Miraculous Medal” he wore around his neck: a medal named after apparition of the Virgin Mary to St Catherine Laboure in 1830. It was the Virgin Mary who told the nun to have twelve stars struck on the medal, in representation of the the stars on the crown worn by the woman in the Book of Revelation. Saint Bernadette Soubirous also had a necklace made of tin and string around her neck when the Virgin Mary appeared to her on 11 February 1858, dressed in white and blue.
Arsène Heitz did not reveal the symbol’s biblical origin (he only did so later on), but claimed the number twelve was meant to symbolise ancient wisdom, a “symbol of completeness”. This interpretation stuck and the number was confirmed in the constitutional treaty. So the European flag has a powerful Christian and Marian significance. Tomorrow Mary will “take back” the EU.