“Russia Will Be Converted”: The Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima in Cold War America

Abstract

At the height of the Cold War, the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima was the largest Catholic lay organization devoted to propagating the anticommunist message associated with the 1917 Marian revelations at Fatima, Portugal. According to the Blue Army, the Virgin Mary instructed three Portuguese children to pray the rosary to defeat atheistic communism. Starting in the late 1940s, the Blue Army helped to define the anticommunist message of Fatima and utilize it in the Cold War. The group inspired millions of American Catholics to take the “Blue Army Pledge” and commit themselves to participate in the Cold War on distinctly Catholic terms. The Blue Army deployed rosary beads, statues of the Virgin Mary, prayer vigils, and scapulars to wage war against the existential threat of communism, adapting these long-held Catholic devotions to fit mid-century American political, social, and religious conditions. At the height of the Cold War, the Blue Army’s devotional Catholicism and ardent patriotism was a powerful combination that shaped the outlook of countless American Catholics.