Father Gobbi meets the Pope

Don Stefano Gobbi, an Italian Priest from Milan, on pilgrimage to Fatima on May 8, 1972, while praying in the Chapel of the Apparitions began to receive messages from Our Lady, in the form of "interior locutions", which were to go on and continue up to the end of 1997. He was praying for some priests who, besides having personally given up their own vocation, were attempting to organise themselves against the Church's authority.

These messages entrusted him with an important mission, namely that to dedicate his life to going about the world seeking to draw first of all Priests, then Religious and then the Faithful to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as She had originally asked in Fatima. They would, She said, form Her own "army" in the struggle against the devil.

After receiving an unmistakable sign that showed him that it was God's will, and with the approval of his spiritual director, Don Gobbi began his work and launched the Movement on October 13th 1972, on the same day when 55 years before the stupendous miracle of the sun at Fatima had underlined the importance and urgency of Our Lady's message to humanity.

Don Gobbi subsequently has travelled about the world several times now, and he has seen the Movement spread everywhere. Something over 90,000 Priests, some hundreds of Bishops, many cardinals and innumerable lay people (probably to be reckoned in tens of millions) have made their Consecration in consequence of his mission.