Father Nicholas Gruner, the controversial head of the Fatima Center, died of an apparent heart attack in his office on April 29 and will be buried in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada on Saturday, May 9.

Catholic World News (CWN) is reporting on the death of Father Gruner, a native of Canada who was ordained in the Diocese of Avellino, Italy in 1976.

“He devoted himself tirelessly to promoting his own interpretation of the message of Our Lady of Fatima, which he advanced in the magazine, The Fatima Crusader,” CWN reports. “His radical message—including a claim that the Vatican had been subverted by the Soviet Union—won him a strong following among traditionalist Catholics but brought him increasingly into conflict with Church authorities.”

Father Gruner also insisted that Our Lady’s request for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart was never fulfilled, rejecting reassurances to the contrary by St. John Paul II and the only surviving Fatima seer, Sister Lucia.

As a result, he was eventually ordered to return to the diocese of Avellino in 1992 and when he failed to do so, he was suspended from priestly ministry in 1996. He appealed the suspension but it was upheld by the Vatican in 2001.

Since that time, Church authorities have repeatedly warned the faithful that his work lacked ecclesiastical approval.

Father’s funeral Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Bernard Fellay SSPX at the Scotiabank Convention Center in Ontario, Canada on Saturday, May 9. He will be buried in Fort Erie, Ontario.

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