The day after the 100th anniversary day of the first apparition in Fatima, Antonio Socci came out with the following blogpost, which, however,
refers to a post he had on August 17, 2014 – which I missed seeing then.
I am wary about posting anything by Socci about the Third Secret of Fatima because he is personally invested 100 percent in the belief that
the Vatican has suppressed a second letter from Suor Lucia to supplement the letter of April 1944 in which she describes the apocalyptic
vision shown to her and her two cousins by Mary in July 2017. He wrote a book in 2006 to argue this,and has continued to promote it aggressively.
Because subsequently, he has argued and acted on his conviction that Benedict XVI was forced to resign the Papacy by unnamed and totally
amorphous elements – i.e., he did not resign of his own free will, as canon law requires - and that therefore, Jorge Bergoglio may not be
a legitimate pope (for which he adduces additional reasons having to do with the pre-Conclave campaigning in his behalf and a technical issue
or two with the actual balloting in the Sistine Chapel), I have been very guarded, even downright dismissive, about the claims he makes
in support of both his pet hypotheses (on Fatima and the legitimacy of Benedict XVI’s resignation and Bergoglio’s election).
However, for the ‘new’ information it contains, I thought I would translate his new post on Fatima – as well as the one he posted on August 17,
2014 – in both of which he cites a description by Suor Lucia of an apocalyptic vision she had in 1944 when she sought guidance from the Lord
to overcome her terror about writing out what we have all come to call ‘the Third Secret’ of Fatima. The new post necessarily reiterates the
material he posted in August 2014 but with ‘updated’ commentary.
To balance out Socci’s position regarding an incompletely-disclosed Third Secret, I shall re-post a rebuttal of all the hypotheses about an
‘incomplete’ Third Secret made in a 2011 book on Fatima by Fr. Andrew Apostoli, a founding member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal
and vice-postulator for the canonization cause in behalf of Venerable Fulton Sheen.
In a 2013 book published by the Carmelites,
Suor Lucia confirmed she wrote two texts
on the Third Secret, but few paid attention
Translated from
May 14, 2017
One hundred years since the first Marian apparition in Fatima, all the media focused once more on her prophecies about the 20th century and the mystery in those prophecies.
But what is the point today? I have studied those events for years, especially the continuing question over the Third Secret, its publication in 2000, and the controversy over whether the entire text was released by the Vatican.
But I believe that the most significant development took place in 2013 to general disattention and is still generally ignored.
I wrote about this on August 17, 2014, in Libero, to report on a book published in Portugal which was edited by the Carmelite sisters of the monastery in Comibra, where Suor Lucia Dos Santos, the third seer, lived most of her life after the apparitions and where she died at age 97 in 2005.
It was an official publication entitled
Un caminho sob o olhar de Maria (A journey under the eyes of Mary), a biography of Lucia which drew on those of her her writings which had up to then been secret and unpublished. But the book was practically unnoticed in the media. However, I was told by an authoritative source that the pages included a ‘genuine bombshell’.
I verified that this was so. The 'bombshell', in fact,
resolved [could resolve?] in effect the tiresome controversy over the Third Secret – because the book makes it clear that in fact, what was published of the Third Secret in 2000 was incomplete, and what the missing content was.
How is it possible that the Carmelites of Coimbra decided to come out with the revelation which, drawn from handwritten texts by Suor Lucia, appears incontestable and undermines the Vatican version? Such a weighty decision could not have been solely on their own initiative.
It could be that Suor Lucia herself had asked them to publish the document after her death, considering its importance as a serious and specific warning for mankind. But her wish alone would not have sufficed, because if she had the faculty to publish it while she was alive, she would have done so.
Evidently, the publication had to have a ‘placet’ from on high, and we know that on the subject of Fatima, such an auithorization can only come from the Vatican
[the Pope, specifically]. [NB: Pius XII had surprisingly refused to even look at the letter sent by Suor Lucia when the letter was finally sent to him from the Archbishop of Leiria which had kept the letter in custody in 1957. His successor, John XXIII, decided not to release that letter even if Suor Lucia had wanted it published by 1960. And John Paul II waited until the Jubilee celebrating the start of the third millennium of Christianity to publish it – according to all official accounts, what was published in 200 was the full and only text about the Third Secret.]
The Carmelite book was published in 2013, i.e., it was prepared and intended for publication under Benedict XVI, and having been published with all the requisite seals of ecclesiastic approval, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the authorization came directly from Benedict XVI. Who, as Prefect of the CDF, had to write the Theological Commentary to the Third Secret, including what it said about ‘a bishop dressed in white’.
In view of the time frame, we may identify the date that marked a change in Benedict XVI’s official attitude about the Third Secret – May 13, 2010.
At that time, the Church was truly under heavy attack, and for the 93rd anniversary of the first apparition in Fatima (and the 10th anniversary of the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta), the Pontiff decided –
hastily and surprisingly – to make a pilgrimage to the Portuguese shrine.
[What is Socci talking about? Back in early May 2009, shortly before Benedict XVI travelled to the Holy Land, the Vatican already made known that four trips abroad were contemplated in 2010 when it confirmed he would be travelling next to the Czech Republic in September 2009, at which time the Archbishop of Leiria announced the visit to Portugal on the website of the Fatima shrine.
Four destinations were announced and anticipated in 2010: Malta, Portugal , Cyprus and the United Kingdom – all of which did
take place, in April, May, June and September, 2010, respectively. There was nothing at all about the preparations for
the visit to Portugal that was surprising or hasty.]
Enroute to Portugal and while he was there, Benedict said said surprising words which
actually contradicted what had always been said before then at the Vatican about Fatima.
He said in his homily in Fatima on May 13, 2010: “We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.” On the plane he said,
“I would say that… beyond the great vision of the suffering of the Pope, which we could in the first place refer to Pope John Paul II, an indication is given of realities involving the future of the Church, which are gradually taking shape and becoming evident. [Socci cuts off his citation at this point, but I think it is important to show the entire passage which continues as follows:]
So it is true that, in addition to the moment indicated in the vision, there is seen, the passion [suffering] of the Church, which naturally is reflected in the person of the Pope, yet the Pope stands for the Church and thus it is sufferings of the Church that are announced.
The Lord told us that the Church would constantly be suffering, in different ways, until the end of the world. The important thing is that the message, the response of Fatima, in substance is not directed to particular devotions, but precisely to the fundamental response, that is, to ongoing conversion, penance, prayer, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.
[Next, Socci quotes something from Benedict XVI as though he had said it in Portugal in May 2010, when it comes from the letter that the Pope had written the bishops of the world in March 2009 – in the wake of the controversy over (now ex)-SSPX Bishop Williamson, namely:] that “In our day, when
in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God.”
[Socci only quotes the bolded words.]
Benedict notes in his Fatima homily:
“Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in bringing it to an end… [Socci ends his citation there, but I think the rest of the paragraph ought to be cited:] In sacred Scripture we often find that God seeks righteous men and women in order to save the city of man and he does the same here, in Fatima, when Our Lady asks: “Do you want to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings which he will send you, in an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?”
In short, during his apostolic visit to Portugal, Benedict XVI made it clear that the message of Fatima continues – it has not ended because of the apparent realization of part of the prophecy [in Ali Agca’s attempt to assassinate John Paul II], but it is urgently necessary to heed Our Lady’s exhortation to conversion, to penitence and to prayer, because the Church is always under attack (even, and perhaps, especially, from within) and the faith is dying out in many parts of the world – and that mankind therefore is poised to fall into an abyss.
It is plausible that the Carmelite book, published three years after Benedict’s visit to Fatima, was authorized by Benedict XVI, not just because ‘burning’ issues about Fatima like Suor Lucia’s writings have always been decided at the highest levels in the Vatican, but also because the' revelation’ contained in the book is in perfect agreement with the concerns that Benedict XVI expressed in May 2010.
Indeed, it constitutes a dramatic warning to the Church and to mankind that a tremendous sword of Damocles hangs over us all.
Here then is an account of the till-then unpublished text of Suor Lucia. In this particular page, she speaks about how she overcame the difficulty she had to write out the ‘Third Secret’ as requested by Church authorities.
It was January 3, 1944. At 4 p.m., the nun went to the chapel to pray to Jesus to show her his will: “I felt a friendly hand, affectionate and maternal, on my shoulder”. It was the Mother of God who told her:
“Be at peace and write what they ask you to, but not that which you were given to understand about its meaning”.
Words which confirm the hypothesis – borne out by so many other indications – that the ‘Third Sedret’ as written out by Suor Lucia was composed of two texts: one reporting the vision that the three children were shown, the text published in 2000; and a second text in which Suor Lucia subsequently transcribed the interpretation of the vision that Our Lady conveyed to the children.
It was this second text that so struck John XXIII who decided that it must be kept secret, on the ground that it could only be Lucia’s own thinking, without any supernatural origin. It is the part which has never been disclosed by the Vatican which officially denies it exists.
Could it have to do with the figure of the ‘bishop dressed in white’ and on ‘the Holy Father, half trembling with vacillating steps, afflicted by pain and sorrow’?
What we know
for sure – because it has been revealed for years by high Church officials and priests who were very close to Suor Lucia – is that
the suppressed text speaks of apostasy in the Church and of a grave danger incumbent upon mankind.
That us why the rest of Suor Lucia’s heretofore unpublished writing in the Carmelite sisters’ book is indeed, very eloquent. After hearing the words of Our Lady who asked her to write what was asked of her, she writes:
I felt my spirit inundated by a mystery of light which is God and in him I saw and heard: The tip of a lance like a lengthening flame touching the axis of the earth, which trembles: mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants are buried. The seas, the rivers and clouds escape their limits, overflow, inundate and drag with them as in a turbine, houses and persons in numbers one cannot count. It is the purification of the world from the sin in which it has been immersed. Hatred and ambition provoke a destructive war. Afterwards, I felt in the accelerated beating of my heart and in my spirit a light voice which said, “In time, only one faith, only one Baptism, only one Church – holy, catholic and apostolic. In eternity, Heaven!”
Suor Lucia's vision is very eloquent both in order to understand the danger incumbent on mankind, and what is happening in the Church, where its very leader, Jorge Bergoglio, has reached the point of saying “A Catholic God does not exist”.
Whereas Our Lady proclaims the opposite: “In time, only one faith, only one Baptism, only one Church – holy, catholic and apostolic. In eternity, Heaven!”
Here is Socci's blogpost on August 16, 2014 when he first reports about the new biography of Suor Lucia:
Apocalyptic news about Fatima
And the latest mystery: Why have the Carmelite nuns
chosen to keep silent on any further questions?
8/16/2014
There is something new in the ongoing ‘mystery’ of the Third Secret of Fatima, a prophecy that covered all of the 20th century and appears headed for further realizations.
The news is found in an official publication of the Carmelite monastery of Coimbra (Portugal) where the oldest of the Fatima visionaries, Suor Lucia dos Santos, lived for decades as a cloistered nun till her death in 2005. It is entitled
“Un caminho sob o olhar de Maria” (A journey under the eyes of Mary), a biography of Suor Lucia written by her fellow Carmelites, drawing from invaluable previously unpublished writings of Suor Lucia.
First, one must remember well the story of Fatima.
As the First World War raged, Our Lady first appeared on May 13, 1917, to three shepherd children in a place called Cova da Iria in the town of Fatima, Portugal. She subsequently appeared to them four more times.
At the time, the secular newspapers ridiculed the ‘gullible’ who believed in the apparitiosn and dared the Virgin to give a public sign of her presence. She told the children that she would give this sign on her last apparition to them which would be on October 13, 2017. And on that day, 70,000 persons came to Cova da Iria and witnessed with terror as the sun spun in the sky. An event which would then be reported in all the newspapers, though they were all anti-clerical.
In her apparition on July 13, Mary had entrusted to the children a message for the whole world – a vision of Hell and a dire prophecy about the coming decades if mankind did not turn back to God.
In fact, everything she prophesied took place: the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the spread of Communism around the world, the bloody persecutions against the Church, and finally, the Second World War.
But there was a third part of the secret which, Mary told the children, should not be revealed till 1960. But when that date came, Pope John XXIII decided not to reveal anything because he thought the content was ‘terrible’ for the Church.
Thus began a jumble of hypotheses about what has come to be called the Third Secret of Fatima. In 2000, John Paul II decided to release a text which contained the now-familiar vision of ‘a bishop dressed in white’ and a Pope walking through a city in ruins, strewn with corpses, and finally, the martyrdom of the Pope, along with bishops, priests and faithful at the foot of a great Cross.
There were many indications that the text disclosed in 2000 was not all there is to the Third Secret. I was one of those who wrote a book about this. Mine was published in 2006 and entitled
The Fourth Secret of Fatima, where I sought to show that the text released by the Vatican in 2000 did not include the part which was written and sent later by Suor Lucia to the Vatican, in which she wrote out the words with which Our Lady explained the meaning of the vision described in the Third Secret.
John XXIII’s private secretary himself, Mons. Loris Capovilla, who knew the circumstances of John XXIII’s decision not to reveal the secret in 1960 as Our Lady had instructed, told journalist Solideo Paolini about the existence of the supplementary note to the Third Secret.
But the Vatican has steadfastly denied its existence, much less that it contains anything that pertains to contemporary history
[other than the hypothesis that the vision 'prophesied' the attempted assassination of John Paul II].
However, an implicit confirmation appears to have been made by Benedict XVI who said during his pilgrimage to Fatima, in his homily on May 13, that
“We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.” [Which could mean simply what he said, not necessarily that the text of the Third Secret released by the Vatican is incomplete!
He added that
"an indication is given of realities involving the future of the Church, which are gradually taking shape and becoming evident." [Socci is being ‘dishonest’ or sloppy here here because what he quotes was said by Benedict XVI three days earlier in his news conference on the plane going to Portugal.]
But what prophecies could be found in the 2000 text?
We need to reflect on two other statements the Pope made in Fatima: “Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in bringing it to an end” and “In vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel”.
[Again, as I pointed out in my remarks on Socci's May 14, 2017 post, Socci is being ‘dishonest’ here. The second statement comes from Benedict XVI’s letter to the bishops of the world in March 2009 after the uproar when he lifted the excommunication of the four Lefebvrian bishops including [now ex-SSPX] Mons. Richard Williamson who denies the Holocaust.]
One gathers from Benedict XVI’s words that there is truly more to the Third Secret that has not been revealed and that has dramatic implications for the Church and the world. And perhaps the publication of this book, which reveals another piece of the truth about the Third Secret, arose from that trip.
Indeed, the book draws from the letters of Suor Lucia and her unpublished diary entitled
Il mio cammino (My journey). Among this unpublished material is her account of how she overcome the terror that had kept her from writing out the third part of the Secret
[what everyone now calls the Third Secret].
Around 4 p.m. on January 3, 1944, the nun went to the chapel, and before the Tabernacle, she prayed to Jesus to show her his will: “I felt a friendly hand, affectionate and maternal, on my shoulder”. It was ‘the Mother of God’ who told her: “Be at peace and write what they ask you to, but not that which you were given to understand about its meaning”, referring apparently to the significance of the vision that had been revealed by Mary herself.
Shortly thereafter, she writes:
I felt my spirit inundated by a mystery of light which is God and in him I saw and heard: The tip of a lance like a lengthening flame touching the axis of the earth, which trembles: mountains, cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants are buried. The seas, the rivers and clouds escape their limits, overflow, inundate and drag with them as in a turbine, houses and persons in numbers one cannot count. It is the purification of the world from the sin in which it has been immersed. Hatred and ambition provoke a destructive war. Afterwards, I felt in the accelerated beating of my heart and in my spirit a light voice which said, “In time, only one faith, only one Baptism, only one Church – holy, catholic and apostolic. In eternity, Heaven!”
And that is how she found the strength to write out the Third Secret.
The hitherto-unpublished text which I have cited is a very interesting document, in which those who have been researching the Third Secret will easily confirm the historical reconstruction according to which the Third Secret [written out by Suor Lucia] was composed of two parts: One, the vision itself, was written and sent off first, while the other – that in which the words of Mary herself reveal ‘the significance’ of the vision – was written and sent later.
This part is the famous and mysterious ‘attachment’ referred to by Capovilla. That text, which has not been published, presumably contains the words that had terrified Suor Lucia. The same that terrified John XXIII, and which Papa Roncalli decided not to make known because, in his opinion, it could have been merely Suor Lucia’s own thinking and did not have a supernatural origina.
It is apparently so explosive that the Vatican officially continues to deny its existence. And the opening made by Benedict XVI in 2010 which
[Socci presumes] led to the publication of the book, has been closed again.
This is shown by what happened to Solideo Paolini, Italy’s leading scholar on Fatima, who, after seeing the pages of the book that I sent him, wrote the Carmelite monastery in Coimbra requesting to be allowed to consult the previously unpublished texts by Suor Lucia referenced in the book, believing that they might reveal more details about the ‘hidden’ text of the Third Secret.
His registered letter reached its destination (he has the receipt) but he never got a reply. Paolini then wrote again, further explaining his reasons, and asked whether Suor Lucia had ever written down the ‘significance of the vision’ that was given to her from on high and which on January 3, 1944, she claims she was told by Our Lady to omit from her written account.
Paolini wrote: “In the writings which I have requested to be able to consult, is there any reference to ‘something more’ about the Third Secret which remains textually unpublished to date?” Paolini’s second letter was received on June 6, but it too did not have a reply. Even if it would have been easy to simply answer “NO”.
One must conclude that the answer is YES, but it cannot be said, because that would be truly explosive. And so, the Carmelites will not say more.
Nonetheless, the vision [of January 3, 1944] recounted in the book implies the two elements that are thought to be contained in the ‘attachment’ to the Third Secret:
the prophecy of an immense catastrophe for the world and of a great apostasy and crisis in the Church. An apocalyptic ordeal after which, as Our Lady herself said in Fatima, ‘my Immaculate Heart will triumph”.
Is it this hoped-for ‘triumph’ that Benedict XVI referred to in 2010, when he said, “May this seven years which separate us from the centenary of the Apparitions in 2017 hasten the pre-announced triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity”?
Does it then mean that, today, in 2014, we have embarked on the apocalyptic ordeal? Yes, if we look at the news.
]
The Third Secret has been dealt with in two chapters in this book. Chapter 8 presented the content of the Third Secret as Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta saw it revealed to them. Chapter 16 presented how Sister Lucia wrote the Third Secret on a separate manuscript and then placed it in a sealed envelope. The chapter also traces what popes John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II did after reading it.
The Third Secret was first made public at the Beatification Mass of Francisco and Jacinta Marto on May 13, 2000, in the Cova da Iria where the secret was originally revealed to the three children on July 13, 1917. Unfortunately,controversy created by certain objections surrounded the Third Secret almost from the moment it became public. We will look at each main objection separately, and offer a response to each.
Objection: The original Third Secret was written on one sheet of paper.
Many clerics who were familiar with the original text, including bishops who worked with popes John XXIII and Paul VI, said that the Third Secret was written on a single sheet of paper (e.g., Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, who read the Third Secret with Pope John XXIII). [1]
The controversy came about when on June 26, 2000, the Vatican released a copy of Sister Lucia's handwritten text in a four-page format. [2] Though there are several possible ways a single sheet of paper can be turned into more than one page (written on both sides, folded and written on multiple sides, etc.) or copied onto more than one page, some critics said that the Vatican copy could not have been made from the authentic text and that some other document exists that contains the real Third Secret.
The Vatican copy of Sister Lucia's handwritten manuscript appears in the document The Message of Fatima prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In the introduction, the secretary of the Congregation at the time, Archbishop Bertone, stated: "There is only one manuscript, which is here reproduced photostatically."
Sister Lucia herself confirmed the validity of the Vatican text. Archbishop Bertone and Bishop Seraphim de Sousa of Leiria met with Sister Lucia at her Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal, on April 27, 2000. The Archbishop presented two envelopes to Sister Lucia. The first or outer envelope contained the second envelope, which held the Third Secret. Touching it with her fingers, Sister Lucia said, "This is my letter." Then, while reading it, she said, "This is my writing." [3] When asked if this document was the one and only Third Secret, Sister Lucia answered, "Yes, this is the Third Secret, and I never wrote any other." [4]
We have additional proof from Sister Lucia that the photocopy of the Third Secret was authentic. She met again with Archbishop Bertone on November 17, 2001. A communique about that meeting carried this most important point: [quote[dik=10pt]With reference to the third part of the secret of Fatima, [Sister Lucia] affirmed that she had attentively read and meditated upon the booklet published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [The Message of Fatima] and confirmed everything that was written there.
To whoever imagines that some part of the secret has been hidden, she replied: "everything has been published; no secret remains." To those who speak and write of new revelations, she said: "There is no truth in this. If I had received new revelations, I would have told no one, but I would have communicated them directly to the Holy Father." [5]