The Three Secrets of Fatima

The events that occurred over a period of six months near the small community of Fatima in Portugal have been a source of controversy in the Catholic Church ever since they began over ninety years ago.

It all began on 13th May 1917, when three young shepherd children claimed to have had a vision of a luminous angelic Being “brighter than the sun” whom they considered to be the Virgin Mary. The three children were Lúcia Santos and her two cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto. Lúcia was just ten years old when these visionary events began.

This same apparition appeared before the three children around noon on the 13th day of each of the next six months. According to Lúcia, this “lady” confided in her and her two cousins and shared three “secrets” with them. These secrets have come to be known as the “Three Secrets of Fatima”.

On 13th July 1917, Lúcia said that the Blessed Mother had told her that her two cousins would die in the near future. This prophecy was fulfilled a short time later when they both succumbed to the Spanish influenza pandemic in 1918, leaving Lúcia as the sole surviving witness to the events that occurred near the town of Fatima.

Not long after the death of her two cousins, Lúcia entered the Convent of St. Dorothy in Tuy, Spain. In March 1948 she left this Convent to join the Carmelite Order of St. Theresa at Coimbra in Portugal, where she continued to live until her death on February 13th, 2005 at the age of 97.

Being a Carmelite Sister, Lúcia Santos was required to observe the customary vow of silence. However, she did write out an account of the events that had occurred to her in 1917, together with a description of the three secrets given to her by the Angelic Being.

The first two secrets were revealed to the world by the Vatican in August 1941. The first secret was said to have been a vision of Hell. The second predicted the end of World War I, and announced that an even greater war would follow unless the people of Russia chose to repent and return to the path of God. Of course, by the time these two secrets were revealed to the public, the Second World War had already begun.

In September 1943, when Sister Lúcia was confined to her bed with a grave illness, she was visited by the Bishop of Leiria who urged her to write the third secret down so that it would be preserved in the event of her death. After some initial hesitation Lúcia finally agreed to do so, and it was delivered to the Bishop in a sealed envelope on March 1st, 1944.

The Bishop of Leiria kept Lúcia’s handwritten text in its sealed envelope until 1957 when it was delivered to the Vatican. This third and most important secret given to Lúcia was supposed to have been revealed to the world by the Vatican in 1960, supposedly at the direction of the visionary Being herself.

However, when the year 1960 arrived, the Church refused to do so. Not only did the Vatican fail to disclose the third secret, but it ordered Lúcia not to talk about the secrets to anyone, and she was forbidden all visitors except close relatives.

Even her confessor, Father Aparicio, who later moved to Brazil, was prevented from seeing her when he visited Portugal. Only Pope John-Paul II or Cardinal Ratzinger (later to become Pope Benedict XVI) could grant the necessary permission for her to speak openly about these secrets or entertain visitors.

Finally, in June 2000, the Vatican released the text of the third secret. Along with this text was a commentary given by Cardinal Ratzinger. It said:

“A careful reading of the text of the so-called third ‘secret’ of Fatima … will probably prove disappointing or surprising after all the speculation it has stirred. No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled.”

The commentary went on to say:

“The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction.  

“Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the ‘secret’, such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them.”

Cardinal Ratzinger concluded by saying:

“The concluding part of the ‘secret’ uses images which Lucia may have seen in devotional books and which draw their inspiration from long-standing intuitions of faith.”

In releasing Sister Lúcia’s long-awaited secret to the world, the Vatican went to great lengths to ensure that it would generate as little sensationalism and controversy as possible. The text that was released to the world read as follows:

“I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.

“After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’.

“And we saw in an immense light that is God: something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it a Bishop dressed in White. We had the impression that it was the Holy Father. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark;

“Before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him.

“And in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.” (Tuy-3-1-1944).

Despite attempts by the Vatican to convince the public that the above extract was the full text of what Sister Lúcia had written, a growing number of critics, both inside and outside of the Church, have challenged this. These critics contend that the released text does not contain anything of a controversial nature which could bring about a crisis of faith within the Church.

The claim that there is more to the Third Secret of Fatima than has so far been revealed by the Vatican, is also linked to certain comments made by Cardinal Ratzinger (the present Pope) in 1984, many years before the official text was released to the world.

On November 11, 1984, as reported in the Catholic magazine Jesus, Cardinal Ratzinger stated that he had already read the text of the Third Secret of Fatima. When he was asked what it contained, he said that it related to “end times”, and that if published, would cause “sensationalism”. (View Source)

Yet there was little in the text released by the Vatican in June 2000 that seemed likely to provoke a “sensational” response. However, the words spoken by Pope John-Paul II to a select group of Catholics during a visit to Fulda, Germany in October 1980, confirm that certain predictions made by the Angelic Being were truly sensational.

A verbatim report of this discussion was published in the October 1981 issue of the German magazine Stimme des Glaubins. It reads as follows: “The Holy Father was asked, ‘What about the Third Secret of Fatima? Should it not have already been published by 1960?’

Pope John Paul II replied: “Given the seriousness of the contents, my predecessors in the Office of Peter diplomatically preferred to postpone publication so as not to encourage the world power of Communism to carry out certain moves. 

“On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this: if there is a message in which it is written that the oceans will inundate whole areas of the earth, and that from one moment to the next millions of people will perish, truly the publication of such a message is no longer something to be so much desired.”

The Pope continued:

“Many wish to know simply from curiosity and a taste for the sensational, but they forget that knowledge also implies responsibility. They only seek the satisfaction of their curiosity, and that is dangerous if at the same time they are not disposed to do something, and if they are convinced that it is impossible to do anything against evil.”

At this point the Pope grasped a Rosary and said: “Here is the remedy against this evil. Pray, pray, and ask for nothing more. Leave everything else to the Mother of God”. 

The Holy Father was then asked: “What is going to happen to the Church?”

He answered: “We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials before long, such as will demand of us the readiness to cast away even our lives, and a total dedication to Christ and for Christ … With your prayers and mine it is possible to mitigate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because only thus can the Church be effectively renewed. 

“How many times has the renewal of the Church sprung from blood! This time, too, it will not be otherwise. We must be strong and prepared, and trust in Christ and His Mother, and be very, very assiduous in praying the Rosary.” (View Source)

Whether the above report is a true record of the words spoken by Pope John-Paul II is left to the reader to decide. What is true, however, is that the cataclysmic events described by the Pope in the above extract are precisely those that are predicted to occur in the near future by the Oracle in the book The Last Days of Tolemac. 

In fact, both the vision of St. Malachy and the words of Lúcia bear out what is written in the book. Lúcia speaks of a time when the “Holy Father” will pass through a city “half in ruins”, before being “killed by a group of soldiers”.

St. Malachy predicts that the current Pope (Pope Francis) will be the final Pope, and that he will have to endure a time of “extreme persecution” and that “the city of seven hills will be destroyed”. This will be followed by the return of the “formidable Judge (who) will judge his people.”

The Oracle of Tolemac not only refers to the persecution of Christians and the death of the Pope, but also describes the nature of the Anti-Christ and the events that will lead up to the return of the Christ.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 16th, 2020 at 10:31 am and is filed under The Three Secrets of Fatima. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are closed.