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VICTORY EDITION
Edited and Compiled by Father Paul Kramer
The Blessed Virgin Mary told me that the devil is in the mood for
engaging in a decisive battle against the Virgin. From now on we must
choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil. There is no
other possibility.
... Sister Lucy dos Santos,
the last surviving seer
of Fatima (died 2005)
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_front_back_cover.pdf
The Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima promised peace to all mankind when
Her requests are heeded. It is essential that Her message and requests be
made known clearly and completely. The acts of war and terrorism, such as
the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, are
the result of the Fatima Message being misrepresented and buried. This book
describes the ongoing battle of the devil and his conscious and unconscious
followers against the Blessed Virgin Mary and Her Fatima message. Unless
and until the Fatima message is widely known and obeyed, more events
such as September 11 and much worseup to and including the prophesied
annihilation of various nationswill take place as a result of the Blessed
Virgin Marys message being ignored and disobeyed by mankind. The
connection between terrorist attacks, the threat of war and the suppression
of the Fatima message is explained further on pages ix, 269-294, and 339.
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The
Devils Final Battle

How Rejection of the Fatima Prophecies
Imminently Threatens the Church and the World
and
What You Can Do About It to
Protect Yourself and Your Family.
Compiled and Edited by

Father Paul Kramer, B.Ph., M.Div., S.T.L. (Cand.)
and the editorial staff of The Missionary Association
In the Third Secret (of Fatima) it is foretold, among

other things, that the great apostasy in the Church
will begin at the top.
Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi
The Missionary Association

Terryville, Connecticut
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Copyright 2002 Good Counsel Publications (First Edition)

2010 Good Counsel Publications (Second Edition)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission
in writing from the publishers.
First Edition 2002
Second Edition 2010 (revised and updated)
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 2009933148
ISBN 978-0-9787934-2-5
Please direct any correspondence expressing your concerns, questions

or comments about The Devils Final Battle to the publisher at one of the
following addresses:
Missionary Association
Editorial Offices:
Suite 1
1107 William Street
Buffalo, New York
14206
Distributed by:
St. Josephs Books
2711 Elmwood Avenue
Kenmore, New York
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Ordering information:
The Missionary Association
1-800-954-8737 www.devilsfinalbattle.com
Visit the website for more information related to this book.
Printed in Canada
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This book is respectfully dedicated to

Our Lady of Fatima
and to all Cardinals, Patriarchs, bishops, priests,
religious and lay persons
who have dedicated themselves
in humility and love to Her service.
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Abbreviations:
DFB
Kramer, Father Paul, et al.,

The Devils Final Battle.
Fourth Secret
Socci, Antonio,
Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima
[The Fourth Secret of Fatima] (Italian edition),
The Fourth Secret of Fatima (English edition).
Last Visionary
Bertone, Cardinal Tarcisio,

LUltima Veggente di Fatima
[The Last Visionary of Fatima] (Italian edition),
The Last Secret of Fatima (English edition).
TMF
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and

Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, SDB,
The Message of Fatima (English edition).
WTAF, Vol. I
Michel de la Sainte Trinit (Frre),

Toute la vrit sur Fatima:
Tome I, La science et les faits (French edition);
The Whole Truth About Fatima,
Volume I, Science and the Facts (English edition).
WTAF, Vol. II

Tome II, Le Secret et lglise (French edition);
Volume II, The Secret and the Church (English edition).
WTAF, Vol. III

Tome III, Le Troisime Secret (French edition);
Volume III, The Third Secret (English edition).
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Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of the errors of

Russia mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most visible
of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the
traditions of Divine Revelation ... I am worried by the Blessed Virgins
messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about
the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning
against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her
theology and Her soul.... I hear all around me innovators who
wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of
the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her
historical past.... A day will come when the civilized world will deny its
God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted
to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will
search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them, like Mary
Magdalene weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, where have
they taken Him?
... Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pius
XII) when he was Secretary of State to Pope
Pius XI. Cited in the book Pie XII Devant
LHistoire, pp. 52-53.
In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great
apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.
... Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, personal
papal theologian to Popes Pius XII, John
XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II,
quoted in the journal Catholic, March 2002.
It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed

Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.
... Cardinal Oddi, quoted March 17, 1990, in
the journal Il Sabato.
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Through some crack the smoke of satan has entered into the
Church of God.
... Pope Paul VI, papal address of
June 30, 1972.
We must admit realistically and with feelings of deep pain, that

Christians today in large measure feel lost, confused, perplexed and
even disappointed; ideas opposed to the truth which has been revealed
and always taught are being scattered abroad in abundance; heresies,
in the full and proper sense of the word, have been spread in the area
of dogma and morals, creating doubts, confusions and rebellion; the
liturgy has been tampered with; immersed in an intellectual and moral
relativism and therefore in permissiveness, Christians are tempted by
atheism, agnosticism, vaguely moral enlightenment and by a sociological
Christianity devoid of defined dogmas or an objective morality.
... Pope John Paul II, quoted in
LOsservatore Romano, February 7,
1981.
She [the Blessed Virgin Mary] told me that the devil is in the mood
for engaging in a decisive battle against the Virgin. And a decisive battle
is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side
will suffer defeat. Also from now on we must choose sides. Either we are
for God or we are for the devil. There is no other possibility.
... Sister Lucy of Fatima speaking
to Father Fuentes, December 26,
1957.
Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to

suppress it; and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can
do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them.
Pope St. Felix III (483-492 A.D.)
The Message of Fatima is addressed to every human being.

... Pope John Paul II, May 13, 1982.
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Table of Contents
Contributors ...........................................................................................viii
The Heart of the Matter ...........................................................................ix
Foreword to the Second Edition ..............................................................xii
Introduction .........................................................................................xxiii
1
The Message and the Miracle ............................................................1
The Long Opposition Begins ............................................................12
Heavens Peace Plan in Microcosm ...................................................18
The Third Secret ..............................................................................24
A Motive Emerges ...........................................................................38
The Motive Takes Hold ....................................................................53
The Demolition of Bastions ............................................................91
The Message of Fatima versus the Party Line ................................107
A New Fatima for the New Orientation ....................................119
10 The New Third Secret .................................................................154

11 Muzzling and Hiding the Witness ...................................................171
12 The Third Secret Predicts: The Great Apostasy
in the Church after Vatican II .........................................................195
13 The Third Secret Consists of Two Distinct Texts .............................223
14 Breakthrough for Fatima: The Revelations of 2006-2007 ..............244
15 Bertone versus Benedict ..............................................................261
16 Counting the Cost .........................................................................269
17 Framing a Grievance .....................................................................295
18 What Can Be Done in the Meantime? ............................................325
19 Petition to the Supreme Pontiff ......................................................331
Appendix I: Pope John Paul II Acknowledges
Russia NOT Consecrated ....................................................338
Appendix II: A Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up ...............................339
Appendix III: Dear Cardinal Bertone: WhoBetween
You and Meis Deliberately Lying? ................................372
Glossary ................................................................................................377
Selected Bibliography ...........................................................................383
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Contributors
Andrew Cesanek earned a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering
from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an M.S. degree in
Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts.
He worked as a Software Engineer at Motorola for 15 years, before
retiring from the engineering profession. He is now a full time researcher
and writer for the Fatima Center.
Mark Fellows is a Catholic writer known for numerous articles
in various Catholic journals including The Remnant and Catholic Family
News. He is author of the books The Ninth Pius on the life of Blessed Pope
Pius IX, A Second Coming on the Holy Shroud of Turin, Fatima in Twilight,
and Sister Lucia: Apostle of Marys Immaculate Heart.
Christopher Ferrara earned his Baccalaureate and Juris Doctor
degrees from Fordham University. He is President and Chief Counsel
of the American Catholic Lawyers Association. Mr. Ferrara has written
extensively on Catholic issues. His articles have appeared in The Latin
Mass and The Remnant, and other publications. He authored several
books, including The Secret Still Hidden. He has translated into English
Antonio Soccis book, Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima.
Father Nicholas Gruner, S.T.L., S.T.D. (Cand.) heads one of
the worlds largest Fatima apostolates with several offices around the
globe. He lectures throughout North America and overseas on the subject
of Fatima, and is publisher of The Fatima Crusader magazine. He also
produced the television program Fatima: The Moment Has Come, the
radio program Heavens Peace Plan. He is the principal author of the
book World Enslavement or Peace ... Its Up to the Pope.
Father Gregory Hesse, S.T.D., J.C.D. (R.I.P.) was ordained in
1981 in St. Peters Basilica. He held doctorates in both Thomistic theology
and Canon Law. From 1986-1988 he served as the Secretary to Cardinal
Stickler at the Vatican. From 1991 until his death in 2006, he worked in
Austria, Germany and the United States giving lectures and producing
theological articles that have appeared in Catholic Family News, The
Fatima Crusader, and other journals.
Father Paul Kramer, B.Ph., S.T.B., M.Div., S.T.L. (Cand.) is
lecturer and author of numerous articles on the Catholic Faith and on
the subject of Fatima. Father Kramer received his B.Ph., S.T.B. from the
Angelicum in Rome and his Master of Divinity at Holy Apostles College in
Connecticut. He authored the book The Theological Vindication of Roman
Catholic Traditionalism and the vastly updated edition of this book entitled
The Suicide of Altering the Faith in the Liturgy.
John Vennari is writer, researcher, catechism instructor and editor of
the monthly journal Catholic Family News. His articles have also appeared
in publications such as Christian Order and The Angelus. He is author of the
books Close-ups of the Charismatic Movement and The Permanent Instruction
of the Alta Vendita, a Blueprint for the Subversion of the Catholic Church.
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The Heart of the Matter

Would you be surprised to learn that the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001, the sex scandals wracking the Catholic Church and the great
economic collapse of 2007-2009 are profoundly related?
This relation becomes amazingly clear when the three events are viewed
through the prism of the Message of Fatima. This Message is the key to
understanding our present history and how our future will be determineda
future that promises either worldwide deep and lasting peace and prosperity,
or death and destruction on a scale never before seen.
We have been given a choicetwo paths to follow: one prescribed
at Fatima by Heaven, and the other charted by human folly and demonic
intelligence. The first will lead us to salvation, here and hereafter; the second,
to untold suffering for all in the near future, and, for many now living, to
suffer horribly for all eternity.
This latest edition of The Devils Final Battle places this choice before us
in the plainest and most compelling terms.
The Mother of God warned us when She came to Fatima, Portugal, over
90 years ago, in a series of apparitions authenticated by a public miracle
without precedent in world history. Since that time, the published prophetic
admonitions in the Message of Fatima are either being fulfilled in an ongoing
manner or have already been fulfilledsave for one: various nations will be
annihilated. Our Lady of Fatima with great sadness warned that this would
be one of the most terrible consequences of ignoring or despising Her requests.
The Fatima apparitions have been deemed authentic by a series of Popes
and are now commemorated in the Roman Missal (the basic book of Catholic
worship) by the decree of Pope John Paul II. And yet, in what must be seen
as a mystery of iniquity, the Virgins simple requests remain unfulfilled due
to conscious decisions by some of the highest-ranking prelates in the Catholic
Church. The result, just as She predicted, is an ever-deepening crisis in the
Church and the world, accompanied by a growing sense, even among nonCatholics, that we are witnessing the beginning of an apocalypse.
Yet, Fatima remains the Only Solution that will deliver mankindand
each one of usfrom the otherwise inevitable disaster NOW overtaking us.
The Fatima solution is opposed by various people. Some are what the
enemies of Fatima would call useful idiots, some are simply ignorant or else
misinformed; but there is a hard core of very intelligent, very knowledgeable
people who set themselves deliberately against Our Lady of Fatima and Her
Peace Plan from Heaven.
Their opposition is as REAL as it is FOOLISH. Especially foolish for those
present-day powerful prelates who oppose the Fatima peace plan because
they have been warned by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself that for their
opposition they will reap misfortune for themselves similar to Louis XVI, the
beheaded King of France.
The vision of the bishop in white and the other bishops being killed by a
band of soldiers which the Vatican released on June 26, 2000 is the prophecy
of the kind of deaths awaiting the Pope and Vatican prelates who still now
obstruct obedience to the Message of Fatima. Thus it is also in charity for
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The Devils Final Battle
them, to help save them, that this book continues to be published.

Some readers might be tempted to think that such type of Vatican
prelates cant really exist or be so stupid. That is why this book explains the
various methods and motives of the opponents of Fatima, drawn from their
own published words.
This book also teaches us that we are not mere spectators in this cosmic
drama. We each have an essential role to playone assigned to us by the
Queen of Heaven Herself. The Devils Final Battle shows us what must be
done and what we can do to avert these looming disasters before they
progress beyond all human remedy.
Since the first publication of this book, and largely because of it, events
have taken place that have moved us significantly closer to the end of
this crisis. Almost 200,000 copies of The Devils Final Battle were put into
circulation and its arguments convinced people in all walks of life that Fatima
is our only way out.
This latest edition incorporates crucial developments during the past 7
years that demonstrate several breakthroughs for the forces of truth.
The facts in this book incontrovertibly prove that the Vatican apparatus
starting at least with the Secretary of Statecontinues to hide the essential
elements of the Third Secret of Fatima while claiming all has been released;
continues to refuse to obey Our Ladys and Our Lords command that the
Pope and the Catholic bishops together consecrate specifically Russia to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary while pretending that they have already obeyed.
This two-fold disobedience and deception is causing graces from God
to be withheldand will lead to the certain annihilation of nations in the
near future and, if God allows it, to the Great Apostasy and the Apocalypse
of One World Government with One World Religion under the Antichrist.
The Mother of God came to earth with our present circumstances
clearly in view, and with the solicitude of a mother, She offered us a way
outthe way chosen by God Himself for our time. That being the case, one
cannot understand the state of the Church and the world today without
understanding what happened at Fatima.
In the fulfillment of the Message of Fatima lies the end of the crises in the
world and the Church. In the denial of that Message lies, in great measure,
the origin and intensification of both.
The events at Fatima represent a heavenly focal point in the battle now
raging for the Church and the world. Both the crisis in the Church and the
crisis in the world center on the divine truths summed up with heavenly
concision in the Fatima apparitions.
One must also understand the strange and systematic effort by certain
Catholic churchmen to obstruct fulfillment of the heavenly imperatives of the
Fatima Message, including: the triumph of Our Lady, which will be seen in
the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the miraculous
conversion of Russia to Catholicism; and the consequent period of deep,
lasting world peace.
The central importance of Fatima in the scheme of current world events
is only demonstrated by the recent, almost frantic, efforts of certain Vatican
officials to deconstruct and demythologize Fatima. The pages that
follow present evidence against the most prominent churchmen involved
The Heart of the Matter
xi
in this campaign against Fatima, laying at their feet a large portion of the
responsibility for the ecclesial crisis and the world crisis we must all face.
This edition answers its critics and continues to place the objective
MORAL responsibility on powerful prelates in the Vatican and other
influential persons.
To those who might say that our undertaking to expose their campaign
against Fatima is scandalous, we can only reply with the words of the Virgin
Herself: If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will
be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing
wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred; the
Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.
Russia has not converted. Russias errors, including the holocaust of
legalized abortion, have spread throughout the world. There is no peace.
And today, even non-Catholics and unbelievers live in fear of the annihilation
of nations. To echo the words of Pope St. Gregory the Great, it is better that
scandal arise than that the truth be hiddenespecially when, as in this case,
the truth can avert global disaster.
We submit this work to the judgment of the Pope and to the judgment of
you, the reader. We submit this work publicly because innumerable private
entreaties to high Church authorities over the past four decades have all
been unavailing. Meanwhile, the Vatican bureaucracy that surrounds
the Pope continues to render him effectively incapable of responding to
petitions from rank-and-file clergy and laity. As the decades-long episcopal
cover-up of sexual scandals among the priesthood demonstrates, in present
circumstances the public forum is the only forum open to Catholics who seek
redress of just grievances affecting the whole Church.
Our motive in presenting this book is that of loyal sons and daughters
of the Church, who know and love the Faith and believe in conscience that
the course still being followed by certain Church leaders is gravely mistaken,
as recent events in the Catholic Church should make clear to any objective
observer.
If a reader thinks we have erred or committed any injustice in what we
have written, it would be the readers duty to offer us, not invective or empty
denunciations, but legitimate correction based upon facts, for our own sake
and the sake of the Church. But if the case we present is well-founded, then
the reader has a different obligation to God, himself and his fellow man,
namely: the duty to act upon the evidence we presentnow, while there is
still time.
As Sister Lucy (2005), the last surviving seer of Fatima commenting on
Our Ladys message, said:
The devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against
the Virgin. And a decisive battle is the final battle where one side will
be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat. Also from now on
we must choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil.
There is no other possibility.
Father Paul Kramer and the
Editorial Team of The Missionary Association
Christmas Day 2009
Foreword to the Second Edition

For the past half-century, a bizarre story has been unfolding inside
the Catholic Church that could have serious implications for the entire
world.
As this book explains, the crux of the story is a message from
Heaven, and hence, a matter of faith and belief. This may make it seem
to be of concern only to Catholics and Church officials, but theres more
to this story than thatmuch more.
The message was conveyed in a manner that is unique in Church
history, and its form and content are also unique. This puts it in a
class by itself; it cant be relegated to the broad category of private
revelations experienced by various Catholic saints and mystics over the
centuries. If it could, non-Catholics and even many otherwise devout
Catholics would be free to ignore it. But ignoring this particular message
is impossible for Catholics, and may also be unwise for everyone else on
this troubled planet.
The message in question was delivered by the Blessed Virgin Mary
to three shepherd children near the little town of Fatima, Portugal, in
1917. Far from being a private event, its delivery was accompanied
by a public miracle witnessed by 70,000 people, and reported in
newspaper headlines around the world. No other apparitions, not even
those associated with the world-famous shrines at Lourdes in France
and Guadalupe in Mexico, have been authenticated in this spectacular
manner. This sets the apparitions themselves apart from all previous
events of this kind, but that is only one unique aspect of Fatima.
When the content of the message received by the children was
revealed, it, too, was unique in the annals of Christianity. It contained
requests, as well as a warning of punishments to come if the requests
were not granted. Never before has a message of this kind been reported,
either in public or in private, by any witnesses to an apparition.
As it does in all cases of this kind, the Vatican subjected the Fatima
events to intense scrutiny. The Church is usually reluctant to endorse
such things, as they are often quite subjective, and difficult to verify.
In the case of Fatima, however, the Catholic hierarchy, from the local
bishops of Portugal to a series of Popes in the Vatican, has unanimously
regarded the Fatima apparitions as worthy of belief. Pope John Paul II
went so far as to say that the Message of Fatima imposes an obligation
on the Church. This uniform hierarchical approbation over the years
strongly reinforced the conviction of the Catholic faithful that the
Fatima apparitions had conveyed an authentic message from Heaven.
But then, on June 26, 2000, the Fatima story took a strange turn.
On that day, the Cardinal in charge of Catholic doctrine at the Vatican
and his immediate subordinate held a press conference which the Los
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xiii
Angeles Times described as an attempt at gently debunking the cult of

Fatima. The theme of the conference was that the Fatima prophecies
are in the category of private revelations and that, in any event, they
belong to the past.
What happened? How did the Fatima apparitions go from being
officially declared worthy of belief to being officially debunked
by a high-ranking Cardinal? And what about the message, with its
imperative requests and its threat of punishment? These are questions
any reasonable Catholic might well ask, given the strange behavior of
Church leaders on this matter. But once the content of the message is
considered, they are also questions every human being on earth might
ask.
The content of the Fatima Message is largely concerned with matters
of the Catholic religion that lie entirely within the realm of faith and
belief. One part of the message, however, has wider implications that
warrant wider attention. This is the part that makes requests, and then
warns of punishment if the requests are not granted.
The apex of all the requests is the request that Russia be consecrated
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope, together with all the
Catholic bishops of the world. To those outside the Church, this ritual
may have little meaning. Inside the Church, however, such ceremonies
are a well-established tradition. Consecrations have a sanctifying effect,
so in the eyes of Catholics, such a ceremony would be beneficial to
Russia.
Of course, performing this ceremony is something only the Catholic
Church can do. However, the threat that accompanies the request
extends well beyond the Catholic Church. If the consecration is done,
says the message, a period of peace will be granted to the world. But
if it is not done, the message warns, then, among other things, various
nations will be annihilated.
Is this a credible threat? Should non-Catholics and non-Christians
worry about such a thing? At first glance, one might think not, but
the question deserves closer examination. It isnt necessary to believe
this message definitely came from Heaven to give it some serious
consideration. This is what gives Fatima its global dimension.
Since the Vatican judged the apparitions believable, and the
annihilation of nations may be at stake, one would think the consecration
would have been performed long ago. After all, what it requires is a
simple, traditional ceremony that obviously can do no harm to anyone.
And if the message has even the remotest chance of being authentic,
the benefit of performing the ceremony as requested could be of
incalculable value. Given these circumstances, even the most skeptical
of outsiders might well consider the consecration worth a try.
And yet, for reasons known only to a small group of Vatican officials,
the Fatima request has not been granted, even though the Church has
been aware of it for at least seven decades. Time and time again, various
xiv
formal consecrations have been performed, including one that named

Russia explicitly, but in all cases they have avoided fulfilling the specific
requirements of the Fatima request: that the Pope and the Catholic
bishops of the world consecrate Russia, by name, in a solemn public
ceremony. The most recent example was a consecration of the world
in Rome by Pope John Paul II and 1,500 visiting bishops on October 8,
2000. Many people thought the Pope might take that opportunity to
fulfill the Fatima request, but to their disappointment, Russia was not
mentioned.
To both insiders and outsiders, the Vaticans treatment of this matter
seems strangely inconsistent with its own standards and traditions. It
also seems to show a reckless disregard for the safety not only of the
Catholic faithful, but the rest of humanity as well. If the Fatima threat
is genuine, the price of the Vaticans reluctance could be very high
indeedand it would be paid by all mankind.
Under these circumstances, any reasonable person might ask
why the Church persists in ignoring the message, and risking such
catastrophic consequences.
How and why this is happening is the subject of this book. The story
it tells involves a mixture of verifiable facts as well as facts known by
faith alone. For non-believers, the facts may not prove conclusively that
the message is authentic, but they go a long way in that directionfar
enough to persuade many open-minded people to regard authenticity
as a real possibility. And for those who share the Catholic Faith, the facts
go much further, affirming authenticity and raising alarming questions
about the state of the Church hierarchy today.
The story shows the Vatican undergoing a series of changes that
caused it first to endorse Fatima, then to cast doubt on it, then to
suppress it, and finally to discard it altogether. Tracing this process is
difficult, as much of what happens in the Vatican is done in secret, and
official attitudes must be decoded from pronouncements that are often
cryptic.
No one can see into the hearts and minds of the Vatican officials
who have treated the Fatima Message with such contempt. They can
only be judged by their actions, and by the logical consequences of their
avowed positions. When these are analyzed, as they are in this book,
a disturbing picture emerges of a Church divided against Herself, with
the rift going right to the top.
There is an ironic aspect to this story that will not be lost on
unbelievers. The facts related in this book will convince many openminded non-Catholics that the authenticity of Fatima is at least possible.
If this can be said of outsiders, how much more convincing should the
story be for Catholics? And yet, even as the story moves unbelievers
towards belief, it seems to have the opposite effect on certain Vatican
officials. Ironically, some of the people now least likely to believe in
Fatima are among those who should be the most likely. Beliefs once
xv
central to the Catholic Faith are now being abandonednot by the

faithful who remain in the pews, but by some of the highest authorities
in the Church.
A further irony concerns the position of the late Pope John Paul
II in this matter. Like all his predecessors since the Fatima apparitions
occurred, John Paul II had openly and repeatedly professed his belief
in the authenticity of the apparitions. He had visited the Fatima shrine
three times, and attributed his survival of an assassination attempt in
1981 to Our Lady of Fatima. And yet, even the Pope seemed powerless to
prevent his own highest-ranking Cardinals from taking a very different
view of Fatima. He was not present at the June 2000 press conference
mentioned above, where two of the Vaticans top officials undermined
the credibility of the Fatima prophecies and relegated them to the past.
As several chapters in this book explain, the Message of Fatima also
has political implications that may have influenced the way Vatican
officials have handled it. The message asks for the consecration of
Russia specifically, in order to convert that nation to Catholicism. To
perform a ceremony with that overt intention runs counter to the socalled Ostpolitik the Vatican adopted first with regard to international
communism, and more recently to the Russian Orthodox Church. In
both these areas, the Vatican apparatus has abandoned the Churchs
traditionally militant defense of Her teaching, agreeing to refrain from
denouncing communism as evil, and to cease seeking the conversion of
Russian Orthodox adherents. Hence, the Fatima Message has been and
still is politically incorrect in the context of current Vatican policy.
One might suspect that the Vatican is refraining from consecrating
Russia simply for these political reasons. But is that really credible?
Given what is at stake, would the Vatican really risk the annihilation of
nations just to avoid a diplomatic incident with the Russians? Would
Russia really be seriously offended by a ceremony that, in effect,
commends that country to the care of the Mother of God? And even if
Russia were offended, what would they do about it? What could they
possibly do that would be worse than the penalty for not consecrating
Russia, namely, that various nations will be annihilated?
This book reveals and examines the political machinations that have
clearly influenced attitudes towards Fatima among some high-level
Vatican diplomats. There can be little doubt that the architects of the
Vaticans conciliatory Ostpolitik find the Fatima Message inconvenient.
But it still seems unlikely that these diplomatic considerations alone
could persuade the Vatican to ignore a message from Heaven. For that
to happen, something else must be at work, something deeper and
darker than worldly politics.
That deeper and darker ailment is the ultimate subject of this
book: The Catholic Church has been transformed in ways that have
left many of the faithful confused, while outsiders see a church
maintaining an appearance of normal function that only masks the
xvi
radical transformation behind it.

Viewed from afar, the Catholic Church appears to be an institution
that changes only slowly and reluctantly. The process of reform initiated
by Vatican II in the 1960s led to unprecedented changes in the Church
(e.g., vernacular Masses, abandonment of distinctive clerical garb, etc.)
that may have seemed dramatic to insiders. But to outsiders, comparing
the Church to secular trends in the latter half of the 20th Century, the
Church still seemed resistant to change, maintaining Her teaching on
such things as priestly celibacy, ordination of women, contraception,
divorce and abortion. In all these respects, the Church still seems firmly
entrenched in positions She has maintained for two thousand years.
But does this mean that Vatican leadership is resolutely traditionalist?
Outsiders who rely on such things as the Popes public utterances might
well think so. But as this book explains, insiders know better. The
Catholic Church today is not what She seems, and the gap between
public perceptions and actual realities is at the heart of the Fatima
controversy. And while traditions have been officially upheld in certain
respects, they have been abandoned or undermined in others. And
while the positions still being maintained have been widely publicized,
those being abandoned or undermined have been barely acknowledged.
Catholics who once shared a common set of beliefs around the world
now find themselves drifting in different directions in different places,
following contradictory and uncertain leadership at all levels.
Even John Paul IIs successor, Benedict XVI (whose role in the
Fatima controversy as the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger will be
mentioned on these pages) has recognized the crisis involved in this
inconsistent affirmation of Catholic Tradition, which is upheld officially
in certain respects, but abandoned or undermined in others. The crisis
has prompted Benedict to declare in a historic papal document of
July 7, 2007 that the traditional Latin Mass of the Church was never
abrogated and that all priests are free to offer it, and to call in general
for a hermeneutic of continuity to address the perception of a rupture
with the Churchs own pasttwo astonishing prescriptions that only
confirm the existence of the deeper and darker ailment diagnosed in
the first edition of this book, from which the Church continues to suffer
as this second edition makes its appearance. The famously monolithic
Catholic Church is no longer monolithic at all; its human element is full
of fractures that this book traces to their sources, revealing a fragmented
Church leadership where the first fissure divides a Pope who is an ardent
(if conflicted) believer from his own immediate subordinates, some of
whom are anything but.
The actions of four high-ranking Vatican officials were examined
closely in the first edition of this book, all of whom are no longer in the
positions they once occupied: Cardinal Ratzinger, of course, who is now
the Pope; Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who is no longer Vatican Secretary
of State, having been retired in 2006; and Cardinal Darion Castrilln
xvii
Hoyos, who no longer serves as Prefect of the Congregation for the

Clergy, having been replaced by Cardinal Claudio Hummes in 2006.
Only the fourth Vatican prelate, former Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone,
remains a key player on the Fatima stage, along with the Pope himself.
Formerly Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
under Cardinal Ratzinger, Bertone has been elevated to the rank of
Cardinal and has succeeded Sodano as Vatican Secretary of State. In
that capacity Bertone has become the leading protagonist in the Fatima
drama, having assumed the responsibility for perpetuating what this
book describes as the Secretary of States ecumenical and diplomatic
Party Line on the Message of Fatima and the Third Secret in particular.
The second edition of this book continues to document amply the
role of all four prelates in attempting to close the book on Fatima as
a politically incorrect expression of traditional Catholic belief. While
it is impossible to be certain about their individual motivations, it is
also impossible to avoid the conclusion that what they have done has
contributed to the current crisis of faith and discipline in the Church.
Nevertheless, major changes in the dramatis personae and the new
pontificate of Benedict XVI have prompted, in this second edition,
certain adjustments of the books approach to the grave problem it
addresses, adjustments that will be readily apparent to readers of the
first edition.
This second edition also takes account of major developments in the
Fatima case that began in November of 2006 with the publication of a
book by Antonio Socci, a renowned Catholic intellectual, acquaintance
and one-time collaborator of both Cardinal Bertone and the former
Cardinal Ratzinger. Soccis book, The Fourth Secret of Fatima, recounts
how he had set out to prove the Fatimists wrong in their contention
that the Vatican apparatus (now led by Bertone and his Secretariat
of State) has withheld a text of the Third Secret that explains the
enigmatic vision of the Bishop dressed in white. After studying the
first edition of this book, Socci discovered that the Fatimists were right,
and that it is certain that a text involving something unspeakable has
been concealeda text that, as Socci writes, contains the words of the
Madonna [which] preannounce an apocalyptic crisis of the faith in the
Church starting at the summit and also an explanation of the vision
(revealed on June 26, 2000).1 The Fatima case was cracked wide open
when Soccis conclusion was confirmed by the admission of a still-living
eyewitness, Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla, the personal secretary of Pope
John XXIII, that there are indeed two texts and two envelopes pertaining
to the Third Secret, one of which (the Capovilla envelope as he calls
it) has never been produced. Soccis publication of this testimony in his
book was a bombshell dropped on the edifice of the official account,
which promptly collapsed in a series of self-defeating personal publicity
1
Antonio Socci, Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima] (Milan: Rai and
Eri Rizzoli, 2006), English ed., p. 74; popular ed., p. 55; Italian ed., p. 82.
xviii
initiatives by Cardinal Bertone, but with no official Vatican response to

Socci. These developments, which have radically altered the landscape
since the first edition, are fully recounted in Chapter 14.
The problem confronting the Church, however, remains the same.
It is still very much the case that in the post-Vatican II epoch, beliefs
once shared by virtually all Catholics have now been marginalized, and
reduced de facto to cult status. Principal among these are beliefs in
apparitions, miracles and prophecies. Over the centuries, the Catholic
Church has raised to the rank of sainthood many hundreds, each of
whom was canonized on the basis of miracles performed through his or
her intercession. Many of these same saints experienced apparitions of
Christ or the Virgin Mary. Catholic tradition affirms belief in a dialogue
between earth and Heaven, mediated by visionary saints, who are called
forth as prophets of their time and who authenticate their prophecies
with miracles. Far from upholding this long-standing aspect of Christian
belief, certain of todays Vatican officials make a point of asserting that
private apparitions can be disregarded as not essential to the faith
including the apparitions at Fatima, despite Fatimas warning of global
catastrophe.
In general, the post-conciliar updating of the Catholic Church has
left Catholic beliefs reduced to a shrunken core, and even that core
is challenged at high levels. Widely-published (and openly heretical)
theologian Hans Kng has received only a slap on the wrist for
questioning such basic articles of faith as the resurrection and divinity
of Christ.
The plain fact is that it is no longer possible to determine clearly
what some top Vatican officials actually believe.
This may seem irrelevant to outsiders, and in some respects, it is.
It might be of no concern to non-Catholics or non-Christians whether
Catholics attend the traditional Latin Mass or a modern vernacular
Mass, or whether they pray the Rosary. What a particular Cardinal
thinks about matters of Catholic doctrine generally means nothing to
outsiders. But what a leader of the Church thinks about apparitions,
miracles and prophecies does matter. It matters because if even some
of the Churchs own leaders were to disbelieve the Fatima apparitions,
disregard the Miracle of the Sun, and despise the prophecies in the
Fatima Message, they could be putting the whole world at risk. But
this contempt for Fatima is part and parcel of the contempt for certain
elements of traditional Catholicism which has moved a clearly worried
Pope Benedict to call for his extraordinary hermeneutic of continuity.
For the first time in Church history a Pope is calling upon the leadership
of the Church to be in continuity with the Churchs own traditions, as if
that continuity had somehow been placed in doubt.
The collapse of traditional belief thus emerges as the most plausible
explanation for the Churchs otherwise inexplicable behavior with
regard to Fatima. The traditional Catholic belief in apparitions, miracles
xix
and prophecies is at the heart of the Fatima story. Abandonment of

belief in these things is what has transformed Fatima from something
worthy of belief into a cult that some Church leaders seem intent
on discrediting.
Outsiders might wish this was entirely an internal Catholic matter,
but it isnt. One doesnt have to be a Catholic to wonder about God, and
how God might choose to communicate with humanity. People who lack
faith in any particular religion usually dont deny the existence of God,
they simply dont know whether God exists. In that state of uncertainty,
how can anything be ruled out? God might well choose to communicate
with the human race through the Message of Fatima, however bizarre
that may seem to many people. As the Bible wisely tells us, Gods ways
are not our ways.
The ultimate issue is therefore not simply what the Catholic Church
believes, but what this might mean for humanity as a whole. This
situation invites everyone, Catholic or not, Christian or not, to consider
the possibility that the Fatima Message is authentic. Improbable as it
may seem on the face of it, there are some persuasive pieces of evidence
to support this idea. The Vaticans own exhaustive investigation found
none of the inconsistencies, contradictions or discrepancies that often
invalidate events of this kind. Instead, they found everything in order.
They also acknowledged the unique nature of the Miracle of the Sun, an
event witnessed by tens of thousands for which there is still no adequate
scientific explanation.
When the content of the message was more widely publicized in
the 1940s, further support for authenticity began to accumulate. The
message contained a series of prophecies, many of which have come to
pass as predicted. These include the end of World War I, the election of
Pope Pius XI, the start of World War II, and the expansion of communist
Russia. The evidence has proved sufficient to elicit the belief of seven
successive Popes since the apparitions occurred, along with millions
of Catholic faithful. It had also persuaded the Vatican, under John
Paul II, to beatify in the year 2000 the two deceased witnesses to the
apparitions, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, and to commemorate the
Fatima apparitions in the Roman Missal, the official book of Catholic
worship used by the Roman Catholic Church for the celebration of Mass.
Yet another Fatima prophecy, which has only been partially revealed,
is the Third Secret of Fatima. Evidence outlined in this book points
strongly to a prediction of serious problems in the leadership of the
Church, problems that bear an uncanny resemblance to what is actually
happening in the Church today.
Most Catholics have been stunned by the recent cascade of revelations
of sexual abuse of children and teenagers by members of the clergy. Such
a thing is completely unprecedented in Church history, even in medieval
times, when many high-ranking prelates made a mockery of celibacy. In
their search for an explanation for this appalling situation, both Catholics
xx
and others might well look to the still-unrevealed Third Secret.

This book provides good reasons to believe that the Third Secret
predicts exactly what is happening now. Scandals in the clergy are the
beginning of the chastisement promised if the consecration is not done.
While the whole world will ultimately be punished, the penalty falls
first on the Church Herself. The withering of the Catholic priesthood
and its moral degeneracy are just the first signs of a calamity that will
ultimately engulf the whole of mankind.
The fact that the Vatican officials examined in this book have gone
to great lengths to put the Fatima question to rest while still concealing
the text of the Third Secret strongly supports this interpretation. Clearly,
these officials still have something to hide. Otherwise, why not publish
the document in question, and why did they not allow Sister Lucia dos
Santos, the only surviving witness to the apparitions, to testify to its
authenticity prior to her death in February 2005?
When the whole story is told, it seems obvious that the real reason
the Vatican wont perform the consecration is because doing so would
affirm the authenticity of the Fatima Message. And doing that, in turn,
would affirm the authenticity of the prophesied apostasy reaching
even into the Vatican itself. Unbelieving officials are not about to indict
themselves by heeding a message that points a finger at them. Instead,
they have tried to bury the message, so as to avoid giving credence to
that which the Vatican itself had earlier declared worthy of credence.
In virtually any other era in the history of the Church, members of the
top echelon in the Vatican would have been foremost among believers
in a message from Heaven delivered in such convincing fashion. They
would have lost no time in heeding it, and complying with its request.
With the confusion that has followed the Second Vatican Council, and
the rapid advance of secularism into every institution, including the
Church, over the past 40 years, such a message is now being given
a hostile reception even by certain Vatican officials. In ignoring the
message, these prelates place themselves not only outside the ranks
of believers, but even outside the ranks of non-believers possessed of
common sense, because they arent even willing to give the message the
benefit of the doubt on the reasonable assumption that it could be true.
The Bible offers an enlightening example in this regard. The Fourth
Book of Kings (4 Kings 5:1-15, in some Bibles it is referred to as 2 Kings
5:1-15) tells the story of Naaman, the leader of the Syrian army, whose
king sent him to the prophet Eliseus in Israel to seek a miraculous cure
for his leprosy. Without actually meeting him, Eliseus sent Naaman
instructions to bathe seven times in the river Jordan, in order to be
cured. Naaman was indignant that Eliseus didnt come to administer his
cure personally. Merely bathing in the Jordan, he felt, couldnt possibly
be any better than bathing in any of Syrias fine rivers. Rejecting the
prophets instructions as trivial, Naaman prepared to depart, but his
advisers dissuaded him. They argued that, if the prophet had asked him
xxi
to perform some arduous feat to be cured, Naaman would have done

it. So why not do the very mundane thing that had been asked instead?
In effect, they said to him: Why not try it, since its such a simple thing?
Naaman agreed to give it a try on this basis, and sure enough, on his
seventh washing in the Jordan, his leprosy disappeared.
There is a striking parallel between this miraculous biblical
event and the attitude now being taken by the Vatican regarding the
consecration of Russia. Like Naaman, Vatican officials seem unable
to believe that something as simple as a consecration could deliver
a benefit as momentous as genuine world peace. And they are so
obdurate in their position that they wont even allow the remedy to be
tried, despite repeated appeals over many decades from millions of the
faithful, including thousands in the Catholic clergy.
To outsiders, it may seem incredible that a tiny group of highlyplaced doubters can block an action so ardently desired by huge
numbers of believers. To understand this, it is necessary to understand
the structure of the Church, which is very different from a democracy.
Bishops of the Catholic Church are not selected by the faithful, nor even
by their peers. They are chosen by the Pope and consecrated by him or
(more usually) by an existing bishop, and the power conferred on them
by this consecration comes directly from God. Once consecrated, each
bishop is ultimately answerable to God alone and, under God, owes
obedience in Church matters to the Pope alone.
Given the temper of the times and the administrative style of Pope
Benedict XVI, it seems the Pope will give no direct order to all the
bishops unless there is a general consensus among them first of all.
What all this means is that it is ultimately up to the bishops of
the Church, who number about 4,700, to agree voluntarily to do the
consecration as requested. Given their wide powers over appointments,
promotions and other privileges, it is easy for the small group in charge
at the Vatican to prevent such a spontaneous agreement from ever
emerging.
Today, it is obvious to everyone in the Catholic clergy that speaking
out on Fatima is a one-way ticket to oblivion for any priest, bishop or
even Cardinal. So most bishops are silent on the matter, regardless of
what they actually think or believe. The same is true for priests, who are
even more vulnerable to punishment for being politically incorrect.
This book also mentions the repressive treatment of the Fatima
Priest, Father Nicholas Gruner, whose only crime is to have devoted
himself (as he continues to do) to the promotion of the Fatima Message
at great personal cost. The Vaticans efforts to silence him, which have
even included the threat of excommunication, stand in sharp contrast
to the lenient treatment of hundreds of other priests, and even bishops
and Archbishops, who have been embroiled in allegations of sexual
molestation of minors. The sorry state of the Catholic clergy today is
epitomized by this contrast between the treatment of Father Gruner and
xxii
that accorded to Catholic clergy who are actually guilty of serious crimes.
The Catholic Church has in its hands a remedy that might do
something no one else knows how to dobring peace to this endlessly
war-torn world. Based on the compelling case presented in this book,
those who are preventing this remedy from being tried have much
to answer for. They owe both the Catholic faithful and the world an
explanation for their conduct. Further, given its importance to the world
at large, the cover-up of the Fatima Message is even more an occasion
for public outrage than the episcopal cover-ups of priestly sexual
misconduct that have been exposed in the year 2002 by the press.
Chapter 18 of this book offers some suggestions as to what
individuals, both believers and non-believers, might do to persuade the
leaders of the Catholic Church to act in both the Churchs own best
interest and that of the whole human race. As this book makes clear,
both Catholics and non-Catholics have much to gain if the Message of
Fatima is obeyed, and a great deal to lose if the Message continues to
be ignored by the very men who are charged to follow its imperatives.
Editors Note: Among the principal sources of this book are:

Are There Two Original Manuscripts on the Third Secret?, Andrew
M. Cesanek (The Fatima Crusader, Issue 64, Spring 2000); Cardinal
Ratzingers Third Secret, Father Gregory Hesse (The Fatima Crusader,
Issue 66, Winter 2001); Chronology of a Cover-up, Father Paul Kramer
(published on www.fatima.org); Freemasonry and the Subversion of
the Church (the Alta Vendita), John Vennari (Transcript of speech from
Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001); It Doesnt Add Up, John
Vennari (The Fatima Crusader, Issue 70, Spring 2002); Let us Hear the
Witness, for Heavens Sake, Christopher Ferrara (The Fatima Crusader,
Issue 70, Spring 2002); Lucy and the Pirates, Mark Fellows (The Fatima
Crusader, Issue 70, Spring 2002); The Lying Press Conference of June 26,
2000, Father Paul Kramer (Transcript of speech from Fatima Conference
in Rome, October 2001); Our Lady of Fatima vs. the Desire to Destroy
our Catholic Heritage, John Vennari (Transcript of speech, Fatima Rally
Against Terrorism, New York, November 2001); The Party Line and its
Relationship to Fatima, Father Paul Kramer (Transcript of speech from
Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001); Pope John Paul II Gives
Us the Key to the Real Third Secret, Father Nicholas Gruner (Threepart series, The Fatima Crusader, Issues 67-69); The Stalinization of the
Catholic Church (Transcript of speech from Fatima Conference in Rome,
October 2001); The Third Secret, Father Nicholas Gruner (Transcript of
speech from Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001).
Introduction
A great injustice has been committed against the Catholic Church
and the world at large. The perpetrators of this injustice are men who
hold high offices in the Catholic hierarchy, in particular that element of
the Vatican bureaucracy known as the Vatican Secretariat of State.
The victims of this injustice include you and your loved ones. The
consequences of the injustice have already been catastrophic, and if
those responsible are not turned from their current course very soon,
the ultimate result will be nothing short of apocalyptic in its dimensions.
Indeed, even non-Catholics and unbelievers have the sense today that
the world is heading toward an apocalypse. The commission of this
injustice is one of the principal reasons that this is so.
The subject matter of the injustice that concerns us is commonly
known as the Message of Fatima. In 1917 the Mother of God consigned
to three saintly children at Fatima, Portugal a message of utmost
urgency for the Church and mankinda message authenticated by
an unprecedented public miracle predicted three months in advance
and witnessed by 70,000 people; a message whose prophecies of
future world events have thus far been fulfilled to the letter; a message
pronounced worthy of belief by the highest authorities of the Catholic
Church; a message whose authenticity is attested to by a succession of
Popes up to and including Pope Benedict XVI.2 Pope John Paul II even
alluded repeatedly to the apocalyptic elements of the message.
The nature of the injustice is a systematic attemptsince the
year 1960to conceal, misrepresent and deny the authenticity of this
message even as its alarming prophecies are being fulfilled before our
very eyes.
Without presuming that the perpetrators are conscious enemies
of the Church (although some of them may well be), based on the
evidence it appears that the probable reason for the injustice is this:
The perpetrators recognize that the contents of the Message of Fatima,
as understood in the traditional Catholic sense, cannot coexist with
decisions made since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), decisions
which they unswervingly carry out, to change the entire orientation
2
As we will see, Benedict XVI has made statements which indicate a reversal, at least
in his own mind, of the forty-year-old party line on Fatima adopted by the Secretariat
of State under Cardinals Villot (1969-79), Casaroli (1979-90), Sodano (1991-2006), and
now Cardinal Bertone (September 15, 2006 - present) to which he himself once adhered
as Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Now Pope,
the former Cardinal Ratzinger no longer seems willing to relegate the triumph of the
Immaculate Heart to the past according to the party line, but rather now acknowledges
that the triumph of the Immaculate Heart has yet to occur. This necessarily calls into
question the assertion of the party line that Russia was consecrated to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary more than 25 years ago in a Vatican ceremony which deliberately omitted
any mention of Russia, for it can hardly be the case that the world would still be awaiting
the promised Triumph a quarter of a century after the consecration that was to produce it.
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_introduction.pdf
xxiv
of the Catholic Church. This change of orientation would convert (if it

were possible) the Catholic Church from a divine institution that directs
its earthly activity toward the eternal salvation of souls, to a mere coparticipant with human organizations in the building up of a utopian
world brotherhood between men of all religions or no religion at all.
This new orientation of the Church pursues a vision of the world
as illusory as it is contrary to the Churchs divine commission to make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Ghost. This new orientation is, in fact, the cherished
goal of those organized forces which have been conspiring against the
Church for nearly 300 years, and whose activities stand exposed and
condemned in more papal pronouncements than have been issued on
any other single subject in Church history.
This is not to say that the Church Herself would ever officially
renounce Her divine commission to save souls, for this is impossible
according to the promise of Our Lord concerning the survival of the
Catholic Church on earth until the end of time. But it is undeniable
that since the Second Vatican Council much of the human element of
the Church has effectively ceased to pursue that commission for the
sake of a modern, more politically correct, approach to the world. This
astonishing development has caused the current Pope, Benedict XVI,
to call for a hermeneutic of continuity to avoid a rupture with the
Churchs own past and to take other measures to attempt a restoration
of the Church. These include the Popes liberation of the traditional
Latin Mass for the benefit of all priests and faithful with his declaration
Summorum Pontificum, already mentionedcontrary to the false
impression, maintained for nearly forty years, that Pope Paul VI had
banned its use without special permission. Yet the problem of the
new orientation persists, and the damage to the Church and to Her
mission in the world continues.
Given the promises of Our Lord and of Our Lady of Fatima, the end
of this experiment and the full and complete restoration of the Catholic
Church is inevitable; but until this happens, many souls are in danger of
eternal condemnation and we will continue to witness the worst crisis
in the Churchs historya crisis foretold, as we will demonstrate, by the
Virgin of Fatima Herself.
Both direct and circumstantial evidence of the injustice indicate
that it extends to the concealment of that part of the Message of Fatima
which predicts precisely this attempt to change the orientation of the
Church, and the ruinous consequences of that attempt. The hidden
portion of the Message, commonly known as the Third Secret of Fatima,
would thus be a heavenly indictment of decisions made and actions
taken by the very men who have perpetrated this injustice.
The evidence shows that the injustice also extends to tampering
with the last surviving witness to the Fatima Message, Sister Lucia
dos Santos, until her death in 2005. Sister Lucy had been subjected to
Introduction
xxv
secret interviews and other forms of pressure in an effort to alter her

unvarying testimony on the authentic content of the Message, which
stands in the way of the perpetrators pursuit of the new orientation of
the Church.
This is the injustice, and this is the motive. Now it is our burden to
prove both. We will endeavor to do so in the succeeding pages, using
the published statements of the very persons who are accountable,
the testimony of other witnesses, and a great deal of other evidence
to make the case. And when we are done presenting the evidence, we
shall ask you, the reader, to render a verdict. Not a verdict in the
legal sense, for we have no right to constitute ourselves an ecclesiastical
court. We mean, rather, a verdict representing the conscientious belief
of members of the faithful that good grounds exist to investigate and
remedy the injustice we allege here.
We shall also ask you, therefore, for your assistance in giving this
information to the Pope, in keeping with the God-given right of the
faithfulinfallibly defined by the First Vatican Council and guaranteed
by Church lawto petition the Supreme Pontiff directly and immediately
for the redress of just grievances in the Church. In making these requests
we have in mind as well the teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the
unanimous teaching of the Doctors and theologians of the Church, that
if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate
even publicly.
In considering the evidence we are about to present, we ask you
to keep one overarching principle in mind: As Saint Thomas teaches,
against a fact there is no argumentcontra factum non argumentum
est. If a statement is contrary to fact, then no authority on earth can
expect us to believe it. Thus, for example, if a high-ranking prelate in
the Vatican were to issue a decree that Catholics must believe that the
Eiffel Tower is located in Saint Peters Square, that would not make it
so, and we would be obliged to reject the decree. For the fact is that the
Eiffel Tower is located in Paris, and there is no argument against that
fact. Therefore, no man, no matter what his authority, can demand that
we believe something that is manifestly contrary to fact.
As you shall see, however, the injustice involving Fatima is largely
an attempt by certain men who enjoy high offices in the Church to
impose upon Catholics an understanding of the Message of Fatima that
is plainly contrary to factas, for example, the claim that a consecration
of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary can be accomplished by
consecrating the world, while deliberately avoiding any mention of
Russia.
As the Church Herself teaches (cf. Vatican I and John Paul IIs
encyclical Fides et Ratio), the faith does not conflict with reason.
Catholics are not expected to suspend the use of their reason, their
common sense, in order to be Catholics. That would not be faith, but
blindnessthe blindness of the Pharisees. And so it is with the Message
xxvi
of Fatima. No matter what certain prestigious prelates may claim, the

Church does not require us to believe nonsense when it comes to what
the Message really means. On the contrary, we must love the truth to be
faithful to Jesus Christ.
We ask you, then, to use your common sense, to keep an open mind,
to consider the evidence dispassionately, and then decide. Indeed,
you must decide. For if the charge we have made is true, then what
is at stake in this case is nothing less than the salvation of millions of
souls (possibly including your own), the welfare of the Church and the
survival of civilization itself in this age of humanity. For no other reason
did the Mother of God deliver the Message of Fatima to our increasingly
endangered world.
For More Information

To request free copies of the Petition to the Supreme Pontiff
(on pages 331-337) or of the Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up
(Appendix II, on pages 339-371) or of John Vennaris article A World
View Based on Fatima (referred to in footnote 222) or of A Law for
One Man by Christopher A. Ferrara (referred to in footnote 240) or
of Cathy Pearsons article Now Is the Time: Consecrating Russia Will
Help, Not Harm, Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue (referred to in footnotes
227 and 249) or to purchase more copies of this book for your family
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Chapter 1
The Message
and the Miracle
God does not waste miracles. Throughout salvation historyfrom
Joshua, to Moses, to the twelve Apostles, to the saints of the Catholic
Church down through the centuriesGod has granted miracles for one
overriding purpose: to serve as a divine credential for a witness who
invokes the miracle in His name. When God chooses a witness, and
then associates an authentic miracle with the testimony of that witness,
we can know for certain that the witness is worthy of belief. God does
not grant miracles to vouch for unreliable witnesses; God does not
choose unreliable witnesses.
No, God does not waste miracles. Much less does God waste a
public miracle witnessed by 70,000 people, believers and unbelievers
alike, which occurred at precisely the moment predicted three months
earlier by three witnesses whose testimony had been doubted: Lucia
dos Santos (known to the world as Lucy) and her cousins, Francisco
and Jacinta Marto.3
It is October 13, 1917. In a humble field known as the Cova da Iria
in Fatima some 70,000 people have assembled to await the happening
of a miracle. This in itself is astounding. For never before in salvation
history has a visionary predicted months in advance that a public
miracle would occur at a precise time and place. Never before has a
vast crowd assembled to witness a predicted public miracle. Yet that is
exactly what was happening on this day.
Why this day? Because Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco
and Jacinta had been receiving apparitions from the Lady on the
thirteenth of each month since the previous May. The Lady had been
appearing to them above a holm-oak tree in the Cova, and with each
apparition the crowds had grown. But doubts about the veracity of the
seers had also grown, as well as mockery and persecution of the seers
and their families at a time when Portugal was under the control of an
atheistic and Masonic political regime.
And then, on July 13, 1917, the Lady had shown them something
which would terrify them and change them forever, making them into
saints who would spend their lives (in the case of Francisco and Jacinta,
very brief lives) praying and making sacrifices for sinners. As Lucy
3
This chapter is largely taken from Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About
Fatima - Vol. I, Science and the Facts, (English edition, Immaculate Heart Publications,
Buffalo, New York, U.S.A., 1989) Chapter 10, pp. 323-380; and from Vol. II, The Secret
and the Church, (English edition, Immaculate Heart Publications, Buffalo, New York,
U.S.A., 1990) Introduction, pp. 5-10. See also Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima:
Intimate Joy World Event; Frre Franois is largely dependent on Frre Michel.
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_chapter1.pdf
recounts in testimony the Catholic Church has deemed worthy of belief,

the Lady showed them hell:
She opened Her hands once more, as She had done during
the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate
the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this
fire were demons and souls [of the damned] in human form, like
transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze,
floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the
flames that issued from within themselves together with great
clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in huge
fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of
pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with
fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as
people say they heard me.) The demons could be distinguished
[from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent
likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent
like burning coals.4 This vision lasted but an instant. How can we
ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, Who had
already prepared us by promising, in the first apparition, to take
us to Heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and
terror.5
Having shown the children the fate of the damned, which is the
first part of the Great Secret of Fatima, the Lady then confided to the
children the second part. Everyone, including those members of the
Vatican apparatus who are the focus of this presentation, agrees that
the second part of the Secret, as recorded in Sister Lucys diaries, is as
follows:
You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To
save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My
Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will
be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if
people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out
during the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by
an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by
God that He is about to punish the world for its sins, by means of
war, famine, and persecutions against the Church and of the Holy
Father.
To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the Consecration of
Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation
on the First Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be
converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her
English translation of text in Sister Lucy, Fourth Memoir, Fatima in Lucias Own Words,
(Postulation Centre, Fatima, Portugal, 1976) p. 162. See also Frre Michel de la Sainte
Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I: Science and the Facts, pp. 181-182.
5
English translation of text in Sister Lucy, Third Memoir, Fatima in Lucias Own Words,
p. 104. See also The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, p. 182.
4
The Message and the Miracle
errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of

the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have
much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated.
In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy
Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and
some period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal the
dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc. Do not tell this to
anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.6
The basic elements of this astonishing Message are these:

Many souls go to hell because of the sins they commit.
To save them, God wishes to establish throughout the world the
uniquely Catholic devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This is to be accomplished by consecrating the nation of Russia to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary (in conjunction with the Communion of
Reparation on the first Saturdays of each month), whereupon Russia
will be converted to the Catholic Faith.
If this is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.
If it is not done, Russia will spread its errors throughout the
world. There will be wars, famine, persecutions of the Church, and
martyrdom of the good. The Holy Father will have much to suffer.
And if Our Ladys requests are still not obeyed, then various nations
will be annihilated.
Nevertheless, In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The
Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted,
and a period of peace will be granted to the world.
To these things, the Lady added an urgent request that Catholics
include in their daily recitation of the Rosary at the end of each decade,
the following prayer: O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the
fires of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need. In
obedience to the Ladys request, and as a testament to the authenticity
of Her apparitions at Fatima, the Church included this prayer in the
Rosary, and Catholics recite it to this day.
The Church has also adopted the First Saturday devotion of the
Communion of Reparation, which the Lady explained thusly:
I promise to help at the hour of death, with all the graces
needed for salvation, whoever on the First Saturday of five
consecutive months shall: confess and receive Holy Communion,
recite five decades of the Holy Rosary, and keep Me company for
6
English translation of text in Sister Lucy, Fourth Memoir, Fatima in Lucias Own Words,
(Postulation Centre, Fatima, Portugal, 1976) p. 162. See also Sister Lucy, Memorias e
Cartas da Irma Lucia, (Porto, Portugal, 1973, edited by Father Antonio Maria Martins)
pp. 340-341; in Sister Lucys own handwriting there is no ellipsis after the etc.. See
also Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I: Science and
the Facts, pp. 182-183.
fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the

Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to Me.
We pause here to note in passing (for further discussion later) the

curious phrase at the end of the first two parts of the Secret: In Portugal
the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc. The incomplete
phrase, ending with etc., appears in Sister Lucys fourth memoir of
the apparitions. It clearly introduces a heavenly prediction, containing
further words of Our Lady not recorded, about the state of adherence
to Catholic dogma in the Church at large, distinguished from Portugal
in particular, where the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.
Standing alone, the observation about adherence to Catholic
dogma in Portugal appears gratuitous and quite senseless, for the
phrase does not at all follow logically from the first two parts of the
Secret. Every recognized Fatima scholar concluded from this that the
phrase represents the beginning of a third part of the Secretwhat
came to be known simply as the Third Secret of Fatima. As we shall see,
Lucy was so terrified by its contents that even after she was ordered
to write it down in October of 1943, she was unable to do so until the
subsequent apparition on January 2, 1944 in which Our Lady assured
her that she ought to write it down. And yet, to this day, the Vatican has
never revealed the words of the Virgin which clearly follow In Portugal
the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc. The etc. remains
a secret. This ongoing concealment is a key element of the injustice that
is the subject of this book.
Having received from Heaven itself a message with obviously
profound importance for the Church and all humanity, Lucy knew
that she and her cousins needed a divine credential if they were to be
believed. During the apparition on July 13, Sister Lucy asked the Lady
to tell us who You are, and to work a miracle, so that everybody will
believe that You are appearing to us. And the Lady replied: Continue
to come here every month. In October I will tell you who I am and what
I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.7 The
Lady repeated this promise in further apparitions to Lucy and the other
seers on August 19 and again, at the Cova, on September 13.
And so the people assemble in a great crowd at the Cova on October
13, 1917. And at precisely the hour predicted in July12 noon solar
time, and 1:30 p.m. by the clock in Portugalit begins. Lucy suddenly
instructs the crowd of witnesses to shut their umbrellas in the midst of
a drenching rain which has turned the Cova into a field of mud. Some
people were standing in mud up to their ankles. She enters a state of
spiritual ecstasy as the Lady, appearing again, addresses her. The Lady
begins by telling Lucy who She is and what She wants, just as She had
promised: I want a chapel to be built here in My honor. I am the Lady
of the Rosary. The Lady is the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, who will
7
Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, pp. 180-181.
henceforth also be known under the title Our Lady of Fatima, one of
many bestowed upon the Blessed Virgin by the Church. The chapel, of
course, would be built, and then rebuilt after being blown up on March
6, 1922 by a bomb planted by the friends of the Tinsmith, a nickname
for the Masonic Mayor of Ourem.8
And then the Miracle occurs. We recount here the testimony of a
reporter who cannot possibly be accused of partiality in this matter and
for a good reason! We refer to Avelino de Almeida, the chief editor of O
Seculo, the large liberal anticlerical and Masonic daily newspaper of
Lisbon. He writes:
From the road, where the carriages were crowded together
and where hundreds of persons had stayed for want of sufficient
courage to advance across the muddy ground, we saw the huge
crowd turn towards the sun which appeared at its zenith, clear
of the clouds. It resembled a disc of silver, and it was possible to
stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes.
It did not blind. We would say that it produced an eclipse. Then a
tremendous cry rang out, and the crowd nearest us were heard to
shout: Miracle! Miracle! ... Marvel! ... Marvel! Before the dazzled
eyes of the people, whose attitude transported us to biblical times,
and who, dumbfounded, heads uncovered, contemplated the blue
of the sky, the sun trembled, it made strange and abrupt movements,
outside of all cosmic lawsthe sun danced, according to the
typical expression of the peasants ...9
Attacked violently by all the anticlerical press, Avelino de Almeida

renews his testimony, fifteen days later, in his review, Ilustrao
Portuguesa. This time he illustrates his account with a dozen photographs
of the huge ecstatic crowd, and repeated as a refrain throughout his
article: I saw ... I saw ... I saw. And he concludes: Miracle, as the
people shouted? Natural phenomenon, as the experts say? For the
moment, that does not concern me, I am only saying what I saw... The
rest is a matter for Science and the Church.10
Saturday, October 13 begins for the pilgrims as a walk of penance
because it had rained the whole preceding night. Now, this almost
sudden change of weather, with the dusty roads transformed into
muddy quagmires by a pelting rain, causing to replace abruptly, for a
day, the sweetness of autumn with the biting rigors of winter, did not
succeed in moving them, to make them give up or despair.11
In comparing the numerous accounts of witnesses, we can
distinguish the diverse aspects and the result of the astounding
Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. II: The Secret and
the Church, pp. 357-358.
9
O Seculo of October 15, 1917.
10
Article of October 29, 1917. See also Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima: Intimate
Joy World Event, Book One, The Astonishing Truth, (English edition, Immaculate Heart
Publications, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A., 1993) p. 164.
11
Ilustrao Portuguesa, October 29, 1917.
8
phenomena seen by all. For each one of the phenomena, it would be

possible to line up many witnesses, whose testimony would constitute
in itself an impressive book.
Here is the first marvelous fact described by Dr. Almeida Garrett:
It must have been 1:30 p.m. when there arose at the exact spot
where the children were, a column of smoke, thin, fine and bluish,
which extended up to perhaps two meters above their heads, and
evaporated at that height. This phenomenon, perfectly visible to
the naked eye, lasted for a few seconds. Not having noted how
long it had lasted, I cannot say whether it was more or less than
a minute. The smoke dissipated abruptly, and after some time, it
came back to occur a second time, then a third time ...12
Whereas the low and heavy sky had a very dark color, laden with
moisture, [which] released an abundant and long lasting rain, during
the time of the apparition, the rain stopped totally. Abruptly the sky
cleared: The sun triumphantly pierced the thick bed of clouds hiding
it until then, and shone intensely. (Dr. Almeida Garrett) This abrupt
change of weather took all the eyewitnesses by surprise: It was a day
of heavy and continuous rain. But a few minutes before the miracle, it
stopped raining. (Alfredo da Silva Santos)
And this testimony from a physician, a man of science, concerning
the inexplicable silvering of the sun, allowing it to be viewed directly
without harm to the eyes:
Suddenly I heard the uproar of thousands of voices, and I saw
the whole multitude spread out in that vast space at my feet ... turn
their backs to that spot where, until then, all their expectations
focused, and look at the sun on the other side ... I turned around,
too, toward the point commanding their gazes, and I could see
the sun, like a very clear disc, with its sharp edge, which gleamed
without hurting the sight ... It could not be confused with the sun
seen through a fog (there was no fog at that moment), for it was
neither veiled, nor dim. At Fatima, it kept its light and heat, and
stood out clearly in the sky, with a sharp edge, like a large gaming
table. The most astonishing thing was to be able to stare at the
solar disc for a long time, brilliant with light and heat, without
hurting the eyes, or damaging the retina. (Dr. Almeida Garrett)13
In the same vein this testimony by the editor-in-chief of O Seculo:

And then we witnessed a unique spectacle, an incredible
spectacle, unbelievable if you did not witness it. From above the
road ... We see the immense crowd turn towards the sun, which
appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It looked like a plate
of dull silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least
discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. One might say
12
13
Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima: The Astonishing Truth, pp. 171-172.
Ibid., pp. 172-173.
that an eclipse had occurred. (Article of October 15, 1917)
And likewise: The people could look at the sun as we look at the
moon. (Maria do Carmo)14
One could multiply endlessly the testimonies about the ensuing
solar phenomena, witnessed even by the secular editor-in-chief of an
anticlerical newspaper. Consider these:
It shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire. (Maria
da Capelinha)15
The sun turned like a fire wheel, taking on all the colors of the
rainbow. (Maria do Carmo)16
It appeared like a globe of snow turning on itself. (Father
Loureno)17
The pearl-like disc had a giddy motion. This was not the
twinkling of a star in all its brilliance. It turned on itself with
impetuous speed. (Dr. Almeida Garrett)18
At a certain moment, the sun stopped and then began again
to dance, to spin; it stopped again, and began again to dance. (Ti
Marto)19
The sun took on all the colors of the rainbow. Everything
assumed those same colors: our faces, our clothes, the earth itself.
(Maria do Carmo)20
A light, whose colors changed from one moment to the next,
was reflected on the people and on things. (Dr. Pereira Gens)21
What happens next constitutes the most terrifying aspect of the

Miracle, and one with profound implications for our era, in which man
has perfected the ability to destroy the whole world with fire from the sky:
the sun appears to detach itself from the sky and plunge toward the earth.
We suddenly heard a clamor, like a cry of anguish of that
entire crowd. The sun, in fact, keeping its rapid movement of
rotation, seemed to free itself from the firmament and blood-red,
to plunge towards the earth, threatening to crush us with its fiery
mass. Those were some terrifying seconds. (Dr. Almeida Garrett)22
I saw the sun turn and it seemed to descend. It was like a
Ibid., p. 173.
Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, p. 337.
16
Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima: The Astonishing Truth, p. 178.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid.
14
15
bicycle wheel. (John Carreira)23

The sun began to dance and, at a certain moment, it appeared
to detach itself from the firmament and to rush forward on us, like
a fire wheel. (Alfredo da Silva Santos)24
I saw it perfectly descending as if it came to crash on the
earth. It seemed to detach itself from the sky and rush toward us.
It maintained itself at a short distance above our heads; but that
sort of attack was of very short duration... It seemed very near the
people and it continued to turn in the opposite direction. (Maria
do Carmo)25
Suddenly, the sun appeared with its circumference welldefined. It came down as if to the height of the clouds and began
to whirl giddily upon itself like a captive ball of fire. With some
interruptions, this lasted about eight minutes. (Father Pereira da
Silva)26
It suddenly seemed to come down in a zig-zag, menacing the
earth. (Father Loureno)27
Seeing the sun falling on us ... (Father John Gomes)28
Finally, the sun stopped and everybody breathed a sigh of
relief ... (Maria da Capelinha)29
From those thousands of mouths I heard shouts of joy and love
to the Most Holy Virgin. And then I believed. I had the certainty of
not having been the victim of a suggestion. I had seen the sun as I
would never see it again. (Mario Godinho, an engineer)30
Another astonishing fact: all those people, who are for the most
part soaked to the bone, verify with joy and amazement that they are
dry. The fact is attested to in the canonical process for Jacinta and
Francisco, who were ultimately beatified on May 13, 2000.
The moment one would least expect it, our clothes were
totally dry. (Maria do Carmo)31
My suit dried in an instant. (John Carreira)32
The academician Marques da Cruz testified as follows:

This enormous multitude was drenched, for it had rained
Ibid.
24
Ibid., pp. 178-179.
25
Ibid., p. 179.
26
Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, p. 337.
27
Ibid., p. 339.
28
Ibid., p. 340.
29
Ibid.
30
Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima: The Astonishing Truth, p. 179.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid.
23
unceasingly since dawn. Butthough this may appear incredible

after the great miracle everyone felt comfortable, and found his
garments quite dry, a subject of general wonder ... The truth of
this fact has been guaranteed with the greatest sincerity by dozens
and dozens of persons of absolute trustworthiness, whom I have
known intimately from childhood, and who are still alive (1937),
as well as by persons from various districts of the country who
were present.33
In one aspect, this is a most astonishing effect of the solar miracle

and one of its best proofs: The amount of energy needed to accomplish
this process of instantaneous drying, would have incinerated everyone
present had it taken place in the natural order of things. As this aspect
of the miracle contradicts the laws of nature radically, no demon could
ever have achieved it.
And finally, there are also moral miracles of the conversions of
many people. In his book, Meet the Witnesses, John Haffert writes:
The captain of the regiment of soldiers on the mountain
that daywith orders to prevent the gathering of the crowd
was converted instantly. Apparently so were hundreds of other
unbelievers, as their testimony will show.34
There was an unbeliever there who had spent the morning
mocking the simpletons who had gone off to Fatima just to see an
ordinary girl. He now seemed paralyzed, his eyes fixed on the sun.
He began to tremble from head to foot, and lifting up his arms, fell
on his knees in the mud, crying out to God. (Father Loureno)35
I live eighteen miles from Fatima. And in May of 1917 we
were told about the extraordinary apparitions, but the news came
to us mixed up with the fantasy of the people. Naturally I did
not believe. I sincerely supposed it was only [the] imagination of
someone. ... At my mothers request, I went once more to the Cova
da Iria in August at the time of the apparitions. Once more I came
back discouraged and disappointed. But that time, something
extraordinary happened. My mother, who had had a large tumor
in one of her eyes for many years, was cured. The doctors who had
attended her said they could not explain such a cure. Still I did
not believe in the apparitions. Finally, and again at my mothers
request, I went to the Cova da Iria once more on the thirteenth
of October. ... In spite of what had happened to my mother, I was
Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, p. 340. See also
Father John de Marchi, I.M.C., Fatima from the Beginning, (Missoes Consolata, Fatima,
Portugal, 1981, third edition, first published in 1950) p. 141; and Joseph A. Pelletier,
A.A., The Sun Danced at Fatima, (Doubleday, New York, 1983) pp. 129-130.
34
John M. Haffert, Meet the Witnesses, (AMI International Press, Fatima, Portugal, 1961)
p. 62. This book was published with an Imprimatur from the Bishop of Leiria, Portugal
and provides us with credible direct testimonies of numerous witnesses to the Miracle
of the Sun.
35
Ibid., p. 65.
33
10

disappointed and did not believe in the apparitions. So I sat inside
my car. Then all at once I noticed that everybody looked at the
sky. Natural curiosity attracted my attention, and I got out of the
car and looked at the sky, too. ... From those hundreds of mouths
I heard words of belief and of love to the Blessed Virgin. And then
I believed. (Mario Godinho, an engineer)36
Numerous other cures and conversions are documented in, among

other places, the following books: Documentao Crtica de Ftima and
Fatima from the Beginning.37
To those who would say the miracle was a product of mass
hysteria at the scene, God Himself arranged a ready rebuttal: the
phenomenon could be admired from beyond Fatima. Perfectly credible
witnesses, who were very far from the Cova da Iria, related having seen
the unprecedented spectacle of the dance of the sun, exactly like the
70,000 pilgrims gathered around the holm-oak where the Virgin had
appeared.38
In the small village of Alburitel, situated about ten miles from
Fatima, the whole town was able to enjoy the vision of the solar prodigy.
The testimony frequently quoted is that of Father Inacio Loureno,
because it is the most detailed. But what he relates having seen, all the
villagers, questioned by the investigators, confirmed seeing it exactly
the same way.
The witnesses of the event were indeed innumerable, their
testimonies agree and we are flooded with the documents they have
left us.39
In the first place, numerous accounts appeared at once in the
Portuguese press. It is noteworthy that the first to provide testimony
were the anticlerical reporters. The three articles of Avelino de
Almeidathe one of October 13, immediately before the event; the
other of October 15, edited at Vila Nova de Ourem on the evening of
the 13th; and a third article of October 29merit a special mention. In
spite of the jeering tone and Voltarian irony which inspire in part the
first article, in spite of the expected anticlerical tones which still appear
in the article of the 15th, these texts from a talented reporter, one who
besides, is honest and conscientious, are historical documents of prime
importance.40 But he was not the only one to relate the facts, for other
reporters were present at the Cova da Iria.
Ibid., pp. 86-89.
Documentao Crtica de Ftima, Vol. II, (Santurio de Ftima, 1999) 17 cases documented
on pp. 277-372; and Father John de Marchi, I.M.C., Fatima from the Beginning.
38
Father John de Marchi, I.M.C., Fatima from the Beginning, p. 136. See also Documentao
Crtica de Ftima, Vol. I, (Santurio de Ftima, 1992) p. 408. See also Frre Michel de la
Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, pp. 330-331.
39
Among the many reference works, see: Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth
About Fatima - Vol. I: Science and the Facts; John M. Haffert, Meet the Witnesses; Father
John de Marchi, I.M.C., Fatima from the Beginning, pp. 135-142.
40
We find the photographic reproduction of those three articles in Fatima 50 of October 13,
1967, pp. 6-10 and 14-15.
36
37
11
Next there were the official investigations. In November 1917, at

the request of Bishop de Lima Vidal, who was then administering the
diocese of Lisbon, the parish priest of Fatima led his investigation and
questioned several witnesses of the parish. Unfortunately, he transcribed
only four depositions!
The investigations of the historians fortunately compensated for the
negligence of the official investigators. The report of Father Formigao,
who obtained from Dr. Jos Maria de Almeida Garrett, professor at the
Faculty of Sciences of Coimbra, a very thorough account, is the most
scientific report in our possession.41 In addition, we have the reports of
Father da Fonseca (whose work was done in order to verify the points
disputed by Father Dhanis,42 who refused to examine the evidence),
Father de Marchi, Canon Barthas, Father Dias Coelho and Father
Richard.
In 1977, to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the last
apparition, it was still possible to assemble in Fatima more than thirty
persons who had been present at the solar prodigy and could recount
their witness. Thanks to those numerous testimonies, it is possible to
reconstruct a precise running commentary, allowing us to relive, hourby-hour and minute-by-minute, this decisive day, assuredly one of the
most important in the history of the world. Indeed, the evidence of the
solar miracle on October 13, 1917 is so overwhelming that in 1952 even
Hollywood vouched for the authenticity of the miracle by releasing a
classic film (starring Gilbert Roland) entitled The Miracle of Our Lady
of Fatima, which is marketed on video to this day.
Why was this day so important? Because it was the day on which a
heavenly Message from the Mother of God was authenticated beyond
any reasonable doubt; a message which, more than 90 years later,
stands at the heart of the perilous situation of the Church and the world
at this very moment in human history, offering us a way out.
41
42
Novos Documentos de Fatima, Loyola editions, Sao Paulo, 1984, pp. 60-63.
The modernist Jesuit priest, Father Dhanis, as early as the 1940s, would attempt to
debunk the vision of hell and the prophetic elements of the Message, including the
consecration and ultimate conversion of Russia. After World War II, Fatima scholars
urged Dhanis to travel to Fatima to study the primary documentation and to interview
Sister Lucy in order to correct his flawed thesis. Dhanis refused to go to Portugal and
adhered to his erroneous opinions. (See Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole
Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, pp. 499-511.) Father Dhanis will eventually be cited by
key members of the Vatican apparatus in their attempt to revise the Message of Fatima
according to a commentary published on June 26, 2000.
Chapter 2
The Long Opposition Begins
Even a cursory reading of the first two parts of the Great Secret in the
Message of Fatima reveals that it is a heavenly challenge to the powers
of the world, whose hold on even Catholic Portugal had been increasing
since the beginning of the 20th Century.
Recalling the text of the Secret set forth in the first chapter, it is
obvious that what Heaven has proposed therein would be anathema
to the Masonic regime in Portugal, and indeed to all of the organized
forces against the Church which, at the beginning of the last century,
were plotting (by their own admission, as we shall see) a final assault
upon the Catholic citadel. The basic elements of the Message constitute
a veritable charter of opposition to these forces: saving souls from hell;
the establishment throughout the world of a Catholic devotion to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary; the consecration of Russia to that Immaculate
Heart, and Russias consequent conversion to Catholicism; and, world
peace borne of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
The Message of Fatima is important for the salvation of souls; that
much is completely obvious. But somewhat less obviousand this is
what will come to infuriate both the external and internal enemies of the
Churchthe Message and Our Ladys appearance are also very important
for the correct ordering of human society. As Our Lord said: But seek
first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be
added unto you. (Luke 12:31)
If mankind heeds the Virgins message, then peace among individuals,
families, cities and countries, and in fact the whole world, can be achieved
in the form of Catholic social order. (We shall see in the next chapter that
this social order is not some utopian dream, but a thing which has been
achieved even in the 20th Centuryin Portugal, through its Consecration
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1931.) To be sure, Original Sin would
remain, but we would see a period in human history like that prophesied
by Isaias, who, under divine inspiration, envisioned a time when men
would make war no more, would learn the art of war no more, but would
beat their swords into plowshares.43 The tendency of man toward sin
would be vastly ameliorated and controlled by the beneficent influence of
the Church and Her sacraments. And who, looking upon the world today,
could seriously argue that even the worst excesses of men in the Catholic
social order that once existed in pre-Reformation Europe are anything at
43
And He shall judge the Gentiles, and rebuke many people: and they shall turn their
swords into plowshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war. (Is. 2:4) Also, and they
shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into spades: nation shall not
take sword against nation: neither shall they learn war any more. (Micheas 4:3)
13
all when compared with the evil and violence which have been virtually
institutionalized in every nation in our timefirst and foremost with the
endless holocaust of legalized abortion.
The implications flowing from the simple text of the Great Secret of
Fatima are plain enough to anyone of minimal intelligence: Such a plan
for peace in the world could only be achieved if enough individuals, at
every level of society, freely cooperated. (We are not speaking here of
some forcibly imposed religious dictatorship, as exists in certain Islamic
states, but a social order naturally arising from the common Catholic
faith of the people.) The plan could succeed, even then, only if it were
based on the designs of the Creator of mankind, Who has anointed Jesus
Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, as King of kings and Lord of lords
(Apoc. 19:16). Jesus is King, not only of individuals but also of societies
and the whole world. Therefore, if this plan of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, Who is Queen of Heaven and of earth, is to work, mankind must
acknowledge the sovereign Kingship of Christ over all mankind as it is
exercised through His Catholic Church. That men will, in fact, be moved
to do so in sufficient numbersfirst in Russia and then elsewhereis the
very miracle promised by the Virgin if Her requests are honored.
One can understand that the prince of this world, as Jesus Christ
referred to the devil, would not accept easily the proposed destruction of
his flourishing kingdom here on earth. Nor would this peace plan from
Heaven be accepted by those men, associations and secret societies whose
power and ill-gotten riches would be forfeited if the plan were put into
effect and the conversion of Russia and the triumph of the Immaculate
Heartand thus of the Catholic Faithwere to follow.
With this background we can better appreciate why fierce opposition
to the Message of Fatima arose even while the apparitions were going on,
and why it continues to this day, enlisting even men within the Church as
opponents of the requests of the Virgin.
At the time of the Fatima apparitions, the Mayor of Ourem, the
county seat to which Fatima and Aljustrel (the village where the children
who had seen Our Lady lived) belonged, was Arturo de Oliveira Santos,
whom we encountered in Chapter 1. A Freemason who professed no
belief in God, and a blacksmith by trade, he was popularly referred to as
the Tinsmith. His formal education had been slight, but his ambitions
were large. Arturo Santos was a self-propelled and intrepid young man,
who became the editor of the Ouriense, a local gazette in which his antimonarchial and anti-religious opinions were expressed with bitter zeal
and with some talent. At twenty-six he joined the Grand Orient Masonic
Lodge at Leiria.
As the great Catholic historian, William Thomas Walsh, points out,
Santos became indoctrinated with the esoteric lore of a syncretistic and
naturalistic religion which had been the main opponent of the Catholic
Church in modern times, and which had already boasted that, by
planning and carrying out the Portuguese revolution of 1910, it had taken
14
a long step toward the total elimination of Christianity in the Iberian

Peninsula. Walsh further informs us that in 1911 the Grand Orient chief,
Magalhes Lima, predicted that in a few years no young man would wish
to study for the priesthood in Portugal, while the prominent Portuguese
Mason Alfonso Costa assured all his brethren, and some delegates from
the French lodges, that one more generation would see the finish of
Catholicism, the principal cause of the sad condition into which our
country has fallen. Indeed there was much evidence to support the
prediction, but not the accusation.
Professor Walsh goes on to note that in 1911 the new masters of
Portugal seized Church property, scattered, imprisoned and exiled
hundreds of priests and nuns, and gave the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon
five days to leave that city, never to return. Refugee priests and religious
fled to France and elsewhere. Some knelt at Lourdes and prayed to the
Mother of God to help their unhappy country, once proud to call itself
The Land of Holy Mary, now a spectacle of unbelief and anarchy, with
a new revolution every month.
Arturo Santos founded a new Masonic lodge in Ourem, where he had
moved his blacksmith shop. By 1917 he became its president. Through
friends in his brotherhood, he was able to become Mayor of Ourem.
This title carried with it the corollary titles of President of the town
Administration and of the Chamber, and Deputy Judge of Commerce.
With all these honors and their companion authority, Senhor Santos
became the most feared and influential man in his section of Portugal.
During his administration, fewer and fewer people went to Mass and
the Sacraments, there were more divorces, and there were not so many
children. When he arrested six priests and held them incommunicado for
eight days, the leading Catholic laymen in the Council and the Chamber
were too busy making profitable compromises so they did not have time
to protest loudly enough to be heard. To the Tinsmith and his friends
the fight for progress and enlightenment, as they preferred to describe
their conflict with the Catholic Church, was all but won.44
By August of 1917 all Portugal knew the story of the Apparitions
at Fatima, although in a variety of versions. The journalists of the antireligious press enjoyed writing comical versions of the story. As Father
de Marchi records the attitude of the anti-religious press, they claimed
that: these children were the puppets of the Jesuits. Not the Jesuits?
Well, then, the clergy in general, or the Pope, in particularluring
ignorant and unwary people to the Cova da Iria, in order to fleece them
of their money. They didnt have any money? Well, then, of their political
allegiance, so that the humane fabric of the enlightened Republic could be
sabotaged to the advantage of Rome and Reaction. The press enjoyed its
jolly excursions. The Freemasons were delighted.45 All loyal supporters
44
45
William Thomas Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima, (Image-Doubleday, New York, Imprimatur
1947) pp. 95-97.
Father John de Marchi, I.M.C., The Immaculate Heart: The True Story of Our Lady of
Fatima, (Farrar, Straus and Young, New York, 1952) p. 87.
15
of the reigning New Order found the situation increasingly humorous.

But Arturo Santos, the Mayor of Ourem, did not find it so humorous
because the open manifestation of religion was happening in his own
county. Some of his constituents already believed that Our Lady was
appearing at Fatima, and he could not think what explanations he could
provide his political colleagues if this Christian religious manifestation,
which was contrary to the Mayors hopes of building a Godless Republic,
continued to thrive in his own county. So he decided to bring the heavy
fist of the law down upon the three seers.
On August 11, 1917, the Mayor of Ourem ordered the parents of the
three children to present them for trial at the City Hall. Ti Marto, the
father of Jacinta and Francisco, said, Theres no sense in taking such
young children before a court of that kind. Besides, its three leagues,
and thats too far for them to walk. And they dont know how to ride on
a beast. Im not going to do it. And Ill go over and tell the Administrator
why. His wife Olimpia agreed. Lucys father, Antonio, however was
inclined to agree with his wife Maria Rosa that if Lucy was lying, it would
be a good thing to have her taught a lesson, while if she was telling the
truth (and they doubted she was), then Our Lady would take care of her.
Antonio put his daughter on the back of a burro (she fell off three times
on the way) and they set off on the journey to see the Mayor. Ti Marto
left his children at home and went by himself to speak on their behalf.
Before the journey, Jacinta said to Lucy, Never mind. If they kill you,
you just tell them that I am like you, and Francisco more so, and that we
want to die too. And now I will go with Francisco to the well to pray very
hard for you.
The Mayor asked Lucy if she had seen a Lady at the Cova da Iria, and
who she thought it was. He demanded that she tell him the secret that
Our Lady had confided to the children, and promise never to return to
the Cova da Iria again. Lucy refused to tell him the secret and to make
such a promise. (Our Lady had asked the children to return to the Cova
da Iria on the 13th day of each month, and they had promised to go there
at the appointed time and date for the next three visits as well.) Then the
Mayor asked Antonio if the people in Fatima believed the story, and he
replied, Oh no, sir! All this is just womens tales.
And what do you say? the Mayor asked Ti Marto. I am here at your
command, he replied, and my children say the same things I do. Then
you think it is true? Yes, sir, I believe what they say.
The bystanders laughed. The Mayor made a gesture of dismissal and
one of his men told them to go. The Mayor followed them to the door
and said to Lucy, If you dont tell that secret, it will cost you your life!
Then Lucy and her father and Ti Marto returned to Aljustrel.
In the evening of August 12, three policemen summoned the children
to the house of Ti Marto, where the Mayor was waiting for them in person.
He told the children that death might be the penalty for not revealing the
Great Secret they had learned on July 13. The children refused to tell
16
it, on the grounds that they could not disobey Our Lady. Never mind,
whispered Jacinta to the others. If they kill us, so much the better, for
then we shall see Jesus and Our Lady. On the morning of August 13, Ti
Marto was out working in the fields. He came into the house to wash the
soil off his hands. There was a crowd of people around the house, who
had come to be present at the apparition that was to take place that day
at the Cova da Iria. His wife Olimpia was upset and she pointed towards
the living room. Ti Marto went into the living room, and as we read in his
own account of it to Father de Marchi: Who should I see but the Mayor
himself. Even then, I suppose, I wasnt very polite to him, because I saw a
priest was there too, and I went first to shake hands with the priest. Then
I said to the Mayor, I did not expect to see you here, sir.
The Mayor said he would take the children to the Cova da Iria in
his wagon, to give them time to talk to the parish priest at Fatima, who,
he said, wanted to question them. The children and their parents had
misgivings about his suggestion of taking them in his wagon, but they
complied. He took them first to see the parish priest at Fatima, and then,
instead of taking them to the Cova da Iria, people saw him crack the whip
and make the horse bolt off down the road in the opposite direction. He
took them to Ourem, and locked them in a room in his house.
About fifteen thousand people were at the Cova da Iria, all wondering
where the children were. At the time Our Lady was to appear, a number
of supernatural manifestations occurred that were also noticed by the
crowd at Her other apparitions at Fatima, which convinced many people,
even unbelievers, that She had arrived. But the children were not there
to receive Her message. Then some people arrived with the news that the
Mayor of Ourem had kidnapped the children and had taken them first to
the parish priest of Fatima and then to his own house at Ourem. The crowd
quickly concluded that the two had conspired together in the kidnapping,
which they felt had spoiled the apparition and disappointed the Mother
of God. Bitter voices were raised against the Mayor and the parish priest.
But Ti Marto persuaded the crowd not to take revenge. Boys, take it easy!
Dont hurt anyone! Whoever deserves punishment will receive it. All this is
(allowed) by the power of the One above!
The next morning the Mayor of Ourem again interrogated the
children, who again said they had seen a beautiful Lady, and again
refused to tell him the Secret, even when he threatened them with life
imprisonment, torture and death. The Mayor was resolved to obtain
from the children some sort of admission that would end the religious
manifestation taking place in his county. So he then had them thrown
into the town jail, with its dark and bad-smelling cells with iron bars.
They were put into the common room where most of the prisoners were
herded together. The children were frightened and sad, especially the
seven-year-old Jacinta, who thought she would never see her parents
again. But they reassured one another, reminding each other of what Our
Lady had told them about Heaven, and they offered their sufferings for
17
the conversion of sinners. The children prayed the Rosary in the prison,
and the convicts joined in the prayers.
Some time later, the Mayor had the children brought before him by a
policeman, and he made a final demand for the Secret. Then, since they
again refused to tell it, he told them they would be boiled alive in oil. He
shouted a command, and a guard opened a door. He asked the guard if the
oil was good and hot, and he replied it was. Then he ordered the guard to
throw the youngest, Jacinta, into the boiling oil first. The guard seized the
child and carried her away. A guard saw Francisco moving his lips silently,
and he asked him what he was saying. An Ave Maria, Francisco replied,
so my little sister will not be afraid. Lucy and Francisco were convinced
that the guard would soon come back to kill them too. Francisco said to
Lucy, What do we care if they kill us? Well go right to Heaven.
Later the guard came back to the room where the children were
being questioned by the Mayor, and informed Lucy and Francisco that
Jacinta had been boiled in oil since she would not reveal the Secret.
The Mayor tried to persuade the remaining two children to reveal the
Secret or the same thing would happen to them. Since they would not
reveal the Secret, Francisco was taken away to the same fate. Afterwards,
the guard came for Lucy. Even though she believed that Francisco and
Jacinta had been killed for not revealing the Secret, she too would rather
die than reveal the Secret the Blessed Virgin had entrusted to her. So she
also was taken under the custody of the guard to what she thought was
certain death.
It turned out that Jacinta had simply been led to another room, and
Francisco and Lucy, when it was their turn to be boiled in oil, were
led to the same room, and they were all together again. It had just been
a trick to frighten them into revealing the Secret. Lucy, writing in her
memoirs, recalling the incident, informs us that she was certain, as were
her two cousins, that they were about to be martyred at the hands of the
Mayor.
The next morning, with another interrogation, the Mayor still was
unable to get them to reveal the Secret. So he admitted it was no use,
and ordered them sent back to Fatima. It was August 15, the Feast of the
Assumption of Our Lady.
That the Masonic Mayor of Ourem would go so far as to threaten
three little children with a horrible death in order to prevent people from
believing and openly manifesting their faith in God, His Holy Mother and
the Catholic Church, gives some indication of the extent to which the
Freemasons would go in their desperation to level the Church once and
for all and erect in its place their Godless Republicnot only in Portugal,
but throughout the whole world.
Chapter 3
Heavens Peace Plan in Microcosm
The enlightened minds of the modern world scoff at the notion
that a simple public ceremony consecrating Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary could produce the conversion of that nation, and with it
enormous benefits to the whole world, including peace among nations.
But then, the modern world scoffs at miracles in general, and indeed
at the divine claims of the Church whose saints have performed miracles
in such abundance.
But a consecration of Russia is precisely what God had ordained in
the very Message He authenticated with the solar miracle of October
13, 1917a message which, we hasten to point out again, has received
the approbation of the Catholic Churchs highest authorities, including
a series of Popes since the time of the apparitions at Fatima. As we saw,
in 2002 Pope John Paul II even decreed that the Feast of the Virgin of
Fatima be included in the Churchs universal calendar of liturgical feast
days, for inclusion in the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal. Thus,
the Magisterium formally validates the authenticity of the apparitions.
We recall that in the Message of July 13, 1917, Our Lady had
promised Lucy that I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia
to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the first
Saturdays. True to Her word, the Virgin appeared again to Lucy on
June 13, 1929 in Tuy, Spain, where Lucynow Sister Lucia dos Santos,
a Dorothean nun (she would not become a Carmelite until 1948)was
in prayer in the convent chapel during the Holy Hour of Adoration and
Reparation. Even among the annals of recognized heavenly apparitions
to the saints of the Catholic Church, this one was extraordinary.
We will let Sister Lucy recount the apparition in her own simple but
quite dramatic wordsand remember that here also we are dealing
with an apparition that the Church, including Pope Benedict XVI, has
pronounced worthy of belief:
I had requested and obtained permission from my superiors
and confessor to make the Holy Hour from 11:00 p.m. until
midnight from Thursday to Friday. Being alone one night, I knelt
down before the Communion rail in the middle of the chapel to
say the prayers of the Angel, lying prostrate. Feeling tired, I got up
and knelt, and continued to say them with my arms in the form of
a cross.
The only light came from the sanctuary lamp. Suddenly a
supernatural light illumined the whole chapel and on the altar
appeared a cross of light which reached to the ceiling. In a brighter
19
part could be seen, on the upper part of the Cross, the face of
a Man and His body to the waist. On His breast was an equally
luminous dove, and nailed to the Cross, the body of another Man.
A little below the waist, suspended in mid-air, was to be seen a
Chalice and a large Host onto Which fell some drops of Blood from
the face of the Crucified and from a wound in His breast. These
drops ran down over the Host and fell into the Chalice. Under the
right arm of the Cross was Our Lady (Our Lady of Fatima with
Her Immaculate Heart in Her hand) ... Under the left arm (of the
Cross), some big letters, as it were of crystal-clear water running
down over the altar, formed these words: Grace and Mercy.
I understood that it was the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity
that was shown to me ...46
Frre Michel has rightly called this apparition the Trinitarian

Theophany (see picture on the inside back cover). As with the Miracle
of the Sun, there is nothing else like it in the history of the world. Thus
did God Himself signify the singular importance of what Our Lady was
about to tell Sister Lucy:
The moment has come when God asks the Holy Father to make,
in union with all the bishops of the world, the consecration of
Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.
God Himself had requested this. Sister Lucy had been in the presence
not merely of the Mother of God, but the Most Holy Trinity. Of course,
Sister Lucy immediately conveyed the divine request to her confessor,
Father Gonalves, as reflected in her published correspondence with
him.47
For at least the next seventy years Sister Lucythe same Lucy who
would not deny the truth even though threatened with a horrible death
by the Masonic Mayor of Ouremgave the same testimony: Our Lady,
as Gods messenger, had requested the public consecration of Russia
in a ceremony to be conducted jointly by the Pope and all the worlds
bishops. As was noted at the beginning of this book in The Heart of
the Matter and in the Introduction, the persistent effort by certain
persons to change that testimony for the sake of human respect (to
avoid offending the Russians) and to serve a new orientation of the
Church, is the crux of the great Fatima controversy that persists to this
day, and which has prompted this book. We shall return to this point in
due course.
As if to demonstrate the efficacy of the Consecration the Virgin had
requested, God saw fit to allow a demonstration project, as it were,
in Portugal. On the anniversary of the first apparition at Fatima, May
46
47
Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. II, pp. 463-464.
Sister Lucys words cited from Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About
Fatima - Vol. II, pp. 462-465. See also Sister Lucy, Memorias e Cartas da Irma Lucia,
(Porto, Portugal, 1973, edited by Father Antonio Maria Martins) pp. 463-465.
20
13, 1931, and in the presence of 300,000 faithful who came to Fatima
for the event, the bishops of Portugal solemnly consecrated their
nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These good bishops placed
Portugal under the protection of Our Lady to preserve that nation
from the Communist contagion that was sweeping through Europe,
and especially Spain. Indeed, the Virgins prophecy of the spread of
Russias errors throughout the world was already being fulfilled with
relentless exactitude. And who, in July of 1917, could have foreseen
the emergence of world communism out of Russiamonths before the
Bolshevik revolution and Lenins ascent to power? Only Heaven could
have foreseen it; only the Mother of God, informed by Her Divine Son.
As a result of this (1931) Consecration, Portugal experienced a
three-fold miracle. Here, we will give only the barest details.
There was, first of all, a magnificent Catholic Renaissance, a great
rebirth of Catholic life so striking that those who lived through it
attributed it unquestionably to the work of God. During this period,
Portugal enjoyed a drastic upsurge in priestly vocations. The number
of religious almost quadrupled in 10 years. Religious communities rose
likewise. There was a vast renewal of Christian life, which showed
itself in many areas, including the development of a Catholic press,
Catholic radio, pilgrimages, spiritual retreats, and a robust movement
of Catholic Action that was integrated into the framework of diocesan
and parish life.
This Catholic Renaissance was of such magnitude that in 1942 the
bishops of Portugal declared in a Collective Pastoral Letter: Anybody
who would have closed his eyes twenty-five years ago and opened them
now would no longer recognize Portugal, so vast is the transformation
worked by the modest and invisible factor of the apparition of the
Blessed Virgin at Fatima. Really, Our Lady wishes to save Portugal.48
There was also a miracle of political and social reform, in accordance
with Catholic social principles. Shortly after the 1931 Consecration, a
Catholic leader in Portugal ascended to power, Antonio Salazar, who
inaugurated a Catholic, counter-revolutionary program. He strove to
create, as much as possible, a Catholic social order wherein the laws of
government and social institutions harmonize with the law of Christ, His
Gospel and His Church.49 A fierce adversary of socialism and liberalism,
he was opposed to everything which diminishes, divides or dissolves
the family.50
Collective Pastoral Letter for the Jubilee of the Apparitions in 1942, Merv. XXs, p. 338. Cited
from The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. II, p. 410.
49
Salazars influence in the Portuguese government had been growing since 1928. He
became President of the Council in 1933. Later, Salazar received for his efforts the
praise and blessing of Pope Pius XII. Pius said, I bless him with all my heart, and I
cherish the most ardent desire that he be able to complete successfully his work of
national restoration, both spiritual and material. Cited from The Whole Truth About
Fatima - Vol. II, p. 412.
50
Ibid., p. 415. (Salazars own words).
48
21
President Salazar did not simply talk a good line; he enacted

legislation to protect the family, including laws that frowned upon
divorce. Article 24 read In harmony with the essential properties
of Catholic marriages: It is understood that by the very fact of the
celebration of a canonical marriage, the spouses renounce the legal
right to ask for a divorce.51 The effect of this law was that Catholic
marriages did not diminish in number, but increased. So that by 1960
a very critical year, as we shall seenearly 91 percent of all marriages
in the country were canonical marriages.
In addition to these astonishing religious and political changes,
there was a twofold miracle of peace. Portugal was preserved from the
Communist terror, especially from the Spanish Civil War which was
raging next door. Portugal was also preserved from the devastations of
World War II.
Regarding the Spanish Civil War, the Portuguese bishops had vowed
in 1936 that if Our Lady protected Portugal, they would express their
gratitude by renewing the National Consecration to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary. True to their word, on May 13, 1938, they renewed
the Consecration of Portugal to the Immaculate Heart in thanksgiving
for Our Ladys protection. Cardinal Cerejeira acknowledged publicly:
Since Our Lady of Fatima appeared in 1917 ... A special blessing of God
has descended upon the land of Portugal ... especially if we review the
two years which have passed since our vow, one cannot fail to recognize
that the invisible hand of God has protected Portugal, sparing it the
scourge of war and the leprosy of atheistic communism.
Even Pope Pius XII expressed astonishment that Portugal was spared
the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the Communist menace. In an
address to the Portuguese people, the Pope spoke of the Red Peril, so
menacing and so close to you, and yet avoided in such an unexpected
manner.52
The Portuguese passed this first danger unscathed, but immediately
there was a second staring them in the face. World War II was about to
break out. In yet another fulfillment of the Virgins prophecy of July 13,
1917, the war would begin in the reign of Pius XI, following a night
illumined by an unknown light ...53
Ibid., p. 421.
Ibid., p. 422.
53
On January 25, 1938, the sky became a brilliant blood-red, not only over Europe, but
in parts of North America and Africa. Mark Fellows writes, The blood-red sky lasted
for many hours, and was seen around half of the world at the same vivid intensity.
Lucy and the Sisters watched the pulsating, violently hued inferno from Tuy. Of all the
descriptions of that night, the most precise one had been prophesied over 20 years ago
by the beautiful Lady at Cova da Iria. A night illumined by an unknown light, the Virgin
told Lucy, would be the great sign given by God that He is about to punish the world
for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and the Holy
Father Within two months of the great sign, Hitlers armies invaded Austria. As
the Blessed Virgin had prophesied, the Second World War began in the reign of Pius
XI. Mark Fellows, Fatima in Twilight (Niagara Falls: Marmion Publications, 2003), pp.
101-102.
51
52
22
On February 6, 1939, seven months before the declaration of war,

Sister Lucy wrote to her bishop, Msgr. da Silva. She told him that war
was imminent, but then spoke of a miraculous promise. She said in
this horrible war, Portugal would be spared because of the national
consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary made by the bishops.54
And Portugal was spared the horrors of war, the details of which
are too numerous to recount here.55 Even more remarkable, Sister Lucy
wrote to Pope Pius XII on December 2, 1940, to tell him that Portugal
was receiving special protection during the war that other nations
would have received if the bishops would have consecrated their
nations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She wrote: Most Holy Father,
Our Lord promises a special protection to our country in this war, due
to the consecration of the nation, by the Portuguese prelates, to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary; as proof of the graces that would have
been granted to other nations, had they also consecrated themselves
to Her.56
Likewise, Portugals Cardinal Cerejeira did not hesitate to attribute
to Our Lady of Fatima the great graces that She had obtained for Portugal
during this time. On May 13, 1942 he said: To express what has been
going on here for twenty-five years, the Portuguese vocabulary has but
one word: miracle. Yes, we are convinced that we owe the wonderful
transformation of Portugal to the protection of the Most Holy Virgin.57
Cardinal Cerejeira maintained what we will maintain throughout
this presentation: that the miraculous blessings Our Lady obtained for
Portugal as a heavenly reward for the 1931 consecration of that nation
were only a foretaste of what She will do for the entire world, once
Russia is also properly consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart.58 As the
Cardinal said:
What has taken place in Portugal proclaims the miracle. And
it foreshadows what the Immaculate Heart of Mary has prepared
for the world.59
It is not hard to understand why Portugal at this time has been

called the Showcase of Our Lady. And the triple miracle of Portugal is
but a preview of how Russia and the world will look after the Collegial
Consecration of Russia. The miraculous example of Portugal is also
helpful to us as a gauge by which we can judge the present. If we
contrast the threefold miracle of Portugal with the present condition of
The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. II, pp. 427-428.
See The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. II, pp. 369-439.
56
Ibid., p. 428.
57
Ibid., p. 405. Cardinal Cerejeira spoke these words during the 1942 Jubilee celebration
of the Fatima apparitions.
58
We trust the word of a Fatima believer such as Cardinal Cerejeira, rather than a Fatima
debunker such as Cardinal Bertone. See later chapters.
59
Cardinal Cerejeira, Preface to Jacinta (1942), Obras Pastorais, Vol. II, p. 333. Cf. also his
homily of May 13, 1942, Merv. XXs, p. 339. Cited from The Whole Truth About Fatima Vol. II, p. 437.
54
55
23
Russia and the world, it is obvious that the consecration of Russia has
yet to be achieved. (We shall return to this point in a later chapter.)
For men with high offices in the Church to take actions that impede
the consecration of Russia, thereby denying to the Church and the
world the heavenly bounty Marys intercession obtained for Portugal, is
not only a monumental folly but also an incalculable injustice. It is this
injustice that has motivated the publication of this book.
On February 6, 1939, seven months before the

declaration of war, Sister Lucy (above) wrote to her bishop,
Msgr. da Silva (above). She told him that war was imminent,
but then spoke of a miraculous promise. She said in this
horrible war, Portugal would be spared because of the
national consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
made by the bishops. And Portugal was, in fact, spared all
the horrors of World War II.
Chapter 4
The Third Secret
Precisely as predicted by the Virgin in 1917, World War II had started
during the reign of Pius XI. By 1943 Josef Stalin was well-practiced
in liquidating Catholics and exporting world communism from Soviet
Russia. In June of that same year, Sister Lucy, now age 36, had come
down with pleurisy. This development greatly alarmed Bishop da Silva
of Leiria-Fatima and Canon Galamba, his close friend and advisor. They
both feared that Sister Lucy would die without writing down the Third
Secret.
So Terrible She Could Not Write It Down

In September 1943 Bishop da Silva suggested to her that she write
it down, but she declined to comply with a mere suggestion because she
did not want to take responsibility for such an initiative on her own.
Sister Lucy was gravely concerned that, without a formal command
from her bishop, she did not yet have Our Lords permission to reveal
the Third Secret. She stated that she would, however, obey an express
command from Bishop da Silva.
In mid-October 1943, during a visit to Sister Lucy at the convent in
Tuy, Spain (about 250 miles from Fatima and about a 10-minute walk
from the Portuguese border), Bishop da Silva gave Sister Lucy a formal
order to write down the Secret. Sister Lucy then attempted every day to
obey the bishops command, but was unable to do so for the next two
and a half months.
The Virgin Herself Instructs

Sister Lucy to Reveal the Secret
Finally, on January 2, 1944 the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to
Lucy again, to strengthen her and confirm that it is indeed Gods will
that she reveal the final part of the Secret. Only then was Sister Lucy
able to overcome her trepidation and write down the Third Secret of
Fatima.60 But even so, it was not until January 9, 1944 that Sister Lucy
wrote the following note to Bishop da Silva, informing him that the
Secret had finally been committed to paper:
I have written what you asked me; God willed to try me a
little, but finally this was indeed His will: it [the text] is sealed in
an envelope and this [the sealed envelope] is in the notebooks ...61
The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III: The Third Secret, (English Translation, Immaculate
Heart Publications, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A., 1990, republished in 2001) p. 46.
61
The text of this indented paragraph is a translation, not dependent on the French version
of Frre Michel but rather translated from the original text of Sister Lucy in Portuguese
as provided to us by Father Alonso in an article in Fatima 50, published on October 13,
60
The Third Secret
25
One critic of the first edition of this book objected that this quote
was an erroneous translation of Frre Michels French text (see footnote
61we do not depend on Frre Michels French version). Thus, says
the critic, Sister Lucy definitely refers to only a single text comprising
1967 in Fatima itself.
Father Alonso, in that article from Fatima 50, quotes twice from Sister Lucys letter of
January 9, 1944 to Bishop Jos da Silva, Bishop of Leiria. The first is a reference to the
order given to her from Bishop da Silva, to write down the content of a part of the Secret:
... se eu quisesse achava bem escrever a parte que me falta do
segredo, que no era para ser j publicada, mas sim para ficar
escrito ...
... if I thought it well to write the part of the secret that I did not give before,
which was, as yet, not for publication, but that, yes, could be written down ...
In the second quote Sister Lucy tells Bishop da Silva she has accomplished the task
and communicates some details about it:
J escrevi o que me mandou; Deus quis provar-me um pouco
(,) mas afinal era essa a sua vontade: Est lacrada dentro dum
envelope e este dentro dos cadernos...
Now I wrote what Your Excellency ordered me [to write]: God wanted to try
me a little (,) but finally this was His will: It [the part of the secret that I did
not give before] is sealed inside an envelope and this [envelope] [is] inside the
notebooks.
One can observe that in the second quotation, when speaking of the envelope, the
Portuguese adjective used is feminine: lacrada (sealed); whereas the local noun envelope
is masculine, so this indicates there is a remote noun being modified by lacrada. If the
reader refers back to the first quotation he can then understand that lacrada modifies the
feminine noun a parte (the part) or more precisely a parte que me falta do segredo (the
part of the secret that I did not give before).
The Portuguese pronoun este (this), on the other hand, which follows five words after
the word lacrada, is masculine, so it, therefore, cannot refer to lacrada but must instead
refer to the local masculine noun envelope (envelope).
So Sister Lucy was explaining to Bishop da Silva that there was a missing part to the
Third Secret which she did not give before, and that this missing part was sealed in an
envelope that she had placed inside her notebooks.
The text of the Third Secret vision revealed by the Vatican in June 2000 was written
on notebook paper. On May 31, 2007 Cardinal Bertone revealed on public television
(Porta a Porta, RAI) in Italy that it was a broad piece of lined paper folded once in the
middle and in this way comprised four connected pages. The four-page vision text is a
total of 62 lines and, it is clear, was originally bound in a notebook with other pages.
In the voluminous, well-documented history of the Third Secret of Fatima, many details
are recorded about a text which is obviously something different from this 62-line text.
Sister Lucy mentions in her letter of January 9, 1944 to Bishop da Silva (which we quoted
above) that she has sealed in an envelope the part of the secret that I did not give before.
Bishop Venancio testified that during the transfer of the Secret from Bishop da Silvas office
in Leiria to the Papal Nuncio in Lisbon in 1957, in the envelope he held up to the light to
observe its contents, the text was written on a single, ordinary sheet of paper, and was 20
to 25 lines in length. Cardinal Ottaviani also testified to it being written on a single sheet
of paper and it was 25 lines long.
So once again, the second quote published in the magazine Fatima 50, which had
been originally written in the letter of January 9, 1944 from Sister Lucy to Bishop da
Silva, tells of how this one-page text, sealed in an envelope, was originally placed by
Lucy inside her notebooks. This is because in one of those notebooks is where she had
written the larger 4-page companion text, 62 lines in length, which described the vision,
and placing them together like that was for the purpose that both the description of the
vision and the explanation of the vision could be read together as two component parts
of a unified whole. See also footnote 353 in Chapter 13.
26
the Secret. In response it should be noted that this book actually went
beyond the French text of Frre Michels book to his original source in
the Portuguese, and our French critic needs to do the same to get to the
real truth of the matter.62
In the meantime, this linguistic argument over the meaning of it
has been rendered academic by the explosive developments that have
occurred since the first edition appeared in 2002, which are discussed
in some detail in Chapter 14. Suffice it to observe for the moment that
these developments were triggered by the publication of Il Quarto Segreto
di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima] in November 2006 by Antonio
Socci, an Italian Catholic celebrity and public intellectual who has been a
collaborator with both the currently reigning Pope (when he was Cardinal
Ratzinger) and the current Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone.
In Fourth Secret Soccifrequently citing this very bookpresents the
overwhelming evidence, including the breakthrough testimony of a living
eyewitness, Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla, personal secretary to Pope John
XXIII, that there are two texts and two envelopes comprising the whole of
the Third Secret, only one of which has been disclosed. To his own surprise,
Socci reached precisely the opposite of the conclusion he intended to prove
when he set out to refute what he calls the Fatimists: in his book Socci
now acknowledges that there is a text which accompanies the text of the
vision of the Bishop dressed in white published by the Vatican on June
26, 2000, a text not yet revealed, which contains what follows the words
of the Virgin interrupted by the etc.63
As attested by no less than Archbishop Capovilla, the personal
secretary of John XXIII, the missing text of the Secret is evidently
contained in what the Archbishop calls the Capovilla envelope (to
distinguish it from the Bertone envelope) on which he wrote his
name, the names of those who had read its contents, and the statement
by John XXIII that I leave it to others to comment or decide. The
Archbishop further revealed that the Capovilla envelope was kept in a
desk called Barbarigo (named after Saint Gregory Barbarigo [ 1697],
who had owned it) in the bedroom of John XXIII and not in the Holy
Office archives, where the Bertone envelope was kept, and that Paul VI
retrieved the envelope from Barbarigo and read its contents in 1963,
not 1965, as the Vatican account claims.64 The existence of these two
envelopes finally explains why three different Popes (John XXIII, Paul VI
and John Paul II) read texts of the Secret on two different dates, years
aparti.e. the text in the Holy Office archives and the text in the papal
apartment. Bertone has failed and refused to produce the Capovilla
envelope located in the papal apartment, even though the whole world
This point is further explained in Chapter 13.
Socci, The Fourth Secret of Fatima, English ed., p. 132; popular ed., p. 92; Italian ed., p.
142.
64
Ibid., English ed., p. 136; popular ed., p. 94; Italian ed., p. 146; see also Appendix II in
this book, The Devils Final Battle.
62
63
The Third Secret
27
now knows of its existence because Cardinal Bertone himself on his own
television presentation in September 2007 acknowledged Archbishop
Capovillas testimony to this fact.
Furthermore, as shown by none other than Cardinal Bertone himself
on national television in Italy on May 31, 2007, we have since come to
learn that there are two sealed envelopes pertaining to the Third Secret
prepared by Sister Lucy, on each of which she wrote the identical warning:
By express order of Our Lady, this envelope can only be opened in 1960
[only] by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria.65 Sister
Lucy never mentioned the existence of a second sealed envelope in any
of her published writings (vast quantities of her writings remain under
lock and key), even though we now know that the second envelope exists
because Bertone showed it to the world on television.
In short, developments since 2002 have broken the case on the
Third Secret, which is precisely why Soccis book declares: that there is
a part of the Secret not revealed and considered unspeakable is certain
[emphasis added]. And todayhaving decided to deny its existence
the Vatican runs the risk of exposing itself to very heavy pressure and
blackmail.66
A Single Sheet of Paper

Even before recent developments broke the case, it was already
apparent that the Third Secret involved two documents: one sealed in
an envelope, and the other in Lucys notebooks. For why else would
Lucy have advised the Bishop of Fatima in her letter of January 9, 1944
that a text of the Secret was in a sealed envelope and that this envelope
is in the notebooks? Clearly, the notebooks contain something related
to the Secret or there would have been no point in including them in
the delivery of the envelope.
What must have happened is that sometime between the letter of
January 9, 1944 and Sister Lucys personal delivery of the Third Secret
to the Bishop of Gurza on June 17, 1944 (for delivery by him to Bishop
da Silva), the second text found its way into a second sealed envelope,
appropriately bearing its own 1960 order. While Sister Lucy did not
mention this other envelope in her January letter (or thereafter in any
writing of which we know), we are certain it was created because, as
just noted, Cardinal Bertone revealed its existence on television on May
31, 2007. Exactly when and how the second envelope came into the
picture is probably shown somewhere in the 24 volumes of Fatima
documentation, including Sister Lucys correspondence, prepared
for publication by Father Alonso but suppressed by his ecclesiastical
Cf. Christopher A. Ferrara, The Secret Still Hidden (Pound Ridge, New York: Good Counsel
Publications, Inc., 2008), Chapter 8, including still shots from the telecast video in which
Cardinal Bertone displayed the two envelopes to the camera; see also the two photos
Figures 2 and 3on page XV in the photo section of this book, The Devils Final Battle.
66
Socci, The Fourth Secret of Fatima, English ed., p. 162; popular ed., p. 111; Italian ed.,
p. 173.
65
28
superiors, presumably on orders from the Vatican (except for two

heavily edited volumes that were eventually released for publication).
But let us focus for the time being on the contents of the lone sealed
envelope mentioned by Sister Lucy on January 9, 1944, reserving for
discussion in Chapter 14 the revelation of the second envelope by Cardinal
Bertone in 2007. Having finally committed the Third Secret to paper and
placed it in a sealed envelope, Lucy was still so filled with trepidation over
the contents of the Secret that she would not entrust it (or the accompanying
notebook) to anyone but a bishop for conveyance to Bishop da Silva.
On June 17, 1944, Sister Lucy left Tuy, crossed the River Minho,
and arrived at Asilo Fonseca where she handed to Archbishop Manuel
Maria Ferreira da Silva (the Archbishop of Gurza) the notebook in
which she had inserted the envelope containing the Secret. That same
day, Archbishop Manuel da Silva delivered the Secret to Bishop Jos
Alves Correia da Silva (the Bishop of Leiria) at his country home not far
from Braga. Then, the Bishop of Leiria took the Secret to the Episcopal
Palace in Leiria. These details will be very important in view of what
is set forth in the Vatican commentary on the Third Secret ultimately
published on June 26, 2000.
From the first, the unanimous testimony was that the Third Secret is
written in the form of a letter on a single sheet of paper. Father Joaquin
Alonso (the official archivist of the papers on the Fatima apparitions)
reports that both Sister Lucy and Cardinal Ottaviani stated that the
Secret was written on a single sheet of paper:
Lucy tells us that she wrote it on a sheet of paper. Cardinal
Ottaviani, who has read it, tells us the same thing: She wrote it on
a sheet of paper ... .67
Cardinal Ottaviani, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine

of the Faith in 1967, stated that he had read the Third Secret and that
it was written on a single sheet of paper. He testified to this fact on
February 11, 1967, during a press conference at the time of a meeting
of the Pontifical Marian Academy in Rome. Cardinal Ottaviani stated:
And then, what did she [Lucy] do to obey the Most Holy
Virgin? She wrote on a sheet of paper, in Portuguese, what the
Holy Virgin had asked her to tell ...68
Cardinal Ottaviani is a witness to this fact. In the same press

conference, he states:
I, who have had the grace and the gift to read the text of the
Secretalthough I too am held to secrecy because I am bound by
the Secret ...69
We also have the testimony of Bishop Venancio, who was then the
Father Joaquin Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, (Centro Mariano, Madrid,
Spain, 1976) p. 60. See also Frre Michel, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 651.
68
The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 725.
69
Ibid., p. 727.
67
The Third Secret
29
Auxiliary Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, that he was ordered by Bishop da

Silva in mid-March 1957 to bring copies of all Sister Lucys writings
including the original of the Third Secretto the Apostolic Nuncio at
Lisbon for transferral to Rome. Before bringing Lucys writings to the
Nuncio, Bishop Venancio looked at the envelope containing the Third
Secret while holding it up to the light and saw that the Secret was
written on a small sheet of paper.70 Frre Michel first identifies the
nature of this testimony:
However, thanks to the disclosures of Bishop Venancio, at the
time Auxiliary Bishop of Leiria and intimately involved with these
events, we now have many reliable facts which we will take care
not to neglect. I myself received them from the mouth of Bishop
Venancio on February 13, 1984, at Fatima. The former Bishop of
Fatima repeated to me on this subject, almost word for word, what
he had already said previously to Father Caillon, who gave a very
detailed account of it in his conferences.71
Here now is Bishop Venancios testimony, according to Frre Michel:

Bishop Venancio related that once he was by himself, he took
the great envelope of the Secret and tried to look through it and see
the contents. In the bishops large envelope he discerned a smaller
envelope, that of Lucy, and inside this envelope an ordinary sheet of
paper with margins on each side of three quarters of a centimeter.
He took the trouble to note the size of everything. Thus the final
Secret of Fatima was written on a small sheet of paper.72 [emphasis
added]
As we will see in Chapter 9, the text published by the Vatican in

2000 does not correspond to this document.
The evidence further shows that this single sheet of paper contained
some 20-25 lines of text. On this point the testimonies of Sister Lucy,
Cardinal Ottaviani, Bishop Venancio, Father Alonso and Frre Michel
all agree:
... we are just as certain that the twenty or thirty lines of the
third Secret ...73
The final Secret of Fatima, written on a small sheet of paper,
is therefore not very long. Probably twenty to twenty-five lines ...74
Bishop Venancio looked at the envelope [containing the Third
Secret] while holding it up to the light. He could see inside a little
sheet of which he measured the exact size. We thus know that the
Third Secret is not very long, probably 20 to 25 lines ...75
Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, (Immaculate Heart
Publications, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A., 1994) p. 45.
71
The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, pp. 479-480.
72
Ibid., p. 481.
73
Ibid., p. 626.
74
Fatima, Tragedy and Triumph, p. 45.
75
Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity, The Secret of Fatima ... Revealed, (Immaculate Heart
70
30
As we will see in Chapter 9, the text the Vatican published comprises

62 lines.
Written in the Form of a Letter

Equally clear is that the Third Secret was written down in the
form of a letter to Bishop da Silva. Sister Lucy herself tells us that the
Third Secret was written as a letter. On this point we have the written
testimony of Father Jongen who, on February 3-4, 1946, interrogated
Sister Lucy as follows:
You have already made known two parts of the Secret. When
will the time arrive for the third part? I communicated the third
part in a letter to the Bishop of Leiria, she answered.76 [emphasis
added]
Next we have the decisive words of Canon Galamba:

When the bishop refused to open the letter, Lucy made him
promise that it would definitely be opened and read to the world
either at her death or in 1960, whichever would come first.77
[emphasis added]
As we will see in Chapter 9, what the Vatican published in 2000 is

not a letter.
To Be Revealed to the World by 1960

Why 1960? In 1955 Cardinal Ottaviani asked her why it was not to
be opened before 1960. She told him, because then it will be clearer
(mais claro). Sister Lucy had made the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima promise
that the Secret would be read to the world at her death, but in no
event later than 1960, because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so. And
from Canon Casimir Barthas: Moreover, it [the Third Secret] will soon
be known, since Sister Lucy affirms that Our Lady wills that it can be
published beginning in 1960.78 And, sure enough, as we will see in
Chapter 14, in 2007 none other than Cardinal Bertone would reveal the
existence of two sealed envelopes, each bearing the warning in Sister
Lucys own handwriting that by order of the Blessed Virgin the envelope
was not to be opened before 1960 and not to be opened by anyone other
than Bishop da Silva or the Patriarch of Lisbon.
This testimony introduces a third crucial fact concerning the Secret:
that it was to be revealed by 1960. Indeed, in February 1960, the
Patriarch of Lisbon would declare:
Publications, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.) p. 7.
Revue Mediatrice et Reine, October 1946, pp. 110-112. See also The Whole Truth About
Fatima - Vol. III, p. 470.
77
Father Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, pp. 46-47. See also The Whole Truth
About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 470.
78
Barthas, Fatima, merveille du XXe sicle, p. 83. Fatima-editions, 1952. It must be noted
that Canon Barthas published this account after having the privilege of meeting Sister
Lucy again, on October 15, 1950 in the company of Msgr. Bryant, O.M.I., vicar apostolic
of Athabasca-Mackenzie. See The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 472.
76
The Third Secret
31
Bishop da Silva enclosed (the envelope sealed by Lucy) in

another envelope on which he indicated that the letter had to be
opened in 1960 by himself, Bishop Jos Correia da Silva, if he was
still alive, or if not, by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon.79
Father Alonso tells us:

Other bishops also spokeand with authorityabout the year
1960 as the date indicated for opening the famous letter. Thus,
when the then-titular Bishop of Tiava, and Auxiliary Bishop of
Lisbon asked Lucy when the Secret was to be opened, he always
received the same answer: in 1960.80
And in 1959, Bishop Venancio, the new Bishop of Leiria, declared:

I think that the letter will not be opened before 1960. Sister
Lucy had asked that it should not be opened before her death, or
not before 1960. We are now in 1959 and Sister Lucy is in good
health.81
Finally, we have the Vatican announcement of February 8, 1960

(appearing in a communiqu of the Portuguese news agency A.N.I.),
concerning the decision to suppress the Secreta document to which
we shall return in Chapter 6. The Vatican announcement states:
... it is most likely that the letter will never be opened, in
which Sister Lucy wrote down the words which Our Lady confided
as a secret to the three shepherds of the Cova da Iria.82 [emphasis
added]
Thus far all the evidence points to the following: a secret written
down in the form of a letter on a single sheet of paper, containing 20-25
lines of handwritten text, with 3/4 centimeter margins on each side; a
secret to be revealed not later than 1960, and in that year, particularly,
because it will be much clearer (mais claro) then.
It was this document that Bishop Venancio transferred to the Papal
Nuncio, who then transferred it to the Holy Office (now known as the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) in 1957:
Arriving at the Vatican on April 16, 1957, the Secret
undoubtedly was placed by Pope Pius XII in his personal desk,
inside a small wooden box, bearing the inscription Secretum Sancti
Officii (Secret of the Holy Office).83
It is important to note that the Pope was the head of the Holy Office
prior to Pope Paul VI reorganizing the Vatican in 1967. Therefore, it
Novidades, February 24, 1960, quoted by La Documentation Catholique, June 19, 1960,
col. 751. See also The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 472.
80
Father Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, p. 46. See also The Whole Truth About
81
Father Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, p. 46. See also The Whole Truth About
82
83
Fatima, Tragedy and Triumph, p. 45.
79
32
was quite appropriate for the Pope to retain the Third Secret in his
possession and for the box containing it to be labeled Secret of the
Holy Office. With the Pope being the head of the Holy Office, this box
became part of the Holy Office archives. Bear these crucial facts in mind
for later consideration.
A Prediction of Apostasy in the Church

What about the contents of the Secret? We return now to the telltale
phrase In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved
etc. which, as noted in a previous chapter, appears at the end of the
integral text of the first two parts of the Great Secret in Lucys Fourth
Memoir.
On this point we must consider the crucial testimony of Fr. Joseph
Schweigl, who was entrusted by Pope Pius XII with a secret mission:
to interrogate Sister Lucy about the Third Secret. This he did at the
Carmel of Coimbra on September 2, 1952. Upon his return to Rome,
Father Schweigl went to his residence at the Russicum and said to a
colleague the following day:
I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning
the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns
the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would
have to be the continuation of the words: In Portugal, the dogma
of the Faith will always be preserved.84
Thus is confirmed the conclusion that one part of the Third Secret
is indeed a continuation of the phrase whose completion the Vatican
has yet to reveal: In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be
preserved etc. But the text the Vatican published in 2000the text of
the vision of a Bishop dressed in whiteis in no way a continuation
of that telltale phrase and does not contain even a single word uttered
by the Virgin.
The conclusion that the Secret involves a continuation of Our Lady
of Fatimas reference to dogma being preserved in Portugaland by
implication not preserved in other placesis corroborated by many
other witnesses, including the following:
Father Fuentes
On December 26, 1957, Father Agustn Fuentes interviewed Sister
Lucy. The interview was published in 1958 with an Imprimatur and the
approbation of the Bishop of Fatima as well as with an Imprimatur of
his Archbishop, Archbishop Sanchez of Veracruz, Mexico. Among other
things, Sister Lucy told Father Fuentes the following:
Father, the Most Holy Virgin is very sad because no one has
paid any attention to Her message, neither the good nor the bad.
The good continue on their way but without giving any importance
84

The Third Secret
33
to Her message. The bad, not seeing the punishment of God falling
upon them, continue their life of sin without even caring about the
message. But believe me, Father, God will chastise the world and
this will be in a terrible manner. The punishment from Heaven is
imminent.
Father, how much time is there before 1960 arrives? It will
be very sad for everyone, not one person will rejoice at all if
beforehand the world does not pray and do penance. I am not able
to give any other details because it is still a secret.
This is the Third part of the Message of Our Lady which will
remain secret until 1960.
Tell them, Father, that many times, the most Holy Virgin told my
cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations
will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that Russia will
be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to punish the
whole world if we do not beforehand obtain the conversion of that
poor nation.
Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle
against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that most
offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for him the
greatest number of souls. Thus, the devil does everything to overcome
souls consecrated to God, because in this way, the devil will succeed in
leaving souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the
more easily will he seize them.
That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart
of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The devil knows
that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation
drag numerous souls to hell. The devil wishes to take possession of
consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep
the souls of laypeople and thereby lead them to final impenitence.85
Father Alonso
Before his death in 1981, Father Joaquin Alonso, who for sixteen
years was the official archivist of Fatima, testified as follows:
It is therefore completely probable that the text makes concrete
references to the crisis of faith within the Church and to the
negligence of the pastors themselves [and the] internal struggles
in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence
85
English translation of Sister Lucys interview with Father Fuentes taken from Frre
Michels The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, pp. 503 to 508. Frre Michel explains
that the text comes from Fatima scholar Father Joaquin Alonsos La Verdad sobre el Secreto
de Fatima (pp. 103-106), and from the text published by Father Ryan in the June 1959
issue of Fatima Findings and the No. 8-9 August-September 1961 issue of the Italian
magazine Messaggero del Cuore di Maria.
34

of the upper hierarchy.86
In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content
of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If in Portugal the
dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,... it can be clearly
deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are
going to become obscure or even lost altogether.87
Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances? It
is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of the faith
in the Church during this in-between period, but like the secret
of La Salette, for example, there are more concrete references
to the internal struggles of Catholics or to the fall of priests and
religious. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy
of the Church. For that matter, none of this is foreign to other
communications Sister Lucy has had on this subject.88
Cardinal Ratzinger
On November 11, 1984, Cardinal Ratzinger, then head of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave an interview in
Jesus magazine, a publication of the Pauline Sisters. The interview is
entitled Here is Why the Faith is in Crisis, and was published with
the Cardinals explicit permission. In this interview Cardinal Ratzinger
admits that a crisis of faith is affecting the Church around the world.
In this context, he reveals that he has read the Third Secret and that
the Secret refers to dangers threatening the faith and the life of the
Christian and therefore (the life) of the world.
The Cardinal thus confirms Father Alonsos thesis that the Secret
pertains to widespread apostasy in the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger says
in the same interview that the Secret also refers to the importance of
the Novissimi89 [the Last Times/the Last Things] and that [i]f it is
Ibid., p. 687.
88
Ibid., p. 705.
89
In Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima], the respected Italian journalist
and Catholic commentator Antonio Socci reviews the evidence for the existence of a yetto-be-disclosed text of the Third Secret, reverses his own prior opinion, and concludes
that the Fatimists are, after all, correct in deducing its existence and its suppression by
the Vatican. But he objects that no such deduction is possible on the basis of Cardinal
Ratzingers reference to the novissimi (last things), which Socci maintains (cf. Il Quarto
Segreto di Fatima, English ed., p. 95; popular ed., p. 68; Italian ed., pp. 103-104) is
merely a reference to the Last Things in the life of the individual man (death, judgment,
Heaven, hell and purgatory) rather than to any apocalyptic warning concerning the
world at large.
In this Socci is mistaken, since the theological term novissimi is the Italian rendering
of the same term in Latin: novissimis. That term embraces both the last things as to
individual men, and the last things as to the world: namely, the Second Coming of
Christ, the universal judgment, and the end of the physical world as we know it. (Cf.
Fathers of the Society of Jesus, Sacrae Theologiae Summa [La Editorial Catolica, S.A.,
Madrid, Spain, 1953], Biblioteca de Autores Christianos edition, Vol. IV [De sacramentis.
86
87
footnote continued on next page

The Third Secret
35
not made publicat least for the time beingit is in order to prevent
religious prophecy from being mistaken for a quest for the sensational
... The Cardinal further reveals that the things contained in this Third
Secret correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and has
been said again and again in many other Marian apparitions, first of all
that of Fatima ...90
Bishop Amaral
In accord with Cardinal Ratzinger regarding dangers threatening
the faith is Bishop Amaralthe third Bishop of Fatima. In a speech in
Vienna, Austria on September 10, 1984, he said the following:
Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the [Third]
Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear
holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of
faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it
is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.91 [Emphasis
added]
Cardinal Oddi
On March 17, 1990 Cardinal Oddi gave the following testimony to
Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli in the journal Il Sabato:
It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The
Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.
De novissimis], Tract VI, Book I [De novissimi homines, Of the Last Things of Men],
Chapters 1-5, pp. 874-1022; Book II [De novissimi mundi, Of the Last Things of the
World], Chapters 1-5, pp. 1023-1066; see also Father Joseph de Ste. Marie, The Third
Secret of Fatima, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 18, October-December 1985, pp. S-4 and
S-5.) Cardinal Ratzingers linkage of the Third Secret to the dangers threatening the
faith and the life of the Christian, and therefore of the world, the absolute importance
of history, and the importance of the novissimi in one and the same statement about
the contents of the Third Secret clearly implicates the full eschatological meaning of the
term as it concerns the end for both men and nations, which is precisely the subject of
the message-warning of Our Lady of Fatima as a whole, including the second part of the
Great Secret, wherein She warns that various nations will be annihilated
If not a reference to the Last Day proper, novissimi in the context of the Third Secret
would relate to events proximate to the Last Day, perhaps even including the appearance
of the Antichrist or a forerunner. Given the enigmatic character of the Cardinals remarks,
however, clarification is needed, and that can only come with disclosure of the very text
Socci agrees has been suppressedthe text in which the Virgin explains the emergence
of the scenario depicted in the wordless vision of the Bishop dressed in white being
executed by soldiers outside a devastated city littered with corpses. Indeed, the vision
itself clearly points to events involving more than the novissimi as they pertain to the
death of individual men in the ordinary course of earthly existence.
90
Jesus magazine, November 11, 1984, p. 79; see the actual Italian text of the key part of
Cardinal Ratzingers interview in Jesus magazine photographically reproduced on page
352 of this book (in Appendix II), with our English translation provided in the text box
on page 353. See also Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima Vol. III, pp. 822-823; and The Fatima Crusader, Issue 37, Summer 1991, p. 7.
91
Fatima, Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 243-244. See also Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The
Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 676.
36

Cardinal Ciappi
To these witnesses we must add the testimony of Cardinal Mario

Luigi Ciappi, who was nothing less than the personal papal theologian
to five popesPius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, and John Paul
II. In a personal communication to a Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg
(Austria), Cardinal Ciappi revealed that:
In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the
great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.92
Sister Lucy
All of these testimonies are consistent with the repeated remarks
of Sister Lucy herselfnot only to Fr. Fuentes, as quoted above, but to
many other reliable witnesses. Although bound to secrecy concerning
the precise contents of the Third Secret, her remarks to reliable
witnesses are full of references to churchmen being fooled by false
doctrine; to a diabolical disorientation afflicting so many persons
who occupy places of responsibility in the Church; to priests and
consecrated souls who are so deceived and misled because the devil
has succeeded in infiltrating evil under cover of good leading into
error and deceiving souls having a heavy responsibility through the
place which they occupy They are blind men guiding other blind
men, and so on.93
Pius XII Confirms

the Secrets Prediction of Apostasy
But perhaps the most remarkable testimony of all on this score is
that of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, before he became Pope Pius XII and
while he was still serving as Vatican Secretary of State during the reign
of Pope Pius XI. Speaking even before Sister Lucy had committed the
Third Secret to paper, the future Pius XII made an astonishing prophecy
about a coming upheaval in the Church:
I am worried by the Blessed Virgins messages to Lucy of
Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the
Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith,
in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. I hear all around me
innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the
universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her
feel remorse for Her historical past.
Pope Pius XIIs biographer, Msgr. Roche, noted that at this moment in
the conversation, the future Pius XII then said (in answer to an objection):
See Father Gerard Mura, The Third Secret of Fatima: Has It Been Completely Revealed?,
in the periodical Catholic, (published by the Transalpine Redemptorists, Orkney Isles,
Scotland, Great Britain) March 2002.
93
These quotations are condensed from numerous letters Sister Lucy wrote in the early
1970s to two of her nephews who were priests, and to other religious she knew. See The
Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, pp. 750-753.
92
The Third Secret
37
A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God,
when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted
to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians
will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like
Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask,
Where have they taken Him?94
It is quite remarkable that the future Pope would relate this coming
devastation in the Church specifically to the Blessed Virgins messages
to Lucy of Fatima and this persistence of Mary about the dangers
which menace the Church. The prediction would be utterly senseless
if it had been based on the first two parts of the Great Secret, which
make no mention of such things as the suicide of altering the Faith,
in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul or innovators who wish to
dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church,
reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical
past. Nor is there any indication whatsoever in the first two parts that
In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where
God awaits them.
How did the future Pope Pius XII know these things? If not by
supernatural intuition, then by direct knowledge that some hitherto
undisclosed portion of the Blessed Virgins messages to Sister Lucy of
Fatima revealed these future events in the Church.
In short, every single testimony pertaining to the contents of the
Third Secret, from 1944 until at least 1984 (the date of the Ratzinger
interview) confirms that it points to a catastrophic loss of faith and
discipline in the Church, representing a breakthrough for the forces
arrayed against Her for so longthe innovators that the future Pius
XII heard all around me, clamoring for the dismantling of the Sacred
Chapel and changes in the liturgy and Catholic theology.
As we will show, that breakthrough began in 1960, precisely the
year when (as Sister Lucy had insisted) the third part of the Secret
should have been revealed. But before we return to that fateful year,
when the great injustice of not revealing the Third Secret first began,
we must first discuss the motive that preceded the injustice in order
that we might understand why it has been perpetrated. We will now set
out to uncover this motive from the known evidence as well as from the
perpetrators own words explaining their motives regarding this and
related matters.
94
Roche, Pie XII Devant LHistoire, pp. 52-53.
Chapter 5
A Motive Emerges
As we observed in the Introduction, the injustice against the Church
and the world which this book aims to expose is the systematic attempt
since 1960 to conceal, misrepresent and deny part or even all of the
authentic Message of Fatima even as its alarming prophecies are being
fulfilled before our very eyes.
We return to the question we posed in the Introduction: Why
would men in the highest positions of authority in the Church take such
actions? As Aristotle observed, in order to understand an action one
must look to the motive. That is what we shall do in this chapter.
To be sure, proving motive is always a difficult business, for one
cannot read another mans mind, much less judge the state of his soul.
In arriving at a conclusion as to motive, you the reader, much in the
manner of a jury in a civil proceeding, can only base your decision
on the external actions of the accused, in light of the surrounding
circumstances. When a jury finds that a man has murdered his wife
for the motive of obtaining insurance money, for example, it makes
its finding of motive based on a reasonable inference drawn from the
surrounding circumstances. Rarely would the killer in such a case
openly admit I killed her for the insurance. Instead, motive would be
inferred from such things as the husbands recent purchase of a very
large insurance policy on the wife.
Now, no one would accuse a jury of rash judgment in inferring from
the circumstances that the husband in our hypothetical case harbored the
intention of killing his wife for money. In the case of Fatima, too, motive
can be deduced from circumstances; it is not rash judgment to reach a
reasonable conclusion about motive based on what the identified Vatican
prelates themselves have said and done. Moreover, as we will demonstrate
in this case we have the equivalent of an admission as to motive. The
Vatican prelates in question have been quite explicit in declaring a motive
that would explain why they would conceal the posited text and militate
against the Message of Fatima in general.
A New and Ruinous

Orientation of the Church
As we charged in the Introduction, the motive in this case arises
from the recognition that the Message of Fatima, understood in a
traditional Catholic sense, cannot be reconciled with decisions taken
since the Second Vatican Council to change the entire orientation of
the Catholic Church. That is, the Message stands in the way of an effort
to do precisely what the future Pope Pius XII foresaw in his moment
A Motive Emerges
39
of supernatural clarity: to remake the Church into an institution

oriented toward the world. The currently raging scandal in the Catholic
priesthood is only one symptom of this ruinous effort to update the
Catholic Church. Another way of putting it is that the current condition
of the Catholic Church is the result of an unprecedented invasion of the
Church by liberalism. We recall once again those prophetic words of
Msgr. Pacelli (the future Pius XII), uttered in the light of the Message
of Fatima:
Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace
the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the
Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. I hear all around
me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy
the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make
Her feel remorse for Her historical past.
A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God,
when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted
to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians
will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like
Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask,
Where have they taken Him?
In the Introduction we also noted that this great change of

orientation in the Churchin Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul,
as the future Pope Pius XII put itwas the long-cherished goal of
the organized forces that have been plotting against the Church for
centuries; the same forces that were at work in Portugal in 1917, but
were repelled by the Consecration of that nation to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary in 1931. To repel those forces throughout the world
was the very reason Heaven itself sent the Mother of God to Fatima to
prescribe the Consecration of Russia. Those forces were soon to become
the prime weapon of Satans long war against the Church. Truly, the
outcome of the war against the Church in our time hinges on the battle
over fulfillment of the Fatima Message.
Our presentation of the evidence of the motive in this casenamely, a
desire to impose upon the Church a new orientation to the exclusion of the
Message of Fatimarequires some considerable historical background,
which we will now present. This background will be of interest not only
to Catholics, but also to non-Catholics who are seeking to understand
what has happened to the Catholic Church since Vatican II.
The Goal of Organized Freemasonry:

To Neutralize and Instrumentalize the Catholic Church
As we have seen with the example of Portugal in 1917, the forces of
Masonry (and their Communist fellow travelers) conspired to prevent
the Message of Fatima from finding its fulfillment in Portugal. The
40
Message was called a fraud or a childish delusion; the seers themselves

were persecuted and even threatened with death. Such was the hatred
of these forces for the Catholic Church and the Virgin Mother of God.
And so it is with these forces in the world at large today. One need
not descend into the fever swamps of conspiracy theory to know that
before 1960, the Popes issued more condemnations and warnings about
the plotting of the Freemasons and the Communists against the Church
than on any other single subject in Church history.
On this point, one cannot fail to consider the infamous Permanent
Instruction of the Alta Vendita, a Masonic document that mapped out an
entire plan for the infiltration and corruption of the Catholic Church in
the 20th Century.95 While it has become fashionable since the Second
Vatican Council to scoff at the existence of such a conspiracy, it must
be noted that the secret papers of the Alta Vendita (an Italian secret
society), including the Permanent Instruction, fell into the hands of Pope
Gregory XVI. The Permanent Instruction was published at the request of
Blessed Pope Pius IX by Cardinal Cretineau-Joly in his work The Roman
Church and Revolution.96 With his brief of approbation of February 25,
1861 (addressed to the author) Pius IX guaranteed the authenticity of
the Permanent Instruction and the other Masonic papers, but he did
not allow anyone to divulge the true names of the members of the
Alta Vendita implicated in the documents. Pope Leo XIII had likewise
requested their publication. Both Popes acted, no doubt, in order to
prevent such a tragedy from taking place. These great Pontiffs knew
that such a calamity was far from impossible. (Pius XII also knew it,
as we can see from his prophetic remarks while he was still Vatican
Secretary of State.)
The full text of the Permanent Instruction is also contained in Msgr.
George E. Dillons book, Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked.97 When
Leo XIII was presented with a copy of Msgr. Dillons book, he was
so impressed that he ordered an Italian version to be completed and
published at the Popes own expense.98
The Alta Vendita was the highest lodge of the Carbonari, an
Italian secret society with links to Freemasonry and which, along with
Freemasonry, was condemned by the Catholic Church.99 The estimable
Catholic historian Father E. Cahill, SJ, who is hardly a conspiracy nut,
states in his work Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement that
the Alta Vendita was commonly supposed to have been at the time
For a booklet on the connection between the Alta Vendita and the new orientation of the
Church since the Council, see John Vennari, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita
(TAN Books and Publishers, Rockford, Illinois, 1999).
96
Second volume, original edition, 1859, reprinted by Circle of the French Renaissance,
Paris, 1976; Msgr. Delassus produced these documents again in his work The AntiChristian Conspiracy, DDB, 1910, Tome III, pp. 1035-1092.
97
Msgr. Dillon, Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked (Christian Book Club, Palmdale,
California); see pp. 51-56 for the full text of the Permanent Instruction.
98
Michael Davies, Pope Johns Council, (Angelus Press, Kansas City, Missouri, 1992) p. 166.
99
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, (Encyclopedia Press, New York, 1913) pp. 330-331.
95
A Motive Emerges
41
the governing center of European Freemasonry.100 The Carbonari were

most active in Italy and France.
In his book Athanasius and the Church of Our Time (1974),
Bishop Rudolph Graber, another objective and quite unimpeachable
authority writing after the Second Vatican Council, quoted a prominent
Freemason who declared that the goal (of Freemasonry) is no longer
the destruction of the Church, but to make use of it by infiltrating it.101
In other words, since Freemasonry cannot completely obliterate Christs
Church, it plans not only to eradicate the influence of Catholicism in
society, but to use the Churchs structure and prestige as an instrument
of renewal, progress and enlightenmentthat is, a means of
furthering many of its own Luciferian principles and goals.
Discussing the Masonic vision of society and the world, Bishop
Graber introduces the concept of synarchy: What we are faced with
here is the sum-total of the secret forces of all the orders and schools
which have joined together to set up an invisible world government.
In the political sense, synarchy aims at the integration of all the
financial and social forces which the world government, under socialist
leadership naturally, has to support and promote. Catholicism, like all
religions, would consequently be absorbed into a universal syncretism.
Far from being suppressed, it would be integrated, a course which is
already being steered in the principle of fellowship between clerics (of
various religions).
The strategy advanced in the Permanent Instruction to achieve
this aim is astonishing in its audacity and cunning. From the start,
the document tells of a process that will take decades to accomplish.
Those who drew up the document knew that they would not see its
fulfillment. They were inaugurating a work that would be carried on by
succeeding generations of the initiated. The Permanent Instruction says,
In our ranks the soldier dies and the struggle goes on.
The Instruction called for the dissemination of liberal ideas and
axioms throughout society and within the institutions of the Catholic
Church so that laity, seminarians, clerics and prelates would, over the
years, gradually be imbued with progressive principles. In time, this
new mentality would be so pervasive that priests would be ordained,
bishops consecrated, and Cardinals nominated whose thinking was
in step with the modern thought rooted in the Principles of 1789
(i.e. the principles of Freemasonry which caused the tremendous
wars, bloodshed, and the Reign of Terror as well as the ongoing fight
against God and His rights by the secular [this world only] state which
inspired the French Revolution of 1789 onwards)namely, pluralism,
the equality of all religions, separation of Church and State, unbridled
Rev. E. Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement, (Dublin: Gill, 1959)
p. 101.
101
Bishop Graber, Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, (Christian Book Club, Palmdale,
California, 1974) p. 39.
100
42
freedom of speech, and so forth.

Eventually, a Pope would be elected from these ranks who would
lead the Church on the path of enlightenment and renewal. It must
be stressed that it was not their aim to place a Freemason on the Chair
of Peter. Their goal was to effect an environment that would eventually
produce a Pope and a hierarchy won over to the ideas of liberal
Catholicism, all the while believing themselves to be faithful Catholics.
These liberalized Catholic leaders, then, would no longer oppose
the modern ideas of the revolution (as had been the consistent practice
of the Popes from 1789 until 1958, who unanimously condemned these
liberal principles), but would amalgamate or baptize them into the
Church. The end result would be a Catholic clergy and laity marching
under the banner of the enlightenment, all the while thinking they
are marching under the banner of the Apostolic keys.
No doubt with the Permanent Instruction in mind, in Humanum
Genus, Pope Leo XIII called upon Catholic leaders to tear off the
mask from Freemasonry and make plain to all what it really is.102 The
publication of these documents of the Alta Vendita was a means of
tearing off the mask.
Lest there be any claim that we have mischaracterized the Permanent
Instruction, we now quote from it at considerable length. What follows
is not the entire Instruction, but the section that is most pertinent to our
proof. The document reads:
The Pope, whoever he is, will never come to the secret
societies; it is up to the secret societies to take the first step toward
the Church, with the aim of conquering both of them.
The task that we are going to undertake is not the work of a
day, or of a month, or of a year; it may last several years, perhaps a
century; but in our ranks the soldier dies and the struggle goes on.
We do not intend to win the Popes to our cause, to make
them neophytes of our principles, propagators of our ideas. That
would be a ridiculous dream; and if events turn out in some way,
if Cardinals or prelates, for example, of their own free will or by
surprise, should enter into a part of our secrets, this is not at all
an incentive for desiring their elevation to the See of Peter. That
elevation would ruin us. Ambition alone would have led them to
apostasy, the requirements of power would force them to sacrifice
us. What we must ask for, what we should look for and wait for, as
the Jews wait for the Messiah, is a Pope according to our needs ...
With that we shall march more securely towards the assault
on the Church than with the pamphlets of our brethren in France
and even the gold of England. Do you want to know the reason for
this? It is that with this, in order to shatter the high rock on which
102
Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, (TAN Books and Publishers, Rockford, Illinois) para. 31.
A Motive Emerges
God has built His Church, we no longer need Hannibalian vinegar,
or need gunpowder, or even need our arms. We have the little
finger of the successor of Peter engaged in the ploy, and this little
finger is as good, for this crusade, as all the Urban IIs and all the
Saint Bernards in Christendom.
We have no doubt that we will arrive at this supreme end of
our efforts. But when? But how? The unknown is not yet revealed.
Nevertheless, as nothing should turn us aside from the plan drawn
up, and on the contrary everything should tend to this, as if as early
as tomorrow success were going to crown the work that is barely
sketched, we wish, in this instruction, which will remain secret for
the mere initiates, to give the officials in charge of the supreme
Vente some advice that they should instill in all the brethren, in the
form of instruction or of a memorandum ...
Now then, to assure ourselves a Pope of the required
dimensions, it is a question first of shaping him ... for this Pope,
a generation worthy of the reign we are dreaming of. Leave old
people and those of a mature age aside; go to the youth, and if it is
possible, even to the children ... You will contrive for yourselves, at
little cost, a reputation as good Catholics and pure patriots.
This reputation will put access to our doctrines into the midst
of the young clergy, as well as deeply into the monasteries. In a few
years, by the force of things, this young clergy will have overrun
all the functions; they will form the sovereigns council, they will
be called to choose a Pontiff who should reign. And this Pontiff,
like most of his contemporaries, will be necessarily more or less
imbued with the Italian and humanitarian principles that we are
going to begin to put into circulation. It is a small grain of black
mustard that we are entrusting to the ground; but the sunshine of
justice will develop it up to the highest power, and you will see one
day what a rich harvest this small seed will produce.
In the path that we are laying out for our brethren, there are
found great obstacles to conquer, difficulties of more than one
kind to master. They will triumph over them by experience and
by clearsightedness; but the goal is so splendid that it is important
to put all the sails to the wind in order to reach it. You want to
revolutionize Italy, look for the Pope whose portrait we have just
drawn. You wish to establish the reign of the chosen ones on the
throne of the prostitute of Babylon, let the Clergy march under
your standard, always believing that they are marching under the
banner of the apostolic keys. You intend to make the last vestige
of tyrants and the oppressors disappear; lay your snares like
Simon Bar-Jona; lay them in the sacristies, the seminaries, and the
monasteries rather than at the bottom of the sea: and if you do not
hurry, we promise you a catch more miraculous than his. The fisher
43
44

of fish became the fisher of men; you will bring friends around
the apostolic Chair. You will have preached a revolution in tiara
and in cope, marching with the cross and the banner, a revolution
that will need to be only a little bit urged on to set fire to the four
corners of the world.103
The Rise of Liberal Catholicism

As we have noted, the goal of Freemasonry was not to destroy the
Church, which the Masons knew was impossible, but to neutralize and
instrumentalize the Churchthat is, to make the human element of the
Church into an instrument for the advance of Freemasonic goals, by
inducing the Churchs members to embrace the Masonic worldview,
which as we know is completely opposed in principle to the worldview
of Our Lady of Fatima, Her message and Her promises of world peace.
The Masonic worldview regards the influence of the Catholic
Church over social order as tyranny and seeks to free mankind from
the superstitions of revealed religion, uniting all men in a rationalized
pseudo-religion in which all men agreeapparently a creed of
sociability and politenessputting aside their religious differences,
which are reduced to mere matters of private opinion.
Now, a liberalized hierarchy, even without a conscious association
with Freemasonry, would readily lend itself to the work of establishing
the Masonic ideal of a new world order (novus ordo seclorum) involving
a false pan-religious brotherhood in which the Church abandons
Her claim to be the sole ark of salvation and ceases Her opposition to
the forces of the world. The first stage of this process was manifested
in the 19th Century, by which time society had become increasingly
permeated with the liberal principles of the French Revolution. Even
in the mid-1800s this program was already causing great detriment
to the Catholic Faith and the Catholic State. The supposedly kinder
and gentler notions of pluralism, religious indifferentism, a democracy
which believes all authority comes from the people, false notions of
liberty, interfaith gatherings, separation of Church and State and other
novelties were gripping the minds of post-enlightenment Europe,
infecting statesmen and churchmen alike.
The Condemnation of Liberal Catholicism

The Popes of the 19th and early 20th Centuries waged war against
these dangerous trends in full battle-dress. With a presence of mind
rooted in the uncompromised certitude of Faith, these Popes were not
taken in. They knew that evil principles, no matter how honorable they
may appear, cannot bear good fruit, and that these were evil principles
at their worst, since they were rooted not only in heresy, but apostasy.
103
This passage is from the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita. The full text of
the Permanent Instruction is republished in Msgr. Dillons Grand Orient Freemasonry
Unmasked (Christian Book Club, Palmdale, California) on pp. 51-56.
A Motive Emerges
45
Like commanding generals who recognize the duty to hold their

ground at all cost, these Popes aimed powerful cannons at the errors
of the modern world and fired incessantly. The encyclicals were their
cannonballs and they never missed their target.
The most devastating blast came in the form of Blessed Pope Pius
IXs monumental Syllabus of Errors, which he appended to his encyclical
Quanta Cura (1864). When the smoke cleared, all involved in the battle
were in no doubt as to who was on what side. The line of demarcation
had been drawn clearly. In the Syllabus, Blessed Pius IX condemned the
principal errors of the modern world, not because they were modern,
but because these new ideas were rooted in pantheistic naturalism
and, therefore, were incompatible with Catholic doctrine, as well as
being destructive to society.
The teachings in the Syllabus were counter-liberalism, and the
principles of liberalism were counter-syllabus. This was clearly
recognized by all parties. Father Denis Fahey referred to this showdown
as Pius IX vs. the Pantheistic Deification of Man.104 Speaking for
the other side, the French Freemason Ferdinand Buissont declared
likewise, A school cannot remain neutral between the Syllabus and the
Declaration of the Rights of Man.105
Yet the 19th Century saw a new breed of Catholic who sought a
utopian compromise between the two. These men looked for what they
believed to be good in the principles of 1789 and tried to introduce
them into the Church. Many clergymen, infected by the spirit of the age,
were caught up in a net that had been cast into the sacristies and into
the seminaries by Freemasonry. These men came to be known as liberal
Catholics. Blessed Pius IX regarded them with absolute horror. He said
these liberal Catholics were the worst enemies of the Church. In a
letter to the French deputation headed by the Bishop of Nevers on June
18, 1871, Blessed Pius IX declared:
That which I fear is not the Commune of Parisnothat which
I fear is Liberal Catholicism ... I have said so more than forty times,
and I repeat it to you now, through the love that I bear you. The
real scourge of France is Liberal Catholicism, which endeavors to
unite two principles as repugnant to each other as fire and water.106
The Rise of Modernism

Yet in spite of this, the numbers of liberal Catholics steadily increased.
The crisis reached a peak around the turn of the century when the
liberalism of 1789 that had been blowin in the wind swirled into
the tornado of modernism. Father Vincent Miceli identified this heresy
as such by describing modernisms trinity of parents. He wrote: Its
Father Denis Fahey, Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, (Regina Publications,
Dublin, Ireland, 1939) Chapter VII.
105
Ibid., p. 116.
106
Quoted from The Catholic Doctrine, Father Michael Muller, (Benzinger, 1888) p. 282.
104
46
religious ancestor is the Protestant Reformation its philosophical

parent is the Enlightenment its political pedigree comes from the
French Revolution.107
What is meant by modernism? Modernism is a synthesis or
combination of all the errors of Liberal Catholicism together with a
synthesis of all heresies into a comprehensive political, philosophical and
theological system whose effect is to undermine the integrity of the entire
Catholic Faith. While a complete examination of the vast modernist
system of thought is far beyond the scope of this book,108 it suffices for
our purposes to say that, by various subtle errors, the modernist denies
or undermines the divinity and divine revelation of Christ, the founding
of the one true Church by Him, and the absolute immutability of Catholic
doctrine (which the modernist claims can evolve according to changing
circumstances). The modernist also embraces and promotes the liberal
notions of free speech, freedom of conscience, and the error of
religious indifferentism, which holds that all religions are more or less
good and praiseworthy because they all arise from a so-called religious
sense in man. This is an error which, of course, implicitly denies the
reality of Original Sin by suggesting that all men can be truly religious
and can find salvation in the various religions they invent without need
of Jesus Christ and His supernatural sanctifying grace, His Redemption
as well as the Catholic Church, the Catholic Faith, Baptism and the other
sacraments of the Catholic Church.
Saint Pius X Puts Down the Modernist Revolt

Pope St. Pius X, who ascended to the Papal throne in 1903,
recognized modernism as a most deadly plague that must be arrested.
St. Pius X waged war on modernism by systematically isolating, defining
and condemning its many erroneous propositions. In particular, St. Pius
X issued a monumental encyclical against modernism (Pascendi) and
a Syllabus of modernist errors (Lamentabili). In his encyclical Pascendi
this great Pope wrote: There is no part of Catholic truth which they
leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. In the same
encyclical he called modernism the synthesis of all heresies, declaring
that the most important obligation of the Pope is to insure the purity
and integrity of Catholic doctrine, and that if he did nothing, then he
would have failed in his essential duty.109
But St. Pius X did not stop there. A few years after Pascendi,
recognizing that the Modernists had to be crushed before they rose
up and caused havoc in the Church, this sainted Pope issued his letter
Father Vincent Miceli, The Antichrist, (Roman Catholic Books, Harrison, New York, 1981)
p. 133.
108
For an able laymans summary of what Modernism is and how it is promoted among the
laity in our time, cf. Christopher A. Ferrara, EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong (Pound Ridge,
New York: Good Counsel Publications, 2006), pp. 19-49.
109
Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (On the Doctrine of the Modernists), September 8,
1907.
107
A Motive Emerges
47
Sacrorum antistitum, which mandated the Oath Against Modernism

to be sworn by all priests and teachers. He oversaw the purging of
modernists from the seminaries and universities and excommunicated
the stubborn and unrepentant. St. Pius X knew that nothing less than
the very nature of the Church was under attack by the modernists, who
in their audacity were now acting openly for the overthrow of Catholic
Dogma and Tradition:
[T]he gravity of the evil is daily growing and must be checked
at any cost. We are no longer dealing, as at the beginning, with
opponents in sheeps clothing, but with open and bare-faced
enemies in our very household, who, having made a pact with the
chief foes of the Church [i.e. Freemasons, Liberals, Protestants,
Jews, Muslims, etc.], are bent on overthrowing the Faith They
want to renovate it as if it were consumed by old age, increase it
and adapt it to worldly tastes, progress and comforts, as if it were
opposed not just to the frivolity of a few, but to the good of society.
There will never be enough vigilance and firmness on the part
of those entrusted with the faithful safekeeping of the sacred
deposit of evangelical doctrine and ecclesiastical tradition, in order
to oppose these onslaughts against it.110
St. Pius X effectively halted the spread of modernism in his day. It

is reported, however, that when he was congratulated for eradicating
this grave error, St. Pius X immediately responded that despite all his
efforts, he had not succeeded in killing this beast, but had only driven
it underground. He warned that if Church leaders were not vigilant, it
would return in the future more virulent than ever.111 As we are about
to see, St. Pius Xs prediction has come truewith a vengeance.
Modernism Begins to Rise Again

A little-known drama that unfolded during the reign of Pope Pius XI
demonstrates that the underground current of Modernist thought was
alive and well in the immediate post-St. Pius X period.
Father Raymond Dulac relates that at the secret consistory of May
23, 1923, Pius XI questioned the thirty Cardinals of the Curia on the
timeliness of summoning an ecumenical council. In attendance were
illustrious prelates such as Merry del Val, De Lai, Gasparri, Boggiani and
Billot. The Cardinals advised against it. Cardinal Billot warned, The
existence of profound differences in the midst of the episcopacy itself
cannot be concealed ... [They] run the risk of giving place to discussions
that will be prolonged indefinitely.
Boggiani recalled the modernist theories from which, he said, a
part of the clergy and of the bishops are not exempt. This mentality
can incline certain Fathers to present motions, to introduce methods
110
111
Pope St. Pius X, Sacrorum antistitum.

Father Vincent Miceli, The Antichrist, cassette lecture, Keep the Faith, Inc. Ramsey, New
Jersey.
48
incompatible with Catholic traditions.

Billot was even more precise. He expressed his fear of seeing
the Council maneuvered by the worst enemies of the Church, the
Modernists, who are already getting ready, as certain indications show,
to bring forth the revolution in the Church, a new 1789.112
Masonic Predictions of
a Modernist Breakthrough at an Ecumenical Council
In discouraging the idea of a council for such reasons, these Cardinals
showed themselves more apt at recognizing the signs of the times than
all the post-Vatican II theologians combined. Yet their caution may have
been rooted in something deeper. They may also have been haunted by
the writings of the infamous illumin, the excommunicated Canon Roca
(1830-1893) who preached revolution and Church reform, and who
predicted in amazingly precise detail the subversion of the Church that
would be brought about by a Council.
In Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, Bishop Graber quotes the
apostate Rocas prediction of a newly illuminated church which would
be influenced by the socialism of Jesus.113 In the mid-19th Century,
Roca predicted that The new church, which might not be able to retain
anything of Scholastic doctrine and the original form of the former
Church, will nevertheless receive consecration and canonical jurisdiction
from Rome. The anti-Catholic Roca also, amazingly enough, predicted
the liturgical reform after Vatican II: [T]he divine cult in the form
directed by the liturgy, ceremonial, ritual and regulations of the Roman
Church will shortly undergo a transformation at an ecumenical council,
which will restore to it the venerable simplicity of the golden age of
the Apostles in accordance with the dictates of conscience and modern
civilization.
Roca, the forerunner of modern-day apostates, foretold that
through this council will come a perfect accord between the ideals of
modern civilization and the ideal of Christ and His Gospel. This will
be the consecration of the New Social Order and the solemn baptism
of modern civilization. In other words, this council would usher in
the triumph of the Masonic plan for subversion of the Church. Roca
also spoke of the future of the papacy. He wrote There is a sacrifice
in the offing which represents a solemn act of expiation ... The papacy
will fall; it will die under the hallowed knife which the fathers of the
last council will forge. The papal caesar is a host [victim] crowned for
the sacrifice. Roca enthusiastically predicted nothing short of a new
religion, new dogma, new ritual, new priesthood. He called the new
priests progressists and speaks of the suppression of the soutane
Raymond Dulac, Episcopal Collegiality at the Second Council of the Vatican, (Paris: Cedre,
1979) pp. 9-10.
113
Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, p. 34.
112
A Motive Emerges
49
[cassock] and the marriage of priests.114

Pointing to the writings of the French heresiarch, Abb Melinge (who
used the pseudonym Dr. Alta), Bishop Graber warned of a revolutionary
program of the replacement of the Roman faith by a pluri-confessional
pontificate, able to adapt to a polyvalent ecumenism, such as we are
seeing established today in the intercelebration of priests and Protestant
pastors. (Melinge was referring to certain renegade priests; since then,
however, Pope John Paul II himself conducted joint services, including
Vespers, with Protestant bishops.)115
Chilling echos of Roca, Melinge and the Alta Vendita are to be found
in the words of the Rosicrucian, Dr. Rudolph Steiner who declared in
1910 We need a council and a Pope to proclaim it.116
The Masonic Alliance with Communism

It must be noted that in their striving toward these goals the Masons
were the kin of the Communists, who were plotting alongside them for
the overthrow of both Church and State. As Pope Leo XIII observed
in Humanum Genus (1884), his monumental encyclical on the threat
posed by the Masonic societies:
Yea, this change and overthrow is deliberately planned and
put forward by many associations of communists and socialists;
and to their undertakings the sect of Freemasons is not hostile, but
greatly favors their designs, and holds in common with them their
chief opinions.
As we have since learned from numerous independent witnesses,

Communist infiltration of the Church117 began as early as the 1930s.
Lenin himself (the very founder of Russian Communism) declared in
the 1920s that he would infiltrate the Catholic Church, particularly the
Vatican. The historical evidence on this score was recently summarized
in the venerable periodical Christian Order:
Ex-Communist and celebrated convert Douglas Hyde revealed
long ago that in the 1930s the Communist leadership issued a
A full account of all of Rocas quotes printed here is found in Athanasius and the Church
of Our Time, pp. 31-40.
115
Joint Catholic-Lutheran Vespers at Vatican, CWNews.com, November 13, 1999:
Archbishops G.H. Hammar and Jukka Paarmathe Lutheran primates of Sweden and
Finland, respectivelyand Bishops Anders Arborelius of Stockholm and Czeslaw Kozon
of Copenhagen joined with the Holy Father for the Vespers service. Several other Lutheran
bishops from the Scandinavian countries were present for the ceremony, including two
female bishops.
116
Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, p. 36.
117
See The Secret Red Plan to Take Over the Catholic Church, published in Red China in
1959. Published in English in The Fatima Crusader, Issue 19, February-April, 1986, p. 6.
See also The Prophecy of Bella Dodd, a Fatima Perspective web column by Christopher
Ferrara (www.fatimaperspectives.com/cs/perspective235.asp); this prediction is also
found in the next paragraph. See also Chapter 8 (The Message of Fatima versus the Party
Line) on pp. 107-118 of this book and the photo caption of Lenin on page 106. See also
Father Paul Kramer, The Party Line in Relation to Fatima, The Fatima Crusader, Issue
69, Winter 2002, pp. 10ff (on the web at www. fatimacrusader.com/cr69/cr69pg10.asp).
114
50

worldwide directive about infiltrating the Catholic Church. While
in the early 1950s, Mrs. Bella Dodd was also providing detailed
explanations of the Communist subversion of the Church. Speaking
as a former high ranking official of the American Communist Party,
Mrs. Dodd said: In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the
priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within. The idea was
for these men to be ordained and progress to positions of influence
and authority as Monsignors and Bishops. A dozen years before
Vatican II she stated that: Right now they are in the highest places
in the Churchwhere they were working to bring about change
in order to weaken the Churchs effectiveness against Communism.
She also said that these changes would be so drastic that you will
not recognize the Catholic Church.118
As Christian Order points out, the existence of a Communist

conspiracy to infiltrate the Church has been confirmed abundantly
not only by former Communists Dodd and Hyde, but also by Soviet
defectors:
Ex-KGB officer Anatoliy Golitsyn, who defected in 1961 and in
1984 forecast with 94% accuracy all the astonishing developments
in the Communist Bloc since that time, confirmed several years ago
that this penetration of the Catholic and other churches is part
of the Partys general line [i.e. unchanged policy] in the struggle
against religion. In fact, hundreds of files smuggled into the West
by former KGB archivist Vassili Mitrokhin and published in 1999
tell a similar tale, about the KGB cultivating the closest possible
relationships with progressive Catholics and financing their
activities. One of the leftist organs identified was the small Italian
Catholic press agency Adista, which for decades has promoted
every imaginable post-conciliar cause or reform and whose
Director was named in The Mitrokhin Archive as a paid KGB agent.
Mrs. Dodd, who converted to the Faith shortly before her death,
was legal counsel to the Communist Party of the United States. She
gave voluminous testimony on Communist infiltration of Church and
State before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.
As if to atone for her role in subverting the Church, Dodd delivered a
series of lectures at Fordham University and elsewhere during the years
leading up to Vatican II. Christian Order recounts the testimony of a
monk who attended one of those lectures in the early 1950s:
I listened to that woman for four hours and she had my hair
standing on end. Everything she said has been fulfilled to the letter.
You would think she was the worlds greatest prophet, but she was
no prophet. She was merely exposing the step-by-step battle plan of
Communist subversion of the Catholic Church. She explained that
of all the worlds religions, the Catholic Church was the only one
feared by the Communists, for it was its only effective opponent.
118
The Greatest Conspiracy, Christian Order, November 2000.

A Motive Emerges
51
The whole idea was to destroy, not the institution of the Church, but
rather the Faith of the people, and even use the institution of the
Church, if possible, to destroy the Faith through the promotion of a
pseudo-religion: something that resembled Catholicism but was not
the real thing. Once the Faith was destroyed, she explained that
there would be a guilt complex introduced into the Church. to
label the Church of the past as being oppressive, authoritarian, full
of prejudices, arrogant in claiming to be the sole possessor of truth,
and responsible for the divisions of religious bodies throughout
the centuries. This would be necessary in order to shame Church
leaders into an openness to the world, and to a more flexible attitude
toward all religions and philosophies. The Communists would then
exploit this openness in order to undermine the Church.119
Now, if the enemies of the Church were to succeed in their plans,

which we have just outlined, we would see these things happening in
the Church:
First, there would be, as Roca predicted, an upheaval at an ecumenical
council of such magnitude that the entire world would realize that
the Catholic Church had undergone a revolution in line with modern
ideas. It would be clear to all that an updating of the Church had
taken place.
Second, a new theology would be introduced that would tend to
contradict previous teachings.
Third, the Freemasons and Communists themselves would voice
their cockle-doodle of triumph, believing that the Catholic Church
had finally seen the light on such points as pluralism, the secular
state, equality of religions, and whatever other compromises had
been achieved.
Fourth, as the result of this subversion, the new orientation of the
Church would come to take precedence over the very dogmas and
traditions of the Church in Her teaching and practiceincluding the
119
Another ex-Communist, Mr. Manning Johnson gave similar testimony. In 1953, to the
House Un-American Activities Committee, Manning said: Once the tactic of infiltration
of religious organizations was set by the Kremlin ... The Communists discovered that the
destruction of religion could proceed much faster through the infiltration of the Church by
Communists operating within the Church itself. He then stated, This policy of infiltrating
seminaries was successful beyond even our Communist expectations. Speaking of the
infiltration of religious institutions in general, Manning Johnson further explained,
... the major plot to take over religious organizations was really hatched during that
particular period (1935), and the fact that the Communists, in headlines in the Daily
Worker, can boast of 2,300 Protestant Ministers supporting them is the result of this part
that began in the thirties when I was a member of the Communist party. Testimony of
Manning Johnson, Investigation of Communist Activities in the New York City Area Part
7, Hearing Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives,
Eighty-Third Congress, First Session, July 8, 1953, (Published by the Government Printing
Office, Washington, D.C., 1953) p. 2214. A collection of quotations from ex-Communists
concerning the infiltration of the Church is found in John Vennaris Heavens Request for
Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus, Part III, Catholic Family News, August 2001.
52
Message of Fatima, which would have to be revised or buried to

accommodate the new orientation.
It now remains for us to demonstrate the extent to which this
design to promote a subversive liberalization of the Church has come
to pass, and how that liberalization provides the motive for the grave
offense committed: the attempt to nullify the authentic Message of
Fatima in favor of a new orientation of the Church. We do not use the
words grave offense lightly, for in conducting a veritable campaign
against the Fatima apparitions, the identified Vatican prelates have left
the Church and the world exposed to the terrible dangers of which the
Message forewarns, including the annihilation of various nations and
the loss of millions of souls. If the Message is truly from Heaven, as the
Popes (especially John Paul II) have attested, then what is involved in
revising, despising and even burying it can only be called a true and
proper crimenot only against the Church, but against all of humanity.
Sister Lucy had corresponded with Pope John Paul II at various

times, and had had several face-to-face meetings with His Holiness.
Yet after all the letters and meetings, John Paul II had never claimed
that Sister Lucy told him Russia had been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as requested by Our Lady of Fatima. Sister Lucy
was still under an order of silence right up to her death (see pages
344-346 and footnote 124). Sister Lucy was the only Catholic, out of
one billion Catholics, who was under such a gag order. According to
this order, Sister Lucy needed the permission of Cardinal Ratzinger to
speak to anyone about the Consecration of Russia or the Third Secret
or anything else that was not already in her pre-approved writings on
Fatima. If the Consecration of Russia were truly performed and if the
Third Secret were completely released, then there would have been
no real purpose for such an order of silence.
Chapter 6
The Motive Takes Hold
Around 1948, Pope Pius XII, at the request of the staunchly
orthodox Cardinal Ruffini, considered calling a general Council and
even spent a few years making the necessary preparations. There is
evidence that progressive elements in Rome eventually dissuaded Pius
XII from bringing it to realization since this Council showed definite
signs of being in line with Humani Generis and its condemnation of
Modernist errors. Like this great 1950 encyclical, the proposed Council
of Pius XII would combat false opinions which threaten to undermine
the foundations of Catholic doctrine.120
At the same time, the errors of Russia to which the Virgin of Fatima
referred were penetrating the Church Herself. Various Catholic religious
orders were being infiltrated. For example, the so-called Catholic Priest
Worker movement was so clearly infiltrated by Communists that Pius
XII called for an end to it in the 1950s.
Tragically, Pius XII became convinced that he was too advanced
in years to shoulder the momentous task of a Council to combat the
swelling ranks of the Churchs enemies, and he resigned himself to the
decision that this will be for my successor.121 Pope Pius XII died on
October 9, 1958.
And now we have arrived very near to the critical year in our case.
We have arrived at 1958, two years before 1960the year in which
the Third Secret was to be disclosed in accordance with the wishes
of the Virgin of Fatima, as Sister Lucy had testified. Throughout the
pontificate of Pius XII, the Holy Office, under the able leadership of
Cardinal Ottaviani, maintained sound orthodoxy by keeping the wild
horses of modernism firmly corralled. Many of todays Modernist
theologians disdainfully recount how they and their friends had been
muzzled during this period.
Yet even Cardinal Ottaviani could not prevent what was to happen
in 1958. A new type of Pope whom the progressives believed to favor
their cause122 would ascend to the Pontifical Chair and would force a
reluctant Ottaviani to remove the latch, open the corral and brace himself
for the stampede. However, such a state of affairs was not unforeseen. At
the news of the death of Pope Pius XII, the old Dom Lambert Beauduin,
a friend of Roncallis (the future Pope John XXIII) confided to Father
A full account of this fascinating history is found in The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol.
III, by Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, pp. 257-304.
121
Ibid., p. 297.
122
Vicomte Leon de Poncins, Freemasonry and the Vatican, (Christian Book Club, Palmdale,
California, 1968) p. 14.
120
54
Bouyer: If they elect Roncalli, everything would be saved; he would be

capable of calling a council and of consecrating ecumenism.123
At this point in our presentation it must be emphasized, especially
for the non-Catholic reader, that the changes in the basic orientation
of the Church we are about to discuss are totally unprecedented and
represent perhaps the worst crisis in Her history. A careful study of
what follows will make clear why the Message of Fatima, with its call
for the consecration and conversion of Russia as the harbinger of world
peace, has become unacceptable to the politically correct, liberalized
churchmen of the last fifty years. These unprecedented changes in the
Catholic Church are no boon, but a great detriment, to non-Catholics,
since the result of the Churchs updating has included not merely the
clerical scandals we now see, but a failure of the human element of the
Church to perform an actionthe solemn consecration of Russiathat
would benefit the whole of mankind.
A Council is Called as the

Message of Fatima Comes Under Attack
And so it happened just as Dom Lambert foretold. Roncalli was
elected and, as Pope John XXIII, called a Council and consecrated
ecumenism. The revolution in tiara and cope predicted by the Alta
Vendita was underway.
And one of the first acts of the revolution was to dispense with
the Third Secret of Fatima. Contrary to the expectations of the whole
world, on February 8, 1960 (just over a year after the Council had been
called), the Vatican issued the following anonymous announcement
through the A.N.I. press agency:
Vatican City, February 8, 1960 (A.N.I.) It is probable that
the Secret of Fatima will never be made public. In Vatican
circles highly worthy of belief, they have just declared to the
representative of United Press International that it is most likely
the letter will never be opened, in which Sister Lucy wrote down
the words which the Virgin Mary addressed to the three shepherds
of the Cova da Iria It is most probable that the Secret of Fatima
will remain forever under absolute seal.
And in the same communiqu we find the first direct attack from
Vatican sources on the credibility of the Message of Fatima as a whole:
Although the Church recognizes the Fatima apparitions, She
does not pledge Herself to guarantee the veracity of the words
which the three shepherds claim to have heard from Our Lady.
Claim to have heard? Could there be any doubt about the veracity
of their testimony after the Miracle of the Sun? Could there be any
123
L. Bouyer, Dom Lambert Beauduin, a Man of the Church, Casterman, 1964, pp. 180-181,
quoted by Father Didier Bonneterre in The Liturgical Movement, Ed. Fideliter, 1980, p.
119.
55
question that they had been given an authentic prophecy from Heaven
in view of the complete fulfillment of every prediction in the Message
thus farfrom the imminent end of World War I, to the spread of
Russias errors, to World War II and the election of Pope Pius XI?
This first public attack on the Message of Fatima from within the
Vatican apparatus comes in 1960, as the Vatican begins to pursue a new
orientation of the Church that will arise (as we shall soon see) at the
Second Vatican Council. Consider these developments surrounding the
February 8, 1960 communiqu:
The communiqu publicly questions the veracity of Lucy, Jacinta,
and Francisco.
From 1960 forward, Sister Lucy is silenced on orders of the Vatican
apparatus,124 so she could not defend herself from the implied
accusation that her testimony is unreliable.
The documents in the official Fatima archives, which Father Alonso
will compile between 1965 and 1976, (more than 5,000 documents
in 24 volumes) will be barred from publication, even though these
documents confirm that the Fatima prophecies in the first two parts
of the Secret (the election of Pope Pius XI, the coming of World War
124
Jesuit Father Aparicio was Sister Lucys confessor and spiritual director from 1926 to
1938. Then he was sent to Brazil as a missionary and corresponded with Sister Lucy over
the years. In 1950 he returned to Portugal for a short while and visited Sister Lucy both in
1950 and in 1951 without difficulty. Father Aparicio testified that in August 1960, during
a month-long visit to Portugal, he was not allowed to speak to Sister Lucy: I have not
been able to speak to Sister Lucy because the Archbishop could not give the permission
to meet her. The conditions of isolation in which she finds herself have been imposed by
the Holy See. Consequently, no one may speak to her without a licence from Rome. The
Archbishop has only a very limited number of those licences. (Fatima: Tragedy and
Triumph, Immaculate Heart Publications, 1994, pp. 33-34.)
The situation had not changed since then until her death on February 13, 2005. On
January 16, 1983 Father Joseph de Sainte-Marie, O.C. wrote to the eminent Catholic
layman Hamish Fraser to advise that: Moreover, I remind youshe [Sister Lucy] herself
reminded me recently in a request that I had addressed to herthat Sister Lucia [Lucy]
cannot speak to anyone on the question of the apparitions without the express permission
of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or of the Holy Father himself.
(The Fatima Crusader, No. 13-14, p. 13.) And on March 19, 1983 Sister Lucy told the
Papal Nuncio to Portugal, Most Reverend Sante Portalupi, that she had not been able to
comment earlier on the inadequacy of the 1982 consecration ceremony (of the world, not
Russia) because the Holy See had not given her permission to speak: The Consecration
of Russia has not been made as Our Lady demanded. I could not say so [before] because
I did not have permission of the Holy See. (Ibid., p. 3; and The Fatima Crusader, Issue
16, September-October 1984, pp. 22ff, reprinting the article by Father Pierre Caillon in
Fidelite Catholique, first printed in 1983.)
On February 19, 1990, Msgr. A. Duarte de Almeida, chaplain to the Coimbra Carmel,
stated the following: in order to meet Sister Lucy, it is necessary to obtain Cardinal
Ratzingers permission. (In David Boyce, Fatima Inquest - August 1990, The Fatima
Crusader, Issue 35, Winter 1990-1991, p. 13.)
As recently as the purported interview of Sister Lucy by Msgr. Bertone on November
17, 2001, Msgr. Bertone admitted (in his communiqu concerning the interview) that it
had been conducted with the consent of Cardinal Ratzinger. Thus, as recently as 2001
even a high-ranking Vatican prelate needed the Holy Sees permission to speak with
Sister Lucy.
56
II, the spread of Communism throughout the world, etc.) had been
revealed privately by Sister Lucy long before their fulfillment, and
that her testimony was utterly accurate and reliable.
A veritable plot against Fatima had begun. And the motive for the
plota desire to shift the orientation of the Church away from the
Catholic certitudes of the Message of Fatima and toward an enlightened
accommodation towards the worldwould begin in earnest with the
commencement of the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962. We
recall again the words of Sister Lucy that Our Lady wished the Third
Secret to be released in 1960 because it will be clearer (mais claro)
then. Now it would become very clear indeed.
The Errors of Russia Infiltrate the Church

First, just before the Councils commencement, there would be
another betrayal of the Message of Fatima, a sign of many unprecedented
things to come. In the spring of 1962, in Metz, France, Cardinal Eugene
Tisserant had a meeting with none other than Metropolitan Nikodim
of the Russian Orthodox Churcha KGB operative, as were the other
Orthodox prelates. At this meeting Tisserant and Nikodim negotiated
what came to be known as the Metz Pact, or more popularly, the
Vatican-Moscow Agreement.125 The existence of the Vatican-Moscow
Agreement is an irrefutable historical fact attested to in all of its details
by Monsignor Roche, who was Cardinal Tisserants personal secretary.
Moreover, since the first edition of this book appeared, the renowned
Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli has published a biography of Pope
Paul VI in which we learn that what many considered a conspiracy
theory was true: there was indeed a secret agreement, led by Cardinal
Tisserant, between the Soviet Union and the papacy (under Pope John
XXIII) in 1962an agreement which Pope Paul VI (Montini) also
enforced. In a note of November 15, 1965, in fact, Paul VI (Montini)
explicitly mentions among the commitments of the Council also that of
not mentioning Communism (1962).126
In substance, the agreement was as follows: Pope John XXIII,
according to his fond wish, would be favored by the attendance of
two Russian Orthodox observers at the Council. In return, the Catholic
Church would agree that the Second Vatican Council would refrain from
any condemnation of Soviet Communism or Soviet Russia. In essence,
the Council would compromise the moral liberty of the Catholic Church
by pretending that the most systematized form of human evil in human
history did not existeven though, at the very moment the Council
See Jean Madiran, The Vatican-Moscow Agreement, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 16,
September-October, 1984, p. 5. Also articles on pages 4, 7, and 11 in The Fatima Crusader,
Issue 17, February-April, 1985. See also Atila Sinke Guimares, The Metz Pact, Catholic
Family News, September 2001.
126
Giacomo Galeazzi, Paoli VI, patto segreto con lUrss (Paul VI, Secret Pact with USSR),
La Stampa, July 6, 2009, accessible online at http://newrassegna.camera.it/chiosco_
new/pagweb/immagineFrame.asp?comeFrom=search&currentArticle=MGOJJ
125
57
opened, the Soviets were persecuting, imprisoning and murdering

millions of Catholics.
Her liberty thus constrained in a bargain with Communists, the
Council failed even to mention Communism. By this failure the Council
departed from the teaching of Pope Leo XIII, Blessed Pius IX, Saint Pius
X and also Pope Pius XI, who reminded the Church that we could not
refrain from condemning this incomparable evil. As he said in Divini
Redemptoris,
This all too imminent danger, venerable brethren, as you
have already surmised is Bolshevistic and atheistic Communism
which aims at upsetting the social order and undermining the very
foundations of Christian civilization. In the face of such a threat the
Catholic Church could not and does not remain silent. This Apostolic
See above all has not refrained from raising its voice for it knows
that its proper and special mission is to defend truth, justice and
all those eternal values which Communism ignores or attacks.127
And yet the Council would say not one word about Soviet
Communism, but would instead begin a dialogue with the very forces
the Church once opposed.
Why did this happen? It was surely no coincidence that the
Councils silence about Communism synchronized perfectly with the
Communist infiltration of the Catholic Church which, as we showed
in a previous chapter, had been revealed just before Vatican II by key
witnesses with no motive to lie (Dodd, Hyde, Golitsyn, Mitrokhin and
others). Even without such testimonies, our common sense should
tell us that the forces of Communism (working alongside those of
Freemasonry) would inevitably attempt to destroy the Catholic Church
from within. Satan is intelligent enough to know that the Catholic
Church is the one citadel he must storm in his effort to conquer the
whole world for the kingdom of darkness.
This, then, was the state of affairs in the Church at the very moment
that the Second Vatican Council was wrongly constrained to observe its
shameful silence on the evil of Communism. And, needless to say, under
the Vatican-Moscow Agreement, the Consecration of Soviet Russia to
the Immaculate Heart by the Council Fathers, in order to bring about
its conversion, would be absolutely out of the question. This early shift
toward a new orientation of the Church, which the Council would
accelerate in a most dramatic fashion, was already in conflict with the
Message of Fatima.
And so it has been ever since the meeting in Metz, which expanded
the pursuit of Ostpolitik, the policy implemented by the Vatican
Secretary of State under which the Church has ceased all condemnation
and opposition to Communist regimes in favor of dialogue and
127
Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, Encyclical on Atheistic Communism, March 19, 1937.
See also quotation on pages 68-69 referenced by footnote 164 of this chapter.
58
quiet diplomacya policy which to this day has silenced the Vatican
concerning the vicious persecution of the Church in Red China and
other communist regimes, including Cuba, where the Vatican has also
remained silent about continuing communist repression of the Church.
Thus on October 12, 1962, two representative priests of the Orthodox
church debarked from a plane at Fiumicino Airport and attended the
Second Vatican Council. The Council began with Orthodox observers
watching its proceedings, making sure that the Vatican-Moscow
Agreement was observed. The written intervention of 450 Council Fathers
against Communism was mysteriously lost after being delivered to the
Secretariat of the Council, and Council Fathers who stood up to denounce
Communism were politely told to sit down and be quiet.128
The Churchs own leaders had lowered the drawbridge to the
Communists, at the same time Communists and Freemasons were
attempting to destroy Her from within by (to recall the predictions of
Bella Dodd):
encouraging the promotion of a pseudo-religion: something that
resembled Catholicism but was not the real thing,
labelling the Church of the past as being oppressive, authoritarian,
full of prejudices, arrogant in claiming to be the sole possessor of
truth, and responsible for the divisions of religious bodies throughout
the centuries,
shaming Church leaders into an openness to the world, and to a
more flexible attitude toward all religions and philosophies.
And finally, as Dodd predicted, The Communists would then
exploit this openness in order to undermine the Church.
This grand effort at subversion would involve, first and foremost,
the breakthrough of Modernist theology at an ecumenical council
just as Canon Roca and the other illumines of Freemasonry had boasted.
The Neo-Modernists Triumph at Vatican II

On October 13, 1962, the day after the two Communist observers
arrived at the Council, and on the very anniversary of the Miracle of the
Sun at Fatima, the history of the Church and the world was profoundly
changed by the smallest of events. Cardinal Linart of France seized the
microphone in a famous incident and demanded that the candidates
proposed by the Roman Curia to chair the drafting commissions at
the Council be set aside and that a new slate of candidates be drawn
up. The demand was acceded to and the election postponed. When
the election was finally held, liberals were elected to majorities and
near-majorities on the conciliar commissionsmany of them from
among the very innovators decried by Pope Pius XII. The traditionally
formulated preparatory schemas for the Council were discarded and
128
A more complete account of this is found in Father Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine flows into the
Tiber, (New York: Hawthorne, 1967; Rockford, Illinois: TAN, 1985) pp. 272-278.
59
the Council began literally without a written agenda, leaving the way
open for entirely new documents to be written by the liberals.
It is well known and superbly documented129 that a clique of liberal
periti (experts) and bishops then proceeded to hijack Vatican II with
an agenda to remake the Church into their own image through the
implementation of a new theology. Both critics and defenders of Vatican
II are in agreement on this point. In his book Vatican II Revisited, Bishop
Aloysius J. Wycislo (a rhapsodic advocate of the Vatican II revolution)
declares with giddy enthusiasm that theologians and biblical scholars
who had been under a cloud for years surfaced as periti (theological
experts advising the bishops at the Council), and their post-Vatican II
books and commentaries became popular reading.130
He noted that Pope Pius XIIs encyclical Humani Generis had
... a devastating effect on the work of a number of pre-conciliar
theologians,131 and explains that During the early preparation of
the Council, those theologians (mainly French, with some German)
whose activities had been restricted by Pope Pius XII, were still under
a cloud. Pope John quietly lifted the ban affecting some of the most
influential ones. Yet a number remained suspect to the officials of the
Holy Office.132
On this point, the eyewitness testimony of Msgr. Rudolf Bandas,
himself a conciliar peritus, is of decisive importance to our case:
No doubt good Pope John thought that these suspect
theologians would rectify their ideas and perform a genuine service
to the Church. But exactly the opposite happened. Supported
by certain Rhine Council Fathers, and often acting in a manner
positively boorish, they turned around and exclaimed: Behold,
we are named experts, our ideas stand approved. When I
entered my tribunal at the Council, on the first day of the fourth
session, the first announcement, emanating from the Secretary of
State, was the following: No more periti will be appointed. But
it was too late. The great confusion was underway. It was already
apparent that neither Trent nor Vatican I nor any encyclical would be
permitted to impede its advance.133
Indeed, Pope John XXIII himself was happy to announce that

beginning with this Council the Church would, quite inexplicably, cease
condemning error and stop all Her worrying about the dire condition
of the world:
Nowadays the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the
E.g., The Rhine flows into the Tiber by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen; Pope Johns Council by Michael
Davies (Angelus Press, Kansas City, Missouri); and even Vatican II Revisited, (see next
footnote) which sings praises of the reform.
130
Most Reverend Aloysius Wycislo S.J., Vatican II Revisited, Reflections By One Who Was
There, (Alba House, Staten Island, New York) p. x.
131
Ibid., p. 33.
132
Ibid., p. 27.
133
The Wanderer, August 31, 1967, p. 7.
129
60
medicine of mercy rather than the arms of severity. She considers

that She meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the
validity of Her teaching rather than by issuing condemnations. We
feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always
forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world was at hand.134
But John XXIIIs optimism was quite at odds with the profound alarm
over the state of the world to be seen in the many pronouncements of
his immediate predecessors (not to mention in the Message of Fatima
itself). Consider these few examples:
Pope St. Pius X:
We felt a sort of terror considering the disastrous conditions
of humanity at the present hour. Can we ignore such a profound
and grave evil, which at this moment much more than in the past
is working away at its very marrow and leading it to its ruin?
Truly whoever ponders these things must necessarily and firmly fear
whether such a perversion of minds is not the sign of announcing,
and the beginning of the last times [E Supremi].
Pope Pius XI:

With God and Jesus Christ excluded from political life, with
authority derived not from God but from man, the chief reason
of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated.
The result is that society is tottering to its ruin because it no longer
has a secure and solid foundation [Quas Primas].
Pope Pius XII (after the end of WWII):

We are overwhelmed with sadness and anguish, seeing that
the wickedness of perverse men has reached a degree of impiety
that is unbelievable and absolutely unknown in other times [Letter
of February 11, 1949].
Venerable brethren, you are well aware that almost the whole
human race is today allowing itself to be driven into two opposing
camps, for Christ or against Christ. The human race is involved
today in a supreme crisis, which will issue in its salvation by Christ,
or in its destruction [Evangeli Praecones, 1951].
To be sure, there would be countless battles at Vatican II between

the International Group of Fathers who fought to uphold the dogmas
of the Faith and Catholic Tradition, and the progressive Rhine group.
Tragically, however, it was the liberal and Modernist element that
prevailed, let loose by John XXIIIs optimism that the truth would prevail
of its own force without the aid of any medicinal condemnations by
the Magisterium. Wycislo sings the praises of triumphant progressives
such as Hans Kng, Karl Rahner, John Courtney Murray, Yves Congar,
Henri de Lubac, Edward Schillebeeckx and Gregory Baum, who had
134
Council Daybook, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Washington, D.C., Vol. 1, pp.
25, 27.
61
been considered suspect before the Council (for good reason) and are
now the leading lights of post-Vatican II theology.135
In effect, those whom Pope Pius XII considered unfit to be walking
the streets of Catholicism were now in control of the town. And as if to
crown their achievements, the Oath Against Modernism and the Index
of Forbidden Books were both quietly suppressed shortly after the close
of the Councila decision Bishop Graber called incomprehensible.136
St. Pius X had predicted correctly. Lack of vigilance in authority had
provoked modernism to return with a vengeance.
Two Prominent Examples of

Rehabilitated Neo-Modernists
Let us consider two examples of the new theologians who were
let loose upon the Church to do their work of destruction: Dominique
Chenu and Hans Kng.
Chenu was an advocate of the New Theology made famous by
Henri de Lubac. Chenu was issued a condemnation for his progressive
ideas in 1942 under Pope Pius XII.137 His book Une ecole de theologie
was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books and he lost his rectorship
at the Dominican College of Le Saulchoir.138 Father David Greenstock,
writing in the 1950 Thomist against the New Theology of Chenu and
de Lubac, explained the dangers of their system and the reason for
their condemnation. Greenstock pointed out that the partisans of the
New Theology reject Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy in favor of
modern philosophies. This must be done, they claim, in order to appeal
to modern man who finds Thomistic philosophy irrelevant. The
result is that Catholic theology is knocked off of its firm, philosophical
foundation and shifted onto the fluid philosophical systems of the 20th
Century, most of which are founded upon atheism and agnosticism.
Chenu also rejected the unchangeableness of Catholic doctrine,
claiming that the source of all theology is not immutable dogma, but
rather the vital life139 of the Church in its members, which cannot be
separated from history. Thus, strictly speaking, says Greenstock, Chenu
held that theology is the life of the members of the Church, rather
than a series of conclusions drawn from revealed data with the aid
of reasona principle that is slippery, imprecise and erroneous. As a
result, Chenu held that religion can change with the times, and should
change with the times, according to the demands of circumstances.
Vatican II Revisited, Reflections By One Who Was There, pp. 27-34.
Bishop Graber, Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, p. 54.
137
Atila Sinke Guimares, Animus Delendi (The Desire to Destroy), (Tradition in Action, Los
Angeles, California, 2001) p. 128. The exact title is Animus Delendi - I (the first of two
books with this title).
138
Ibid.
139
Vital life seems to be just another term for the Vital Imminence condemned in Pope
Pius Xs encyclical against Modernism, Pascendi. See p. 8, English translation by Newman
Press.
135
136
62
Greenstock explained that the partisans of this New Theology are

both unorthodox and deceitful. The main contention of the partisans
of this new movement, wrote Greenstock, is that theology, to remain
alive, must move with the times. At the same time, they are very careful
to repeat all the fundamental propositions of traditional theology,
almost as if there was no intention of any attack against it. This is very
true of such writers as Fathers de Lubac, Danilou, Rahner, ... All of
whom are undoubtedly at the very center of this movement.140
The eminent Dominican theologian, Father Reginald GarrigouLagrange, writing in his famous 1946 essay Where is the New
Theology Taking Us?,141 demonstrated that the purveyors of the New
Theology (Blondel, de Lubac, Chenu) pervert entirely the concept of
the immutability of Truth. Thus, he warned, the New Theology can only
lead in one directionstraight back to Modernism.
While all this was going on, Father Chenu and Father de Lubac
were receiving behind-the-scenes protection and encouragement from
Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris. Suhard told Chenu not to worry
because In twenty years, everyone in the Church will be talking like
you. As we can see, the Cardinal accurately predicted the invasion of
the Church by neo-modernist thinking. Most churchmen today do talk
like Chenu. In the early 1960s, Father Chenu was one of many radical
theologians who were invited to Vatican II by Pope John XXIII. In the
end, thanks to the Councils progressivist orientation, Father Chenu saw
many of his formally condemned theories advanced as part of Vatican
IIs new teachings, especially within Gaudium et Spes. Chenu relates
joyfully that the very points for which his work was condemned in 1942
are the same exact points now promoted by members of the hierarchy
in the name of the Council.142
As for Hans Kng, this leading-light of the post-conciliar period
had worked closely at the Council with other radicals such as Congar,
Ratzinger, Rahner and Schillebeeckx. In the 1970s, however, because
Kng had gone too far, he was censored by the Vatican for certain
heretical views, including the following: rejection of the Churchs
infallibility; the claim that bishops do not receive their teaching authority
from Christ; the suggestion that any baptized layperson has the power
to confect the Holy Eucharist; the denial that Christ is consubstantial
with the Father; the undermining of doctrines (unspecified) concerning
the Virgin Mary.143
It needs to be pointed out that these are only some of Kngs heretical
views, but they were the only ones mentioned within the Vaticans
Greenstock, David, Thomism and the New Theology, The Thomist (October, 1950). The
entire article is well worth reading if one wishes to grasp the erroneous nature of the
New Theology.
141
Published in the Angelicum in 1946. First English translation published in Catholic Family
News, August 1997, Where is the New Theology Taking Us?
142
Animus Delendi - I, p. 129.
143
Ibid., pp. 146-149.
140
63
sanctions. Thus, in effect, the Vatican left Kngs other heterodox tenets
untouched. For example, in one of his most famous books entitled On
Being a Christian, Hans Kng:
denies the Divinity of Christ (p. 130)
dismisses the miracles of the Gospel (p. 233)
denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus (p. 350)
denies that Christ founded an institutional Church (p. 109)
denies that the Mass is the re-presentation of Calvary (p. 323).144
Kng has never retracted these unorthodox and heretical statements.
Moreover, Kng has publicly called for a revision of Church teaching
on issues such as papal infallibility, birth control, mandatory celibacy
of priests, and women in the priesthood. Despite this blatant rejection
of Church teaching, the only penalty that the Vatican ever inflicted
against Kng was that he was not allowed to be considered a Catholic
theologian, and as such, was not allowed to teach theology in a Catholic
university. This penalty was circumvented when the University of
Tbingen, Kngs home campus, retained Kng as a teaching professor
and simply restructured part of the university so that Kng, a great
celebrity, may continue teaching in that part of the university which is
now chartered as a secular school.
Meanwhile, the Vatican has never condemned Kng as a heretic, never
excommunicated him (as canon law provides), never ordered that his
books be removed from libraries in Catholic seminaries and universities
(where they are now found in abundance), never prevented him from
being a guest-lecturer at Catholic institutions, never obstructed him
from publishing articles in Concilium or other progressivist Catholic
publications. Father Hans Kng is not even suspended. Rather, to this
day, Kng remains a priest in good standing in the diocese of Basle,
with no other canonical penalties leveled against him.
This means that a priest who continues to vomit his heretical poison
upon anyone within reach is still allowed to conduct public liturgy,
preach and give advice in the confessional. The Vaticans Congregation
for the Clergy, under Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos, leaves him untouched.
So, despite the feeble Vatican condemnation, Kng retains access to a
very wide variety of influential pipelines to disseminate his poisonous
doctrine throughout the Church. In fact, it is said that Hans Kngs
theological breakthroughs on the nature of the Church are what
provided the theological foundation that made possible the 1999
Lutheran-Catholic Accord.
Further, in 1998, the then Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal
Sodano, who at that time was the most powerful Cardinal in the
144
These observations are from Msgr. Kellys book The Battle for the American Church,
quoted by John Vennari in Vatican Praises Purveyor of Heresy While it Hounds Apostle
of Fatima, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 57, Spring/Summer 1998, pp. 20-21.
64
Church, praised Kng in a public speech at the Lateran, in which he

lauded Kngs beautiful pages dedicated to the Christian mystery.145
Cardinal Sodano also referred to Kng as the German theologian even
though Kng had been supposedly stripped of that title. (This is the
same Cardinal Angelo Sodano who was and is ultimately behind the ongoing persecution of Father Nicholas Gruner and his Fatima apostolate,
as we shall see.)
Now, the 1942 condemnation that the Vatican leveled at Chenu was
much more severe than what was hurled at Kng. Yet Chenu not only
survived, but became a leading light of the Conciliar Church without
ever changing his erroneous views. The same is true of Rahner, Congar,
de Lubac and von Balthasar, all of whom were theologically suspect
before the Council but came to enjoy great prestigeeven though they
never abandoned a single one of their heterodox opinions. Even the
likes of Kng has reason to believe that whatever mild condemnation
he suffers is just a temporary inconvenience, an annoying setback, a fate
meted out to all true prophets. Just as Chenu saw his heretical views
eventually win the day thanks to a revolutionary Council, so likewise
Kng may fill his breast with the hope that his errors will, in the not-sodistant future, eventually emerge as mainstream Catholicism de facto,
even if not by any actual teaching of the authentic Magisterium, which
could never bind the Church to such errors.
The Neo-Modernists Hail

the New Church of Vatican II
With good reason, then, have progressivists such as Cardinal
Suenens, Kng, Louis Bouyer and Yves Congar celebrated Vatican II as
a Revolution, as the death of one era and the beginning of a new:
Cardinal Suenens, who wielded great influence over Pope Paul VI,
and who is a darling to those in the Church who call themselves
Charismatics, rejoiced that Vatican II marked the end of the
Tridentine epoch and the end of the era of Vatican I.146
Hans Kng gloated, Compared to the post-Tridentine epoch of the
Counter-reformation, Vatican Council II represents in its fundamental
characteristics, a 180 degree turn ... It is a new Church that has
sprung up since Vatican II.147
Father Bouyer, a French peritus at the Council, exclaimed with relish
that the anti-Protestant, anti-Modernist aspect of the Catholic Church
might as well die.148
Likewise, the Rome-based Jesuit magazine, La Civilt Cattolica, also
exclaimed joyfully, With Vatican Council II, the Tridentine age was
Ibid.
Cited from Guimares, Animus Delendi - I, p. 60.
147
Ibid., p. 61.
148
Ibid., p. 59.
145
146
65
brought to a close for the Church.149

These statements are especially audacious when we consider that the
Councils of Trent and Vatican I are dogmatic Councils whose teachings
can never be changed, disregarded, or reinterpreted in the name of a
deeper understanding. The First Vatican Council declared infallibly:
The meaning of Sacred Dogmas, which must always be
preserved, is that which our Holy Mother the Church has
determined. Never is it permissible to depart from this in the name
of a deeper understanding.150
Modernists, however, as Pope St. Pius X warned, do not accept

anything as fixed or unchanging. Their chief principle is the evolution
of dogma. They champion the notion that religion must change for the
sake of changing times. In this respect, as in many others, the prime
movers of Vatican II reveal themselves as men steeped in the error of
Modernism.
Masons and Communists Rejoice

Along with the neo-modernists, the Masons and Communists have
rejoiced at the Councils outcome. Just as the authors of the Permanent
Instruction of the Alta Vendita had hoped, just as the Communist
infiltrators spoken of by Bella Dodd had hoped, the notions of liberal
culture had finally won adherence among the major players in the
Catholic hierarchy. Freemasons and Communists have celebrated the
astounding turn of events wrought by the Council. They rejoice that
Catholics have finally seen the light, and that many of their Masonic
principles have been sanctioned by the Church.
For example, Yves Marsaudon of the Scottish Rite, in his book
Ecumenism Viewed by a Traditional Freemason praised the ecumenism
nurtured at Vatican II. He said:
Catholics ... must not forget that all roads lead to God. And they
will have to accept that this courageous idea of freethinking, which
we can really call a revolution, pouring forth from our Masonic
lodges, has spread magnificently over the dome of St. Peters.151
Yves Marsaudon was delighted to add that One can say that
ecumenism is the legitimate son of Freemasonry.152
The post-Vatican II spirit of doubt and revolution obviously
warmed the heart of French Freemason Jacques Mitterand, who wrote
approvingly:
Something has changed within the Church, and replies given
by the Pope to the most urgent questions such as priestly celibacy
Ibid., p. 62.
Vatican I, Session III, Chap. IV, Faith and Reason.
151
Cited from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics, (Kansas City,
Missouri: Angelus Press, 1995) pp. 88-89.
152
Yves Marsaudon, Oecumnisme vu par un Maon de Tradition (pp. 119-120).
149
150
66

and birth control, are hotly debated within the Church itself; the
word of the Sovereign Pontiff is questioned by bishops, by priests,
by the faithful. For a Freemason, a man who questions dogma is
already a Freemason without an apron.153
Marcel Prelot, another enemy of the Catholic Church and a senator

for the Doubs region in France, describes what has taken place. He wrote:
We had struggled for a century and a half to bring our opinions
to prevail within the Church and had not succeeded. Finally, there
came Vatican II and we triumphed. From then on the propositions
and principles of liberal Catholicism have been definitively and
officially accepted by Holy Church.154
The Communists were equally delighted with the results of the

Council. As the Italian Communist Party declared at its 11th Party
Congress in 1964: The extraordinary awakening of the Council,
which is rightly compared with the Estates General of 1789, has
shown the whole world that the old politico-religious Bastille is shaken
to its foundations.155 LUnita, the official publication of the Italian
Communist Party, brazenly gave advice to Pope Paul VI regarding
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who led traditionalist opposition to the
conciliar liberals and had militated for a conciliar condemnation of
Communism: Be conscious of the danger that Lefebvre represents.
And continue the magnificent movement of approach begun with the
ecumenism of Vatican II.156
A Whole New Orientation for the Church

The public exclamations of delight over Vatican II from neo-modernist
luminaries, Communists and Masons should not be surprising. It was
obvious to anyone who had eyes to see that the Second Vatican Council
appeared to embrace ideas that had been condemned by Blessed Pope
Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, but were in step with Modernist thought.
(As we will discuss further, Cardinal Ratzinger has described certain
aspects of the Councils teaching as a countersyllabus.)
Here too, events since the first edition have provided confirmation
of our analysis. In 2009 Monsignor Brunero Gherardini published a
major book on Vatican II entitled Vatican Council II: We Must Talk About
It.157 Gherardini is nothing less than a Canon of St. Peters Basilica, a
secretary for the Pontifical Academy of Theology, a professor emeritus
at the Pontifical Lateran University, and the editor of Divinitas, a
leading Roman theological journal. The book includes a foreword by
Cited from Open Letter to Confused Catholics, pp. 88-89.
Ibid., p. 100.
155
Bishop Graber, Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, p. 64.
156
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him, (Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus
Press, 1988) p. 229. Here Archbishop Lefebvre also notes that the Communist newspaper
Izvestia demanded that Pope Paul VI condemn him and his seminary at Ecne.
157
Brunero Gherardini, Concilio Ecumenico Vaticano II: Un Discorso da Fare (Casa Mariana
Editrice, Frigento, 2009).
153
154
67
Bishop Mario Oliveri (ordinary of the Italian dioceses of Albenga and

Imperia) and an introduction by Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, former
secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and now Archbishop
of Colombo. Gherardini makes this stunning admission from within the
Vatican itself:
[M]odernistic ideas still can be found in several Council
documents, notably in Gaudium et Spes, and a few prominent
Council Fathers were openly sympathetic to old and new modernists.
... In short, their Church was to be a kind of research laboratory
rather than a dispenser of Truths from on high.158
The book, about to appear in English, is reportedly on the desk of

Pope Benedict XVI. It represents a breakthrough for the effort to have an
honest discussion of the Councils vexatious pastoral pronouncements.
Once again events have shown that the Fatimists are not crazy but
merely willing to say openly and honestly what many believe, but have
not been willing to say before.
The situation Gherardini describes did not happen by accident,
but by design. The progressivists at Vatican II sought to avoid direct
statements which would easily be seen as condemned Modernist errors.
They also deliberately planted ambiguities in the Council texts which
they intended to exploit after the Council.159
By utilizing deliberate ambiguities, the Council documents
enabled the post-conciliar promotion of an ecumenism that had been
condemned by Pope Pius XI, a religious liberty for false sects that had
been condemned by the 19th Century Popes (especially Blessed Pius
IX), a new liturgy along the lines of Protestantism and ecumenism that
Archbishop Bugnini160 called a major conquest of the Catholic Church,
a collegiality that strikes at the heart of the papal primacy, and a new
attitude toward the worldespecially in one of the most radical of
all the Council documents, Gaudium et Spes. Even Pope Benedict XVI
when he was Cardinal Ratzinger had admitted that Gaudium et Spes is
permeated by the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin.161
The result of all this was nothing short of an entirely new orientation
of the Church, or what Pope Paul VI called an opening to the world.
As Paul VI himself was forced to admit, however, the opening to the
world proved to be a disastrous miscalculation.
A. Zangrando, Roman Landscape, Latin Mass Magazine, Summer 2009.
The progressivist periti at the Council are on record stating, We will express it in a
diplomatic way, but after the Council, we shall draw the conclusions implicit in it. In
Father Ralph Wiltgens book, The Rhine flows into the Tiber, p. 242.
160
The progressivist Archbishop Annibale Bugnini was the major architect of the liturgical
revolution which culminated in the New Mass (Novus Ordo). He was eventually banished
from the Vatican to Iran because Pope Paul VI was shown documents demonstrating
that Bugnini was a Freemason. Michael Davies devotes an entire chapter to Archbishop
Bugnini in Pope Pauls New Mass, (Angelus Press, Kansas City, 1992) Chapter 24.
161
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, (Ignatius Press, San Francisco,
1987) p. 334.
158
159
68

Pope Paul VI Admits that the Church
Has Been Invaded by Worldly Thinking
As Paul VI himself admitted only eight years after the Council, the
opening to the world has become a veritable invasion of the Church by
worldly thinking. We have perhaps been too weak and imprudent.161a
Only three years after the Council, Paul VI had admitted that The Church
is in a disturbed period of self-criticism, or what could better be called
self-demolition.162 And in 1972, in perhaps the most astonishing remark
ever made by a Roman Pontiff, Paul VI lamented that from somewhere
or other the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.163
Let us consider some of the manifest reasons for Pope Paul VIs
astounding admissions.162 163
The Church Opens Herself to

Dialogue with Communist and Masonic Enemies
With Vatican II began the large enterprise of collaboration with
the forces of the world, the great opening to the world. Nowhere is
this more apparent than in Gaudium et Spes itself, which declares: By
unremitting study theymeaning every priest in the Catholic Church,
every bishop, every member of the hierarchyshould fit themselves to
do their part in establishing dialogue with the world and with men of
all shades of opinion.
Now the objection will be raised: What is wrong with peaceful
collaboration and dialogue with men of all shades of opinion in those
areas in which the Church can find some sort of basic agreement? Here
again the pre-conciliar Popes warned us about one of the devils snares
and delusions under the appearance of good. Speaking precisely about
this call to collaborate and dialogue with Communists in causes which
are supposedly common to all mankindwhich is really the devils call
for the Church to lay down Her arms and join the enemyPope Pius XI
warned as follows in Divini Redemptoris:
In the beginning Communism showed itself for what it was
in all its perversity. But very soon it realized that it was alienating
people. It has, therefore, changed its tactics and strives to entice the
multitudes by trickery in various forms, hiding its real designs behind
ideas that are in themselves good and attractive. ... Under various
names that do not suggest Communism, they establish organizations
and periodicals with the sole purpose of carrying their ideas into
quarters otherwise inaccessible. They try perfidiously to worm their
way even into professedly Catholic and religious organizations.
Again, without receding an inch from their subversive principles,
they invite Catholics to collaborate with them in the realm of so162
Speech of November 23, 1973; quoted in Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, (Kansas City:
Sarto House, 1996) pp. 9-10.
162
Speech to the Lombard College, December 7, 1968.
163
Speech of June 30, 1972.
163
161a
69
called humanitarianism and charity. And at times make proposals

that are in perfect harmony with the Christian spirit and the doctrine
of the Church.... See to it faithful brethren that the Faithful do not
allow themselves to be deceived. Communism is intrinsically
evil, and no one who would save Christian civilization
may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever.164
Pope Pius XI could not have been clearer about the duty to shun
dialogue and collaboration with Communists. And why? The Italians
have a saying: Dimmi con chi vai, e ti diro che seiTell me who you
go with and I will tell you what you are. As Pius XI recognized, if one
associates with a certain class of people, one will inevitably be influenced
to become as they are, in spite of oneself. If one collaborates with the
forces of the world they will tend to seduce him; he will become like
them. If the Church opens Herself to the world in the sense of ceasing Her
opposition to the powers that She once opposed, and if She says instead
that the Church will now collaborate and dialogue with Her enemies, Her
members will, in time, become like those they once opposed. And the
opening to the world will result in the Church becoming like the world, as
Pope Paul VI himself was forced to admit in the statement quoted above.
The Church Reconciles Herself with Liberalism

Those conservatives who deny that Vatican II constitutes a break
with tradition, or that it contradicts prior teaching, have failed to
listen to the very movers and shakers of the Council, who shamelessly
acknowledge the truth. Yves Congar, one of the Councils experts
and chief among the artisans of the Councils reforms, remarked with
quiet satisfaction that The Church has had, peacefully, its October
Revolution.165 Congar also admitted, as if it were something to be
proud of, that Vatican IIs Declaration on Religious Liberty is contrary to
the Syllabus of Blessed Pius IX.166 He said:
It cannot be denied that the affirmation of religious liberty by
Vatican II says materially something other than what the Syllabus
of 1864 said, and even just about the opposite of propositions 16,
Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, Encyclical on Atheistic Communism, March 19, 1937.
Yves Congar, O.P., Le Concile au jours le jours deuxime section (The Council day by
day, second session), (Paris, Cerf, 1964) p. 115.
166
In truth, there can be no such thing as a Counter-Syllabus, since Blessed Pope Pius
IXs Syllabus of 1864 is plainly a solemn, definitive teaching binding on all Catholics
(can. 750 2). In Paragraph 6 of the Encyclical Quanta Cura which was issued with the
Syllabus on December 8, 1864, Blessed Pope Pius IX stated solemnly: Amid, therefore,
so great perversity of depraved opinions, We, well remembering Our Apostolic Office,
and very greatly solicitous for Our most holy Religion, for sound doctrine and the
salvation of souls which is entrusted to Us by God, and (solicitous also) for the welfare
of human society itself, have thought it right to raise up Our Apostolic voice. Therefore,
by Our Apostolic Authority, We reprobate, proscribe and condemn all the singular and evil
opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this Letter, and will and command that they
be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and
condemned. (Our emphasis) Taken from The Popes Against Modern Errors, (TAN Books
and Publishers, Rockford, Illinois, 1999) p. 21.
164
165
70

17 and 19 of this document.167
Congar thus blithely suggests that Vatican II has undone an infallible

papal condemnation of error.
Most noteworthy are the statements of the progressivist Cardinal
Suenens, one of the most liberal prelates of the Twentieth Century,
himself a Council Father, who spoke glowingly of the old regimes that
have come crashing down. The words he used in praise of the Council are
supremely telling, perhaps the most chilling and the most damning of all.
Suenens declared Vatican II is the French Revolution of the Church.168
And, only a few years ago, even the then-Cardinal Ratzinger,
apparently unruffled by such admissions, added that the Vatican II text
Gaudium et Spes is nothing less than a counter-Syllabus. He said:
If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text (Gaudium et Spes)
as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on
religious liberty, and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus
of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus ... Let us be content to say here
that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on
the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with
the new era inaugurated in 1789. the one-sidedness of the position
adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to
the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by
the French Revolution was, to a large extent, corrected via facti,
especially in Central Europe, but there was still no basic statement
of the relationship that should exist between the Church and the
world that had come into existence after 1789. In fact, an attitude
that was largely pre-revolutionary continued to exist in countries
with strong Catholic majorities. Hardly anyone will deny today
that the Spanish and Italian Concordats strove to preserve too
much of a view of the world that no longer corresponded to the facts.
Hardly anyone will deny today that, in the field of education and
with respect to the historico-critical method in modern science,
anachronisms existed that corresponded closely to this adherence
to an obsolete Church-State relationship.169
Consider a Cardinal calling two of the greatest Popes in Church

history one-sided in their efforts to protect the Church from the errors
of liberalism and modernism! According to the then-Cardinal Ratzinger,
at Vatican II the Church made an attempt to correct and counter
the teaching of Blessed Pius IX and Saint Pius X, and to reconcile Herself
instead with the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.
But this was the very goal of the Permanent Instruction, Masonrys
blueprint for subversion of the Church! That is precisely why, in his
Syllabus of Errors, Blessed Pius IX condemned the proposition that
The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself and come to
Yves Congar, La Crise dglise et Msgr. Lefebvre, (Paris, Cerf, 1977) p. 54.
Cited from Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 100.
169
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 381-382.
167
168
71
terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization. (Condemned

Proposition #80). And Saint Pius X, in his apostolic letter Notre Charge
Apostolique, condemned the Sillon movement in France, rebuking its
members because They do not fear to make blasphemous reconciliations
between the Gospel and the Revolution.
But according to Cardinal Ratzinger, there can be no return to the
Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation
with liberalism but cannot be the last stage.170 And what is this last
stage in the confrontation with liberalism? Apparently, in Cardinal
Ratzingers view, it is the Churchs acceptance of the very ideas She once
condemned! Confronting liberalism by reconciling with it is doubletalk.
The then-Cardinal Ratzingers confrontation with liberalism is nothing
more than an abject surrender.
Moreover, it was apparently the opinion of the then-Cardinal
Ratzinger, that not only the condemnations of liberalism in the Syllabus
of Blessed Pius IX but also the anti-modernist teaching of Saint Pius X in
Pascendi must now be considered outdated. In 1990, the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith issued an Instruction on the Theologians
Ecclesiastical Vocation. In explaining the Instruction to the press,
Cardinal Ratzinger claimed that certain teachings of the Magisterium
were not considered to be the final word on the subject as such, but
serve rather as a mooring in the problem, and, above all, as an expression
of pastoral prudence, a kind of temporary disposition.171 As examples of
these temporary dispositions, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger cited the
statements of the Popes during the last century on religious freedom,
as well as the anti-modernist decisions at the beginning of this century
172that is, the anti-modernist teaching of Saint Pius X in the early
1900s.
These comments by Cardinal Ratzinger are disturbing to a Catholic,
not only because they admit that the Council embraced a cherished goal
of the Churchs enemies, but because they come from the then-Prefect
of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), who is
responsible for guarding the purity of Catholic doctrine. And this, as we
shall soon show, is the same man who seemed to be leading us away from
the traditional Catholic understanding of the Message of Fatima.173
Ibid., p. 191.
LOsservatore Romano, English Weekly Edition, July 2, 1990, p. 5.
172
Ibid.
173
Since this was written in 2002, theres some good news to report on this front. First,
whereas the then-Cardinal Ratzinger on June 26, 2000 seemed to state that the
Immaculate Heart of Mary was no different from any other holy persons heart (see
TMF, page 39 and the analysis of his statement provided on pages 128-130 of this book),
Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) seemed to reverse himself on June 5, 2005,
less than two months after his election to the papacy, when he said the Immaculate Heart
of Mary is the closest heart to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ.
Secondly, on June 26, 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger strongly suggested that the prophetic
words of Fatima referring to the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was
about something 2000 years in the past. On May 13, 2009, now as Pope Benedict XVI,
he reversed himself and addressed a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the most
170
171
72

The Teaching that the Roman Catholic Church
Is Exclusively the
One True Church of Christ Is Abandoned
As the attempt to reconcile the Church with the diabolical

principles of the French Revolution would neutralize the Churchs
once fierce opposition to the errors of the modern age, so would the
ecumenical venture launched at the Council soon bring about the de
facto abandonment of all efforts to convert heretics (e.g. Protestants)
and schismatics to the Catholic Faithas in the conversion of Russia.
At the same time the Council embraced the ecumenical movement
only 35 years after Pope Pius XI had condemned it in his encyclical
Mortalium Animosthe Councils document Lumen Gentium threw into
confusion the whole doctrine of the Catholic Church as the one true
Church. According to Lumen Gentium the Church of Christ ... subsists in
the Catholic Church. (Emphasis added.)
This causes bewilderment. Why doesnt the document clearly
proclaim what the Catholic Church has always taught, as seen in the
encyclicals of Pope Pius XIInamely, that the one true Church of
Christ is the Catholic Church?174 Why employ a term favorable to the
progressivist error that the Church of Christ is actually bigger than the
Catholic Church, so that schismatic and heretical (e.g. Protestant) sects
are in some mysterious way part of (or linked with) the Church of
Christ? This error, based upon Vatican IIs use of the word subsists, is
trumpeted by Father Avery Dulles, who was made a Cardinal by Pope
John Paul II. He said:
The Church of Jesus Christ is not exclusively identical
to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed subsist in
Roman Catholicism, but it is also present in varying modes and
degrees in other Christian communities to the extent that they too
are what God initiated in Jesus and are obedient to the inspirations
of Christs Spirit. As a result of their common sharing in the reality
of the one Church, the several Christian communities already have
with one another a real but imperfect communion.175
The former Cardinal Ratzinger also appeared to embrace the views

of the new theology. In an interview with the German newspaper
significant town of Bethlehem, where the Blessed Virgin gave birth to the Son of God,
and he reminded Our Lady of Her promise and prediction: In the end, My Immaculate
Heart will triumph, and prayed to Her that May it be so.
174
In the 1943 encyclical Mystici Corporis, Pope Pius XII taught that the true Church of
Jesus Christ ... is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church. This clearly means
that the Church of Christ is not composed of the Catholic Church and other Christian
denominations. Pope Pius XII reiterated this doctrine in his 1950 encyclical Humani
Generis: The Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the
same thing.
175
Taken from Vatican II, the Work That Needs to Be Done, edited by David Tracy with Hans
Kng and Johann Metz (Concillium, Seabury Press, New York, 1978) p. 91 (emphasis
added).
73
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Cardinal declared as follows:

When the Council Fathers replaced the word is with the word
subsistit [subsists], they did so for a very precise reason. The
concept expressed by is (to be) is far broader than that expressed
by to subsist. To subsist is a very precise way of being, that is,
to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers
meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity
than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in
an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject.176
Cardinal Ratzinger was claiming that the Council Fathers intended

to say that the being of the Church is broader than the Catholic
Church, but this claim is false. The generality of the Council Fathers
had no intention of contradicting the teaching of Pope Pius XII that the
Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, not some vague entity that is
broader than the Catholic Church.
In truth, this ambiguity undermines the traditional teaching that
the one and only Church of Christ is the Catholic Churchan intention
he shared with his fellow partisans of the new theology at Vatican II.
We know this because Father Ratzinger, serving as a theological peritus
at the Council, was the peritus (so-called expert) who introduced the
term subsistit (subsists) into the drafting of the conciliar document
Lumen Gentium. He inserted this term at the suggestion of a Protestant
minister, Pastor Schmidt, from Germany.
The former Cardinals explanation of the meaning of subsistit
(subsists) in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was as confusing as the
term itself. Subsists and is can, however, mean the very same thing,
contrary to what Cardinal Ratzinger suggested at the time. For the sake
of the precision that should characterize any conciliar document, the
Council ought to have stated clearly that The Church of Christ subsists
only in the Catholic Church. But as Father Edward Schillebeeckx,
another conciliar peritus, admitted, his liberal confreres had deliberately
inserted ambiguities into the conciliar texts,177 knowing that they would
later be able to interpret them in a heterodox manner after the Council.
Objectively speaking, that truly is what Father Ratzinger did at the
Council when he introduced the term subsistit. In fact, the original
German text of the above-quoted interview in Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung shows that use of the term was a knowing departure from
the teaching of Pope Pius XII: ... die Konzilsvter das von Pius XII
gebrauchte Wort ist durch subsistit ersetztenwhich translates as:
LOsservatore Romano, Italian edition, October 8, 2000, p. 4: Quando i Padri conciliar
sostituirono la parola con la parola subsistit lo fecero con uno scopo ben preciso. Il
concetto espresso da (essere) piu ampio di quello espresso da sussistere. Sussistere
un modo ben preciso di essere, ossia essere come soggeto che esiste in s. I Padri conciliari
dunque intendevano dire che lessere della Chiesa in quanto tale un entit piu ampia
della Chiesa cattolica romana, ...
177
See statements by Father Schillebeeckx in the Dutch magazine De Bauzuin, No. 16, 1965,
quoted in the French translation in Itineraires, No. 155, 1971, p. 40.
176
74
... the Council Fathers replaced the word is, used by Pius XII, with
subsistit. That is, Cardinal Ratzinger admitted that Vatican II replaced
the established terminology of papal teaching. Even worse, the original
German of the interview further states: So wollten die Vter sagen: Das
Sein der Kirche als solches reicht viel weiter als die rmisch-katholische
Kirche,which translates as: Thus the Fathers meant to say: the
being of the Church as such extends much further than the Roman
Catholic Church.178 Thus, Dulles and the former Cardinal Ratzinger
contradicted the perennial Catholic teaching that the Church of Christ
exists exclusively in the Catholic Church. Yet their view was allowed
to become the common interpretation of Vatican II. Here we
see a prime example of how the new theologians at Vatican II passed
the theological football to themselves, while pretending that it was the
Council that had thrown the pass.
But here, yet again, events since the first edition of this book have
confirmed a problem we identified. None other than the former Cardinal
Ratzinger himself, now Pope Benedict, has attempted to clarify the deep
confusion in the Church caused by the use of subsists in the Catholic
Church instead of simply is the Catholic Church. On June 29, 2007
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a document
entitled Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of
the Doctrine on the Church which presented formal responses to
questions about the Councils teaching in this area. The document
begins with the astonishing admission that the Congregation wishes
to respond to these questions by clarifying the authentic meaning of
some ecclesiological expressions used by the magisterium which are
open to misunderstanding in the theological debate. In other words, it
is the ecclesiological expressions of the Second Vatican Council that are
open to misunderstanding and therefore must now be clarifiedmore
than forty years after the Council ended!
Accordingly, one question addressed is: Why was the expression
subsists in adopted instead of the simple word is? In response the CDF
states: The use of this expression, which indicates the full identity of the
Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, does not change the doctrine
on the Church. Rather, it comes from and brings out more clearly the fact
that there are numerous elements of sanctification and of truth which
are found outside her structure, but which as gifts properly belonging
to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic Unity.179
This response at least negates that interpretation of the Council
promoted by the former Cardinal Ratzinger himselfwhich denied that
the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church are one and the same
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 22, 2000; Italian translation in LOsservatore
Romano, October 8, 2000.
179
June 29, 2007, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Responses to Some
Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church, Third Question,
at
www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_
20070629_ responsa-quaestiones_en.html.
178
75
thing. It is worth recalling here that the Catholic Church has always
taught and Pius XII insisted in Humani Generis that the Catholic Church
is the Church of Jesus Christ. But while the problem with subsists
in is addressed, the related novel expression pertaining to elements
of sanctification and truth outside the Churchs subsistence in Her
visible structure remains obscure. Does the expression connote only valid
sacraments such as marriages by an Orthodox priest, or a baptism by
a Protestant minister which the Church nonetheless recognizes as valid
and thus as elements of sanctification to be found outside Her visible
structure? Or does it extend even to preaching by non-Catholic ministers
that happens to be true on this or that point (for whatever that truth is
worth in the context of preaching also filled with objective heresies)?
Just how problematic the expression remains becomes apparent from
the CDFs own comment on the interpretation of Vatican II according
to which these elements outside the Church mean that the Church is
present wherever these elements are. To quote the CDF directly: It
is possible, according to Catholic doctrine, to affirm correctly that the
Church of Christ is present and operative in the churches and ecclesial
Communities not yet fully in communion with the Catholic Church, on
account of the elements of sanctification and truth that are present in
them. Nevertheless, the word subsists can only be attributed
to the Catholic Church alone (emphasis added).180
Note well: This remarkable statement concedes that it is only
possible to affirm this reading of the Council in accordance with Catholic
doctrine, whereas the Councils Modernist proponents had insisted on
a binding development of doctrine requiring Catholics to believe that
the Church is somehow present and operative outside of Herself in
some ill-defined way. Is it not astounding, and indeed alarming, that the
CDF is reduced to saying that it is merely possible to affirm consistently
with the Faith what an ecumenical Council purportedly taught?
So, the Councils grave ambiguity on the doctrine of the Church
persists despite this clarification. Indeed, the very need to issue
clarifications of the Councils teaching in the first place indicates a totally
unprecedented problem with its novel and ambiguous formulations.
This in itself is a disquieting sign of the times that must be read in the
light of Fatima. One is reminded immediately of Pius XIIs own reading
of the signs of times in light of Fatima in 1931, which led him to warn
of innovators who would very soon attempt the suicide of altering
the faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and the very soul of the Church.181
The Church No Longer Seeks the

Conversion and Return of Heretics and Schismatics
Despite the recent attempt at a clarification just noted, the erroneous
view persists that the Church of Christ is something much bigger
180
181
Ibid., Response to Second Question.

See Pope Pius XII on pages 36-37 of this book.
76
than, and therefore is not the same as, the Roman Catholic Church.
Consequently, it is no wonder that after 45 years of ecumenical activity
even Vatican prelates now openly repudiate the return of Protestants
and schismatics to Rome.
One prominent example of this departure from traditional teaching
is the statement of Cardinal Walter Kasper, the former secretary of the
Churchs most prominent post-conciliar heretic, Hans Kng. Kasper,
whose Modernist views are well-known throughout the Church, was
made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II in February 2001 and now still
enjoys (at the time of this writing, December 2009) the rank of Prefect of
the Vaticans Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Kasper said:
... today we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of
a return, by which the others would be converted and return to
being Catholics. This was expressly abandoned at Vatican II.182
In fact, Kaspers statement scorns the thrice-defined infallible

dogma that outside the Church there is no salvation. (extra ecclesia
nulla salus) The actual wording of these three solemn, infallible (and,
therefore, impossible to change)183 definitions that are binding on
all Catholics184 (of whatever rank, including Cardinals and Popes) to
believe, under pain of being automatically excommunicated (expelling
themselves from the Catholic Church) are as follows:
There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which
no one at all is saved. (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council,
1215; Dz. 430; D.S. 802)
We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely
necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject
to the Roman Pontiff. (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam,
1302; Dz. 469; D.S. 873)
The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and
preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church,
not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can
have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal
fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before
death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity
Adista, February 26, 2001. English translation quoted from Where Have They Hidden
the Body? by Christopher Ferrara, The Remnant, June 30, 2001.
183
We, with the approval of the sacred council, teach and define that it is a divinely
revealed dogma: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when,
acting in the office of shepherd and teacher of all Christians, he defines, by virtue of
his supreme apostolic authority, doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the
universal Church, [he] possesses through the divine assistance promised to him in the
person of St. Peter, the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed His Church to
be endowed in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals; and that such definitions of
the Roman Pontiff are therefore irreformable because of their nature [ex sese], but not
because of the agreement of the Church. (D.S. 1839)
184
But if anyone presumes to contradict this Our definition (God forbid that he do so): let
him be anathema. (D.S. 1840)
182
77
of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this

unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation,
and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts,
their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the
duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great
as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of
Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the
unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate
Domino, 1442; Dz. 714; D.S. 1351)
Because this often misunderstood teaching is the focal point of

the attack on Catholic dogma by the Churchs sworn enemies, namely
Masonry, it needs further explanation and defense.
The dogma means exactly what it says: if you have not received the
Baptism that Jesus Christ prescribedwhich is, in the normal course of
Providence, the baptism of water in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghostthen you cannot go to Heaven.
But although Baptism and membership in the Church are necessary
to salvation, they are not enough (except for infants who are baptized
and who die before the age of reason). We must also live the moral law
of Christ and love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves.
We must also receive the other Sacraments worthily.
This teaching does not deny the possibility of salvation for all souls
who have not become formal members of the Catholic Church. It is
possible that someone may never have had the Gospel preached to him.
If such a person were to keep all the gravely binding Commandments
of Gods law knowable by the light of reason alone (and in case he
committed a mortal sin, he were to repent of it with a perfect act of
contrition), he could be saved, but only if it were through no fault of
his own that he did not know his obligation to be baptized, join the
Catholic Church and practice the Catholic Faith.
For a non-Catholic to be saved in this manner would obviously be
much more difficult than for a Catholic to be saved with the help of
dogma, the examples of saints and the grace of the seven Sacraments.
Many are prone to self-deception, especially in these dark times,
and many people who consider themselves to be of good will might
easily find the truth of the Gospel if they honestly sought it. It may
be that some prefer darkness to light. So we ought never to presume
that a person is without fault in failing to be baptized and practice the
Catholic Faith. Thus, in general, the salvation of non-Catholics is at
greater risk.
In charity, we must pray and make sacrifices for the conversion of
all non-Catholics.
But charity also forbids us to assign bad will or culpability to
someone, or to judge him as irreformable. We must remember the
examples of St. Mary Magdalen, a notorious sinner, and St. Paul, a
persecutor of the Church, who both converted and drew many souls to
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Christ and His Church. All things are possible with God.
But the question is raised: How could a just and merciful God give
some souls the benefit of being born Catholic and deny it to others, if
the Catholic Faith is essential to salvation? Should not all be given an
equal chance to reach Heaven? And why should some people be denied
the opportunity to have the Gospel preached to them and be put at so
great a disadvantage in saving their souls? Here, we see the democratic
ideology of our age at work, along with a presumption that we can
judge the ways of God.
We must begin to answer these objections by establishing the
authority of the Church and Her claim on our belief:
1) The Catholic Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Tim.
3:15)
2) The Catholic Church is the one Church of God founded by Jesus
Christ, who Himself is accredited by God His Father and by His
many prophecies and miraclesespecially His Resurrection from
the dead. The Catholic Church is historically the Church He founded,
and accredited as the one true Church of God. The authenticity of
the Catholic Church is also guaranteed by the miracles of holiness
as well as physical and moral miracles through the centuries and
continuing into our own day.
3) The Catholic Church has defined infallibly that outside the Church
there is no salvation. An infallible definition by its very nature is
not able to be re-defined into another sense. The definition cannot
failit is irreformableit is the absolute truth which does not
change.
The Modernist objects to such definitions. He says: The truth is
not something I know with my intellect; it is something I feel; and my
feelings change, so the truth can and does change.
The Modernist who seriously professes that belief is already outside
the Church since he denies Scripture: Jesus Christ, yesterday, and
today; and the same for ever. (Heb. 13:8)
But the Catholic of weak faith or of poor intellectual formation
though he might hold a Ph.D. or degree in theologyalso raises the
objection: the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation does
not seem capable of being reconciled with the teachings that God is
all just and God would not condemn to hell someone who through no
fault of his own does not know this teaching because it has never been
preached to him.
Again, we must begin with authoritative teaching, this time from
the Gospel itself:
But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that
cometh to God, must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them
that seek Him. (Heb. 11:6)
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Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other

Name under Heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.
(Acts 4:12)
unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he
cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)
He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that
believes not shall be condemned. (Mark 16:16)
So how do we reconcile apparently contradictory teachings of the

necessity to believe in Jesus Christ and to be a member of His Church
to be saved, and the Justice, Fairness and Holiness of God toward an
individual who has not heard the Gospel preached to him at all; or
been denied the fullness of the Gospel, such as a second-generation
Protestant or Greek Orthodox or one raised in Jewish cultures? And
the answer is that God is All Holy, All Just and All Good and will not
condemn to the pains of hell one who is not guilty of personal mortal
sin.
The personal mortal sin of unbelief condemned by Jesus more than
once is the refusal to acknowledge the truth of the whole Gospelthe
whole dogma of the Catholic Churcheven after it has been testified
to by evident signs, wonders and miracles that only God can perform.
The First Vatican Council taught most reasonably on the question
of faith:
Because man depends entirely on God as his Creator and Lord
and because created reason is wholly subordinate to uncreated
Truth, we are obliged to render by faith a full submission of intellect
and will to God when He makes a revelation (see canon 1). This
faith, however, which is the beginning of human salvation, the
Catholic Church asserts to be a supernatural virtue. By that faith,
with the inspiration and help of Gods grace, we believe that what
He has revealed is truenot because its intrinsic truth is seen with
the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God who
reveals it, of God who can neither deceive nor be deceived (see
canon 2). For, on the word of the Apostle: Faith is the substance
of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that are not seen
(Heb. 11:1).
Nevertheless, in order that the submission of our faith might
be consonant with reason (see Rom. 12:1), God has willed that
external proofs of His revelation, namely divine acts and
especially miracles and prophecies, should be added to
the internal aids given by the Holy Spirit. Since these
proofs so excellently display Gods omnipotence and
limitless knowledge, they constitute the surest signs of
divine revelation, signs that are suitable to everyones
understanding (see canons 3-4). Therefore, not only Moses and
the prophets but also and preeminently Christ Our Lord performed
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many evident miracles and made clear-cut prophecies. Moreover, we
read of the Apostles: But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the preaching by
the signs that followed (Mark 16:20). And likewise it is written:
We have the word of prophecy, surer still, to which you do well to
attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place (II Pet. 1:19).
It is clear that many people in our cities and country have been
exposed to the testimony of evident miracles proving the Catholic
Faith is the one true teaching of Jesus Christ. The Miracle of the Sun at
Fatima is one such miracle. Thus we must remember what the Church
has infallibly defined at Vatican Council I:
(Canon 4) If anyone says that all miracles are impossible and,
hence, that all accounts of them, even though contained in Sacred
Scripture, should be classed with fables and myths; or that miracles
can never be recognized with certainty and that the divine origin
of the Christian religion cannot be successfully proved by them: let
him be anathema.
But what about the person who never had the law of the Gospel
preached to him and does not know that outside the Church there is
no salvation? If such a person exists, God, the just lawgiver, would hold
him bound by the Natural Lawthe law written on the heart of each
man who comes into the world.
That law is promulgated by the very fact that each and every man
who reaches the age of reason knows there is the Natural Law to follow.
And one of the first precepts of the Natural Law is to seek the truth,
obey it and follow it wherever it leads. Seek and you shall find, said
Jesus.
So if a person has diligently searched all his life and not found the
Gospel or the Church through no fault of his own, he can be saved, in
Gods special providence outside the Gospel law promulgated for all
men.
But that is a special exception, not the rule, and no one can know
who has exercised sufficient good will and due diligence in seeking the
ways of God. Who has weighed the human heart?, asks God in Isaias,
and God answers that no one except God Himself can understand fully
the human heart of each individual. St. Jerome, at the end of his life, in
the presence of his disciples, spoke these dreadful words: Out of one
hundred thousand people whose lives have always been bad, you will
find barely one who is worthy of indulgence.
At the end of the day, the exception to the rule is only thatan
exception in a particular case. The dogma outside the Church there
is no salvation stands vindicated 100% of the time, because in that
exceptional case God would have caused that exception to be joined
to the Church in a special way. We must uphold the dogmawe must
believe the dogma. We must defend this dogmatic teaching of the
81
Catholic Faith.
As Blessed Pius IX taught in Singulari Quadem, Catholics must not
preoccupy themselves with pointless speculation about salvation for
those whothrough no fault of their ownare not formal members
of the Church, since only God knows whom He will save (in some
extraordinary manner) from among the great mass of humanity which
has not exteriorly professed the Catholic religion.
Blessed Pius IXwhom Pope John Paul II himself beatified
exhorted the faithful to hold fast to the dogma outside the Church there
is no salvation and to continue with ever greater fervor the divinely
appointed work of the Church in making disciples of all nations. As for
the lot of those whothrough no fault of their ownremain outside the
visible Church, His Holiness warned that all further inquiry is unlawful.
Who can doubt the wisdom of Blessed Pius IXs warning? Indeed,
the Church has also taught constantly and infallibly that no one in this
world (absent a special private revelation) can know with absolute
certainty the subjective state of any soul, much less whether a soul
even ones ownis numbered among the elect. Since it is not possible
for the Church to presume (except in the case of canonized saints) that
any individual is either saved or damned, the ministers of the Church
are duty-bound to seek the conversion of every man, woman and child
on the face of the earth, following Our Lords own command: Go forth
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded thee (Matt. 28:19-20); He
who believes and is baptized shall be saved; he who believes not shall
be condemned. (Mk. 16:16)
And in this dogma of no salvation outside the Catholic Church
we have another reason in charity to promote the whole Message of
Fatimaparticularly the Consecration of Russia by the Pope and the
Catholic bishops of the world. Because when this is finally done, Russia
will be converted to the one true Church of Jesus Christthe Catholic
Church. The people of Russia will become Catholics and their salvation
morally certain if they remain in the fervent practice of the Catholic
Faith until their death. Millions more souls will be saved.
Not only will the Russians be saved, but billions of souls in the rest
of the world will be converted to Christ and His Churchthe Catholic
Church. We know that because Our Lady predicted a period of peace
will be given to the world. But there can be no peace if it is not based
upon the teaching and practices of the Prince of PeaceJesus Christ.
For men and women to live the teachings of Jesus Christ, they must
believe the Gospel, be baptized and practice the Catholic Faith. This will
happen at some timeSacred Scripture tells us when all the nations
will enter into the Catholic Church: Come and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will
teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths (Isaias 2:3).
82
But this will only come about through the Consecration of Russia,
after which the scandal of billions living in moral squalor, schism, heresy,
paganism and other false religions will be ended by that obedience of
the Pope to Our Lady of Fatima. We must sacrifice ourselves for this
intention and pray, as Our Lady of Fatima said on June 13, 1929.
But the present-day scandal of Vatican officials in high places
abandoning de facto the promotion of the Catholic dogma outside the
Church there is no salvation must be examined further, so we continue
with the examination of Cardinal Kaspers false teaching.
By declaring that Protestants need no longer convert to Catholicism,
Cardinal Kasper brazenly defies both the infallible teaching of the
Magisterium and the commands of Our Lord Himself. Kaspers view
also flatly contradicts the Churchs constant teaching that the only way
to Christian unity is the return of the dissidents to the Catholic Church
through their conversion. In the 1949 admonition of the Holy Office of
Pope Pius XII concerning the ecumenical movement, the bishops were
warned that in any ecumenical discussions they might authorize, the
Protestant interlocutors must be presented with the Catholic truth
and the teaching of the Encyclicals of the Roman Pontiffs on the return
of the dissidents to the Church.185 The Catholic doctrine of the return
of the dissidents was stressed by Pope Pius XII on December 20, 1949:
The Catholic doctrine will have to be proposed and exposed totally
and integrally: what the Catholic Church teaches about the true nature
and means of justification, about the constitution of the Church, about
the primacy of the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, about the only true
union which is accomplished with the return of the dissidents to the only
true Church of Christ, must not be passed over in silence or covered
over in ambiguous words.186
At least Kasper says openly what most of todays modernist prelates
seem to believe, but will neither confirm nor deny. Yet Kaspers policy
represents the still-prevailing spirit of Vatican II, despite Benedicts
call for a hermeneutic of continuity in reading the Councilin itself
a devastating implied admission that the Council lent itself to a reading
in discontinuity with prior Church teaching. That the Council lends itself
to the view that the conversion of non-Catholics is no longer necessary
was confirmed by the former Cardinal Ratzinger, when he was still
Father Ratzinger, in his 1966 book Theological Highlights of Vatican II.
In Theological Highlights the then-Father Ratzinger claimed that the
Council had given the Church a new orientation toward non-Catholics,
which dispenses with any call for their conversion:
The Catholic Church has no right to absorb the other Churches
... [A] basic unityof Churches that remain Churches, yet become
one Churchmust replace the idea of conversion, even though
185
186
Acta Apostolicae Sedis, AAS 42, p. 142.

Pius XII, Instruction of the Holy Office, Ecclesia Catholica, December 20, 1949 (On the
Ecumenical Movement).
83
conversion retains its meaningfulness for those in conscience

motivated to seek it.187
Now, the then-Father Ratzinger wrote this book during the Council.
As a co-worker with Karl Rahner, he was heavily involved with drafting
the conciliar documents. He is in a position to tell us what were the
actual intentions of the architects of Vatican II, which is not to be
confused with the intention of the Council Fathers themselves. And he
declares that the teaching of Vatican II, according to those who drew up
the documents, was that conversion is an option.188 That is, according to
him, the non-Catholic need not convert to the true Churcheither for
salvation or for unity.
This view is no less radical than that of Father Edward Schillebeeckx,
another progressivist Council peritus, who was investigated by the Vatican
after the Council (but never disciplined) for his open denial of various
Catholic dogmas. Schillebeeckx exulted that At Vatican II, the Catholic
Church officially abandoned its monopoly over the Christian religion.189
Likewise, a Catholic journal from the Rome-based International
Jewish-Christian Documentation Service (SIDIC)190 spoke of Vatican
IIs new orientation toward non-Catholics. In 1999 it spotlighted
what it considers to be the main problem with so-called traditional
Catholics, including Archbishop Lefebvre:
Lefebvres refusal to accept ecumenism originates in clear
teachings from the Magisterium: the encyclical Satis Cognitum of Leo
XIII (1896); the encyclical Mortalium Animos of Pius XI (1928); the
Dec. 20, 1949, Instruction of the Holy Office regarding ecumenism.
The only ecumenism accepted by Lefebvre and his followers is that
which strives for the unconditional return of the members of
other confessions to the one Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic
Church. This hardened sectarianism is precisely the kind of
logic which Vatican II, through profound reflection on the nature
of the Church, refused to accept. Though rooted in Tradition [sic]
(Emphasis added) Theological Highlights of Vatican II, Father Joseph Ratzinger [Paulist
Press, New York, 1966], pp. 65-66. This section of the book focuses on the deliberate
ecumenical foundation on which is based the Council document Lumen Gentium. For a
more complete discussion of Father Ratzingers book, see Vatican II vs. the Unity Willed
by Christ, by J. Vennari, Catholic Family News, December 2000.
188
Even if Cardinal Ratzinger completely changed his own personal views to a more orthodox
position, the Council texts themselves remain ambiguous, imprecise, and appear to be
oriented toward an unorthodox ecumenism which does not seek the conversion of nonCatholics to Catholicism.
189
E. Schillebeeckx, OP, Igreja ou igrejas?, in V.A. Cinco problemas que desafiam a Igreja hoje,
pp. 26f. Cited from In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, Atila Sinke Guimares, (Maeta,
Metairie, Louisiana, 1997) p. 243.
190
SIDIC is an association identifying itself as Catholic that was founded in Rome in
1965 at the request of a group of experts of the Second Vatican Council following the
promulgation of Nostra Aetate, to promote Catholic-Jewish dialogue. The Rome-based
SIDIC has local representatives in the following countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada,
England, France, Holland, Israel, Italy, United States. Nostra Aetate is the Councils
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
187
84

the scope of the Councils reflection was without precedent in the
history of Christianity. For integralists, ecumenism is one of the
fundamental betrayals by Vatican II.191
The novel claim that non-Catholics need not convert because they
are in some mysterious way part of the Church of Christ192 scorns
the Churchs perennial teaching on the necessity of non-Catholics to
abandon their errors and return to the one true Church of Jesus Christ,
as the pre-conciliar Popes unanimously taught.
There are reported cases of Vatican Cardinals actively discouraging
non-Catholics who desire to convert to Catholicism, evidently in keeping
with this same false interpretation of the Council. Catholic Family News
published the story of Father Linus Dragu Popian, who had been raised
in the Romanian Orthodox religion. In 1975 he risked his life to escape
Communist Romania and presented himself as a seminarian to the
Vatican, expressing his wish to convert to Catholicism. The then-Secretary
of State, Cardinal Villot, and other Vatican Cardinals were horrified.
They told young Popian that he must not flee Communism and must not
become Catholic, because this would damage the Vaticans relations with
Communist Romania and the Romanian Orthodox Church.193
Little has changed in Rome since then. Bishop Fellay of the
Society of St. Pius X related in a 2001 interview that he had met a
schismatic (Orthodox) bishop who wanted to convert to the Catholic
Church. Bishop Fellay advised him to deal directly with Rome. When
the Orthodox bishop told the Vatican he wanted to become a Catholic,
panic ensued. The following day, Cardinal Neves, Prefect of the
Congregation of Bishops said to the schismatic bishop, Your Excellency,
it is not necessary to convert. Since the Council, things have changed!
Theres no need to convert any more.194
This deliberate refusal to allow a schismatic Orthodox bishop to
return to Rome is completely in line with the Balamand Declaration of
1993, negotiated between certain Vatican officials and various Orthodox
churches. In this document the Vaticans representative (Cardinal
Cassidy of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity) actually agreed
that, owing to radically altered perspectives and thus attitudes
(Emphasis added.) Service International de Documentation Judo-Chrtienne (SIDIC),
Rome, [English edition from Washington, D.C.] Vol. XXXII, No. 3, 1999, p. 22.
192
The verbal ambiguity used by Vatican II to advance this false notion is found in Lumen
Gentium 8 wherein it says The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church rather
than Pope Pius XIIs definition that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church [Mystici
Corporis, Pope Pius XII]. See previous discussion and footnotes in this chapter concerning
the origin and effect of this ambiguity, as admitted by the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
193
For a brief account of Father Popians story, see Vatican says, Do Not Convert to
Catholicism, John Vennari, Catholic Family News, December 2001. See also Vatican
says, You Must Not Become Catholic!, John Vennari, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 69,
Winter 2002. Father Popians testimony on audio cassette entitled Vaticans Ostpolitik
and Ecumenism Tried to Prevent My Conversion to Catholicism is also available from
the Fatima Center, 17000 State Route 30, Constable, New York 12926.
194
We are a Sign of Contradiction, interview with Bishop Bernard Fellay, SSPX, Latin Mass
Magazine, Fall 2001, p. 11.
191
85
engendered by Vatican II, the Catholic Church will train new priests to
pave the way for future relations between the two churches, passing
beyond the outdated ecclesiology of return to the Catholic Church.195
The claim that the Magisteriums constant teaching on the return of
the dissidents (heretics and schismatics) to the one true Church as the
only means of true Christian unity is now outdated ecclesiology is a
heresy, since it flatly contradicts not only the Churchs teaching on the
return of the dissidents, but also the infallibly defined Catholic dogma
that outside the Church there is no salvation.
The de facto abandonment of the Churchs traditional teaching
on this matter does not represent true charity toward the separated
brethren but rather a retreat from the Churchs duty to tell them the
simple truth. Again, the result is no boon to non-Catholics, but rather
a weakened, scandal-ridden Church which, in parts of the world, is
hardly able to serve as the leaven of society it was meant to be. While
the Church, being a divine as well as a human institution, will inevitably
be restored to Her former vigor, as She has following other crises in Her
past, the Church and the world will undergo great suffering until this
crisis of faith is ended.
The Social Kingship of Christ Abandoned

As a consequence of the Churchs new orientation since Vatican II,
there has also been a de facto abandonment of the Churchs constant
teaching on the Social Kingship of Christ. According to this teaching,
not only individual men, but all nations, are obliged to submit to Christ
and conform themselves to His teaching. It is the teaching of Christ,
not dialogue with unbelievers, that will bring peace to the world; it is
His Church that must serve as the chief instrument of world peace. The
constant teaching of the Church on this doctrine is summed up with
admirable concision by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei:
Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for
to Her safekeeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and
the promise of the assistance of Christ, She is able not only to bring
about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ,
but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute
greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to making
war impossible in the future. For the Church teaches (She alone
has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with
authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups
and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact,
it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow Gods
law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the
consequences of its acts than on the individual. When, therefore,
governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they
195
Balamand Statement, nn. 13 and 30. The Balamand Statement (1993) was cited
approvingly by Pope John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint, n. 59.
86

be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in
the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are
binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in
one anothers word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties
and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view
or from clash of interests.196
Speaking of efforts to obtain world peace through a League of

Nations, Pope Pius XI declared:
An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made;
its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far
as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide
seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely
human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of
international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as
the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations,
Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was
often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which
one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those
who had lost their way back to the safe road.197
In order to reinforce this teaching, Pope Pius XI inaugurated the

Feast of Christ the King with his encyclical Quas Primas:
It was surely right, then, in view of the common teaching of
the sacred books, that the Catholic Church, which is the kingdom
of Christ on earth, destined to be spread among all men and all
nations, should with every token of veneration salute Her Author
and Founder in Her annual liturgy as King and Lord, and as King of
kings. [T]he empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use
the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: His empire
includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who,
though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by
error, or have been cut off from Her by schism, but also all those who
are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind
is subject to the power of Jesus Christ. Nor is there any difference
in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for
all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion
of Christ.198
The Civilization of Love

Replaces the Conversion of Pagans
After Vatican II, however, the Social Kingship of Christ was replaced
by something called the civilization of lovea term coined by Pope
Paul VI to describe the utopian notion that dialogue with the world
Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei, Encyclical Letter on the Peace of Christ in His Kingdom,
December 23, 1922.
197
Ibid.
198
Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, Encyclical on the Kingship of Christ, December 11, 1925.
196
87
would lead to a world brotherhood of religions that would not at all be

explicitly Christian. The slogan civilization of love has been repeated
incessantly since then. As Pope John Paul II described this novel notion
in his address for the World Day of Peace in 2001:
Dialogue leads to a recognition of diversity and opens the mind
to the mutual acceptance and genuine collaboration demanded by
the human familys basic vocation to unity. As such, dialogue is a
privileged means for building the civilization of love and peace that
my revered predecessor Paul VI indicated as the ideal to inspire
cultural, social, political and economic life in our time. The different
religions too can and ought to contribute decisively to this process. My
many encounters with representatives of other religionsI recall
especially the meeting in Assisi in 1986 and in Saint Peters Square
in 1999have made me more confident that mutual openness
between the followers of the various religions can greatly serve the
cause of peace and the common good of the human family.199
Even John Paul II was led to think that interreligious prayer meetings
such as those at Assisi in 1986 and 2002 are among the very means by
which this utopian notion is supposed to be realized. Yet the mere sight
of such spectacles would have horrified Pope Pius XII and every one of
his predecessors. Meanwhile, the Social Kingship of Christ in a Catholic
social order is de facto excluded from the new orientation.
Nor has the situation improved with the publication of Pope
Benedicts encyclical Caritas in Veritate (2009), which seeks to address
the crisis in Western civilization but says not one word about the Social
Kingship of Jesus Christ, calling instead for a new humanistic synthesis.
Consider that Pope Pius XIs first encyclical on the Churchs answer to
the civilizational crisis, Ubi Arcano, is subtitled On the Peace of Christ
in the Kingdom of Christ, whereas Pope Benedicts encyclical on the
same crisis 87 years later is subtitled On Integral Human Development
in Charity and Truth. The radical change of terminology from simple
Gospel clarity to trendy jargon is as unsettling as it is revealing.
In what is clearly an effort to reconcile the novelties of Vatican II
and its opening to the world with traditional Church teaching, Caritas
wavers between integral human development as made possible only
by divine grace, supernatural charity, Christian fraternity, and the
Gospel as fundamental and indispensablean indirect affirmation
of the Social Kingshipand integral human development based
on fundamental values, universal values and reason open to
transcendence, all of which seem to be presented as available to nonCatholics and even non-believers of good will.200 (But if they are of
good will they must therefore come to be believing Catholics at some
point.) Nowhere does the encyclical state clearly (although it faintly
(Emphasis added.) Pope John Paul IIs Message for World Day of Peace, January 1, 2001,
Dialogue Between Cultures for a Civilization of Love and Peace.
200
Cf. Caritas, nn. 55-57.
199
88
implies) what Pius XI and his predecessors affirmed explicitly: that only
the Catholic Church can bring true peace, justice and charity to the
world by uniting mankind in one faith and one baptism under Christ
the King; that only Christendom, not any merely human alliance, can
save a tottering civilization.
Clearly, Pope Benedict is making an effort to turn the ship around,
as is obvious with his liberation of the traditional Latin Mass from its
bogus prohibition for forty years. But given the continued influence
of the new orientation of the Church and the attendant novelties of
ecumenism, dialogue, interreligious dialogue, and collegiality,
none of which have any binding doctrinal character whatsoeverthe
Pope evidently feels obliged to refrain from stating the obvious: that
the world simply has no hope of averting catastrophe without Christ
and His Blessed Mother. Of course, the Churchs new ecumenical
and interreligious orientation cannot possibly be reconciled with the
Message of Fatima, which explains why, beginning with Vatican II, an
effort has been made to revise the Message, if not bury it completely, in
keeping with the new orientation.
Must Catholics Accept

the New Orientation of the Church?
Catholics are bound to submit to the Churchs dogmatic definitions
on faith and morals; as well as to all the ordinary and universal teachings
of the whole Church on faith and morals. These established teachings
are guaranteed as true and unchangeable by God Himself. Anything
that contradicts the infallible teaching of the Church must be rejected.
It is clear that Catholics are not bound to submit to new attitudes and
orientations of liberalized churchmen who are now saying and doing
things unheard-of in the Churchs entire history. Thus, Catholics have
the right, even the duty, to resist this new orientation arising from the
ambiguities of the Council and the opinions of the new theology,
which conflict with the perennial and infallible Magisterium.
For years, Catholics have labored under the misconception that
they must accept the pastoral Council, Vatican II, with the same assent
of faith that they owe to dogmatic Councils. This, however, is not
the case. The Council Fathers repeatedly referred to Vatican II as a
pastoral Council. That is, it was a Council that dealt not with defining
the Faith, but with measures in the realm of practical and prudential
judgmentsuch as the launching of the ecumenical venture. The
Councils own document, the Preliminary Note (in Latin, Nota Praevia)
to Lumen Gentium, states this clearly: In view of the conciliar practice
and pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Synod defines
matters of faith and morals as binding on the Church only when the
Synod itself openly declares so.201 No matters of faith and morals were
201
Addenda to Lumen Gentium, Explanatory Note of the Theological Commission, in Walter

M. Abbott, S.J., ed., The Documents of Vatican II, (New York: America Press, 1966) pp.
89
defined as binding on the Church concerning the new ecumenical

orientation, nor as to any of the other novel pastoral formulations in
the language of the conciliar documents.
That Vatican II was inferior in authority to a dogmatic council is
confirmed by the testimony of the Council Father, Bishop Thomas Morris.
At his own request, this testimony was not unsealed until after his death:
I was relieved when we were told that this Council was not
aiming at defining or giving final statements on doctrine, because
a statement on doctrine has to be very carefully formulated and
I would have regarded the Council documents as tentative and
liable to be reformed.202
Then there is the important testimony from the Councils Secretary,

Archbishop (later Cardinal) Pericle Felici. At the close of Vatican II, the
bishops asked Archbishop Felici for that which the theologians call the
theological note of the Councilthat is, the doctrinal weight of its
teachings. Archbishop Felici replied:
In view of conciliar practice and the pastoral purpose of the
present Council, this sacred Synod defines matters of faith or
morals as binding on the Church only when the Synod itself openly
declares so.203
He also said:
We have to distinguish according to the schemas and the
chapters those which have already been the subject of dogmatic
definitions in the past; as for the declarations which have a
novel character, we have to make reservations.204
Pope Paul VI himself observed that Given the Councils pastoral

character, it avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary manner, dogmas
endowed with the note of infallibility.205
Thus, unlike a dogmatic Council, Vatican II does not demand an
unqualified assent of faith. The Councils verbose and ambiguous
documents are not on a par with the doctrinal pronouncements of past
councils. Vatican IIs novelties are not unconditionally binding on the
faithful, nor did the Council itself ever say that they were.
And yet the ambiguous teachings of the Council, and the Churchs
new post-conciliar orientation, have resulted in nothing less than what,
as we shall see, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger called the demolition of
bastions in the Church. This would include demolition of the Message
of Fatima. As we will now demonstrate, this destructive undertaking has
97-98.
Bishop Morris personal testimony reported in an article by Kieron Wood, Catholic World
News, January 22, 1997.
203
The Documents of Vatican II, Editor Walter Abbott, S.J., p. 98.
204
Cited from Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 107.
205
Pope Paul VI, General Audience of January 12, 1966, in Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. 4,
p. 700, cited from Atila Sinke Guimares, In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, (Metairie,
Louisiana: Maeta, 1997; Rockford, Illinois: TAN, 1999) pp. 111-112.
202
90
largely fulfilled the dreams of the Churchs enemies, and the prophetic
warnings of the Message of Fatima as reported by Pope Pius XII only 31
years before the Council.
In the late 1950s, Hans Urs von Balthasar was

considered so doctrinally unsound that the Swiss
bishops did not allow him to be a theological advisor
at Vatican II.
Chapter 7
The Demolition of Bastions
No wonder the Churchs worst enemies have been so delighted with
the Council and the radical changes it introduced. They are also no
doubt quite pleased with the sudden and catastrophic ecclesial collapse
in every department following Vatican II. Every available statistic shows
that the unprecedented changes ushered in by Vatican II have been
accompanied by equally unprecedented declines in the number of
priests and religious, the number of new ordinations, the number of
seminarians and the number of conversions and baptisms. Immediately
after Vatican II some 50,000 priests defected, and in 2009 there remain
approximately 50,000 fewer Catholic priests than there were forty-four
years ago. In 1997 there were fewer baptisms in the United States than
there were in 1970.206
Long before he became Pope, the former Cardinal Ratzinger spoke
of a continuing process of decay that has gone on largely on the basis of
appeals to the Council, and thus has discredited the Council in the eyes
of many people.207 Yet Cardinal Ratzinger, along with the others who
have presided over the new orientation of Vatican II, insisted that we
need not less, but more of the same:
Does this mean the Council itself must be revoked? Certainly
not. It means only that the real reception of the Council has not yet
even begun. What devastated the Church after the Council was not
the Council but the refusal to accept it. The task, therefore, is
not to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to
deepen its true intention in the light of present experience.208
Going even further, and citing as his authority one of the same neomodernist theologians who have helped produce this disaster for the
Church, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger declared:
The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as
1952, that She [the Church] must relinquish many of the things
that have hitherto spelled security for Her and that She has taken
for granted. She must demolish longstanding bastions and trust
solely the shield of faith.209
See, e.g., statistical analysis of the priesthood in LOsservatore Romano, 13/20 August
1997, and The Index of Leading Catholic Indicators, The Latin Mass, Winter 2000,
presenting extensive data from the Vatican Statistical Yearbook of the Church and other
standard reference works. See also Kenneth C. Jones, The Index of Leading Catholic
Indicators: The Church Since Vatican Council II (Fort Collins, Colorado: Roman Catholic
Publishing, 2003).
207
Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 391.
208
Ibid., p. 390.
209
Ibid., p. 391.
206
92
The former Cardinals call for demolition of longstanding bastions

in the Church was and still is perhaps the most serious admission
of all concerning the revolutionary new orientation of the Church
brought on by the Second Vatican Council. For what could he mean by
longstanding bastions if not the Churchs traditional defenses against
Her enemieswhat the then-Cardinal himself described as many of
the things that have hitherto spelled security for Her and that She has
taken for granted? The Cardinal appeared to admit that he wished
to demolish the very things that give the Church security! The Church
must, in the Cardinals apparent view of things, trust solely in the
shield of faith. But what does that mean? How can Catholics hold on
to their faith unless it is kept secure by the very bastions that are being
called to be demolished?
By citing new theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar as his authority
for this demolition of bastions, the then-Cardinal appeared to bless the
new theology that tears down the Churchs traditional theology, with
its clear and precise definitions of the truths that Catholics must believe.
In the former Cardinals call to demolish the Churchs longstanding
bastions, we see clearly what can only be called a desire to destroy.
That phrase is taken from a book by the Catholic writer Atila Sinke
Guimares, entitled Animus Delendi (Latin for the desire to destroy).
Guimares shows that the conciliar and post-conciliar reformers of
the Church are motivated by a mentality that sees the destruction of
the old Church as tragic but necessary for the Churchs growth and
renewal in the modern world.
How are the bastions to be demolished? Our Lady says the
dogma of Faith will be preserved in Portugal. Dogmas are in themselves
bastions of the Church. Obviously, then, the demolition of bastions will
involve the undermining of dogmatic definitions, even as lip-service
is paid to the dogmas by the neo-modernist new theologians who
are doing the undermining. Dogmas can be undermined in these ways:
1) simply ignore them, and they will cease to exist for all practical
purposes; 2) replace clear terms with ambiguous termse.g. is with
subsist; 3) dismiss dogma as outdated theology, as in the Balamand
Declaration and the various remarks of high-ranking churchmen cited
in the preceding chapter; 4) pretend there is no such thing as infallible
dogmatic definitions which every Catholic must believe, just as they are
written; 5) pretend that defined Catholic dogma can and does change
over time; and 6) where the dogma of no salvation outside the Church
is concerned, simply refer incessantly to non-Catholics as believers or
Christians.
What precisely are the bastions that in the view of reformers must
be demolished? We recall once again what Pope Pius XII accurately
predicted in his inspired comments about the coming crisis in the
Church:
93

Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology, and Her soul. I hear all around
Pius XII identified three elements of the Church that the innovators
wished to alter: Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul (i.e. Her very
nature). Notice that Pope Pius XII, basing himself on the Fatima Message,
as well as what he had witnessed personally in the Church at that time,
spoke of a coming attempt to dismantle, destroy and reject these things
in the Church. In other words, the demolition of bastions.
The Demolition of the Liturgy

Before Vatican II the Popes unanimously defended the Churchs
ancient Latin liturgy against innovation, recognizing that the immutable
Latin language was a barrier against heresy, as Pope Pius XII taught
in his monumental encyclical on the liturgy, Mediator Dei. Indeed, the
Protestant reformers of the 16th Century hated nothing more than
the traditional Catholic Mass in Latin, the Damasian-Gregorian liturgy
which was the center of the life of the Church from at least the 4th
Century (and probably earlier) until the liturgical reform of Pope Paul
VI in 1969.
Nowhere can the desire to destroy, the demolition of bastions, be
seen more clearly than in Pope Pauls explanation of his decision to
suppress the traditional Latin Mass of more than 1,500 years standing
and replace it with a newly concocted rite of Mass in the vernaculara
totally unprecedented action his predecessors would have regarded as
shocking and unthinkable:
It is here that the greatest newness is going to be noticed, the
newness of language. No longer Latin, but the spoken language
will be the principal language of the Mass. The introduction of the
vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know
the beauty, the power, and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are
parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming
like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance.
We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable
artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant. We have reason
for regret, reason almost for bewilderment. What can we put in the
place of that language of the angels? We are giving up something
of priceless worth. Why? What is more precious than these loftiest
of our Churchs values?
What indeed is more precious than these loftiest of our Churchs

values? According to Paul VI what was more precious was an appeal
to modern man, whom the Pope apparently viewed as so obtuse as to
94
be unable to make heads or tails of Latin prayers in the Roman Missal,

even if the same Missal included vernacular translations alongside the
Latin. Paul VI continued by answering his own question:
The answer will seem banal, almost prosaic. Yet it is a good
answer because it is human, it is apostolic. Understanding of prayer
is more important than the silken garments in which it is royally
dressed. Participation by the people is worth moreparticularly
participation by modern people, so fond of plain language which is
easily understood and converted into everyday speech.210
Paul VIs speech is a blueprint for what has happened to the entire
Church since the Council. The conciliar and post-conciliar changesall
without precedent in Church historyare the work of profane intruders
who labor to destroy something of priceless worth, to demolish bastions
that had been standing for centuriesnot only in the sacred liturgy, but
in the perennial teaching of the Church. It is no accident that Vatican
II caused unprecedented destruction, since the Councils prime movers
were planning destruction all along.
Here, however, we can report at least the beginning of a movement
toward a restoration since the appearance of the first edition of The
Devils Final Battle: The Popes motu proprio of July 7, 2007, Summorum
Pontificum, which declared that every priest and religious order in the
Church has the right to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass, which was
never abrogated by Paul VI. In the motu proprio and in his letter to the
bishops of the world accompanying it, the Pope makes these stunning
admissions:
What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and
great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden
or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the
riches which have developed in the Churchs faith and prayer, and
to give them their proper place.211
As for the use of the 1962 Missal as a Forma extraordinaria of
the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact
that this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently,
in principle, was always permitted.212
Never juridically abrogated. Always permitted. With these phrases

the Pope himself vindicates what traditionalists have said all along
Audience Address of November 26, 1969.
Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007) at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/
benedict_xvi/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20070707_
summorum-pontificum_lt.html (in Latin); see also http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/
benedict_xvi/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070707_lettera-vescovi_
en.html
212
Letter of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Bishops on the Occasion of the Publication of
the Apostolic Letter motu proprio data Summorum Pontificum on the Use of the Roman
Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970, at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_
xvi/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070707_lettera-vescovi_en.html.
210
211
95
that Paul VI did not, and could not, ban the Churchs traditional
rite of Massand has thus exposed the entire fraud of the liturgical
renewal following Vatican II. Without any genuine legal authority
whatsoever, the traditional Latin Mass was effectively outlawed and the
Churchs liturgy turned upside down by the very band of iconoclastic
incompetents whose destructive work Pius XII foresaw in the light of
Fatima.
On this score we have another key admission emerging from inside
the Vatican since the time of the first edition. In a scathing interview
with a pair of traditional Catholic journalists in Italy, Mons. Domenico
Bartolucci, no less than the Maestro in perpetuity of the Sistine Chapel
under five consecutive Popes and recently honored by Pope Benedict
for his long service to the Church in that capacity, was unsparingly,
even brutally, frank about the new liturgy and the fraudulent attempt to
forbid the traditional Mass. Mons. Bartolucciagain, the Maestro of
the Sistine Chapel!revealed that he had never celebrated the new Mass
but only the traditional Latin Mass, and that I would on the contrary
have found it difficult to celebrate the Mass of the modern rite. When
asked if thoughtful and doctrinally trained people had carried out the
liturgical reform, Bartolucci gave this withering reply:
Excuse me, but the reform was done by arid peoplearid, I
repeat to you. And I knew them. As far as doctrine is concerned,
I recall that Cardinal Ferdinand Antonelli, of venerable memory,
often said: What are we to make of liturgists who dont know
theology?213
The Popes historic motu proprio has to be seen as the fruit of a

worldwide Rosary campaign conducted by the allegedly schismatic
Society of Saint Pius X, which had requested liberation of the Latin
Mass as a precondition for its discussions with the Vatican concerning
the crisis in the Church and the Societys role in addressing it.
The Societys defense of Catholic Tradition was validated quite
dramatically when the Pope (to howls of outrage from within and
without the Church) met the Societys second precondition by lifting
the purported excommunication of its four bishops in 1988 with a
decree of the Congregation for Bishops issued January 21, 2009 (the
Feast of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, in the traditional Roman liturgical
calendar). In a letter to the worlds bishops defending his decision to
take this step toward regularizing the Society, the Pope made perhaps
the most devastating admission of all from inside the Vatican since
this book first appeared:
In our days, 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
213
Monsignor Bartolucci on the liturgical reform and the reform of the reform, at http://
disputationes-theologicae.blogspot.com/
96

women the way to God.214
What a comment on the springtime of Vatican II that was supposedly

inaugurated by the reforms of Vatican II! And it is no coincidence that
the Pope linked his remark about the sputtering out of faith in vast
areas of the worldfor lack of fuelto an enumeration of what the
Society has to offer the Church: Can we be totally indifferent about
a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries,
88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164
religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful?
Nor was this just some isolated papal remark. As recently as
September 2009 the Pope reiterated the theme of a post-Vatican II
disaster in the Church in an address to the Bishops of Brazil during
their ad limina visit to the Vatican:
Dear Brothers, in the decades following the Second Vatican
Council, some have interpreted the opening to the world not as a
requirement for the missionary zeal of the Heart of Christ, but as
a passage to secularization [C]ertain fundamental truths of the
faith, such as sin, grace, theological life, and the last things, were not
mentioned anymore.
Many ecclesial communities senselessly fell into self-secularization;
attempting to please those who would not come, they witnessed
many members whom they had leave them, deceived and
disillusioned: those of our time, when they meet us, want to see
that which they do not see anywhere else, that is, the joy and hope
that come from being with the risen Lord.
There is today a new generation born into this secularized
ecclesial environment. Instead of noticing an openness and
consensus, they see the abyss of differences and contradictions to
the Magisterium of the Church growing ever wider, especially in
the field of ethics. In this desert without God, the new generation
feels a deep thirst for transcendence.215
So much for the renewal of Vatican II! Clearly, the man who is
Pope today is not the same man who spoke as Cardinal Ratzinger. He
is, rather, a man who, having attained the grace of the papal office,
recognizes that enemies of the Faith surround him. As he declared in
his first sermon as Pope on April 24, 2005: Pray for me, that I may not
flee for fear of the wolves. But then Benedict would not be the first
Pope to undergo a conservative transformation. No less than Blessed
Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops of the Catholic Church
Concerning the Remission of the Excommunication of the Four Bishops Consecrated by
Archbishop Lefebvre, 10 March 2009, at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_
xvi/letters/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20090310_remissione-scomunica_en.html
215
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, To Bishops of the Episcopal Conference of Brazil on
their ad Limina visit (West 1-2 Regions), September 7, 2009. For the complete text,
see LOsservatore Romano; see also translation at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/
benedict_xvi/speeches/2009/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20090907_adlimina-brasile_en.html.
214
97
Pius IX was a liberalist at the beginning of his long pontificate, only

to become the archenemy of Liberalism and the modern world after
he narrowly escaped death and had to flee the papal palace for his life,
disguised as a simple priest, when Masonic patriots invaded Rome in
the name of Liberty.
And yet despite these encouraging signs in the Benedictine
pontificate, the crisis in the Church rages on. Even the Popes motu
proprio reduces the received and approved rite of Mass in the Church
to the extraordinary form of the liturgy, while elevating a new rite
concocted less than forty years ago by a committee to the status of
the ordinary form. This horrible inversion of man-made novelty
over a perennial tradition, going back to the Apostles and forged
under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is emblematic of precisely that
diabolical disorientation in the Church of which Sister Lucy spoke
again and again in her correspondence and conversations. Further, the
motu proprio, which clearly enunciates the right of priests to offer the
traditional Mass without episcopal permission, is widely ignored and
even positively disobeyed by many bishops, who continue to impose
ridiculous restrictions on the Churchs own liturgical patrimony.
Then, too, the theological crisis (discussion of which was a third
precondition raised by the Society) continues as well. The theological
discussions the Society has requested with the Vatican have indeed
commenced as this second edition appears. And so it is opportune
to restate, in this emerging new context of ever more frank Vatican
admissions, the theological concerns we expressed in the first edition.
The Demolition of Theology

In the December 19, 1946 edition of LOsservatore Romano, Pope
Pius XII (targeting the heterodox theories of modernists like Chenu and
de Lubac) warned that what was being trumpeted as a new theology
would end up undermining the Faith:
There is a good deal of talk (but without the necessary clarity
of concept) about a new theology, which must be in constant
transformation, following the example of all other things in the
world, which are in a constant state of flux and movement, without
ever reaching their term. If we were to accept such an opinion,
what would become of the unchangeable dogmas of the Catholic
Faith; and what would become of the unity and stability of that
Faith?216
As we have seen, John XXIII disregarded Pope Pius XIIs warning;

at Vatican II Pope John rehabilitated the very proponents of the new
theology who were under suspicion of heresy during the pontificate
of Pope Pius XII. To recall the testimony of Msgr. Bandas: No doubt
good Pope John thought that these suspect theologians would rectify
216
Quoted from David Greenstock, Thomism and the New Theology, The Thomist, October
1950.
98
their ideas and perform a genuine service to the Church. But exactly
the opposite happened. The great confusion was underway. It was
already apparent that neither Trent nor Vatican I nor any encyclical would
be permitted to impede its advance.
Now, what have been the effects of the new theology upon the
Church? Today, in the name of Vatican II, we are told
that the Church must dialogue and collaborate with Communists,
Muslims, heretics, schismatics, and other real enemies (in the
objective order of things) of the faith;
that the Churchs constant pre-conciliar teaching against Liberalism
(as seen in the Syllabus of Blessed Pius IX) and against Modernism
(as seen in Pascendi by St. Pius X) is one-sided and outdated;
that the Church must attempt a reconciliation with the principles
of the French Revolution;
that the Church of Christ is larger than the Catholic Church;
that heretics (e.g. Protestants) and schismatics need no longer
convert and return to the Catholic Church for salvation or even for
unity.
In short, the Churchs enemies in the neo-modernist, Freemasonic
and Communist camps have seen their anti-Catholic dreams largely
come true.
But now the Vatican seems willing to discuss the resulting theological
disaster with the Society of Saint Pius X. No doubt the partisans in the
Vatican are intent on inducing the Society to embrace the ambiguous
novelties of the Councilwhich, in fact, no Catholic has any duty to
embrace. On the contrary, in fact, all faithful Catholics must resist and
reject all errors against the Churchs teaching of all timeeven if those
errors were promoted by a non-infallible Council such as Vatican II.
That is because the Church has no power to invent new doctrines.217
Nevertheless, some advance is being made because at least now the
Vatican is willing to enter into a discussion regarding the Council
documents instead of demanding a false obedience to novel and
nebulous concepts that have manifestly provoked tremendous damage
to the Church and the cause of the Gospel.
The Demolition of the Churchs Soul

The future Pius XII was not speaking idly when, in the light of the
Message of Fatima, he predicted the coming attempt to alter not only
217
As the First Vatican Council declared in its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of
Christ, Ch. 4, 6: For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that
they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance,
they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith
transmitted by the apostles. Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the
venerable Fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox Doctors
99
the Churchs liturgy and theology, but Her very soulwhat She is. Of
course, this design can never succeed completely, because Our Lord
promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church.
But this divine promise does not exclude the Churchs human element
suffering the gravest possible wounds from Her enemies, short of a final
death. It was the prospect of such grave injuries to the Church that so
alarmed Pope Pius XII, especially in light of the Fatima prophecies.
And indeed Pope Pius worst fears have been realized in the postconciliar period, in which we have witnessed an effort to change
the Church from the sole ark of salvation, outside of which no one
is saved, into a mere collaborator with other churches and ecclesial
communities, non-Christian religions and even atheists in building up
a utopian civilization of love. In this civilization of love the salvation
of souls from hellwhich is no longer mentionedis replaced by a new
form of salvation: salvation through world brotherhood and world
peace. This is the very notion which Freemasonry has been promoting
for the past three centuries.
In keeping with this Freemasonic notion of salvation through the
brotherhood of man (understood in a secular, non-Christian sense),
many Catholic churchmen now tell us that we must respect the various
Protestant and schismatic sects as partners in ecumenical dialogue
and the search for Christian unity. In keeping with this new notion,
there are joint ecumenical liturgies between Catholics, Protestants
and schismatic Orthodox churches to demonstrate the supposed partial
communion between all Christians.
To be sure, the executors of the new orientation of the Catholic
Church still allow that She is the most perfect of all churches, but the
claim that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, to the complete
exclusion of all others, has de facto been abandoned by all but a remnant
of faithful Catholics. Today they are considered rigid sectarians and
pre-conciliar for simply believing what Catholics always believed
before 1965. Contrary to the unfortunate, ignorant post-conciliar
Catholics, all Catholics who know the Catholic Faith know that
unchangeable Catholic dogma must always be believed in order to
remain in the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.
But the Freemasons and their allies view Christian unity as only a
step toward pan-religious unity in the world brotherhood. At the same
time Christian unity is being promoted by pan-Christian activities
which the great pre-conciliar Popes would have regarded as sacrileges,
interreligious dialogue has made the Church more open to the
value of non-Christian religions, whose followers would no longer
be regarded as being in need of faith and Baptism to save their souls.
Karl Rahners anonymous Christianitywhich holds that the sincere
followers of any religion can be, and probably are, Christians without
even knowing ithas become the de facto theology of the Church.
Accordingly, there would be pan-religious prayer meetings in which
100
the members of all religions gather together to pray for peace and to
demonstrate their unity as members of the human family, without any
of them being told that they are in danger of damnation without Baptism,
faith in Christ and membership in His Church. In the reformed Good
Friday liturgy, Catholics (for the first time in the Churchs liturgical
history) no longer pray publicly and unequivocally for the conversion
of non-Catholics into the Catholic Church as a necessary step for the
salvation of their souls.
As anyone can see, the replacement of the Social Kingship of Christ
with the civilization of love has totally neutralized the Catholic
Church, which no longer serves as the center of the worlds moral and
spiritual authority, as She was meant to be by Her divine Founder.
The progressivist theologians who advanced this new orientation
of the Church have now formed almost two generations of Catholic
laity and clergy. The works of Rahner, Kng, Schillebeeckx, Congar, de
Lubac, von Balthasar, and their disciples now dominate the teachingtexts of Catholic seminaries and universities. For the past 40 years, the
progressivist tenets of these men have served as the principal formation
for priests, religious, theologians, and Catholic college students. Thus,
we have now reached a stage where prelates prefer Rahners theology
to that of Saint Robert Bellarmine, for example, who is a canonized
saint and Doctor of the Church, or Saint Thomas Aquinas, the great
Doctor and one of the greatest saints in Church history. The teaching of
Bellarmine and Aquinasindeed, the teaching of all the Popes before
Vatican IItends to be accepted only in accordance with the spin given
it by Rahner and the other new theologians. The same is true of most
professors teaching today in Catholic colleges and seminaries.
This process of attempting to change the very soul and theology
of the Church, as Pope Pius XII feared, has involved not only the
ecumenical venture and interreligious dialogue, but also an endless
series of apologies from Catholic churchmen, high and low, for the
Churchs past triumphalism in claiming to be the sole repository of
divine revelation, and the supposed sins of Her deceased members
against other Christians and other cultures. This was precisely what
Pope Pius XII predicted when he spoke of the innovators who would
make Her [the Church] feel remorse for Her historical past.
The Enemys Predictions Fulfilled

We now summarize the close correspondence between what we
have seen happen in the post-conciliar Church and the goals of both
Freemasonry (as revealed by Roca and various Freemasons, many quoted
by Bishop Graber, and The Permanent Instruction) and Communism (as
attested to by Bella Dodd and other ex-Communists):
The radical revision of the Roman liturgy following an ecumenical
council. (Roca)
101
An accord between the ideals of modern civilization and the ideal of

Christ and His Gospel. This will be the consecration of the New Social
Order and the solemn baptism of modern civilizationthat is, the
overall liberalization of Catholic churchmen in accordance with the
same false principles condemned in the Syllabus of Blessed Pius IX.
(Roca, Melinge, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita)
The emergence of a pluri-confessional pontificate, able to adapt to a
polyvalent ecumenism, such as we are seeing established today in the
intercelebration of priests and Protestant pastorsPope John Paul
II himself celebrated joint liturgies with Protestant clerics.218 (Roca,
Melinge)
The introduction of a guilt complex into the Church to label
the Church of the past as being oppressive, authoritarian, full of
prejudices, arrogant in claiming to be the sole possessor of truth,
and responsible for the divisions of religious bodies throughout the
centuries. (Dodd)
The opening up of the Church to the world and to a more flexible
attitude toward all religions and philosophies. (Dodd)
The use of this new orientation to undermine the Church, without
actually destroying the exterior appearance of it. (Dodd, the Soviet
defectors and The Permanent Instruction)
And yetwe must stress once againall of these developments
were predicted by the future Pope Pius XII in remarks he related
specifically to the Blessed Virgins messages to Lucy of Fatima and
this persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church.
The Passion of the Church

Thus, the passion that our Holy Church is presently suffering is really
no great mystery. By ignoring, shunning, despising Our Lady of Fatima
and Her prophetic message of warning and Her offering us the only
way out of this crisis as well as by recklessly ignoring the Popes of the
past, by abandoning condemnations of error, by rehabilitating suspect
theologians and making them heroes of the Church, by abolishing the
Index of Forbidden Books and the Holy Office, by doing away with
the traditional Catholic liturgy which was a barrier against heresy, by
pronouncing the anti-liberal teaching of Blessed Pius IX and the anti218
For example see: Joint Catholic-Lutheran Vespers at Vatican, CWNews.com, November

13, 1999: Archbishops G.H. Hammar and Jukka Paarmathe Lutheran primates of
Sweden and Finland, respectivelyand Bishops Anders Arborelius of Stockholm and
Czeslaw Kozon of Copenhagen joined with the Holy Father for the Vespers service.
Several other Lutheran bishops from the Scandinavian countries were present for the
ceremony, including two female bishops. Likewise, at the beginning of the Jubilee Year,
Pope John Paul II opened the Holy Doors of Saint Paul Outside the Walls with Anglican
Archbishop Carey and schismatic Metropolitan Athanasios. Representatives of 20 other
false confessions attended the ecumenical ceremony. See Non-Catholics Joining Pope in
Rite, Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2000.
102
modernist teaching of Saint Pius X as one-sided and outdatedin

short, by ruthlessly and systematically stripping the Church of almost
all Her defensesour present Church leaders have demolished nearly
all the bastions that once protected the Church from infiltration and
corruption, thus creating a compromised structure that we can now see
collapsing in scandal, corruption, disobedience, and loss of faith.
Yet some Church leaders continue to insist that the disastrous process
of change responsible for this admitted invasion and auto-demolition of
the Church be continued full steam ahead. This is precisely why the
then-Cardinal Ratzinger, many years after Vatican II, declared that the
Church must demolish longstanding bastions.219
As we have already demonstrated, all of this was predicted by the
Churchs enemies. Bishop Graber, commenting on the post-conciliar
crisis in light of the Masons own predictions of what they would soon
succeed in doing, declared:
If in the face of these unambiguous admissions [by Masons,
etc.] anyone still holds to the opinion that the events in the
Church [since Vatican II] are marginal phenomena or transitional
difficulties which will die down of their own accord in time, he is
simply beyond hope. But all the greater is the responsibility
of the leading men in the Church if they do not occupy
themselves with these questions and imagine that everything can
be repaired by patching it up here and there.220
But it is these very leading men of the Church who are the subject
of our case. Yet we hasten to say, once again, that we do not claim that
every churchman who promotes novel practices, such as ecumenism, is
deliberately acting as an enemy of the Church. The renowned priest of
the 19th Century, Father Frederick Faber, was a true prophet when he
said in a remarkable sermon preached at Pentecost, 1861 in the London
Oratory:
We must remember that if all the manifestly good men were
on one side and all the manifestly bad men were on the other,
there would be no danger of anyone, least of all the elect, being
deceived by lying wonders. It is the good men, once good, we must
hope good still, who are to do the work of anti-christ and so sadly
to crucify the Lord afresh ... Bear in mind this feature of the
last days, that this deceitfulness arises from good men
being on the wrong side. 221
As we will proceed to prove, the men who concern us are on the

wrong side. In their demolition of bastions in the Catholic Church
through the imposition of their new orientationor what has been
called the Councils attempt at an official reconciliation with the
Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 1987.
Graber, Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, pp. 170-171.
221
Quote taken from The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, Father Denis Fahey,
(Regina Publications, Dublin, first printed in 1935) p. xi.
219
220
103
new era begun by the French Revolutionthey have necessarily

arrayed themselves against the Message of Fatima. For there is nothing
more integrally Catholic, nothing more opposed to the spirit of the
new era, nothing more inimical to the conciliar ecumenism, nothing
more opposed to the tearing down of Catholic bastions, than the Virgin
Marys call for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart,
Russias consequent conversion to the Catholic Faith, and the glorious
triumph of the Immaculate Heart throughout the world in a Catholic
social order.
The Message of Fatima: A Final Bastion

From what we have said thus far it should be apparent that the
Message of Fatima, in its sheer Catholic integrity, cannot coexist with
the new vision of the Church foisted upon us by those with a desire
to destroy through the demolition of bastions. This destruction
has happened precisely because the vast program of Vatican IIs
aggiornamento runs contrary to the Catholic truths that permeate the
Fatima Message.
Our Lady did not come to Fatima to demolish bastions in the Church,
but rather to exhort the members of the Church to defend Her bastions
in the coming crisis. She did not preach ecumenism or interreligious
dialogue, but the constant and unchanging teaching of the Church:
that there is no salvation outside Her. When Our Lady came to Fatima,
She did not give us any new theology; nor did She give us any new
understanding of doctrine that would conflict in any way with the
constant teaching of the Magisterium.
What do we see in the Message of Fatima? We see the key doctrines
of our Faith reinforced, the very doctrines that have come under the
fiercest attack in our time.222 When the Mother of God came to Fatima
She spoke of the doctrine of Heaven;
She spoke of the doctrine of Hell;
She showed the children Hell;
She spoke of the doctrine of Purgatory;
She spoke of the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist;
She spoke of the doctrine of the Sacrament of Penance.
And She also spoke, indirectly, of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ
when She conveyed Heavens command that Russia be consecrated
to Her Immaculate Heart and converted to the fervent practice of
the Catholic religion, which would lead to true, lasting peace in the
222
For further considerations on the fact that Our Lady of Fatima reinforced key Catholic
doctrines that are denied today, see John Vennari, A World View Based on Fatima, The
Fatima Crusader, Spring 2000, Issue 64; also available on the web (in booklet form) at
http://www.fatimacrusader.com/aworldview/tocaworldview.asp. For a free copy of this
article, write to the publisher of this book (see page xxvi).
104
world. This peace cannot come except through Jesus Christ, the
Prince of Peace. And it cannot exist unless we build upon His social
doctrine for peace and justiceunless nations live the moral teaching
of Jesus Christ. But they cannot do that unless they accept His grace
through the Sacraments.
A Motive Clearly Exposed

In conclusion, for those who unswervingly pursue the plainly
ruinous new orientation of the Church, the Message of Fatima can
only represent another bastion that must be demolished. That is why, as
Pope Pius XII revealed in his prophetic remarks, the Virgins messages
to Sister Lucy concerned the dangers which menace the Church.
Although it is not revealed in those portions of the Message of Fatima
that we have thus far been allowed to see, Pius XII spoke of a divine
warning at Fatima about the innovators all around me who would
bring grave harm to the Church through the alteration of the faith, in
Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul.
We now see, clearly exposed, the motive for the crime which is the
subject of this book. There is a fundamental opposition between the new
Church ushered in by Vatican II and the Church of all time, as represented
by the Message of Fatima. The Message of Fatima is a heavenly roadblock
in the path of those who are determined to bulldoze the bastions of the
old Church so that they can erect a new, more enlightened Church on
the rubble.
These two competing visions of the Churchthe vision of a new
Church and the vision of the Church of all time as seen at Fatima
cannot coexist. One vision must yield to the other. The men who are
the subject of this book have (explicitly or implicitly) made their choice
concerning which vision of the Church must, to their way of thinking,
govern. They have chosen the new visionthe new orientation of the
Church initiated at Metz and at Vatican II. In that choice lies their motive,
and in that motive lies our understanding of their otherwise inexplicable
actions against the Message of Fatima.
Putting aside for the moment the question of the subjective motives
of the proponents of this new orientationwho speak for themselves in
the statements we have presentedit cannot be denied that objectively
their actions are scandalous, suicidal to the Church (in a relative sense, of
course) and harmful to millions of souls. Thus, their actions constitute a
grave injustice no matter what the perpetrators may intend subjectively,
because one can commit a veritable crime against the Church through
recklessness or culpable negligence without consciously intending
harm. For just as a man who sincerely believes it is right to murder
someone is nonetheless guilty of murder, so are those who have harmed
the Churcheven with the best of intentionsguilty of a crime against
Her. It is the difference between what the law calls a specific intent to
105
cause harm to another, and a general intent to do an act that one should
know will cause harm, even if one does not subjectively intend harm.
In other words, the law punishes deliberate acts committed by one who
should have known better than to commit the act.
For some of those responsible for this disaster, it may be a misguided
sense of enlightenmentdoing evil under the guise of good or a
diabolical disorientation in the leadership of the Church, to quote the
words of Sister Lucy herself. With these men, it is a case of blind men
guiding other blind men as Sister Lucy said,223 referring to what Jesus
said in the Gospel (Mt. 15:14), the blind leading the blind. It is also
a case of the blind refusing to admit that they are blind. Some of these
men may, in fact, have convinced themselves that what they are doing
is best for the Church, even though it is manifestly ruinous.
In any case, we will show that the identified Vatican prelates are,
objectively speaking, guilty of a terrible and grave injustice against the
Church and the world through their participation in what is nothing
short of a conspiracy to frustrate the fulfillment of the authentic Message
of Fatima. Let God be the judge of their souls. Their objective words and
deeds, however, judge themselves in the external forum of history.
What is more, the actions of these men can be judged by the light
of the Churchs own infallible teaching. The results of this departure
from infallible teachings are evil, as the current condition of the Church
should demonstrate to anyone. Catholics must judge an evil to be evil
when they see it, rather than pretending it is good merely because
certain figures in authority insist it is good. Woe to you that call evil
good, and good evil. (Isaias 5:20).
And so now we see, fully and clearly exposed, the motive that
has animated the recent efforts by the Vatican apparatus to bury the
Message of Fatima once and for all. For Fatima is the sum and substance
of all the bastions they seek to demolish.
223
See The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, pp. 750-762.
106
Vladimir Lenin, the evil genius behind the Communist Revolution

in Russia in 1917, without whom, historians agree, the Russian
Revolution would not have succeeded. Two foundational principles
for establishing and expanding the Communist world revolution,
according to Lenin himself, are the principle of terrorism (strategically
used) as well as the principle that the lie is sacred. In other words,
Lenin taught that whenever lying advances the Communist Revolution
in whatever circumstances a Communist agent (or agents) finds
himself in, then it is, according to Lenin, his sacred duty to lie. But
because people can know when theyre being lied to, if the first lie
told by agent #1 does not agree with the second lie told by agent #2,
Lenin came up with the need for a common lie that all agents would
repeat so as to be consistent to the general public. That common lie is
known as the Party Line. This is further explained in the following
chapter, where it is also explained how there is a Party Line used
inside the Catholic Church to destroy Fatima.
Chapter 8
The Message of Fatima
versus the Party Line
What has been the overall effect of the sudden and quite dramatic
changes in the Church which began in the Twentieth Century? As
Catholic writers have observed, what Catholics have witnessed
especially over the past 40 years represents a kind of Stalinization of
the Roman Catholic Church that bears an eerie resemblance to what
was called at the time the Adaptation of Russian Orthodoxy to the
demands of the Stalinist regime.
The subversion of the Orthodox Church by Stalin is certainly among
the developments in Russia foreseen by the Virgin of Fatima. This is
precisely why She came to call for the consecration of Russia to Her
Immaculate Heart: so that Russia would embrace the one true religion
and the one true Church, not the schismatic Orthodox Church which
was founded in human rebellion against Rome when it left the Mystical
Body of Christ over 500 years ago, and thus was constitutionally
incapable of avoiding its total Adaptation to Stalinism.
The Orthodox Adaptation began officially when the Metropolitan
Sergius of the Russian Orthodox Church published an Appeal in
Isvestia on August 19, 1927.
(We must recall that Sergius was one of a small number of Russian
Orthodox priests who survived the Stalinist persecution. In 1917 there
were about 50,000 Russian Orthodox priests, but by 1935 there were
only 500 left.)
The Appeal of Sergius, as it came to be known, set forth a new
basis for the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian
layman Boris Talantov described this as an Adaptation to the atheistic
reality of the U.S.S.R. In other words, the church had to find a way
of living, so the argument goes, with the atheistic reality of Stalinist
Russia. So Sergius proposed what came to be known in shorthand as
the Adaptation.
The Adaptation consisted first and foremost of a false separation
between the so-called spiritual needs of man, the purely religious needs
of man, and his socio-political needs. In other words, a separation of
Church and State. The church was to satisfy the purely religious needs
of the citizens of the Soviet Union but without touching on the sociopolitical structure which had been erected by the Communist Party.
The Adaptation required a new administration of the church in
Russia according to guidelines which were set forth after the appeal of
Sergius was published. Basically this came down to an agreement not
108
to criticize the official ideology or even the Party Line224 of the Soviet
Union under Stalin. And this would be reflected in all of the activities
of the church. Any opposition by the Russian Orthodox Church to the
Soviet regime would henceforth be considered a deviation from pure
religious activity and a form of counter-revolution which was no longer
to be permitted or countenanced.
In effect the Orthodox Church, through its silence, became an arm
of the Soviet state. In fact, Sergius would go on to defend this betrayal
and even call for the condemnation and the sentencing to concentration
camps of his own fellow Orthodox for so-called counter-revolutionary
activities. Talantov, who condemned the whole Adaptation, described it
this way: In actual fact all religious activity was reduced to external
rites. The church preaching of those clergymen who held strictly to the
Adaptation was totally remote from life and therefore had no influence
whatever on hearers. As a result of this, the intellectual, social and family
life of believers, and the raising of the younger generation, remained
outside church influence. One cannot worship Christ and at the same
time in social and family life tell lies, do what is unjust, use violence, and
dream of an earthly paradise.225
This, then, is what the Adaptation involved: The church would be
silent about the evils of the Stalinist regime. It would be silent in the
presence of the Party Line being broadcast and rebroadcast again and
again. It would become a purely spiritual community in the abstract,
would no longer voice opposition to the regime, would no longer condemn
the errors and lies of Communism, and would thus become the Church of
Silence, as Christianity behind the Iron Curtain was often called.
The Appeal of Sergius caused a split in the Russian Orthodox Church.
The real believers who rejected the Adaptation, who denounced the
Appeal and who remained attached to the Metropolitan Joseph rather
than Sergius, were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Boris
Talantov himself would eventually die in prison, as a political prisoner
of the Stalinist regime. Meanwhile, the Church of Silence, in effect, was
transformed into an organ of the KGB. Stalin decimated the Russian
Orthodox Church; all of the real Orthodox believers were sent off to
concentration camps or executed and replaced by KGB operatives.
Shortly before Talantov died in August of 1967, he wrote as follows
about the Adaptation:
The Adaptation to atheism implanted by Metropolitan Sergius
has concluded (been completed by) the betrayal of the Orthodox
Russian Church on the part of Metropolitan Nikodim and other
official representatives of the Moscow Patriarch based abroad. This
betrayal irrefutably proved by the documents cited must be made
See the description of the Party Line in the photo caption (of Lenin) at the end of the
previous chapter.
225
The Moscow Patriarchate and Sergianism by Boris Talantov, from Russias Catacomb
Saints, (St. Herman of Alaska Press, Platina, California, 1982) pp. 463-486.
224
The Message of Fatima versus the Party Line
109
known to all believers in Russia and abroad because such an activity

of the Patriarchate, relying on cooperation with the KGB, represents
a great danger for all believers. In truth, the atheistic leaders of
the Russian people and the princes of the Church have gathered
together against the Lord and His Church.226
Here Talantov refers to the same Metropolitan Nikodim who induced

the Vatican to enter into the Vatican-Moscow Agreement, under which
(as we showed in Chapter 6) the Catholic Church was forced to remain
silent about Communism at Vatican II. Thus, the same Orthodox prelate
who betrayed the Orthodox Church was instrumental in an agreement by
which the Catholic Church was also betrayed. At Vatican II certain Catholic
churchmen, cooperating with Nikodim, agreed that the Roman Catholic
Church, too, would become a Church of Silence.
And since the Council, the Catholic Church has almost everywhere
unquestionably fallen silent not only as to the errors of Communism
which the Church has almost completely ceased condemning, even in
Red China, which viciously persecutes the Churchbut also as to the
errors of the world at large. We recall that in his opening address to
the Council, Pope John freely admitted that the Council (and most of
the Church after him) would no longer condemn errors but would open
Herself to the world in a positive presentation of Her teaching to men
of good will. What followed, as Pope Paul VI himself admitted, was
not the hoped-for conversion of men of good will but what Paul VI
himself called a veritable invasion of the Church by worldly thinking.
In other words, to the extent that this is possible in the Catholic Church
(which can never completely fail in Her mission), there has been a kind
of Sergian Adaptation of Roman Catholicism.
Now, in keeping with this Adaptation of the Catholic Church, by
the year 2000 the Message of Fatima had been firmly subjugated to
the demands of the new orientation. It had already been determined
by certain members of the Vatican apparatus that Russia was not to be
mentioned in any consecration ceremony the Pope might undertake in
response to the Virgins requests. In the November 2000 issue of Inside
the Vatican, a leading Cardinal identified as one of the Popes closest
advisors (the editor confirms it was Cardinal Jozef Tomko) is quoted
to the effect that Rome fears the Russian Orthodox might regard it as
an offense if Rome were to make specific mention of Russia in such a
prayer, as if Russia especially is in need of help when the whole world,
including the post-Christian West, faces profound problems ...227 The
The Moscow Patriarchate and Sergianism: An Essay by Boris Talantov, found at www.
orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/cat_tal.aspx.
227
The vain fears that the Consecration of Russia by the Pope and Catholic bishops would
offend the devout Orthodox is completely laid to rest by the article by Cathy Pearson,
entitled Now Is the Time: Consecrating Russia Will Help, Not Harm, Catholic-Orthodox
Dialogue. First published in the magazine Inside the Vatican, August/September 2008;
reprinted with permission in The Fatima Crusader, Issue 91, February 2009, pp. 3ff; also
on the web at www.fatimacrusader.com/cr91/cr91pg3.pdf. A free copy of this article is
226
110
same Cardinal-advisor added: Let us beware of becoming too literalminded.

In other words, Romemeaning a few members of the Vatican
apparatus who advise the Popehas decided not to honor the specific
request of Our Lady of Fatima for fear of giving offense to the Russian
Orthodox. Rome does not wish to give the impression that Russia
should be converted to the Catholic Faith through its consecration to
the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for this would be quite contrary to the
new ecumenical dialogue launched by Vatican II. The consecration
and conversion of Russia called for by the Mother of God would also be
contrary to the Vaticans diplomatic agreement (in the 1993 Balamand
Declaration) that the return of the Orthodox to Rome is outdated
ecclesiologya claim that, as we have shown, flatly contradicts the
infallibly defined Catholic dogma that heretics and schismatics cannot be
saved outside the Catholic Church. In keeping with this blatant departure
from Catholic teaching, the Vaticans own apostolic administrator for
Russia, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, stated publicly in January of
1998 that The Second Vatican Council has declared that the Orthodox
Church is our Sister Church and has the same means for salvation. So
there is no reason to have a policy of proselytism.228
Given the de facto abandonment of the Churchs constant teaching
that heretics, schismatics, Jews and pagans must be added to the
Catholic flock if they are to be saveda development we examined
in the previous chaptera consecration of Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary to bring about the conversion of Russia would, of course,
be out of the question, so far as those who promote the new orientation
of the Church are concerned.
Thus, on May 13, 1982 and again on March 25, 1984, Pope John
Paul II had consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart, but with
no mention of Russia. In neither case had all the bishops of the world
participated.229 Thus, neither of the two requirements attested to by
Sister Lucy throughout her life had been met. Clearly recognizing this,
the Pope himself had made telltale remarks during and after the 1984
ceremony. During the ceremony, before 250,000 people in Saint Peters
Square, he spontaneously added to the prepared text the following:
Enlighten especially the peoples of which You Yourself are awaiting our
consecration and confiding.230 Hours after the ceremony, as reported
in the Italian Catholic bishops newspaper Avvenire, the Holy Father
prayed inside St. Peters, before 10,000 witnesses, asking Our Lady
to bless those peoples for whom You Yourself are awaiting our act of
available from the publisher of this book (see page xxvi).
Remarks of January 17, 1998 at The Aid to the Church in Russia Conference, http://
www.victorclaveau.com/htm_html/Around%20the%20World/Russia/catholic_church_
in_russia_it.htm. Reprinted in The Catholic Dossier, March/April 1998, p. 4.
229
Maybe a few bishops had done so, but not many didthus, not fulfilling the Consecration
as requested by Our Lady of Fatima that all the bishops join in.
230
LOsservatore Romano, March 26-27, 1984, Italian ed., pp. 1, 6; English ed., pp. 9-10.
228
111
consecration and entrusting.231 Russia had not been consecrated to the

Immaculate Heart, and John Paul II knew it. Evidently persuaded by
his advisers, the Pope had told Bishop Cordes, head of the Pontifical
Council of the Laity, that he had omitted any mention of Russia because
it would be interpreted as a provocation by the Soviet leaders.232
The Emergence of the Party Line on Fatima

But the issue of the Consecration of Russia would not go away,
for it was obvious that following the 1984 ceremony Russia failed to
experience the religious conversion the Virgin had promised as the fruit
of a proper consecration to Her Immaculate Heart. Quite the contrary,
despite certain political changes, Russias spiritual, moral and material
condition has continued to deteriorate up to the present day (2009).
As we demonstrate beyond doubt in Chapter 16, Russia has not
converted in any sense of the wordreligiously, morally, politically or
even economicallymuch less in the sense intended by the Blessed Virgin,
which would necessarily involve the reunification of the Russian people
with Rome upon their embrace of the integral Catholic Faith. Russia today
continues to suffer from the highest per capita abortion rate in the world
(with only China exceeding Russia in the gross number of abortions),
alcoholism and child pornography are rampant, and homosexual conduct
has been legalized. The nominal Russian Orthodoxy of many Russians
is meaningless, as few Russians attend Mass; occultism and satanism are
on the rise; and there has been no elevation of moral life among the
nominally Orthodox population, but rather a steady decline fueled by a
degenerate popular culture, including sexually explicit reality TV. The
Catholic Church remains a tiny minority, suffering persecution under tight
legal restrictions orchestrated by Vladimir Putin, who has assembled and
continues to control a neo-Stalinist dictatorship from the Kremlin through
his puppet, President Medvedev. Russias recently forged military alliance
with China and her newly developed nuclear weapons evince a nation
preparing for war and regional or even global domination, not peace.
And the worldwide economic collapse has exposed the true nature of the
so-called capitalist explosion in Russia: a few wealthy oligarchs bestride
an economy that remains Third World in its standard of living for the
overwhelming majority of the Russian people.
Clearly, 25 years after it took place the 1984 ceremony has failed
to produce what Our Lady of Fatima promised, because that ceremony
was not what She requested. But what She requestedthe specific
Avvenire, March 27, 1984, p. 11. See also LOsservatore Romano, March 26-27, 1984,
Italian ed., p. 4; see photo on page XVI in the photo section of this book.
232
Father Fabrice Delestre, Fatima: Why Isnt the Mother of God Being Obeyed as She
Should Be?, Angelus, June 2000, Vol. 23, No. 6; on the web at http://www.fatima.org/
consecrussia/notobeyed.asp. See also Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima: Joie
Intime vnement Mondial, (French edition, Contre-Rforme Catholique, France, 1991)
pp. 363-364; Frre Franois de Marie des Anges, Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 168172.
231
112
Consecration of Russia by name, so that the world would know that

Russias miraculous conversion was obtained through the intercession
of Her Immaculate Heartis absolutely unacceptable to the custodians
of the Sergian Adaptation of the Church to the modern world. Hence,
from their perspective, something had to be done about Fatima.
And, in particular, something had to be done about a Canadian priest
by the name of Father Nicholas Gruner, whose Fatima apostolate has
become a sounding board for millions of Catholics who were convinced
that the Consecration of Russia had been derailed by the plans of certain
men in the Vatican. Quite simply, Fatima and the Fatima priest had to
be buried once and for all.
The process began as early as 1988, when, Frre Franois recounts:
[A]n order came from the Vatican addressed to the authorities of
Fatima, to Sister Lucy, to diverse ecclesiastics, including Father Messias
Coelho, and a French priest [evidently Father Pierre Caillon] very
much devoted to Our Lady, ordering everyone to cease pestering the
Holy Father with the Consecration of Russia. Fatima devotee Father
Caillon confirmed the issuance of this order: An order came from
Rome, obliging everyone to say and think: The Consecration is done.
The Pope having done all that he can, Heaven has deigned to agree to
this gesture.233 It was around this time, 1988-1989, that many Fatima
Apostolates who had maintained that the Consecration of Russia had
not been done suddenly reversed themselves and declared that the
1984 consecration fulfilled the desires of Heaven. Sadly, even Father
Caillon soon afterwards changed his testimony and began to say that
the 1984 Consecration had fulfilled the Virgins requests.
It was also at this time that typewritten and computer-generated
letters, purportedly from Sister Lucy, began to circulate. Typical of the
manifestly incredible letters was the one dated November 8, 1989, to
a Mr. Noelker, which contains the statement by Sister Lucy that Pope
Paul VI consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart during his brief
visit to Fatima in 1967a consecration that never happened, as Sister
Lucy certainly knew because she witnessed the entire visit.234
Thus emerged the Party Line on the Message of Fatima. What,
precisely, do we mean by the Party Line? Vladimir Ilyich Lenin once
said: The lie is sacred and deception will be our principal weapon.
Thus it was no surprise that Pravda, when it was the official organ of the
Soviet Communist Party, was filled with lies, even though the Russian
word Pravda means truth. A newspaper whose name is truth was
always filled with lies, because, as Lenin said, the lie is sacred and
deception will be our principal weapon.
Now, a liar will not convince anyone of his lies if he wears a big
233
234
Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 189-190.

For a good treatment of the falsehood of the Noelker letter, see Mark Fellows, This
Present Darkness Part II, Catholic Family News, September 2000. See also Mark Fellows,
Fatima in Twilight, (Marmion Publications, Niagara Falls, 2003) Chapter 25, pp. 303-314.
113
placard on his chest that says Liar! Not even a fool would believe
such a man. For the liar to convince people that his lies are truth, the
truth must be redefined. This is what is meant by Lenins phrase the lie
is sacred The lie becomes the truth and is slavishly adhered to
in place of the truth. As Scripture says, pronouncing the curse in the
book of Isaias, Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put
darkness for light, and light for darkness. (Is. 5:20) The darkness of
falsehood is given the appearance of the light of truth, and this is one
of the principal errors of Russia.
Since according to Lenin the lie is sacred, he had to develop a policy
for all his followers about official lies. By the phrase the lie is sacred,
Lenin taught that whenever lying advances the Communist cause then his
followers must lieto remain true to their principles. But this policy
could not work if Communist agent #1 told a lie that was contradicted
by another lie told by Communist agent #2. So the Communist Party had
to come up with a common lie for both agent #1 and agent #2 to repeat.
This common lie came to be known as the Party Line.
But this trick of turning a lie into the truth did not originate with
Russia, or with the Communists; it originated with the devil, who is the
Father of Lies. St. Paul speaks of the devil under the guise of the angel
of light. To be more specific, he refers to the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus
Christ: But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you
besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. (Gal.
1:8) It is the devil, appearing under the guise of an angel of light, who
gives the appearance of truth in order to deceive by means of the lie. This
is where the error the lie is sacred and falsehood is truth originated.
Father Paul Kramer relates a conversation he had with General Daniel
Graham, a general in the US Army. General Graham said that he had
once been in Russia with a Soviet official and the Soviet official asked
him, Dont you want peace? And the General answered: No! Because I
know how you define peace. I do not want that kind of peace. As they
were conversing, they drove by a huge billboard that showed soldiers
with their rifles. On the billboard was the caption: Pobieda kommunista
eta mir. Which is, in English, Communist Victory is Peace.
According to Marxist teaching, the Communist State wages war
to make revolution and uses every possible means of deceptiontotal
warin order to subjugate the entire world to Communism. And once
total war has been waged and Communism is victorious over the entire
planet, then there is the Communist version of peace. But what is peace
in reality? It is best defined by St. Augustine: Peace is the tranquillity
of order. Which definition is correct? It is not a matter of subjective
evaluation. St. Thomas Aquinas explains: ens et verum convertunter,
which is a scholastic way of saying that truth is convertible with reality.
That which is objectively real is, for that very reason, objectively true. In
other words, truth is that which is, whereas a lie is that which is not. That
which is not cannot be true. Therefore, if someone declares, for example,
114
that white is black, the claim that white is black is a lieno matter how
high the authority of the one making the claim.
According to Marxist doctrine, however, truth is that which promotes
the Communist revolution. And what is it that promotes the Communist
revolution? It is whatever has been decided to be the Party Line. What
the Party dictates to be true becomes the truth even if, in reality, it is a lie.
Thus, if the Party Line is that black is white, then that is what all Party
members must believe and say, simply because it has been decided by the
Party that black is white.
Just as there has been a kind of Stalinization of the Church, in
the sense of an Adaptation of the Church to the world, so also must
there be a kind of Stalinist Party Line on Fatimaa version of Fatima
dictated from on high to which all the members of the Church of the postconciliar Adaptation must adhere. In essence, the Party Line on Fatima
comes down to this: The Consecration of Russia is over and done with,
and everyone must cease asking for it. We have peace as predicted
by Our Lady of Fatima. Russia is undergoing the conversion Our Lady
promised. Thereforeso the Party Line goesnothing in the Message of
Fatima remains to be accomplished, and Fatima now belongs to the past.
As we shall see, all of the terms in quotation marksConsecration of
Russia, peace and conversionhave been redefined to accommodate
the Party Line on Fatima. Where Fatima is concerned, we are now being
asked to believe the equivalent of black is white, for that is the Party
Line.
The Dictatorship of the

Vatican Secretary of State
Now every Party Line requires a dictator, a head of the Party, to impose
it. From where, exactly, within the Vatican apparatus did the Party Line
on Fatima originate? The evidence is overwhelming that it originated
with the Vatican Secretary of State. On this point some brief background
is in order.
First of all, in the proper state of thingswhat St. Augustine called
the tranquillity of order or peacethe Church is not a dictatorship.
Dictatorship is a barbaric institution. As Euripides says among the
barbarians all are slaves but one. Our Lord said the princes of the
Gentiles lord it over their subjects. (Mt. 20:25) He said to His apostles
with you it is not to be this way. Yet the tranquillity of orderthe peace
of the Churchhas been disturbed enormously in the post-conciliar
period. What we see in the Church today is that the hierarchs of the
Roman Curia (not the Pope, but a few of his Vatican ministers) lord it
over their subjects with an oriental despotism. To be more precise, they
lord it over certain subjects, who buck the Party Line, while the Church
at large suffers from a near-collapse of faith and discipline which these
same potentates ignore.
How did this come to pass? Since the restructuring of the Roman Curia,
115
around 1967, by order of Pope Paul VIwhich was actually designed

and carried out by Cardinal Jean Villotthe heads of the various Roman
dicasteries have been able to behave like dictators. Before the Second
Vatican Council, the Roman Curia was structured as a monarchy. The
Pope was the Prefect of the Holy Office, while the Cardinal in charge of
the day-to-day business of the Holy Office was the second-in-command.
The other dicasteries were of lower rank. And while having their own
authority and jurisdiction, again in accordance with that principle of
subsidiarity,235 they were subordinate to the Holy Office, and the Holy
Office was directly under the Pope. This arrangement was entirely in
keeping with the Divine Constitution of the Church. The Pope, the Vicar
of Jesus Christ on earth, was at the head of the chain of command.
But after Vatican II, Cardinal Villot engineered the restructuring of
the Roman Curia. Long before Gorbachev announced his program of
perestroika in the Soviet Union, the Church underwent its own perestroika
in the Roman Curia. The Holy Office was renamedbut far more
significant, the Holy Office lost its supreme position in the Curia. The
Curia was restructured in such a manner that the Cardinal Secretary of
State was placed over all the other dicasteries, including the former Holy
Office. Renamed and restructured, it was now called the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), and the Pope was no longer the
Prefect. But it (the CDF) is now under a Cardinal Prefect and he is under
the authority of the Secretary of State.
According to the preceding organization when the Roman Curia
was directly subject to the Pope and the Holy Office, then the most
important factors which determined the policy and politics of the Roman
Curia were faith and morals. After the Second Vatican Council and the
reorganization of the Curia, under the Cardinal Secretary of State and
his dicastery, the Secretariat of State, it is the Party Linethat is, the
policies and politics of the Secretary of Statethat is the one and only
determining factor in the formulation of Church policies. Even the former
Holy Office, now the CDF, is subordinate to the Secretary of State. As
a result of this restructuring, the Holy Father, the Supreme Pontiff, is
reduced to a figurehead who gives his approval, as a rubber stamp, to
rulings presented to him as a fait accompli by the Secretary of State. This
bears repeating: The Pope has been reduced to a figurehead in the service of
the dictatorship of the Secretary of State.236
In the Masonic registry required by Italian law, one did find the name
of Jean Villotthe same Villot who oversaw the curial reorganization.
The principle which requires that authority be exercised at the lowest possible level
to avoid tyranny through excessive centralization of government. For example, the
budget of a town should be determined by the town Fathers, not by the state or federal
government.
236
Under the old structure, before 1967, the Pope presided over the Roman Curia. Under
the new structure, since 1967, it is the Vatican Secretary of State who presides over the
Roman Curia. The reader is invited to check the Annuario Pontificio both before and after
1967 to see the change in the structure of the Roman Curia.
235
116
After Cardinal Villot died, in his private library was found a handwritten
message from the Grand Master of Villots Masonic Lodge, praising Villot
for upholding Masonic traditions.237 As a French priest living in Rome
said: At least in one area he was traditional.
The Use of False Obedience

to Impose the Party Line
In 1917, the very year Our Lady appeared at Fatima, Saint Maximilian
Kolbe was in Rome, where he saw the Masons showing their open hostility
to the Catholic Church and carrying placards announcing their intention
to infiltrate the Vatican so that satan would rule from the Vatican and
the Pope would be his slave.238 They also boasted at the same time that
they would destroy the Church. The intention of the Masons to destroy
the Church fits in perfectly with the well-known Masonic dictum, We
will destroy the Church by means of holy obedience. As we showed in an
earlier chapter, Bishop Graber of Regensburg, Germany, collected other
such testimonies of Masonic luminaries, and the Permanent Instruction of
the Alta Vendita itself boldly declared let the Clergy march under your
standard, always believing that they are marching under the banner of
the apostolic keys. That is, the demand for obedience would be used
in dictatorial fashion to undermine true obedience and the faith itself.
And the curial reorganization of 1967 would be instrumental in
accomplishing that aim by subjecting the whole Church to the Party Line
of the Secretary of Stateincluding the Party Line on Fatimaunder the
guise of a false obedience to an authority who has clearly exceeded
the bounds established by God Himself. As we will demonstrate shortly,
it was Cardinal Sodano who literally dictated the interpretation of the
visional aspect of the Third Secret of Fatima, which has been published
without the Virgins own words to explain it.
The Secretary of State

Targets the Message of Fatima
This brings us to the precise role of the Secretary of State in imposing
the Party Line with respect to Fatima. As we have noted, this process
would involve the Message of Fatima in general and, in particular,
perhaps its foremost proponent in the Church: the Fatima apostolate of
Father Nicholas Gruner.
As early as 1989, the Secretary of State at the time, Cardinal Casaroli
(the great propagator of Ostpolitik) had communicated to Father Gruners
bishop at the time, His Excellency Gerardo Pierro of the Diocese of Avellino,
Italy, what the bishop had called worried signals about Father Gruners
Fatima apostolate. Father Gruner had been ordained in Avellino in 1976
A French priest showed the Masonic document to, among others, the American priest
Father Paul Kramer, the editor of this book.
238
Paul Fisher, Their God is the Devil, (American Research Foundation, Washington, D.C.,
1990) p. 40.
237
117
for a Franciscan community that did not form as expected. Since 1978 he
had been residing in Canada with the bishops permission, where he had
become the leader of a small Fatima apostolate that had since grown into
the largest of its kind in the world. But after the Party Line concerning
the consecration of 1984 had been imposed by the anonymous order of
1988, it was inevitable that Father Gruners apostolate and the Secretary
of State would collidejust as the traditional orientation (based on the
dogmas of the Faith as defined by the popes for the past 20 centuries)
and the new orientation of the Church have collided after Vatican II.
The basic technique for trying to get rid of Father Gruner had been to
create a bogus canonical scenario in which, having been ordered to find
some other bishop to incardinate him outside of Avellino, Father Gruners
incardination anywhere else was then blocked through unprecedented
arm-twisting behind the scenes, so that Father Gruner would be forced to
return to Avellino and abandon his apostolate. Having blocked Father
Gruners incardination by three successive benevolent bishops who
were friends of Fatima, the Vatican apparatus (in a complex proceeding
beyond the scope of this book239) had finally lowered the boom: Father
Gruner must return to Avellino or be suspended for disobedience.
In essence, Father Gruner was under a threat of suspension for having
failed to do what his very accusers had systematically prevented him
from doingnamely, find another bishop to incardinate him.240
As Father Gruners various canonical appeals from these
unprecedented actions against him wended their way through Vatican
tribunals, his Fatima apostolate continued to flourish. By the year 2000
the apostolate, particularly through its journal The Fatima Crusader,
had become the strongest and most persistent voice in the Church for
both the Consecration of Russia and disclosure of the Third Secret.
Furthermore, Pope John Paul II himself had complicated the Fatima
picture with his decision to beatify Jacinta and Francisco in a ceremony
at Fatima on May 13, 2000. His intention to beatify the two children
was made known as early as June of 1999, and this development had
clearly triggered an internal struggle within the Vatican apparatus. This
is shown by the curious on-again, off-again nature of the beatification
ceremony, which is most unusual for the Vatican. First, the then-Secretary
of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, announced in October 1999 that the
beatification of Jacinta and Francisco would take place on April 9, 2000
in St. Peters Square, along with four other beatifications. The Patriarch
See Francis Alban and Christopher A. Ferrara, Fatima Priest, Fourth Edition (Good
Counsel Publications, Pound Ridge, New York, 2000), Chapters 12, 14, 17-22; App. I,
App. II.
240
For the details of the long and tortuous proceedings to silence Father Gruner, the reader
may consult: Fatima Priest (Fourth Edition, available from The Fatima Center, 17000
State Route 30, Constable, New York 12926) or A Law for One Man (available free of
charge from the publisher of this book, see page xxvi). Both are also available on the web
at: www.fatimapriest.com/content.html and also www.fatima.org/apostolate/defense/
law1man.asp
239
118
of Lisbon is quoted in the Portuguese press as having been informed

by the Vatican that it was quite impossible for the Pope to come to
Fatima for the childrens beatification and that the question was closed.
The Patriarch told Portuguese journalists that he was convinced this
impossibility of the Pope coming to Fatima was exclusively due to a
decision by none other than the Vatican Secretary of State.
But the Pope had other ideas. In November of 1999 His Holiness
obviously bypassing Cardinal Sodanoinformed Bishop Serafim, the
Bishop of Fatima, directly that he should announce that the Pope would
indeed come to Fatima on May 13 to perform the beatifications. Bishop
Serafim did not make the new announcement until December 1999. And
then, in March of 2000, the bishop also let it slip that the Pope will do
something special for Fatima. This prompted furious speculation in the
press that the Pope was, at last, going to reveal the Third Secret. Bishop
Serafim was immediately rebuked in public by the Cardinal Patriarch
of Lisbon, possibly under orders from somebody in the employ of the
Vatican Secretary of State, who did not wish anyone to know that the
Pope was contemplating revelation of the Secret. But the proverbial cat
was out of the proverbial bag. Now events would unfold rapidly, and with
devastating results for the Party Line.241
241
Regarding the on-again, off-again beatification ceremony and related matters, see: the
daily newspaper Correio da Manh of 14 October 1999, the article on p. 12; the weekly
newspaper Jornal de Leiria of 14 October 1999, p. 24; the weekly newspaper A Ordem on
21 October 1999, p. 1; the official weekly of the Patriarchate of Lisbon Voz da Verdade on
31 October 1999, on p. 6, the article entitled The Beatification of the Little Shepherds
Definitely Will Be At Rome; the official weekly of the Patriarchate of Lisbon Voz da
Verdade on 5 December 1999, entitled The Pope Will Return to Portugal; Fatima is the
Place of the Beatification; article in Euronoticias on 24 March 2000, p. 8, entitled Bishop
of Leiria-Fatima March 21 press conference; weekly Euronoticias of 24 March 2000, on
p. 8, Crisis: The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima Creates A Mystery Around the Visit of the Pope
Without Telling the Patriarch What It Concerns, Will the Pope Reveal the Third Secret?;
Euronoticias of 24 March, 2000, an article on p. 9 entitled Analysis: Persons Who Have
Studied the Apparitions Say That the Third Secret Could Concern the Destruction of the
Faith. A Crisis in the Interior of the Church Would be the Third Secret.
Chapter 9
A New Fatima for the
New Orientation
On May 13, 2000, John Paul II went to Fatima to beatify Jacinta and
Francisco. The papal appearance was a kind of living demonstration
of the conflict between the two visions of the Church we have been
discussing. Evoking the Church of all time, the Pope delivered a sermon
after the beatifications. In this sermon many things the Church seemed
to have forgotten over the past forty years were suddenly recalled again:
According to the divine plan, a Woman clothed with the
sun (Apoc. 12:1) came down from Heaven to this earth to visit
the privileged children of the Father. She speaks to them with a
mothers voice and heart: She asks them to offer themselves as
victims of reparation, saying that She was ready to lead them
safely to God.
Later Francisco, one of the three privileged children,
exclaimed: We were burning in that light which is God and we
were not consumed. What is God like? It is impossible to say. In
fact we will never be able to tell people. God: a light that burns
without consuming. Moses had the same experience when he saw
God in the burning bush.
Another portent appeared in Heaven; behold, a great red
dragon (Apoc. 12:3). These words from the first reading of
the Mass make us think of the great struggle between good and
evil, showing how, when man puts God aside, he cannot achieve
happiness, but ends up destroying himself.
The Message of Fatima is a call to conversion, alerting
humanity to have nothing to do with the dragon whose
tail swept down a third of the stars of Heaven, and cast
them to the earth (Apoc. 12:4).
Mans final goal is Heaven, his true home, where the Heavenly
Father awaits everyone with His merciful love. God does not want
anyone to be lost; that is why 2,000 years ago He sent His Son to
earth, to seek and to save the lost (Lk. 19:10).
In Her motherly concern, the Blessed Virgin came here to
Fatima to ask men and women to stop offending God, Our Lord,
who is already too much offended. It is a mothers sorrow that
compels Her to speak; the destiny of Her children is at stake. For this
reason She asks the little shepherds: Pray, pray much and make
120

sacrifices for sinners; many souls go to hell because they have no one
to pray and make sacrifices for them.
The Popes direct linkage of the Message of Fatima with the Book of
the Apocalypse, and his likening of the Fatima seers encounter with God
to that of Moses before the burning bush, comprised a stunning papal
authentication of the Fatima apparitions as divinely given prophecies
for our time. All of a sudden, Fatima was squarely before the eyes of the
whole Church again.
There was, first of all, the Popes astonishing reference to the Message
of Fatima as a biblical moment, the very fulfillment of Chapter 12, verse
1 of the Apocalypse, which speaks of the Woman clothed with the sun.
Here Pope John Paul II echoed Pope Paul VI, who, in his apostolic letter
Signum magnum, delivered at Fatima on May 13, 1967, declared:
The great sign which the Apostle John saw in Heaven, a
woman clothed with the sun, is interpreted by the sacred Liturgy,
not without foundation, as referring to the Most Blessed Mary, the
mother of all men by the grace of Christ the Redeemer. On the
occasion of the religious ceremonies which are taking place at this
time in honor of the Virgin Mother of God in Fatima, Portugal,
where She is venerated by countless numbers of the faithful for Her
motherly and compassionate heart, we wish to call the attention of
all sons of the Church once more to the indissoluble link between
the spiritual motherhood of Mary and the duties of redeemed
men toward Her, the Mother of the Church.
Even more astonishing, in his sermon Pope John Paul II had explicitly
linked the Message of Fatima to Apocalypse, Chapter 12, verse 4, which
prophesies that the tail of the dragon will sweep one-third of the stars
from Heaven and cast them down to the earth. As Father Gruner would
later note: In the language of the Bible, the stars of Heaven are those
who are set in the heavens to illumine the way for others to go to Heaven.
This passage has been classically interpreted in Catholic commentaries to
mean that one-third of the clergyi.e. Cardinals, bishops, priestsfall
from their consecrated state and are actually working for the devil. For
example, the Haydock Commentary to the Douay-Rheims Bible notes that
the image of one-third of the stars of Heaven has been interpreted to refer
to bishops and eminent persons who fell under the weight of persecution
and apostatized The devil is always ready, as far as God permits him, to
make war against the Church and the faithful servants of God.
In this connection Father Gruner and others have cited the commentary
on Apoc. 12:3-4 by Father Herman B. Kramer, in The Book of Destiny.
This work was published with an imprimatur, providentially enough, in
1956, only six years before the opening of Vatican II. In reference to the
symbol of one-third of the stars of Heaven, Father Kramer notes: This
is one-third of the clergy and that one-third of the stars shall follow
the dragonmeaning one-third of the clergy, who are the stars, the
A New Fatima for the New Orientation
121
consecrated souls in the Church.242 That is, one-third of the Catholic

clergy will be in the service of the devil, working to destroy the Church
from within. Father Herman Kramers commentary points out that the
red dragona sign of the devil which could also symbolize Communism
because red is Communisms emblematic colorbrings the Church into
great distress by undermining it from within.
The commentary goes on to say that, by means of these apostate
clergy, the devil will probably enforce upon the Church the acceptance of
unchristian morals, false doctrines, compromise with error, or obedience
to the civil rulers in violation of conscience. In addition, he suggests
that The symbolic meaning of the dragons tail may reveal that the
clergy who are ripe for apostasy will hold the influential positions in the
Church, having won preferment by hypocrisy, deceit and flattery. The
clergy who will follow the dragoni.e. the devilwould include those
who neglected to preach the truth or to admonish the sinner by a good
example, but rather sought popularity by being lax and the slaves of
human respect, as well as those who fear for their own interests and
will not remonstrate against evil practices in the Church and bishops
who abhor upright priests who dare to tell the truth.243 Father Kramer
also observes as follows concerning the state of the Catholic Church in
the times prophesied by Apoc. 12:3-4:
The apostolic democracy founded by Our Lord may have
given way to an absolute monarchy, in which the episcopate rules
with oriental despotism. The priests may be reduced to a state of
servility and fawning sycophancy. The rule by reason, justice and
love may have been supplanted by the absolute will of the bishop,
whose every act and word are to be accepted without question,
without recourse to fact, truth or justice. Conscience may have lost
its right to guide the actions of the priests and may stand ignored
or condemned. Diplomacy, expediency and other trickery may be
upheld as the greatest virtues.244
But none of this is mentioned in those parts of the Message of

Fatima which have thus far been revealed. Had the Pope, then, with his
startling reference to Apocalypse 12:3-4, just given the world a glimpse
into the contents of the Third Secret? Would he now reveal the Secret
in its entirety?
But, alas, the sermon ends. It is not the Pope who will discuss the
Third Secret. As quickly as it began, the Popes momentary return to
the vision of the Church of all time is over, and a chief exponent of the
new vision rises to his feet. It is Cardinal Angelo Sodano, then Vatican
Secretary of Statethe same Cardinal Sodano who had tried, but failed,
to prevent the Pope from going to Fatima to beatify Jacinta and Francisco.
Father Herman Bernard Kramer, The Book of Destiny, (first published 1955, republished
by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., Rockford, Illinois, 1975) pp. 279-284.
243
Ibid.
244
Ibid.
242
122
For some strange reason it is Sodano, not the Pope, who will announce
that the Pope has decided to reveal the Third Secret of Fatima:
On the solemn occasion of his visit to Fatima, His Holiness
has directed me to make an announcement to you. As you know,
the purpose of his visit to Fatima has been to beatify the two
little shepherds. Nevertheless he also wishes his pilgrimage to
be a renewed gesture of gratitude to Our Lady for Her protection
during these years of his papacy. This protection seems also to be
linked to the so-called third part of the secret of Fatima.
And then what had seemed so strange suddenly became quite

explicable. Cardinal Sodanos task would be to prepare the faithful
to accept the notion that the Message of Fatima, including the Third
Secret, was now to be considered a thing of the past. The process would
begin with the Cardinals interpretation of the Third Secret:
That text contains a prophetic vision similar to those found in
Sacred Scripture, which do not describe with photographic clarity
the details of future events, but rather synthesize and condense
against a unified background of events spread out over time in a
succession and a duration which are not specified. As a result, the
text must be interpreted in a symbolic key.
According to the interpretation of the little shepherds, which
was also recently confirmed by Sister Lucia, the Bishop dressed in
white who prays for all the faithful is the Pope. As he makes his
way with great effort towards the Cross amid the corpses of those
who were martyred (bishops, priests, men and women religious
and many lay persons), he too falls to the ground, apparently dead,
under a burst of gunfire. (Emphasis added.)
As the faithful will soon learn, this is simply a lie. The Bishop
dressed in White in the vision is not apparently dead but is killed
as the text of the vision clearly statesin the manner of a military
execution, along with many bishops, priests and religious, outside a
half-ruined city.
Why, then, insert the word apparently into the interpretation?
Cardinal Sodano immediately tips his hand:
After the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981, it appeared
evident to His Holiness that it was a motherly hand which
guided the bullets path, enabling the dying Pope to halt at the
threshold of death.
The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union
and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe, to the fall of the
Communist regime which promoted atheism.
Even if the events to which the third part of the Secret of Fatima
refers now seem part of the past, Our Ladys call to conversion and
penance, issued at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, remains
123
timely and urgent today.
Quite simply, Sodano was preparing the way for an interpretation

of the Message of Fatima that would bury it once and for all: the
Message culminated with the 1981 assassination attempt and the fall
of Communism in 1989events which now seem part of the past. To
insure this result, a commentary would be prepared before the actual
text of the Third Secret would be released:
In order that the faithful may better receive the message of
Our Lady of Fatima, the Pope has charged the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith with making public the third part of the
secret, after the preparation of an appropriate commentary.
But why had this commentary not been ready in time for the May
13 ceremony? After all, news of the Third Secrets impending disclosure
had been circulating since at least March of 2000. In that month, Bishop
Serafim had announced that the Pope had told him during a visit to
Rome that the Pope would do something special for Fatima245 when
he went there for the beatification ceremony in May 2000.
Curiously enough, the Pope had urged Bishop Serafim to say
nothing about this while he was in Rome, but to wait until he returned
to Fatima. But the subject was on the Popes mind since the previous
November, so why had no commentary been prepared during the
period November 1999 to May 2000? Surely, such a commentary could
easily have been completed in that time.
Two conclusions suggest themselves. Either the Pope had not told
Cardinal Sodano of his intention concerning disclosure of the Third
Secretin which case the Pope does not trust Sodanoor the Pope did
tell Sodano, whereupon Sodano assumed that he would somehow be
able to prevent disclosure at the May 13, 2000 ceremony. This would
explain why Sodano had not arranged for a commentary beforehand:
he thought it would not be needed because he would be able to prevent
any disclosure of the Third Secret. But the Pope had pressed ahead, and
now the Secret had to be managed in such a way that the question of
Fatima could be laid to rest.
A Press Conference
to Announce the Sodano Party Line
We thus arrive at the fateful date of June 26, 2000. On this date the
Third Secret is disclosed at a Vatican press conference, along with a
245
On this point we refer the reader again to the following articles: in Euronoticias on 24
March 2000, p. 8, entitled Bishop of Leiria-Fatima March 21 press conference; weekly
Euronoticias of 24 March 2000, on p. 8, Crisis: The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima Creates A
Mystery Around the Visit of the Pope Without Telling the Patriarch What It Concerns, Will
the Pope Reveal the Third Secret?; Euronoticias of 24 March, 2000, an article on p. 9
entitled Analysis: Persons Who Have Studied the Apparitions Say That the Third Secret
Could Concern the Destruction of the Faith. A Crisis in the Interior of the Church Would
be the Third Secret.
124
commentary prepared by Cardinal Ratzinger and Monsignor Tarcisio

Bertone, then Secretary of the CDF, entitled The Message of Fatima
(hereafter referred to as TMF). In TMF the Party Line on Fatima would
be officially promulgatedby the direct command of Cardinal Angelo
Sodano.
First of all, the faithful were told that the following text of a vision
seen by Sister Lucy is all there is to the Third Secret of Fatima:
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.
The immediate reaction of millions of Catholics could be summarized

in two words: Thats it? Clearly, something was amiss, since nothing
in this text corresponded to what Cardinal Ratzinger himself had said
about the Third Secret in 1984a point to which we shall return shortly.
Nor did it contain anything that would have explained its mysterious
suppression since 1960.
Most important, this obscure vision, written down on 62 lines
of notebook paper, contained no words of Our Lady. In particular, it
contained nothing that would complete the famous phrase spoken by
Our Lady at the conclusion of the recorded portion of the Message
of Fatima as faithfully transcribed by Sister Lucy in her memoirs: In
Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved etc. Sister
Lucy had added this phrase, including the etc., to her fourth memoir
as part of the integral text of the Message. This addition had led every
reputable Fatima scholar to conclude that it signaled the beginning of
125
the unrecorded Third Secret, and that the Third Secret pertained to a
widespread dogmatic crisis in the Church outside of Portugal. Clearly, the
Virgin had more to say that was not written down because Sister Lucy
had been instructed to keep it secretuntil, as we have seen, 1960.
In a curious maneuver, however, TMF had avoided any discussion
of the telltale phrase by taking the text of the Message of Fatima from
Sister Lucys third memoir, where the phrase does not appear. TMF
justifies this as follows: For the account of the first two parts of the
secret, which have already been published and are therefore known,
we have chosen the text written by Sister Lucia in the Third Memoir of
31 August 1941; some annotations were added in the Fourth Memoir
of 8 December 1941. Annotations? The key phrase concerning the
preservation of dogma in Portugal was no annotation but an integral
part of the spoken words of Our Lady, after which She had said: Tell this
to no one. Yes, you may tell Francisco.
Having deceptively mischaracterized an integral part of the Message
of Fatima as an annotation, TMF then buries it in a footnote that is
never mentioned again: In the Fourth Memoir Sister Lucia adds: In
Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc. ....
Why are Sodano/Ratzinger/Bertone so leery of this key phrase
that they would so obviously go out of their way to avoid it by using
an earlier and less complete memoir of the text of the Message? If
there is nothing to hide in this phrase, why not simply use the Fourth
Memoir and attempt an explanation of what the phrase means? Why
did the authors of TMF so obviously pretend that the phrase is a mere
annotation, when they know full well that it appears in the integral
text as part of the spoken words of the Mother of God? We shall return
to this suspicious behavior in a later chapter.
Another ground for suspicion was that the vision of the Bishop
dressed in White was not at all the 25-lined, one-page letter in
which Sister Lucy wrote down the words which Our Lady confided as a
secret to the three shepherds in the Cova da Iriaas the Vatican itself
had described it in the aforementioned 1960 press release. The text
of the vision spans 62 lines and apparently four distinct pages of what
appear to be ruled notebook paper.246
Yet another suspicious circumstance is that on June 26 Cardinal
Sodanos falsehood of May 13 was clearly exposed: the Pope is killed by
soldiers who fire upon him as he kneels at the foot of a large wooden
Cross outside a half-ruined city. The Pope is not apparently dead,
as Sodano had falsely asserted in May; the Pope is dead. The vision,
whatever it means, clearly has absolutely nothing to do with the 1981
assassination attempt. The faithful had already been duped in May, and
now the process of duping them was clearly continuing.
The dozens of discrepancies raised by this textprompting
246
See footnote 368 for a fuller explanation of this point.
126
Catholics around the world to doubt that we have received the Secret in
its entiretywill be addressed in a later chapter. For now, we consider
the Ratzinger/Bertone commentary in TMF on the Fatima Message as
a whole.
Cardinal Sodano Dictates

the Interpretation of the Third Secret
First of all, TMF is a virtual admission that the interpretation of
the Message of Fatima which Cardinal Ratzinger and Msgr. Bertone will
attempt (to use Cardinal Ratzingers word) has been dictated by none
other than Cardinal Sodano. No fewer than four times, TMF states that
it is following Sodanos interpretation of the Third Secretnamely,
that Fatima belongs to the past:
Before attempting an interpretation, the main lines of which
can be found in the statement read by Cardinal Sodano on May 13
of this year
For this reason the figurative language of the vision is symbolic.
In this regard Cardinal Sodano stated
As is clear from the documentation presented here, the
interpretation offered by Cardinal Sodano, in his statement on 13
May, was first put personally to Sister Lucia.
First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: the events to
which the third part of the secret of Fatima refers now seem part
of the past.
And just in case the reader still has not gotten the point, the basic
aim of TMF is driven home once again:
Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the
past.
Is it not curious that the interpretation of the Virgin of Fatimas vital

message to the world had been given over, not to the Pope, nor even
to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which was merely
aping Cardinal Sodanos opinion), but to the Vatican Secretary of State?
What authority did Cardinal Sodano have to impose his view upon
the Church? None, of course. But Cardinal Sodano had arrogated that
authority to himself in keeping the overall post-conciliar ascendancy
of the Vatican Secretary of State to the status of de facto Pope when it
comes to the daily governance of Church affairs.
Here it would be opportune to provide another very telling
example of this usurpation of authority by the Secretary of State. In
an article entitled The Pope, the Mass and the Politics of the Vatican
Bureaucrats (The Latin Mass magazine, Winter Supplement, January
2002), Italian journalist Alessandro Zangrando recounts an incident in
which the Vatican Secretary of State blocked publication in LOsservatore
127
Romano of Pope John Paul IIs praise of the traditional Latin Mass. The
praise had been expressed in a papal message to an assembly of the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments:
In the Roman Missal of St. Pius V, as in many Eastern liturgies, are
very many beautiful prayers with which the priests express the most
profound sense of humility and reverence before the Holy Mysteries,
the prayers revealing the Substance Itself of each Liturgy.
Zangrando noted that while papal messages to Vatican congregations
are routinely published soon after their release, this one was not. It was
only after the Popes praise of the traditional Mass was published in
the secular Italian newspaper Il Giornale that the Vatican Secretary of
State suddenly (within 24 hours) released the text of the Holy Fathers
message through the Vatican Press Officemore than a month after its
issuance by the Pope. But to this day, and contrary to normal practice,
the Popes message to the Congregation has not been published in
LOsservatore Romano, the Popes own newspaper. Zangrando quoted the
conclusion of the renowned Vaticanista (specialist in Vatican affairs)
Andrea Tornielli: The very fact that 24 hours after the publication of
the article [in Il Giornale] the Vatican Secretariat of State made public
the text of the Holy Fathers letter, proves that a real attempt had been
made at censoring the Popes words... The operation backfired with
unintended resultsthat is, the Popes praise of the traditional Mass
ended up gaining even wider publicity in the secular press.
Here we see how another key element of the Churchs new
orientationthe abandonment of Her traditional Latin liturgywas
enforced by the Secretary of State, who tried to censor the Popes praise
for the traditional Mass. Who knows how many other papal utterances
have been censoredsuccessfullyby the Vatican Secretariat of State?
This incident is only typical of the way Church governance operated,
especially given Pope John Paul IIs declining physical health.
Cardinal Ratzinger Executes

the Sodano Party Line
Returning to the commentary with these facts in mind, one can
see that the press conference of June 26, 2000 had one overriding
purpose: to carry out Cardinal Sodanos order concerning the correct
interpretation of the Message of Fatima. By the time the reporters left
that room, the Message of Fatimaall of itwas to be buried. And once
buried, the Message would no longer impede Cardinal Sodano and his
collaborators in their relentless pursuit of the Churchs new, post-Fatima
orientation, which includes (as we shall see) the important Church
business of lauding, dining and hobnobbing at the Vatican with the likes
of Mikhail Gorbachev, having the Pope apologize to the Red Chinese
regime, pressuring Romanian Catholics to surrender to the Orthodox
church the local Catholic Churchs rights to the properties stolen by
Josef Stalin, supporting and even contributing money to a godless,
128
unaccountable International Criminal Court under United Nations

auspices that could try Catholics of any nation for unspecified crimes
against humanity, and other such triumphs of Vatican diplomacy.
In other words, every last holdout in the Church must be brought along
to the Vaticans new way of thinking and speaking to the world, which
does not square well with Our Lady of Fatimas prophecy of the triumph
of Her Immaculate Heart, the spread of devotion to Her Immaculate
Heart and the consequent conversion of Russia through the intervention
of the Immaculate Heart. This sort of talk just wont do anymore, even if
it does come from the Mother of God. So, the precise task entrusted to
Cardinal Ratzinger and Msgr. Bertone on June 26 was to find a way to
detach the faithful once and for all from the explicitly Catholic aspects of
the Message of Fatima, which all too clearly remind us of the triumphal
Church of the pre-conciliar dark age. As the Los Angeles Times would
observe in its headline of June 27, 2000: Catholic Church Unveils Third
Secret: The Vaticans Top Theologian Gently Debunks a Nuns Account of
Her 1917 Vision That Fueled Decades of Speculation. The effort was so
blatant that even a secular newspaper could not help but notice it. Let
us provide the proof of this crime against the Virgin of Fatima and the
saintly seers God chose to receive Her message.
First, there was the attempt in TMF to dispose of the triumph of the
Immaculate Heart:
I would like finally to mention another key expression of
the secret which has become justly famous: my Immaculate
Heart will triumph. What does this mean? The Heart open to
God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and
weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has
changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour
into the worldbecause, thanks to her Yes, God could become man
in our world and remains so for all time.
The attentive reader will notice immediately that the first three
words from the Virgins prophecy: In the end have been removed.
This was necessary for the revisionist interpretation along the lines
dictated by Sodano: namely, that Fatima belongs to the past.
Thus, In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph isafter the
expedient removal of the first three wordsnow to be understood as
follows: 2,000 years ago My Immaculate Heart triumphed. Our Ladys
prophecy of what will happen in the end is blatantly falsified into a mere
acknowledgment of what had already happened 20 centuries ago at the
beginning of Christian history. Four future eventsthe triumph of the
Immaculate Heart, the consecration of Russia, Russias conversion, and
the resulting period of peace in the worldare cunningly converted into
one event 2,000 years ago! This tampering with a message God Himself
sent to earth through His Blessed Mother should cause any member of
the faithful to rise up and demand justice in the name of Heaven.
129
But on this point it seems that Pope Benedict XVIas if his elevation
to the papacy had freed him from the dictates of the Vatican Secretary of
Statehas reconsidered this exercise in Fatima revisionism. In a prayer
that Pope Benedict addressed to the Mother of God in the Holy Land at
Bethlehem on May 13, 2009, the anniversary of the first apparition at
Fatima, the Pope said: You promised the three children of Fatima that
in the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. May it be so!
That remark represents a stunning reversal of the Party Line that
the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart is already behind us, and that
it consists of the fall of communism following the consecration of
Russia in 1984during a ceremony which avoided any mention of
Russia, lest the Russians be offended. We will examine the evidence
that demolishes that claim more in Chapter 16. But, more to the point
at issue here, the Popes declaration is a reversal of the former Cardinal
Ratzingers truly embarrassing claim in TMF that the triumph of the
Immaculate Heart prophesied at Fatima was Marys fiat 2,000 years
ago at the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel.
These and other words and deeds of the currently reigning Pope,
Benedict XVI, some of which we have already mentioned, give reason
for hope that the course of events can be altered to avert disaster for
the Church and the world. But, seven years after we published the
first edition of this book, the course remains essentially unaltered,
with a new helmsman in the Vatican Secretariat of StateCardinal
Bertone, the successor to Cardinal Sodanofollowing precisely the
same coordinates, even if we now have a Pope who might wish to turn
the ship around. We shall explore this situation in the final chapters,
especially Chapters 15 and 16.
Second, concerning Our Ladys call to establish devotion to Her
Immaculate Heart throughout the world as God wishes, Cardinal
Ratzinger suggests:
According to Matthew 5:8, the immaculate heart is a heart
which, with Gods grace, has come to perfect interior unity and
therefore sees God. To be devoted to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary means therefore to embrace this attitude of heart, which
makes the fiatyour will be donethe defining centre of ones
whole life.
Notice, first of all, the quotation marks placed around devoted and
immaculate heart, which is stripped of its upper-case Ia sure sign
these words are about to acquire a new meaning.
Thus, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My
Immaculate Heart is now to be understood as: God wishes everyone to
do His will. In fact, everyone whose heart is open to Gods will acquires
an immaculate heart of his own. So, devotion to the Immaculate Heart
of Mary means opening ones own heart to God, not spreading devotion
to Her heart in order to make the world (especially Russia) Catholic.
130
Immaculate with a capital I becomes immaculate with a lower-case

i, and Her Heart becomes everyones heart, at least potentially. As a
magician would say: Presto, change-o!
There is, of course, only one word to describe the demotion of the
one and only Immaculate Heartconceived without Original Sin and
guilty of no personal sin whatsoeverto the level of the heart of any
person who turns away from his sins and finds interior unity with God.
The word is blasphemy.
Here too, however, we have witnessed since the first edition of this
book an apparent change in the man who was Cardinal Ratzinger but
is now Benedict XVIalmost as if the Pope had somehow heeded the
criticism leveled in the first edition of this book against the Cardinal,
even if he had never read it. In an Angelus address on June 5, 2005, less
than two months after his election to the papacy, the Pope unequivocally
affirmed the uniqueness of the Immaculate Heart:
The heart that resembles that of Christ more than any other is
without a doubt the Heart of Mary, His Immaculate Mother, and
for this very reason the liturgy holds Them up together for our
veneration.247
And then, in his homily on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of

Jesus in 2009, the Pope offered these beautiful words of praise and
tribute to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, while affirming the dogma of
the Immaculate Conception:
May the Virgin Mary, whose Immaculate Heart we shall
contemplate with lively faith tomorrow, obtain this grace for
us. The Cur of Ars had a filial devotion to Mary, a devotion so
profound that in 1836, in anticipation of the proclamation of the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception, he dedicated his parish to
Mary conceived without sin. He frequently renewed this offering
of the parish to the Blessed Virgin, teaching his parishioners that
to be heard it is enough to speak to Her, for the simple reason
that She desires above all else to see us happy.248
Papal statements like these are an encouraging sign that perhaps

this Pope will finally bring the Church to correspond to the requests of
Our Lady of Fatima, if the faithful continue to pray and work for that
outcome. Meanwhile, however, the Party Line as enunciated in TMF
continues to exert its negative influence at many levels of the Church.
Third, the conversion of Russia had to be disposed of. This was
a bit more difficult to make disappear, for there is not much one can
say to obscure the Mother of Gods very clear statement that the Holy
Benedict XVIs talk at the Angelus on June 5, 2005; on the web at http://www.vatican.
va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20050605_
en.html.
248
Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Opening of the Year for Priests on the 150th
Anniversary of the Death of Saint John Mary Vianney, Homily of His Holiness Benedict
XVI, Saint Peters Basilica, Friday, June 19, 2009.
247
131
Father will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted. But, as we

have demonstrated abundantly, the conversion of Russia is no longer
acceptable to the Vatican apparatus. The solution to this problem was
simply to avoid any discussion of the subject in TMF, although Our
Ladys words are quoted without comment. The conversion of Russia?
What conversion?249
Fourth, TMFs crowning insult was the citation of only one
authority on Fatima in TMF: the Flemish theologian Edouard Dhanis,
S.J., who is identified as an eminent scholar on Fatima. Dhanis, a
modernist Jesuit, made a veritable career out of casting doubt on the
Fatima apparitions. Dhanis proposed that everything in the Secret of
Fatima beyond a call for prayer and penance was cobbled together in the
minds of the three children from things they had seen or heard in their
own lives. Dhanis thus categorized as Fatima II all those things which
the eminent scholar arbitrarily rejected as fabricationswithout ever
once interviewing Sister Lucy or studying the official Fatima archives.
As Dhanis put it: All things considered, it is not easy to state precisely
what degree of credence is to be given to the accounts of Sister Lucy.
Without questioning her sincerity, or the sound judgment she shows
in daily life, one may judge it prudent to use her writings only with
reservations. Let us observe also that a good person can be sincere
and prove to have good judgment in everyday life, but have a propensity
for unconscious fabrication in a certain area, or in any case, a tendency
to relate old memories of twenty years ago with embellishments and
considerable modifications.250
Dhanis, who refused to examine the official Fatima archives, cast
doubt on every aspect of the Message of Fatima which did not accord
with his neo-modernist leanings: the prayer taught by the Angel he
called inexact; the vision of hell he called an exaggeratedly medieval
representation; the prophecy of a night illumined by an unknown
light heralding the advent of World War II he described as grounds
for suspicion. And as for the consecration of Russia, Dhanis flatly
declared that: Russia could not be consecrated by the Pope, without
this act taking on the air of a challenge, both in regard to the separated
hierarchy, as well as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This would
make the consecration practically unrealizable Thus, Dhanis declared
that the consecration of Russia would be morally impossible by reason
Following the first edition of The Devils Final Battle, the respected journal Inside the
Vatican published an article demolishing the specious objection that the Consecration of
Russia by the Pope and Catholic bishops would offend the Russian Orthodox. Cf. Cathy
Pearson, Now Is the Time: Consecrating Russia Will Help, Not Harm, Catholic-Orthodox
Dialogue, Inside the Vatican, August/September 2008; reprinted with permission in The
Fatima Crusader, Issue 91, February 2009, pp. 3ff; also on the web at www.fatimacrusader.
com/cr91/cr91pg3.pdf. A free copy of this breakthrough article is available from the
publisher of this book (see page xxvi).
250
Dhanis entire thesis against Fatima is explained and critiqued in Frre Michel, The Whole
Truth About Fatima - Vol. I, Part II, pp. 384-528. All quotations concerning his false theory
are from this source.
249
132
of the reactions it would normally provoke.251

Dhanis deconstruction of the Message of Fatima is a typical example
of how modernists undermine Catholic truths based upon premises they
themselves invent. Since (invented premise) the consecration of Russia
is morally impossible, how could Our Lady of Fatima have requested
it? Having thus stacked the deck against Sister Lucy, Dhanis states the
inevitable conclusion: But could the Most Holy Virgin have requested
a consecration which, taken according to the rigor of the terms, would
be practically unrealizable? This question indeed seems to call for
a negative response. Thus, it hardly seems probable that Our Lady
asked for the consecration of Russia. Based entirely on the premise
Dhanis invented, Sister Lucys testimony is pronounced a fraud.
That is precisely the line adopted by Cardinal Sodano and his
Vatican apparatus: the Mother of God could not possibly have requested
anything as diplomatically embarrassing as a public Consecration of
Russia: and so we must do away with this embarrassing notion once
and for all. It is this Party Line that Cardinal Ratzinger endorsed in his
commentary by praising Dhanis as an eminent scholar on Fatima.
Cardinal Ratzinger, following the Party Line, suggests that the Third
Secret in particular consists of images which Lucia may have seen in
devotional books and which draw their inspiration from long-standing
intuitions of faith. In other words, who can really say which parts of
the Third Secret are authentic and which are merely personal memories
or intuitions? And if that were true of the Third Secret, it would also
be true of the rest of the Message of Fatima.
The apparent attempt to undermine Sister Lucys credibility, while
professing great respect for the Message of Fatima, will be taken up
again in the following chapter. Here it suffices to say that the former
Cardinal Ratzingers evident agreement with Dhanis that all the
specifically prophetic elements of the Message are unreliable ought to
have disqualified him from proposing any interpretation of the Third
Secret, or indeed any other part of the Fatima Message. If (at least in
2000) he simply did not believe that the Mother of God called for the
consecration of Russia, the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith,
the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the establishment
throughout the world of the specifically Catholic devotion to the one
and only Immaculate Heart, then he had a duty to reveal that bias
and abstain entirely from the matter, rather than proposing an
interpretation that discredited that which he purported to interpret.
What was left of the Message of Fatima after June 26? On this point,
the then-Cardinal Ratzinger, Msgr. (now Cardinal) Bertone, and Fr.
Dhanis all seemed to agree: What remains was already evident when
we began our reflections on the text of the secret: the exhortation
to prayer as the path of salvation for souls [sic] and, likewise, the
251
Ibid.
133
summons to penance and conversion. On June 26, 2000 the Message

of Fatima became Fatima Lite: a watered-down prescription for personal
piety without any specific relevance to the future of mankind.
For this the Mother of God came to earth and called down the
Miracle of the Sun? It is interesting to note that even in presenting
this minimalist version of the Message, Cardinal Ratzinger could not
write about salvation for souls without bracketing those words with the
same squeamish quotation marks he used to distance himself from the
words devotion, triumph and immaculate in his commentary. It seems
even Fatima Lite is not quite light enough in Catholic content for the
ecumenical palates of modern churchmen.
As for Our Ladys prophetic warning that various nations will be
annihilated if the consecration of Russia were not done, this we are
apparently supposed to forget. There will be no annihilation of nations,
Fatima is all in the past. Cardinal Sodano said as much and the thenCardinal Ratzinger seemed to agree.
The Party Line

on the Consecration of Russia
We have mentioned Archbishop (now Cardinal) Bertones role in
TMF. His principal contributions to the farce were two:
First, Bertone issued the command (binding, of course, on no
one) that the faithful must cease asking for the Consecration of Russia:
Hence any further discussion or request [of the Consecration] is
without basis.
To support this claim, Bertone cited exactly one piece of evidence:
the manifestly fake letter of November 8, 1989 from Sister Lucy to
Mr. Noelker, which we have already mentionedthe same letter in which
Sister Lucy writes about a consecration of the world by Pope Paul VI at
Fatima which she never witnessed because it never happened. Tellingly
enough, Bertone fails to identify the addressee of the letter. Nor does he
provide the world with a copy to examine, lest anyone notice the fatal
blunder concerning Pope Pauls nonexistent consecration of the world.
Even more telling, TMF contains absolutely no direct testimony by Sister
Lucy herself concerning the Consecration, even though Bertone himself
had interviewed her about the Third Secret only two months earlier, and
she was readily available to the then-Cardinal Ratzinger and the entire
Vatican apparatus during the beatification ceremony in May.
Small wonder. TMFs version of the consecration of Russiawhich
is to say Cardinal Sodanos versionflatly contradicts a lifetime of
testimony to the contrary by Sister Lucy. We consider a few examples
here.
Over 60 years ago, on July 15, 1946, the eminent author and
historian, William Thomas Walsh interviewed Sister Lucy, which is
recounted in his important work, Our Lady of Fatima, which sold over
one million copies. During this interview, which appears at the books
134
end, Mr. Walsh asked her pointed questions about the correct procedure
for the Collegial Consecration:
Finally we came to the important subject of the second July
secret, of which so many different and conflicting versions have
been published. Lucia made it plain that Our Lady did not ask for
the consecration of the world to Her Immaculate Heart. What She
demanded specifically was the consecration of Russia. She did not
comment, of course, on the fact that Pope Pius XII had consecrated
the world, not Russia, to the Immaculate Heart in 1942. But she
said more than once, and with deliberate emphasis: What Our
Lady wants is that the Pope and all the bishops in the world shall
consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart on one special day. If
this is done, She will convert Russia and there will be peace. If it
is not done, the errors of Russia will spread through every country
in the world.252
Sister Lucy is clear and forthright. The collegial consecration requested

by Heaven is the Consecration of Russia, not the world, which must be
done by the Pope in union with the worlds bishops on the same day.
Then there is the little-known revelation of Our Lady to Sister
Lucy in the early 1950s, which is recounted in Il Pellegrinaggio delle
Meraviglie, published under the auspices of the Italian episcopate. The
Virgin Mary appeared to Sister Lucy in May 1952 and said: Make it
known to the Holy Father that I am always awaiting the Consecration of
Russia to My Immaculate Heart. Without the Consecration, Russia will
not be able to convert, nor will the world have peace.253
Thus, 10 years after Pope Pius XIIs 1942 consecration of the world, we
have the report of Our Lady reminding Sister Lucy that Russia will not be
converted, nor will there be peace, unless Russia is consecrated by name.
Thirty years later, in 1982, Sister Lucys testimony remains steadfast.
On May 12, 1982, the day before the attempted 1982 consecration,
the Vaticans own LOsservatore Romano published an interview of Sister
Lucy by Father Umberto Maria Pasquale, a Salesian priest, during
which she told Father Umberto that Our Lady had never requested the
consecration of the world, but only the Consecration of Russia:
At a certain moment I said to her: Sister, I should like to
ask you a question. If you cannot answer me, let it be. But if you
can answer it, I would be most grateful to you ... Has Our Lady
ever spoken to you about the Consecration of the world to Her
Immaculate Heart?
William Thomas Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima, (Image-Doubleday, New York, Imprimatur
1947) p. 221. Emphasis in the original.
253
Il Pellegrinaggio delle Meraviglie, (Rome, 1960) p. 440. This same work, published under
the auspices of the Italian episcopate, affirms that this message was communicated to
Pope Pius XII in June. Also, Canon Casimir Barthas mentioned that apparition in his
communication to the Mariological Congress of Lisbon-Fatima, in 1967; see De Primoridiis
cultus marianae, Acta congressus mariologici-mariana in Lusitania anno 1967 celebrati,
(Rome, 1970) p. 517. See Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, pp. 21 and 37.
252
135
No, Father Umberto! Never! At the Cova da Iria in 1917 Our

Lady had promised: I shall come to ask for the Consecration
of Russia ... In 1929, at Tuy, as She had promised, Our Lady came
back to tell me that the moment had come to ask the Holy Father
for the Consecration of that country [Russia].
This testimony was confirmed by Sister Lucy in a handwritten letter

to Father Umberto, which the priest also published. (See photographic
reproduction below.) A translation of the letter reads:
Reverend Father Umberto, in replying to your question, I will
clarify: Our Lady of Fatima, in Her request, referred only to the
Consecration of Russia ... Coimbra 13 IV - 1980 (signed) Sister
Lucia
Again, on March 19, 1983, at the request of the Holy Father, Sister
Lucy met with the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Portalupi, Dr. Lacerda, and
Father Messias Coelho. During this meeting, Sister Lucy confirmed that
Pope John Pauls consecration of 1982 did not fulfill the requests of Our
Lady. Sister Lucy said:
In the act of offering of May 13, 1982, Russia did not appear
as being the object of the consecration. And each bishop did not
organize in his own diocese a public and solemn ceremony of
reparation and Consecration of Russia. Pope John Paul II simply
renewed the consecration of the world executed by Pius XII on
October 31, 1942. From this consecration we can expect some
benefits, but not the conversion of Russia.254
254
Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, p. 165.
136
She concluded, The Consecration of Russia has not been done as

Our Lady had demanded it. I was not able to say it [before] because I did
not have the permission of the Holy See.255
A year later, on March 25, 1984, Pope John Paul II made an act
of offering wherein he again consecrated the world, not Russia. As
with the 1982 consecration, each bishop did not organize in his own
diocese a public and solemn ceremony of reparation and consecration
of Russia. Concerning this ceremony Frre Franois writes: In the
months which followed the act of offering of March 25, 1984, which
was only a renewal of the act of 1982, the principal scholars of Fatima
agreed in saying that the consecration of Russia had not yet been done
as Heaven wished it.256
Such was also the conviction of Father Antonio Maria Martins,257
and of Father Messias Coelho who, on the eve of March 25, 1984, had
announced in Mensagem de Ftima, of which he is the publisher-editor,
Consecration of Russia: It will not be done yet this time.258
These theologians based their statements not only on the bald fact
that a consecration of Russia needs to mention the word Russia, but
also on the testimony of Sister Lucy herself.
On Thursday, March 22, 1984, three days before the act of offering,
the Carmel of Coimbra was celebrating Sister Lucys seventy-seventh
birthday. She received on that day, as was her custom, her old friend
Mrs. Eugenia Pestana. After extending good wishes to her Carmelite
friend, Mrs. Pestana asked, Then Lucy, Sunday is the Consecration?
Sister Lucy, who had already received and read the text of the Popes
consecration formula made a negative sign and declared, That
consecration cannot have a decisive character.259
The decisive character which is the stamp of the proper
consecration is the miraculous conversion of Russia. Although the
new ecumenical orientation of the Church has confused the issue,
the conversion of Russia means conversion to Catholicism. This is not
only a matter of common sense, but it is also found in the testimony
of Father Joaquin Alonso, probably the foremost Fatima expert of the
20th Century. Father Alonso, who had many interviews with Sister Lucy,
wrote in 1976:
... we should affirm that Lucia always thought that the
conversion of Russia is not to be limited to the return of the
Russian people to the Orthodox Christian religion, rejecting the
Marxist atheism of the Soviets, but rather, it refers purely, plainly
Reported within an article by Father Pierre Caillon of Centre Saint Jean, 61500, Ses,
(Orne) France. This article was published by the monthly periodical Fidelite Catholique,
B.P. 217-56402, Auray Cedex, France. English translation from The Fatima Crusader,
Issue 13-14, (October-December, 1983) p. 3.
256
257
See Fatima e o Coraao de Maria, pp. 101-102.
258
259
Ibid., pp. 167-168.
255
137
and simply to the total, integral conversion of Russia to the one

true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church.260
In a 1985 interview in Sol de Fatima, Sister Lucy was asked if the

Pope fulfilled the request of Our Lady when he consecrated the world
in 1984. Sister Lucy replied: There was no participation of all the
bishops, and there was no mention of Russia. She was then asked, So
the consecration was not done as requested by Our Lady? to which she
replied: No. Many bishops attached no importance to this act.261
Even Father Rene Laurentin, a comrade of the progressivists, admitted
in 1986 that Sister Lucy remains unsatisfied262 ... Lucy seems to think
that the Consecration has not been made as Our Lady wanted it.263
Then on July 20, 1987, Sister Lucy was interviewed quickly outside
her convent while voting. Here she told journalist Enrique Romero that
the Consecration of Russia has not been done as requested.264
More of Sister Lucys affirmations that the 1984 consecration did
not fulfill Heavens conditions could be cited,265 but the point is made:
the then-Msgr. Bertone and the former Cardinal Ratzinger, following
Sodanos Party Line, relied entirely on a single, manifestly bogus letter to
overcome more than fifty years of unwavering testimony by Sister Lucy
on Heavens requirements for an effectual consecration of Russia. They
had not dared to ask Sister Lucy about the matter themselvesor, if they
had, she had not provided answers consistent with the Party Line.266
The Party Line on Fatima and World Peace

This brings us to Msgr. Bertones second contribution to the farce.
It came in the form of this statement, which is here photographically
reproduced from their June 26, 2000 statement (TMF), on page 9:
La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, Fatima sin mitos, Father Joaquin Alonso, (2nd edition,
Ejercito Azul, Madrid, 1988) p. 78. English translation by Joseph Cain. Original Spanish
reads: ... podriamos decir que Lucia ha pensado siempre que la conversin de Rusia no se
entiende solo de un retorno de los pueblos de Rusia a la religion cristiano-ortodoxa, rechazando
el ateismo marxista y ateo de los soviets, sino que se refiere pura y llanmente a la conversion
total e integral de un retorno a la unica y verdadera Iglesia, la catolica-romana.
261
Sol de Fatima, September 1985.
262
Chrtiens-Magazine, March 1987, #8. Cited from Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, p. 189.
263
Father Laurentin, Multiplication des apparitions de la Vierge aujourdhui, (Fayard,
September, 1988), p. 45. Cited from Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph, p. 189.
264
This testimony of Sister Lucy was reported in the early August (1987) edition of Para
Ti published in Argentina. See World Enslavement or Peace ... Its Up to the Pope, Father
Nicholas Gruner (The Fatima Crusader, Fort Erie, 1988), pp. 212-213.
265
For more testimony, see Chapter VI of Fatima: Tragedy and Triumph.
266
The reported November 17, 2001 interview between Archbishop (now Cardinal) Bertone
and Sister Lucy is treated at length in Chapter 11, Muzzling and Hiding the Witness.
260
138
It is difficult to find words to express the offensiveness of this

absurd claim. Here Sodanos Party Line seriously proposes that an entire
era of human lust for power and evil has been brought to an end with
the Vaticans disclosure of the obscure vision of the Bishop dressed
in White. In which case, why did the Vatican wait forty years to bring
on world peace, when all it had to do, according to Msgr. Bertone, was
stage a press conference in 1960 to publish this vision?
Cardinal Sodano evidently recognized that he must provide the
faithful with some sort of counterfeit to take the place of the triumph
of the Immaculate Heart, which had never materialized following
the 1984 consecration of Russia. The press conference of June 26,
2000 was thus presented as the great culmination of the Message of
Fatima!
But somehow Msgr. Bertone and Cardinal Ratzinger seemed to
ignore the obvious implications of Sister Lucys letter, entirely in
her own handwriting and purportedly (we emphasize purportedly
for reasons that will soon be clear) addressed to the Pope on May
12, 1982. A cropped portion of the purported letter to the Pope was
photographically reproduced in TMF. We present that photographic
reproduction here, just as it appears in TMF:
We also reproduce below, exactly as it appears in TMF, the actual

typeset English translation of the Portuguese handwritten fragment
reproduced above: 267
267
This purported letter to the Pope in 1982 makes absolutely no

reference to the 1981 assassination attempt a year before; much less
does it characterize the attempt as any sort of fulfillment of the Third
Secret. Clearly, a year after the attempt Sister Lucy remained worried
267
The Vatican translation we are going towards it little by little with great strides is
clearly defective. The words little by little do not appear in the handwritten Portuguese
original published on p. 9 of TMF provided by the Vatican itself.
139
about a global chastisement in consequence of the Churchs failure to

heed the imperatives of the Fatima Message. She certainly was not
writing to the Pope about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, but
rather the annihilation of nations.
Also very curious is that the same letter from Sister Lucy, which
TMF represents as being addressed to Pope John Paul II, contains the
phrase: The third part of the secret that you are so anxious to
know (que tanto ansiais por conhecer). Why would the Pope be so
anxious to know the third part of the Secret if he already had the text
in his possession at the Vatican, where it has been lodged since 1957?
Why would His Holiness in 1982 be so anxious to know what he
had already read in 1981 (as Ratzinger/Bertone claim), or as early as
1978, as papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the Portuguese
press?
It is highly suspicious that the phrase you are so anxious to know is
deleted from every Vatican translation of the original Portuguese letter in
the various language versions of Bertone and Ratzingers commentary
(see also pages 349-350 of this book). Even the Portuguese language
version of TMF omits the phrase you are so anxious to know from the
Portuguese typeset reproduction of the original letter. Clearly, the Vatican
apparatus wanted to avoid a storm of questions about how the Pope
could be anxious to know something he already knew. But by the time
reporters could compare their translations with the original Portuguese
letter, the press conference was over and no further questions could be
asked.
Two conclusions are possible: Either the letter was not really written
to the Pope, or there was something more to the Secret which the Pope
really did not know as of May 12, 1982, the date of the purported letter
from Sister Lucy. As Sir Walter Scotts famous aphorism goes: Oh! What
a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.268 The first
deceptionthat Fatima belongs to the pastleads to a tangled web of
other deceptions in order to cover up the first.
Targeting Father Gruner

But there was more to be done in this campaign to bury Fatima in the
past. What about the Fatima priest, whose apostolates publications
and broadcasts were persistently and quite effectively hammering
home the point that the Vatican apparatus, pursuing its new vision of
the Church, had turned its back on the Virgins requests? At the end of
the June 26 press conference, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger mentioned
Father Nicholas Gruner by name, stating that he is a serious man. But
he then went on to imply that Father Gruner must conform himself
to the Magisterium on the question of the Consecration of Russia,
which (so the Party Line goes) was now over and done with. But the
Magisteriumthe authoritative teaching office of the Churchhad
268
Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field, Canto 6, stanza 17. Poem by Sir Walter Scott.
140
taught nothing of the kind. There was only the Sodano Interpretation
of Fatima, and TMFs non-binding attempt to explain away all of the
specific prophetic content of the Fatima Message269 (leaving only prayer
and penance).
Ratcheting up this persecution, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos had, only
days before the June 26 press conference, sent Father Gruner a letter
containing the astounding threat that he would be excommunicated
from the Catholic Church. This letter was followed up with a
communiqu to the bishops of the Philippines (where Father Gruners
apostolate is strongly supported), advising that Father Gruner would be
excommunicated unless (among other things demanded) he reconciled
himself to Church authoritiesthat is, according to Castrilln Hoyos,
return to the Diocese of Avellino (where Father Gruner was no longer
incardinated), close down his apostolate and bow to the Party Line
on Fatima. For his own part, the Bishop of Avellino had never needed
Father Gruners services, never supported him financially, and had
never taken any steps to secure a proper immigration visa for the
return to Avellino. The Bishop of Avellino was nothing but a pawn in
the Secretary of States chess game. (We will have more to say about
this travesty in later chapters.)
In his remarks about Father Gruner at the end of the June 26
press conference, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger had also noted that
Father Gruner was no doubt suffering from angosciathe Italian word
for mental anguish. The Cardinal must have known of the threat of
excommunication, which would indeed cause angoscia in any faithful
priest who loves the Church. But Father Gruners plight is only
emblematic of the plight of the Church as a whole in the post-conciliar
epoch: a priest who has committed no offense against faith, morals or
ecclesiastical discipline is personally threatened with excommunication
by the very head of the Congregation for the Clergy, while throughout
the Church predators in Roman collars molest altar boys or spread
heresy as their bishops move them from place to place or conceal their
activities and protect them from punishment; and the Congregation for
the Clergy does nothing.
What is to explain this outrageous disparity of justice? There seems
to us only one sensible explanation, based on what we have shown thus
far: In the Catholic Church of the post-conciliar Adaptation the one
unforgivable offensejust as in Stalinist Russiais to buck the Party
Line. And Father Gruner had bucked the Party Line on Fatima.
269
It should be noted that the then-Cardinal Ratzinger himself said regarding the
Vaticans interpretation of the Third Secret, The Church does not want to impose an
interpretation. This quotation was reported in: Final Secret of Fatima Published by
Vatican, Boston Herald, June 27, 2000; Vaticans Secret is Out, The Express, June 27,
2000; Vatican Unease as it Reveals the Full Third Secret of Fatima, Financial Times
(London), June 27, 2000; Fatima Snapshot of Martyrs Past Century, The Irish Times,
June 27, 2000.
141
Exit Our Lady, Enter Gorbachev

We have claimed that this mockery and obscuration of the Fatima
Messagethe Party Line on Fatimawas intended to bury it once and
for all, so that Cardinal Sodano could get on with his pursuit of the
Churchs new orientation. Here is a particularly compelling example of
what we mean:
Fatima having been gently debunked (to quote the Los Angeles
Times) by Ratzinger and Bertone on June 26, the Vatican apparatus,
led by Cardinal Sodano, immediately got down to what it considers the
serious business of the Church. The very next day Mikhail Gorbachev
was seated as a guest of honor between Cardinals Sodano and
Silvestrini at a Vatican press conference. What was the purpose of this
press conference? It was called to celebrate one of the key elements of
the Churchs new orientation: Ostpolitik, the policy of dialogue and
accommodation with Communist regimes (including Red China) that
persecute the Church. The immediate occasion for the press conference
was the posthumous publication of the memoirs of Cardinal Casaroli,
the grand propagator of Ostpolitik and Cardinal Sodanos predecessor
in enforcing the Party Line against Fatima.270
In true Stalinist fashion, no questions from the press were permitted
at this curious press conferencea press conference with no questions
from the press! Evidently the Vatican wanted to be sure that no one
bucked the Party Line with any questions about Fatima, or why the
Vatican was honoring the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, a man who admits
he is still a Leninist and whose tax-free foundations are promoting the use
of abortion and contraception to eliminate five billion people from the
worlds population.271 This is not even to mention this blood-drenched
characters public defense of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when
he was still head of the Soviet Communist Partya genocidal campaign
that included planting bombs disguised as toys, so that Afghan children
would have their limbs and heads blown off.272
Could there be a more dramatic demonstration of the fundamental
opposition between the Church of all time and the Church of the
Adaptation? On June 26, 2000 Our Lady of Fatima was shown the
News of June 27, 2000 press conference. Gorbachev Helps Introduce Casaroli Memoirs,
Catholic World News, June 27, 2000.
271
In September 1995, Gorbachev held his State of the World Forum in San Francisco. Over
4000 of the worlds elite paid $5,000 per person to attend the 5-day event. In a closing
plenary session of the forum, a philosopher/author named Sam Keen provided a summary
and concluding remarks on the conference. It reveals the Forums anti-life, anti-Christian
ethos. To the conference participants, Keen said: there was very strong agreement that
religious institutions have to take the primary responsibility for the population explosion.
We must speak far more clearly about sexuality, about contraception, about abortion,
about the values that control the population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the
population crisis. Cut the population by 90 percent and there arent enough people left to do
a great deal of ecological damage. See Worlds elite gather to talk depopulation, John
Henry Western, The Interim, April 1996.
272
See interview with Afghan official Abdul Shams in Review of the News, July 1985.
270
142
door, Her heavenly message audaciously censored and revised by

men who would dare to consign it to oblivion. Then, a day later,
Mikhail Gorbachev entered the Vatican to celebrate the Churchs new
orientation, as implemented by the late Cardinal Casaroli and by his
successor, Cardinal Sodano.
Gorbachev, leader of the culture of death, was honored by the
Vatican again on November 4, 2000 when he addressed the Pope
and other prelates at the Jubilee of Politiciansa dinner gala for
about 5,000 of the worlds rulers of godless secular republics. The
photographers captured the Pope listening very attentively to a speech
by this key promoter of the abortion holocaust.273 This grotesque
mixture of a Jubileea spiritual tradition in the Church derived from
an Old Testament customwith speeches by pro-abortion politicians on
secular matters, is only typical of the new orientation, which constantly
seeks to merge the Church with the world in the great Adaptation of
Roman Catholicism to modern civilization.
Enforcing the New Orientation

in a Post-Fatima Church
The months following the June 26 press conference witnessed an
acceleration in the campaign to impose the new orientation on the
Message of Fatima onto the Church at large.
For example, on June 29, 2000, only two days after the Gorbachev
farce, a seemingly unrelated but actually quite relevant event took
place. Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos issued a letter in his capacity as the
head of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, which is supposed to insure
access to the traditional Latin Mass for those who seek it. The letter
announced something quite remarkable at a time of general lack of
discipline in the Church: The General Chapter (meeting) of the Priestly
Fraternity of St. Peter (chartered by Pope John Paul II to serve the
needs of traditional Catholics who have not welcomed the changes in
the Church) would be suppressed. Its election would not be held. The
Fraternitys priestly members would not be allowed to re-elect as their
superior Father Josef Bisig, who was expected to be nominated and reelected by an overwhelming majority at the Chapter. Cardinal Castrilln
Hoyos would simply impose upon the Fraternity a candidate more to
his liking. Further, the rectors of the Fraternitys two seminaries would
be removed and replaced with more liberal-minded priests.
The rationale for the Cardinals actions is stated in his letter:
You know quite well that your seminary is observed by many
people in the Church and that it must be exemplary in all respects.
In particular, it is required to avoid and combat a certain spirit of
rebellion against the present-day Church, which spirit easily finds
followers among the young students, who like all young people
273
Photograph published in Catholic Family News, January 2001, p. 13; see also the photo
on page 153 of this book.
143
already are inclined to extreme and rigorous positions.274
In a later interview in 30 Days magazine, the Cardinal further

explained that he was only helping the Fraternity to strike a balance
between their original charism and the outcome of their insertion within
the ecclesial reality of today.275
Consider these two phrases together: a certain spirit of rebellion
against the present-day Church, and their insertion within the
ecclesial reality of today. Now, the seminarians of the Priestly
Fraternity are baptized Catholics. They were born and raised in the
mainstream Catholic Church. They were young men who came from
the mainstream and joined the Fraternitys seminaries to be formed in
a traditional manner and to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass.
And yet these young men, who have never gone into schism (socalled), are being told that nonetheless they must be inserted into the
present-day Church and the ecclesial reality of today. But if they
are already Catholics, then what is this thing into which they are being
inserted? Is it the Holy Catholic Church? Clearly, it is not. What the
Cardinal is speaking ofwhether he knows this explicitly or notis
the Church of the Adaptation; the Church of the new orientation. We
know this because the priests and seminarians of the papally chartered
Fraternity of Saint Peter are indubitably Catholics, so that if they are
being inserted into anything it is not the Holy Catholic Church proper,
but something else, something new and strange.
And that is why we speak of the Sergian Adaptation of the
Church (to recall that infamous adaptation of the Russian Orthodox
Church to the demands of Stalin and of Soviet Communism under the
Metropolitan Sergius). It is not as if the Church has been completely
overthrown and has ceased entirely to be what She was, for this is
impossible, given the promise of Our Lord that the gates of hell would
not prevail against His Church. Rather, a sort of Trojan Horse has been
set up inside the Churcha church within the Church; a collection of
novel practices and attitudes never before seen in Church historythat
now wishes to insist that it is the Church. And whomever wishes to get
along with this present-day Church must consent to be inserted into
this ecclesial reality of today that has somehow set itself up within
the perennial ecclesial reality of the Holy Catholic Church, alongside
all the traditional beliefs and practices which have never been, and can
never be, abolished, as Pope Benedict XVI confirmed so dramatically
when he declared in Summorum Pontificum that the traditional Latin
Mass was never abrogated. But while the ecclesial reality of today
is only a temporary phenomenon that God will surely rectify because
of the untold damage it has caused the Church, Cardinal Castrilln
and his collaborators, following the Party Line of the Churchs new
274
275
Letter to the General Chapter of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, June 29, 2000.
30 Days magazine, No. 11, 2000, p. 17.
144
orientationthe Sergian Adaptation to the modern worldwished

to pretend that it was to be a permanent thing.
One could not ask for a better proof of the existence of the
Churchs new orientationher Stalinist Adaptation, as it werethan
the Cardinals brutal treatment of the Priestly Fraternity. Such actions
would never be taken against the Jesuits or the other priestly orders
that have been undermining the Church since Vatican II. Why? Because
these morally and doctrinally corrupt orders adhere to the Adaptation, to
the Party Line, to the new orientation. In the current crisis, the only thing
the Vatican is willing to enforce with immediate and vigorous action is
the Adaptation of the Church to the worldnot sound doctrine, not
sound practice, which are flouted throughout the Church with virtual
impunitybut only the Adaptation. We have seen that since this
book first appeared, Pope Benedict has made some effort to change
this frightful situation, but the situation still dominates the ecclesial
landscape.
In September of 2000 we encounter yet another dramatic example
of the Churchs Adaptation. From September 12-19, 2000, Cardinal
Roger Etchegaray was in Red China to attend a Symposium on
Religions and Peace. While there he celebrated Mass in the presence
of the schismatic bishops of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association
(CCPA). The Mass was celebrated in the Shrine of Our Lady Help of
Christians, which the Red Chinese regime has stolen from the true
Catholic Church in China.276
The CCPA was formed in the 1950s to replace the Catholic Church
after Chairman Mao declared the Catholic Church illegal in Red
China. The CCPA is thus a human organization created by a Communist
government and set up as a church which Chinese Catholics must join,
forsaking the Roman Catholic Church, whose very existence has been
declared illegal by the Red Chinese regime. The CCPA constitution
explicitly rejects submission to the Pope and declares the CCPA to be
autonomous from Rome. The CCPA bishops and priests, therefore, are
all schismatics by definition.
Over 100 bishops have been consecrated illicitly by the CCPA
without a papal mandate, in direct violation of the Code of Canon Law;
worse still, those illicitly consecrated bishops publicly declared their
primary allegiance to the Communist regime of China while disavowing
(in the CCPA Constitution) any allegiance or submission to the Pope.
As a result, these illicit bishops, and those who consecrated them, are
excommunicated. In 1994 the CCPA bishops issued a so-called pastoral
letter in which they endorsed Chinas population control policy, which
includes forced abortions on all women who have one child already,
calling upon Chinese Catholics to support this abomination.
In short, the CCPA is a Communist-created, Communist-controlled,
276
Zenit, September 19, 2000.

145
blatantly schismatic, blatantly heretical, pro-abortion organization,

created by the devil himself, acting through Mao Tse-tung and his
successor President Jiang. And yet the Vatican has declared no
schism, nor any excommunication of these Communist-controlled,
pro-abortion clergy. On the contrary, Cardinal Etchegaray went from
the Vatican to China and openly and publicly celebrated Mass in the
presence of CCPA bishops in a Marian Shrine which the CCPA, with
the aid of Communist goons, stole from the Catholic Church and the
Catholic faithful. Cardinal Etchegaray even stated that he recognized
the fidelity to the Pope of the Catholics of the official church [i.e., the
CCPA]. Fidelity to the Pope on the part of bishops who endorse forced
abortion and whose Communist-controlled association rejects the papal
primacy in its very constitution? What sort of nonsense is this?
While Cardinal Etchegaray was in China, an 82-year-old Catholic
priest in the underground Catholic Church, which remains in union
with Rome, was beaten into a coma and carted off to jail by security
police.277 In accordance with Ostpolitik, the Vatican has issued no
protest over the nearly fatal beating of this priest, nor any protest
over the arrest, imprisonment and torture of loyal Catholic priests,
bishops and laity by the Red Chinese regime. The Vatican apparatus
is still chained to the Churchs new orientationdialogue with
the Churchs enemies and silence even in the face of blatant torture
and persecution of faithful Catholics. This is the fruit of the new
orientations abandonment of righteous opposition to evil. And this
policy of the Adaptation of the Church will, in the long run, have
the intended effect on millions more, who will lose their faith and
apostatize, because the Vatican apparatus will no longer stand up and
oppose evil with the righteous anger of old.
Here too we see the disparity of treatment as between traditional
Catholics who in any way present an obstacle to the new orientation,
and those who embrace the new orientation wholly and entirely.
In contrast with the Vaticans pandering to the CCPA, Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre was publicly pronounced both excommunicated and
schismatic in a motu proprio prepared for the Popes signature within 48
hours of Archbishop Lefebvres consecration of four bishops without a
papal mandate278an action the Archbishop took in an effort (however
277
278
CWN News Brief, September 18, 2000.

While it is true that in normal circumstances a bishop should not make a new bishop
without explicit permission or authorization from the Pope, nevertheless it is foreseen
both in law and in practice over the centuries in Church history that a bishop can and
sometimes must consecratethat is, makeanother bishop without explicit permission
and even to go against a specific direct order of the Pope. Canon Law recognizes the
right of a subject to go against an explicit order of a higher authorityeven that of a
Popein a specific instance, after due reflection and prayer, to go directly contrary if
his conscience, informed by Catholic doctrine, persuades him that he must do so. (See
Canon 1323, especially Section 4; and Canon 1324, especially Section 1, subsection 8,
and Section 3.) Furthermore, in law it is not ipso facto an act of schism for one to disobey
in a specific instance while being subject to the authority of the Pope in generalbut at
146
misguided some may think it to be) to maintain all Catholic dogmas

and Tradition in a Church that appears to have gone mad.
The Red Chinese procure (through former Catholic bishops) the
consecration of 100 bishops without a papal mandate for their proabortion church and the Vatican takes no punitive action. Quite the
contrary, it sends a Cardinal (no less) as a representative to hobnob with
some of the illicit bishops! Yet, when Archbishop Lefebvre consecrates
four bishops to serve Catholic Tradition, he is immediately cast into
outer darkness by the same Vatican apparatus, even though Archbishop
Lefebvre and the four newly consecrated bishops consistently professed
their loyalty to the Pope whom they were attempting to serve by
preserving traditional Catholic practice and belief. Why this striking
disparity of treatment? The answer, once again, is that Archbishop
Lefebvre resisted the Adaptation; the Red Chinese bishops, on the other
hand, exemplify it.
Of course, as we have already seen, in January 2009 Pope Benedict
XVI provoked massive outrage in attempting to rectify this preposterous
injustice by lifting the excommunication of the bishops of Lefebvres
Society of Saint Pius X. But the double standard continues. And indeed
today, in a Church wracked by dissent and scandal, and a world filled
with objectively heretical and schismatic sects, only the four bishops
of the Society are still called schismatic. The practitioners of the
new orientation of the Church literally apply the word schismatic
to only four men in the entire world: the traditional Catholic bishops of
the Society that the Pope is accused of wrongly rehabilitating. What
better indication of the apocalyptic state of affairs that still confronts us
today, seven years after this book first appeared?
But it is even worse. According to an Open Letter of protest
to Cardinal Sodano and other members of the Vatican apparatus,
published by the Cardinal Kung Foundation, priests of the CCPAthe
Chinese Communist puppet church, which is schismatic, Communistcontrolled, and pro-abortionhave been given canonical missions and
priestly faculties in American dioceses. Thus, these Communist priests
celebrate Mass and hear confessions of Roman Catholic faithful in their
local parishes where these agents of a Communist government learn
the secret sins of innumerable Americans which may provide material
for blackmail to the Communist masters in China.
most it is an act of disobedience.
But it is not even an act of disobedience, at least subjectively, nor can it be a cause
for automatic excommunication if one does not feel bound to obey the Pope when one
believes that the preservation of the Faith and the good of the Church demands it. The
act of Archbishop Lefebvre on June 29, 1988 in consecrating four priests to the rank of
bishop is beyond the scope of this book, but there are very learned articles by canonists
and theologians which make a strong case for the subjective and objective defense of
this act. (See articles by Patrick Valdrini, Dean of Canon Law, Institute Catholique, Paris,
France and by Count Neri Caponi, Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Canon Law,
University of Florence, Italy.) Even various Cardinals in the Vatican have publicly, in
various degrees, defended Archbishop Lefebvre in this act.
147
These CCPA priests are also placed in a position to poison the

minds and hearts of their American penitents with Marxist advice
and package it as if it were spiritual direction. This was confirmed by
Archbishop Levada of San Francisco (now Cardinal Levada who has
been transferred to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith in Rome), who claims that the Vaticanand no doubt Cardinal
Sodano was involved in this decisionhas authorized the granting of
an apostolic mission to these priests of the pro-abortion, Communistcontrolled, schismatic CCPA.279
Here is a literal, visible penetration of Communist power into the
body of the Church. There could not be a more dramatic demonstration
of the Adaptation. But the presence of these Communist-controlled
priests in American parishes is only an icon of the whole process that
was propagated in Metz, France, back in 1962, when the drawbridge
of the Church was let down and the forces of the world, the Churchs
sworn enemies, began to march into the Church, leading even Pope
Paul VI to speak of the invasion of the Church by worldly thinking.
Imposing the Falsification of the

Message of Fatima on the Church
Nowhere can one find a sadder example of the Adaptation of the
Church (see the previous chapter, pages 107-109) than what occurred
on October 8, 2000: a ceremony at the Vatican entrusting various
things to Maryan entrustment for the masses, to take their minds
off the consecration of Russia. During this ceremony all peoples,
the world, the unemployed, even youth in search of meaning
anything and everything but Russiawere entrusted to Our Lady.
The day before this ceremony the praying of the Rosary in Saint Peters
Square was broadcast around the world by satellite. But one thing was
missing: the Fatima prayers. No one at the Vatican would pray: O my
Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls
to Heaven, especially those most in need. One decade of the Rosary,
however, was recited by Sister Lucy for the cameras in the convent in
Coimbra. Looking perfectly miserable, Sister Lucy did recite the Fatima
prayersin Portuguese. She had been reduced to a prop in a publicity
stunt.
Here we see the Sergianization of the Message of Fatima, the
Adaptation of Fatima to the world. Our Lady of Fatima becomes Our
Lady of the Unemployed, Our Lady of Youth in Search of Meaning; and
the Rosary is stripped of the Fatima prayers.
And this brings us to early 2001. The year 2000 had been a busy
279
Cardinal Kung Foundations Open Letter to the Vatican, Sec. III, March 28, 2000 (www.
cardinalkungfoundation.org/cpa/openletter.html). In reply to the Kung Foundation
(quoted in the Open Letter), Archbishop (now Cardinal) Levada (for more information
about him, see entry on page 381 of A Glossary of Ecclesiastical Terms, Organizations
and Persons) reveals that the apostolic ministry of CCPA priests is being carried out
according to directives received from the Holy See.
148
year for the Adaptation, but there was some mopping up to do. Father
Gruner was still conducting his very effective Fatima apostolate. So on
February 16, 2001, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos wrote to Father Gruner
to renew his threat of excommunication of the previous June. If Father
Gruner did not stop what he was doing, then there would be definitive
measures that would be painful for all concerned.
In the same letter Cardinal Castrilln provided another
demonstration of the new orientation at work on the Message of
Fatima. According to Cardinal Castrilln the Blessed Mother appeared
to the three little visionaries in the Cova da Iria at the beginning of the
century, and marked out a program for the New Evangelization which
the whole Church finds itself engaged in, which is even more urgent at
the dawn of the third millennium.280 Our Lady of Fatima was now Our
Lady of the New Evangelizationabout which She had said not a single
word at Fatima!
Our Lady did not come to Fatima to announce the New
Evangelization, a slogan that describes a novel and ineffectual
campaign to stimulate the dying faith of those who are already
Catholics and who are taken in by the ongoing Stalinization of the
Catholic Church.281 Nor did Our Lady come to announce any of the
other obscure slogans that have overrun the Church in the past forty
years: ecumenical dialogue, interreligious dialogue, solidarity,
the civilization of love, inculturation, and so forth. She came to
announce the Old Evangelization, the perennial Gospel of Jesus Christ,
Who is the same yesterday, today and foreverthe selfsame Christ who
warned the world that He who believes and is baptized shall be saved;
he who believes not shall be condemned. As a group of Father Gruners
supporters protested in their reply to the Cardinal:
Your Eminence, where can one find any of these elements in
your rendering of the Message of Fatima? Where is Heaven and
where is hell, for you speak only vaguely of Ultimate Realitiesa
term any Mason would find acceptable? Where is the triumph of
the Immaculate Heart? Where are the consecration and conversion
of Russia? Where are the warnings of Our Lady? Where indeed is
the Message of Fatima at all?
Our Lady of Fatimas message to the world was devoid of slogans

such as the New Evangelization. She had uttered no slogans at all but
only the simple Catholic truth: that many souls are burning in hell for
lack of the Catholic Faith; that to save souls God ordains it necessary to
280
281
Letter to Father Nicholas Gruner, February 16, 2001.

The New Evangelization is described as an Evangelization that is new in its ardor,
new in its method, and new in its expression. It is under the umbrella of the New
Evangelization that has justified the rowdy Charismatic Movement and Rock and
Roll Eucharistic Congresses, World Youth Days nicknamed Catholic Woodstock, and
other present-day aberrations in the Church. For a full treatment of the subject, see John
Vennari, Catholicism Dissolved, The New Evangelization (Four-part series in Catholic
Family News, from October 1998 to January 1999).
149
establish in the worldnot just among those who are already Catholics
devotion to Her Immaculate Heart; that Her Immaculate Heart must
triumph through the Consecration of Russia to that Heart; that only
by this means can there be true peace in our time. And Our Lady of
Fatima also gave us a warning about the consequences of failing to
heed Her requests: wars and persecution of the Church, the martyrdom
of the good, the suffering of the Holy Father, the suffering of the whole
worldall of which are occurring at this very moment in historyand
then, if we continue to ignore Her requests, the annihilation of various
nations.
The Message of Fatima had, quite simply, been written out of
existence, transformed into slogans of the Sergian Adaptation, or as
some call itthe Stalinization of the Catholic Church. And in line
with this Stalinist Adaptation of the Church there would be censorship
of anyone who hearkened to the former understanding of the old
terms. In the same letter of February 16, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos
had demanded that Father Gruner publicly retract certain opinions
in his apostolates magazine that the Cardinal deemed objectionable.
In a Church teeming with heretical literature which has undermined
the faith of millions and endangered their souls, Cardinal Castrilln
Hoyos wished to censor The Fatima Crusader magazine! And why?
Because the magazine had dared to criticize, not Catholic teaching
on faith and morals, but the prudential decisions of Cardinal Sodano
and his collaboratorsincluding their press conferences and dinners
with the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, their cozy relations with the
schismatic CCPA and their attempt to bury the Message of Fatima
under a mountain of false interpretations.
The treatment of Father Gruner, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter,
Archbishop Lefebvre, the Society of St. Pius X, and other perceived
obstacles to the new orientation of Vatican II illustrates that the postconciliar epoch presents a situation very much like that lamented by
St. Basil at the height of the Arian heresy: Only one offense is now
vigorously punished: an accurate observance of our fathers traditions.
For this cause the pious are driven from their countries and transported
into deserts.
Only one offense is now vigorously punished today: an accurate
observance of the Churchs constant pre-conciliar traditionssummed
up in the Message of Fatima. Strange to say, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger
made the following observation about the so-called Lefebvre schism
in his 1988 address to the Bishops of Chile:
That which previously was considered Most Holy (the form
in which the Liturgy was handed down) suddenly appears to be
the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be
prohibited. It is intolerable to criticize decisions which have been
taken since the Council. On the other hand, if men make question
of ancient rules or even of the great truths of the Faith, for instance
150

the corporal virginity of Mary, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the
immortality of the soul, etc., nobody complains or only does so
with the greatest of moderation. All this leads a great number of
people to ask themselves if the Church of today is really the same
as that of yesterday or if they have changed it for something else
without telling people.
Stranger still, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos has made the same

admission. In the aforementioned interview in 30 Days he said: The
great emergency of our time is to show people that the Church of today
is the same as the Church has always been. But why is there such
an emergency in the first place? When in the entire history of the
Catholic Church did it ever have to be demonstrated that the Church
was still the same as before? Why would such a demonstration even
be necessary if there were not a very good reason to suspect that the
Church has been changed?
There is indeed good reason to suspect this, as we have shown:
Since Vatican II the Catholic Church has undergone an Adaptation
precisely along the lines predicted, plotted and carried out by Her worst
enemies. And those in charge of the Church today refuse to recognize
what has happened, even if they are not conscious agents of destruction
themselves. They are, as Our Lord said of the Pharisees: blind, and
leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the
pit. (Mt. 15:14)
As Sister Lucy herself said: This is why the devil has waged such
a war against it [the Rosary]! And the worst is that he has succeeded
in leading into error and deceiving souls having a heavy responsibility
through the place which they occupy ...! They are blind men guiding other
blind men ...282
And, as Saint Paul declared concerning the same type of stiffnecked person: There are none so blind as those who will not see.
It is also written in Sacred Scripture: For the heart of this people is
grown gross, and with their ears have they heard heavily, and their
eyes they have shut; lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and
hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be
converted, and I should heal them. (Acts 28:27) They blindly and
stubbornly defend the Adaptation of the Catholic Church as if it were
a dogma of the Faith, while the real dogmas of the Faith are being
undermined throughout the Church before their very eyes while they
do very little or nothing to defend the Catholic Faith and the Catholic
Church.
Summarizing the Evidence

It is now opportune for us to summarize what the evidence has
shown so far concerning the new orientation or Sergian Adaptation
of the Church and its intrinsic opposition to the Message of Fatima:
282
See Sister Lucys quote in The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 758.
151
The Message of Fatima is a divinely given prophecy for our time,

authenticated by an unprecedented public miracle and vouched for
by a series of Popes, including John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
The prophetic warnings in the Message have mostly come to pass,
save for especially the annihilation of nations that would be the
consequence of failing to effect the Consecration of Russia in time.
God has already demonstrated the benefits of a national consecration
to the Immaculate Heart in the case of Portugal in 1931, whose
miraculous overnight transformation from an atheistic, Masonic
republic into a Catholic country was seen by the Portuguese hierarchy
itself as a foretaste of what God would bestow upon the world after
the Consecration of Russia.
Instead of following the path marked out at Fatima, the leaders of the
Catholic Church chose a different paththe path of a new orientation
of the Church initiated at Vatican II, including an opening to the
world and reforms of the Church which have fulfilled the dreams
of Her worst enemies, who admitted that their goal was to bring
about precisely such changes in the Church.
In taking this path of a new orientation, the Churchs leaders
have disregarded the repeated warnings of the pre-conciliar Popes
(including Blessed Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI and Pius XII)
that the Churchs enemies were plotting to remake Her in the very
manner She has in fact been remade in the post-conciliar period.
The changes began in 1960the very year in which Our Lady
commanded that the Third Secret be released, which had been
promised by the Patriarch of Lisbon, and which Sister Lucy had
insisted the Third Secret be revealed, because it would be clearer
then.
The result of these changes has been a catastrophic loss of faith and
discipline in the Church which appears to be foretold in that part of
the Great Secret of Fatima which begins with the words: In Portugal
the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.a phrase that
remains mysteriously incomplete, despite Cardinal Bertones claimed
disclosure of the entirety of the Third Secret.
Rather than admitting these incalculable blunders and their
ruinous consequences for the Church, the current Vatican apparatus
has obstinately pursued the new orientation, which is obviously
inconsistent with the expressly Catholic imperatives of the Fatima
Message: namely, the establishment of devotion to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary in the world, the consecration of Russia to the
Immaculate Heart, the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith,
and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, accompanied by a period
of world peace according to the plans of the Most Sacred Heart of
152
Jesus in a Catholic social order.

To the contrary, powerful members of the Vatican apparatus have
willfully and deliberately refused to consecrate Russia by name to
Marys Immaculate Heart, but have instead conducted a systematic
campaign to neutralize the Message of Fatima in order to subjugate
it to the new orientation which they have imposed on much of the
Churchtheir new orientation, their Adaptation of the Church to
Masonic and Communist idealswhile persecuting loyal Catholics
who do not follow the Party Line.
The Vatican apparatus, led by the Secretary of State, deliberately
scorns the prophecies, imperatives and warnings of the Fatima
Message in favor of enlightened new ecclesial policies, which
include not going against any of the provisions of the VaticanMoscow Agreement (and apparently any of the errors of Russia) and
avoiding any claimed offense to Russia by a public consecration of
that nation.
In consequence of these monumental errors of judgment, Russia has
failed to convert, the Church is suffering an unprecedented crisis of
faith and discipline, and the world continues to spiral downward in a
cycle of violence and rebellion against God and His Holy Churchin
response to which, the Vatican apparatus only redoubles its efforts to
follow the utterly fruitless new orientation of the Church.
No wonder Pope Benedict has lamented, in his letter to the bishops
concerning the lifting of the excommunication of the four bishops of
the Society of Saint Pius X, that in vast areas of the world the faith
is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel No
wonder he has liberated the Latin Mass from its bogus prohibition.
No wonder he has called for a hermeneutic of continuity between
Vatican II and the traditional teaching of the Church.
No wonder the Pope declared in September 2009 (as we noted
in Chapter 7) that in the decades following the Second Vatican
Council, some interpreted the opening to the world not as a demand
of the missionary ardor of the Heart of Christ, but as a passage to
secularization, that certain fundamental truths of the faith, such as
sin, grace, theological life, and the last things, were not mentioned
anymore, and that the result isincredible words, coming as they
do from the Pope himselfa secularized ecclesial environment
and desert without God. And no wonder that, as Pope, the former
Cardinal Ratzinger has reconsidered, and (at least in part) disowned,
his own revisionist statements nine years ago concerning Fatima, the
Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart as
prophesied at Fatima, which he now admits has yet to occur.
Could it be that the Popes moves in favor of Catholic Tradition,
however incomplete and tentative they may seem, reflect his own
153
knowledge of the Third Secret and the calamities of which it warnsthe

same calamities his predecessor, Pius XII, was able to foresee precisely
in the light of Fatima? We shall consider this possibility further on.
First, however, we must consider more closely that revisionist
interpretation of the Message of Fatima which, despite the new
pontificate, continues to weigh upon the Church like a boulder. In
particular we must examine its attempt to neutralize the Third Secret.
Gorbachev admits that he is still a Leninist, and he continually

promotes abortion, population control and his Leninist principles
through his State of the World Forum. Gorbachev was invited by
Cardinal Sodano to sit beside him at the Vatican press conference of
June 27, 2000 to promote Cardinal Casarolis memoirs upholding the
Vatican policy of Ostpolitik, which refuses to denounce the errors of
Communism and state atheism. Pictured above is Gorbachev, invited
to the Vatican in November 2000 to address the Pope and other
Vatican curial officials and politicians at the Jubilee of Politicians.
Chapter 10
The New Third Secret
In Chapter 8 we discussed how, in keeping with the Churchs new
post-conciliar orientation, the Vatican Secretary of State has established
a Party Line on Fatima according to which a new version of the
Fatima Message has been substituted for the authentic Message, which
is at odds with ecumenism, dialogue, interreligious dialogue, the
Vatican-Moscow Agreement, and the updating of the Church in general,
with all the disastrous results these compromises and departures from
Catholic Tradition have produced.
In this Chapter we will focus on how the Vatican commentary in
The Message of Fatima (TMF), published together with the vision of the
Bishop dressed in white on June 26, 2000, proposes to substitute a
new Third Secret, stripped of its admonitory and prophetic content
and reduced to a mere recollection of things past. In due course we
will discuss the developments in 2006-2007, which have shown beyond
any doubt that the vision cannot possibly constitute the entirety of the
Secret, and that a text containing precious words of the Blessed Virgin
has been withheld, as Antonio Socci was forced to conclude. First,
however, we must consider the new Third Secret advanced in TMF
under the auspices of the Secretary of Statean office that will come
to be occupied by the man who is now the principal protagonist in the
Fatima controversy: Cardinal (then Archbishop) Tarcisio Bertone.283
The reader should bear with us if confronted with an occasional
polemical comment in this more detailed theological exegesis of TMF,
but we need not apologize for being polemical because polemics are
a good thing when necessary. Todays society increasingly substitutes
the Catholic Faith and replaces it with faith in the so-called exact
sciences. People of today, therefore, do not value the science and art of
polemics whose purpose is to defend the Faith and the Church against
the enemies of Christ, Who is the Truth. Ho polemos is the ancient
Greek phrase for war. Nothing is wrong with waging war in defense of
Christ and the Catholic Faith; but people who do not have the faith, or
if their faith is weakened, will not understand this because they give too
much faith to the so-called exact sciences.
The Introduction
Already the second paragraph of the Introduction of TMF concerning
the Third Secret, written by the future Secretary of State, Archbishop
283
This chapter incorporates the original analysis by the late Father Gregory Hesse, S.T.D.,
J.C.D., as supplemented by a consideration of developments in the Church since the first
edition.
155
Bertone, contains a piece of Vatican politics that seems to be oblivious

of both recent history and Moral Theology:
The Twentieth Century was one of the most crucial in
human history, with its tragic and cruel events culminating in the
assassination attempt on the sweet Christ on earth.
That even an attempt to assassinate the Supreme Pontiff is a

heinous crime, no person in his right mind will doubt. It is indeed
under the punishment of excommunication, even in the rather liberal
Code of Canon Law of 1983. However, the statement shows a tragic
lack of proportion. That the tragic and cruel events would have been
culminating in the attempt on Pope John Paul IIs life, is definitely out
of proportion and in grave disregard of Stalins sixty million victims,
plus the victims of all wars of the last century and the fifty-five million
victims of abortion every single year! The lack of proportion is infinitely
worse in its disregard of the supernatural aspect such as the real sweet
Christ on earth in the tabernacle, Whose Real Presence is distributed
in the hands and dropped on Saint Peters Square284 as also happens in
thousands of other places. There is a purpose in this statement and it
lies in downplaying the importance of the Third Secret in TMF.
The Introduction of TMF states on the next page that there is only
one manuscript, which is here reproduced photographically. This would
be a rather misleading, but literal truth, if it is meant that only one of
the manuscripts has been photographically reproduced, but in the light
of Cardinal Ratzingers statement, that the Secret has been published in
its entirety (TMF, pp. 32, 39), it has to be considered false. There is
a mountain of evidence285 that there are indeed two parts of the Third
Secret, the first one being the vision of the Bishop dressed in White
taken from the archives of the former Holy Office and published on June
26, 2000, and the second one in the Popes apartment. The evidence is
marshaled in compelling fashion in an article by Mr. Andrew Cesanek
(cf. Chapter 13 and The Fatima Crusader, Issue No. 64). As Mr. Cesanek
points out, the published text contains no words of Our Lady. Thus, the
Ratzinger/Bertone presentation of the Third Secret lacks credibility.
Without any illicit accusation of a deliberate sin against the Eighth
Commandment, we are nevertheless facing the fact of a printed
falsehood. As there has been no public statement to the contrary so
far, it is impossible to talk about this as simply a mistake as to the
number of manuscripts. Who and how many people are involved in this
Between 1986 and 1991 several Sanpietrini, the uniformed guards in St. Peters Basilica
in Rome, have directly told Father Gregory Hesse (R.I.P., January 25, 2005), the principal
author of this chapter (who at that time had been working in the Vatican for ten years),
that after almost every single papal Mass in the Square, Sacred Hosts are found on the
ground.
285
Since this book was first published in 2002, there is even much more evidence that there
are two different manuscripts which together make up the whole Third Secret. This is
proven again and again in The Secret Still Hidden by Christopher A. Ferrara and in The
Fourth Secret of Fatima by Antonio Socci.
284
156
falsehood is of no importance, but the published falsehood as such is of

a theological importance: even if it were only an error, it would affect
the entire theological interpretation presented in the document. If it
is a falsehood, which is what we firmly believe, then it means that the
theological and historical interpretations presented are leading towards
a wrong conclusion or message. It affects a lot more than the theology
visible in the published commentaries, as we shall see.
It is also of theological importance to see the quotation marks for
both the secret and Our Lady. If an apparition says that all religions
are pleasing to God, which is heresy and blasphemy286, we should put
Our Lady in quotation marks, as we know the apparition to be
someone else, most probably a demon. But to place quotation marks
around Our Lady regarding an apparition that has been approved by
several Popes and been proven by a definite miracle in front of 70,000
witnesses conveys a message: namely, the possibility that it was not
Our Lady after all. As one piece in this jigsaw of truths, half-truths, and
falsehoods, this is of great significance.
The following pages of TMFs Introduction reiterate the falsehood
that the Consecration has been done, especially p. 8 which cites an
unsigned letter by Sister Lucy which, as we showed in a previous
chapter, is a manifest fake, as shown also by Father Paul Kramer.287 The
Fatima Crusader has sufficiently dealt with this falsehood in the past
and there is no need for repetitions here. In the present document the
old quotations from this fake letter, however, present an explanatory
context for the new lies.
Finally, we note again the incredible statement by Archbishop
Bertone on p. 9 of the Introduction in TMF:
The decision of His Holiness John Paul II to make public
the third part of the secret of Fatima brings to an end a period
of history marked by tragic human lust for power and evil, yet
pervaded by the merciful love of God and the watchful care of the
Mother of Jesus and of the Church.
Various articles already published have sufficiently explained the

absurdity of this statement in the historical sense.288 Indeed, historically
seen, there can be no reasonable justification for such a statement by
anyone. Clearly, this is a complete falsehood, bordering on lunacy. It is so
false, so obviously wrong that who in their right mind could ever believe
it or expect anyone else to believe it?
Now, the then-Archbishop Bertone, acting at the time as Secretary of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is neither out of his mind
Only a religion in which one can be saved can be pleasing to God, and there is only one
(which is a dogma of the Faith), whence the contrary is heresy and it is also blasphemy, as
God, Who is the Truth, cannot be careless about the Truth, whence to state the contrary
is blasphemy.
287
The Fatima Crusader, Issue 64, p. 115.
288
Ibid., pp. 54ff.
286
157
nor a lunatic. This statement must, therefore, be of a theological nature.

Father Gruner rightly suggested that according to Msgr. Bertone we are
supposed to believe that the so-called fall of communism means that
Fatima is no longer relevant to world politics and the conversion of Russia
is no longer to be mentioned.289 This is not only a political interpretation
concerning the continuation of Cardinal Casarolis Ostpolitik and Pope
John Paul IIs relationship to the propagator of genocide, Gorbachev, but
it is a clear analysis of a changed theology which is central to the Churchs
new orientation, a theology called Ecumenism.
For the moment the questions resulting from these observations
will have to wait, as that can be understood better in the light of the
theology of the former Cardinal Ratzinger.
The Secret
As far as the authenticity of the published text is concerned, while
Father Gruner seems to be convinced of its authenticity,290 certain
questions present themselves: Why did Sister Lucywho by 1944 had
surely read Holy Scripture and many devotional books, as Cardinal
Ratzinger calls themsay that the Holy Father prayed for the souls of
the corpses he met on his way (cadaveres in Portuguese)? Throughout
the history of salvation one speaks of the souls of the dead or defunct,
as one can find in the Creed (... resurrection of the dead ...). Only in
the Old Testament can one find the term corpse, and it is found in the
context of apostates or lost souls.
It is equally strange in the context of the First and the Second Secret
that the seer would speak about a Bishop dressed in White, when the
events of 1939 were clearly prophesied with a reference to the pope
and even his name: Pius XI. A Bishop dressed in White could be the
Abbot of Brixen in South Tyrol, any bishop in the tropics, or an impostor
in Rome who pretends to be Popeas the sedevacantists claim. We
cannot and shall not venture an answer, but the phrase Bishop dressed
in White is strangely vague in the historical context of all the events
since 1917.
The Interpretation of the Secret

A. The Popes Letter to Sister Lucy
In this letter, dated April 19, 2000, which is cited in TMF (p. 27),
the Pope says:
Since on that day [the Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta,
May 13, 2000] there will be time only for a brief greeting and not
a conversation, I am sending ... Archbishop Bertone ... Archbishop
Bertone ... will come in my name [sic] to ask certain questions
about the interpretation of the third part of the secret.
289
290
Ibid., p. 55.
Ibid., p. 18.
158
We conclude that His Holiness had no time for a conversation with

Sister Lucy. The ever-vigilant defender of the late Pope John Paul II might
object to this conclusion by reminding us that it is not in our power to
advise the Pope about his schedule, nor to challenge his decisions in
discipline and Church government, in rebus ... quae ad disciplinam et
regimen Ecclesiae ... pertinent (D.S. 3060).
This is certainly true. But we are allowed to ask an obvious question:
How is it that the Popes advisors and assistants scheduled His Holiness
to receive the Masons of the Trilateral Commission,291 the aforesaid
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Jewish High Masons of the Bnai Brith,292 to
preach from the pulpit of Romes Lutheran Church,293 to visit Romes
Synagogue,294 to meet with the Buddhist patriarch Vasana Tara,295
the Dalai Lama,296 and Yasser Arafat,297 and allowed the schismatic and
heretical Patriarch Dimitrios I of Constantinople298 to stand next to him
on the Papal Loggia of St. Peters Basilica in Rome (!), but they could
not find the time to schedule the Pope to talk to Our Ladys personal
and perhaps most important of all messengers in the past 100 years?
We do not know the answer and cannot venture to give it, but the
theological connection to the Vaticans downplaying the Third Secret is
obvious.
B. Cardinal Bertones Commentary in TMF

This unsigned account of an alleged conversation (in April 2000)
between Archbishop Bertone and Sister Lucy, commencing on p.
28 of TMF, is a remarkable piece of deception, probably written by
Archbishop Bertone himself. As Father Paul Kramer rightly pointed out,
Msgr. Bertone not only failed to ask Sister Lucy if the Consecration of
Russia had been done, but he also juxtaposes two logically separate
statements, namely Sister Lucys affirmation that the figure in white was
a Pope, although she does not know the name (!), and her agreement
with Pope John Paul IIs claim that it was a mothers hand that guided
the bullets path on May 13, 1981.299
There were many rather strange coincidencesor was it
Providence?in Ali Agcas assassination attempt, to consider a nontheological digression:
Why did the gun jam after the third shot? It is not unusual for a semiautomatic pistol to jam, but it is almost impossible that Italys best
Daniel Le Roux, Petrus liebst du mich? (Stuttgart, 1990). Peter, Lovest Thou Me?, p. 110.
The skeptic will find that I only referred to pictures which can be easily found in the
English translation published by Instauratio Press, Yarra Junction, Australia, 1988.
292
Ibid., p. 112.
293
Ibid., p. 127.
294
Ibid., p. 155.
295
Ibid., p. 172.
296
Ibid., p. 177.
297
Ibid., p. 236.
298
Ibid., p. 144.
299
291
159
police force, the Carabinieri, would not find the cause after weeks of
microscopic examination in their laboratories. Was it the Guardian
Angels interference? That would be theologically highly probable.
Why did Ali Agca not use hollow point bullets or the readily available
Federal Hydra-Shok ammunition which would have accomplished
his purpose to assassinate the Pope? Most sources claim that some
organization or secret service was behind the attack. Were they all
amateurs?
Why did he choose St. Peters Square and a small handgun, with no
chance to escape, why not a rifle (easily available back then) and one
of the many elevated positions around St. Peters Square with at least
a chance to escape? Was he just a dumb fanatic?
Probably, we will not know the truth about that day in our lifetime,
but we do know the truth that this attempt to assassinate the Pope has
nothing to do with the Third Secret, because he was not killed. The
event was tragic, but it cost the Pope in his full activities less than one
yearout of more than twenty-five. It is an insult to Divine Providence
and to Our Lady to claim that this relatively unimportant event would
be at the core of a prophecy about hell, two World Wars, Communism,
and the punishment still to come.
Finally, we must ask: Why would the 1981 incident be better
understood after 1960, as Sister Lucy said the Third Secret would be?
Anyone in the 20th Century would have understood it as we do. Would
the generation that had fought in World War II and in Korea have
better understood the role of soldiers in this vision only after 1960?
Sister Lucys insistence on disclosure in the year 1960, that Our Lady
wishes it so, can only mean that Lucy knew something was going to
happen around 1960 or shortly after that would make the Secret clearly
understandable as a prophecy of future events. The Secret clearly has
no connection with the assassination of President Kennedy, but what
about John XXIIIs encyclical Pacem in Terris, published in 1963, or
Vatican II which was opened in 1962, but announced January 25, 1959?
C. The Announcement made by Cardinal Angelo Sodano ...

The deception continues in the Secretary of States statement that
the text of the Third Secret must be interpreted in a symbolic key.
(TMF, p. 30) The purpose of this suggestion becomes evident when
Cardinal Sodano distorts the actual vision by saying: He [the Pope]
too falls to the ground, apparently dead. As we discussed in a previous
chapter, the words apparently dead are the exact contrary to Sister
Lucys word killed.
This is followed by pushing the message into the past, be it by
pointing at the event in 1981 or with the ridiculous declaration that
1989 ended Communism and the spreading of atheism. Gorbachevs
glasnost and perestroika have been sufficiently dealt with in
160
various issues of The Fatima Crusader and there is no need to repeat

these analyses here. It is sad to see, however, that Cardinal Sodano, the
former Secretary of State, does not shrink from using a decade-old lie
to debunk a message from Our Lady.
D. Cardinal Ratzingers Theological Commentary

i) Introductory Downplay
The very second line of this Commentary (TMF, p. 32) already
contains the claim that the so-called third Secret of Fatima has been
published here in its entirety. This falsehood is repeated later on (TMF,
p. 39). The quoted article by Andrew Cesanek produces sufficient proof
that this is false (see Chapter 13). We will deal with this deception at
the conclusion of this chapter.
The next statement is cynical to say the least:
No great mystery is revealed: nor is the future unveiled. We
see the Church of the martyrs of the century which has just passed
represented in a scene described in a language which is symbolic
and not easy to decipher.300
If no great mystery is revealed, then why did Our Lady bother to

make it a secret in the first place? Possiblyas we shall see later
the future is revealed in the other part of the Third Secret which has
evidently been withheld from us, the part which contains the words
of Our Lady following In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always
be preserved etc. In any case, to claim that the vision of soldiers
shooting the Pope dead is merely a symbol of the past, especially in the
connection with the unusually clear messages of the rest of the Fatima
Message, is preposterous.
In comparison to most propheciesone thinks of the difficulties in
interpreting the Apocalypsethe secrets of Fatima are indeed unusually
clear and to the point; why would the Third Secret be symbolic and not
easy to decipher? Why would the Twentieth Century end in nineteen
hundred and ninety-nine?
In the year 1900 Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany decreed this to be the
beginning of the Twentieth Century, which is mathematically impossible.
It would seem that the former Cardinal Ratzingers mathematics, as
well as his theology, was dependent on authority instead of the truth.
To say this is not to engage in cheap polemics in the light of a rather
remarkable change of mind between 1984 and 2000. In 1984, when
discussing the content of the Third Secret, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke
of the absolute importance of history, the last times and religious
prophecy and said:
... but the things contained in this third secret correspond to
300
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Theological Commentary, The Message of Fatima (TMF),

June 26, 2000, p. 32.
161
what is announced in Sacred Scripture and are confirmed by many

other Marian apparitions themselves in their known contents.301
Cardinal Ratzingers statement of 1984 is in direct contradiction to

his downplaying of the Third Secret, sixteen years later, in TMF. Father
Paul Kramer302 collects the most important Marian messages from the
other Marian apparitions on this point. They are quite frightening, and
certainlyat least in a part of the prophecypredict events yet to come.
We are once again faced with the same basic tenor of the entire
publication, which trivializes the Third Secret into an insignificant
prediction of a failed attempt on the Holy Fathers life. May we call the
failed attempt on Pope John Paul IIs life an insignificant prediction?
Yes! We have said so already and it is the truth: The attempt failed, and
even if it had killed the Pope, this would have had nothing to do with
the Third Secret. In Roman dialect we say: Morto un Papa, se ne fa
unaltro: with the death of a Pope, another one is elected.
Another point arises: Why has nobody in the Vatican bothered to
suggest that the Third Secret may deal with the untimely death of Pope
John Paul I? Was he a completely insignificant figure? No Pope is, but
God never knew the futureHe knows. The failed attempt on a Popes
life is indeed no great mystery as the former Cardinal Ratzinger
formulated it, but the actualand quite mysteriousdeath of a Pope
had been conveniently forgotten.
The prophecy and the three seers comments make it abundantly
clear that the Holy Father will have much to suffer. In the context
of two world wars andas we shall seemuch worse, it borders on
idolatry to enhance one Popes importance to the point of making a few
months in the hospital the Third Secret. What John Paul II had to suffer
in Romes Gemelli Hospital is something that one would not even wish
to contemplate. However, with todays medicine, the Popes suffering at
that time does not even compare to the average priests fate in the Nazi
concentration campsnot to mention the fate of many more priests
and bishops behind the Iron Curtain.
Most telling of all, if the Third Secret predicts only that a Pope
will survive an assassination attempt, then why did the then-Cardinal
Ratzinger say in 1984 that the Secret had not been disclosed to avoid
confusing religious prophecy with sensationalism? What would be
sensational in 1984 about a prophecy concerning a failed assassination
attempt that had taken place three years earlier? Obviously, nothing.
The former Cardinal Ratzingers June 26, 2000 version of the Third
Secret is what the lawyers call a recent fabrication. The sensational
content he had in mind in 1984 clearly could not have been the 1981
assassination attempt.
301
302
The Fatima Crusader, Issue 64, pp. 34ff.

Ibid., pp. 115ff.
162
ii) On Public and Private Revelations

Cardinal Ratzinger significantly set, at that time, the entire
phenomenon of Fatima in the context of private revelationsone
ought to call them either fake or extraordinary, depending on their
authenticity. Cardinal Ratzinger stated that the Message of Fatima, like
all private revelations approved as authentic by Church authorities,
can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it better
at a particular moment in time; therefore it should not be disregarded.
It is a help which is offered, but which one is not obliged to use. In other
words, according to the then-Cardinal Ratzinger, no one in the Church is
obliged to follow the Message of Fatimanot the Pope, not the bishops,
not the priests, not the members of the laity. Fatimaincluding the
consecration of Russia and the Five First Saturdays devotionis purely
optional. If we prefer, we can simply ignore it completelyas if the
Miracle of the Sun had never happened; as if the requests of the Virgin
of Fatima had been made by a ghost! Fatima is a mere help that we
can take or leave at our pleasure.
One of the most erudite Popes in history, Benedict XIV, rightly says
that these revelations cannot be held with the assent of Faith, but
rather an assent of human faith in keeping with the requirements of
prudence which puts them before us as probable and credible to piety.
But Cardinal Ratzingers quotation of Pope Benedict seems to ignore
what is so extraordinary about Fatima, and what takes it out of the
category of other private revelations: the astounding Miracle of the
Sun that proves Fatima to be a bit more than just credible to piety.
The former Cardinal Ratzinger took this approach, it seems, with
all of the extraordinary revelations of the past centuries. For example,
he reduced the extraordinary revelations about the Corpus Christi Feast
and the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque to an event that
merely had an effect even on the liturgy. This borders on blasphemy
when we consider the fate of France after Louis XIVs and his two
successors impertinent and disastrous refusal to obey the request of
Christ for the consecration of France to the Sacred Heart, conveyed to
St. Margaret Mary in the same private revelations.303
Cardinal Ratzingers erroneous conception of prophecy is clear in
the following statement:
... it should be kept in mind that prophecy in the biblical sense
does not mean to predict the future but to explain the will of God
for the present, and therefore show the right path to take for the
future. A person who foretells what is going to happen responds
to the curiosity of the mind, which wants to draw back the veil on
the future.
303
See Bishop Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (originally published
by Benzinger, 1890; republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990), Chapter XIV, The
Last Grand RevelationThe King of France, 1689.
163
This is tantamount to a denial of all prophecy, which is commonly

called one of the highest of all freely given graces, the gratiae gratis
datae. Prophecy often involves the correct interpretation of the past
and the present, but is as such understood as a prediction of the future.
Either Isaias, David, Christ, and St. Paul responded to the curiosity of
the mind and the Church Fathers and many Doctors of the Church just
wanted to draw back the veil of the future, or Cardinal Ratzinger is
wrong. May we leave the answer to you?
Perhaps Cardinal Ratzinger reduced prophecy to the signs of
the times because (at least before he became Pope) he failed to see
the real signs of the times, namely: empty churches, heresy, apostasy,
blasphemy, sexual perversion and impurity, neo-paganism, and in fact,
a total disagreement among many bishops and priests on anything in
the Catholic Church. The only thing agreed upon among the leading
powers in the Vatican is to hate traditional Catholic theology, which
is scorned by them, along with the whole idea of the conversion of
Russia to the Catholic Faithagain, the very conflict of ecclesial world
views which gave rise to the very grave injustice we are discussing here;
namely, the de facto suppression of the full Fatima Message from being
heard and complied with, thereby imminently endangering literally
billions of persons lives and souls.
Cardinal Ratzinger seemed to think these real signs of the times
have nothing to do with that event known as the Second Vatican
Council, wherein it is claimed that the Holy Spirit came a second time.
That is obviously false, as we can see from the Councils bitter fruits. As
Our Lord said, By their fruits you shall know them. (Matt. 7:16)
As Pope Benedict, however, the former Cardinal has come to
recognize, as we noted in Chapter 7, that in vast areas of the world the
faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel,
that in the decades following the Second Vatican Council, some
interpreted the opening to the world not as a demand of the missionary
ardor of the Heart of Christ, but as a passage to secularization., that
certain fundamental truths of the faith, such as sin, grace, theological
life, and the last things, were not mentioned anymore [and] they
were unconsciously caught up in the self-secularization of many
ecclesial communities; these, hoping to please those who did not come
[instead] saw the members they already had [then] leave deprived
and disapppointed... and that the result is a secularized ecclesial
environment andwhat an admission!a desert without God in the
very midst of the Catholic world. Stunning and bitter results of Vatican
IIit is hard to imagine Our Lady of Fatima would have overlooked
them and not try to warn us of them. Perhaps an explicit admission of
a connection between this disaster and the Council will not be long in
coming. At any rate, Pope Benedicts remarks throw cold water on the
enlightened ones who still speak disparagingly of the alarmism of
the Fatimists, including those involved in the writing of this book.
164
To return to the unfortunate commentary in TMF, however, we

may be accused of polemics, but in the light of Christs teaching and
especially the Churchs teaching on prophecy and the importance that
St. Paul and the Church Fathers attributed to this divine gift, TMFs
view of prophecy borders on heresy and blasphemy, to say the least.
To reduce everything between the Psalms and Saint John Bosco or
Fatima to a responding to the curiosity of the mind is tantamount to
declaring Holy Scripture, the Church Fathers, Tradition, and almost all
extraordinary revelation of the future as a sort of clerical Rainbow Press
on the level of the lowest publication at the local supermarkets cash
register. The implication that the future predictions of divine prophecies
are merely objects of idle human curiosity is an insult to God and the
Saints; and this cannot ever be taken lightly. On p. 38 of TMF Cardinal
Ratzinger again refers to Cardinal Sodanos trivializing the significance
of the vision:
[they] do not describe photographically the details of future
events, but synthesize and compress against a single background
of events, facts which extend through time in an unspecified
succession and duration.
That all of these events are in the past and no great mystery is the
evident message of these eminent Cardinals.
It should be noted that Pope Benedict XVI, on May 13, 2007 in the
National Marian Shrine of Aparecida in Brazil, stated that Fatima is
the most prophetic message of the 20th Century. This public statement
may be in reparation for his former trivializing Fatima and its prophetic
message, but still the Church suffers to this day with not taking the
Fatima prophecies of annihilation and many souls going to hell seriously
enough.
iii) Cardinal Ratzingers Attempt to Interpret ...

The first question that arises here concerns Cardinal Ratzingers
surprise. In TMF (p. 39) he states that the Virgins message that devotion
to Her Immaculate Heart is the way to salvation is surprising to the
Anglo-Saxon and German cultural world. Why does Cardinal Ratzinger
say this? Have the English and the Germans not heard about the Sacred
Heart,304 St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and St. Philip Benitius, let alone
Pope Leo XIII, or are they too intelligent to fall for such an Italian or
Spanish romanticism? Does the sober German tell his girl: I love you
with all my brain!, or would a determined Englishman communicate
his passion with a dry reference to his faculty of the will? What is the
purpose of such ludicrous statements? The answer may lie in the lines
304
In the 13th Century, St. Gertrude, a German, was a herald of the Sacred Heart. See St.
Gertrude the Great, published by the Benedictine Convent of Clyde, Missouri, republished
by TAN Books and Publishers in 1979, pp. 26ff. Thus we do not understand why the
German cultural world would find anything strange about Devotion to the Sacred
Heart or the Immaculate Heart.
165
that follow this incomprehensible surprise of the Cardinals.

Cardinal Ratzingers attempt to interpret the secret of Fatima
completely fails to interpret what is not the secret as such anyway, as
this has not been revealed, but he ends up discrediting the Immaculate
Conception Herself. This eminent prince of the Church seemed to have
forgotten when Our Lady appeared at Lourdes She did not introduce
Herself as Immaculately Conceived, but rather said: I am the
Immaculate Conception. Only She, among all mere creatures, has
ever been conceived without Original Sin and has never committed a
sin. Only Her Heartreferring to the third faculty of the soul, not the
internal organ but the heart which St. Thomas Aquinas calls the sensus
communistherefore, is the Immaculate Heart. Cardinal Ratzinger
inflates this term, reserved to the Mother of God, to include any heart,
which, with Gods grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore
sees God. He actually abuses the Gospel with his interpretation by
citing Matthew 5:8, which only says: Blessed are the clean of heart: for
they shall see God. Christ talks about the clean of heart, not perfect
interior unity and certainly not the only Immaculate Heart. If we
follow this implicit denial of the exclusiveness of the Immaculate Heart
by attributing it to all who are clean of heart, then we might as well
arrive at the logical conclusion that all priests have sacred hearts, as
they are consecrated an alter Christus (another Christ), which might
account for their Latin title of Reverendus (to be revered). But to say all
priests have sacred hearts would be blasphemous, which is exactly what
one ought to think of trivializing the Immaculate Heart.
Even the typically Protestant objection that we should not place
a human being between ourselves and Christ is answered by Cardinal
Ratzinger in apparent ignorance of Our Lady: he quotes St. Pauls
exhortation to imitate him, instead of explaining that it was Our Lord
Himself Who placed a mere human being between Himself and us by
making His Mother the Mediatrix of all graces!
Sister Lucy finally was discredited as a seer when Cardinal Ratzinger
said that the vision incorporates images which she may have seen in
devotional books.305 This is tantamount to declaring the whole vision
a product of fantasy, and fits snugly into the plan of dissolving Fatima
into nothing more than generic Catholic piety and platitudes, involving
events that are over and done with, as Father Gruner in his article so
aptly describes the Bertone/Ratzinger commentary (TMF).306
As we discussed in a previous chapter, the last page of TMF again
declares everything in the Secret to be part of the past, including Our
Ladys words: My Immaculate Heart will triumphfrom which the
Cardinal removes the words In the end. He reduces all of Fatima to the
fiat of Mary, the word of Her heart, [that] has changed the history of
305
306
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Theological Commentary, The Message of Fatima, p. 42.

166
the world.307 This seems to be an effort to eliminate Fatima entirely

from the scene.
iv) A Warning from Scripture

TMFs liquidation of the Message of Fatima reminds us of Our
Lords admonition to His disciples to Take heed and beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Mt. 16:6) At first the disciples,
who were eating bread at the moment, did not understand. What
did this talk of leaven in bread have to do with the Pharisees? Soon,
however, they grasped Our Lords meaning: Then they understood that
He had not said that they should beware of the leaven of bread, but of
the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Mt. 16:12)
As Archbishop Alban Goodier, S.J. explained in his classic
commentary on this passage in Scripture, Our Lord was teaching the
disciples to be on their guard against the subtleties of the Pharisees,
which were far more dangerous than any open opposition to Christ:
It was not so much their opposition that He feared for His
own, it was their [the Pharisees] subtlety. Before the Pharisees had
blamed Him for His miracles and other good deeds; He knew that
this would not take His friends away from Him. Now this morning
they [the Pharisees] had come, with an affected simplicity, a show
of desire to know the truth, an appeal to the prophets, a zeal for
tradition, a respect for law and order and obedience to the powers
that be; and all this, He knew, would be likely to affect His own
more than any open enmity. Like leaven, unless they were careful,
it would spread unconsciously among them.308
The Virgin of Fatima, like Our Lord Himself, was quite straightforward
in Her message. But the former Cardinals commentary obscures the
simplicity of Gods truth. And by the time the Cardinal had finished
with his tribute to Fatima, nothing seems to be left of it. According to
TMF, the matter is all very subtleso subtle that it vanishes.
But the apparitions at Fatima are not so subtle. They were given to
little children, who could not read, for the edification and guidance of the
wise and the learned of this world, including theologians at the Vatican.
Either Our Lady appeared at Fatima or She did not. Either She gave a
distinct message to the children, which they could remember and repeat
just as they had heard it, or She did not. Either She intended this message
to be passed on to the world or She did not. Either She insured that
Her message would be accurately transmitted or She did not. Either She
guaranteed beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, by the Miracle of
the Sun, that it was indeed She, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Who
came, Who spoke and Who commanded, or She did not. The answer in
each case is, obviously, that She did, for She is the Mother of God.
307
308
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Theological Commentary, The Message of Fatima, p. 43.

Archbishop Goodier, S.J., The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Vol. I, (Burns Oates &
Washbourne Ltd., London, England, 1932) p. 462.
167
Like the disciples in their encounter with the Pharisees, we must be

on guard against Pharisaical subtleties which have spread like poisonous
leaven through the Church over the past forty years. Now the latter day
leaven of the Pharisees seeks to penetrate the Message of Fatima. The
Pharisees of old were dangerous precisely because they seemed to have
a genuine respect for the truth. Today a feigned respect for the Message
of Fatima conceals its most determined opponents.
Conclusion
In one of the stranger events in an already very strange post-conciliar
Church, we are faced with quite a few questions which arise from the
unorthodox comments on the vision in the Third Secret provided by TMF:
Why are the actual words of Our Lady, the real Third Secret, written
down on a single sheetand most probably still in the papal safe
withheld from the public? Why do they pretend in public that these
words do not even exist?
Why is the published vision, which obviously deals with the murder
of a Pope in the future by public execution by a band of soldiers,
associated with the 1981 attempt on John Paul IIs life which failed?
Why is the falsehood that the Consecration of Russia has been done
repeated?
Why the absurd statement that: The decision of His Holiness Pope
John Paul II to make public the third part of the secret of Fatima
brings to an end a period of history marked by tragic human lust for
power and evil?
Why did the late Popes assistants and advisors make His Holiness
available for hundreds of political meetings but made available
virtually no time for Sister Lucy?
Why is the lie about the fall of Communism in 1989 repeated?309
Why is the Secret, long kept secret, belittled as no great mystery,
and reduced to symbolism?
Why is prophecys prediction of the future denied?
Why is the Immaculate Heart belittled and equated with the clean
of heart?
Why is the unchangeable futureand with it Gods Providence
denied, at least implicitly?
Why is Sister Lucys vision belittled by mentioning devotional books
as the possible source?
309
Cardinal Sodano, on May 13, 2000 at Fatima, said in his speech: The successive events
of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe,
to the fall of the Communist regimes which promoted atheism. This false statement has
been disproven over and over again in The Fatima Crusader in the years following 1989.
168
Why do the prelates fail to explain the line In Portugal the dogma of
the Faith will always be preserved etc.?
What is the purpose of publishing the vision of the Third Secret in
the first place, when the words of Our Lady are withheld and the
vision reduced to nothingness?
Whenever we are faced with any kind of sin, such as a lie, we have
to ask the question: Cui bono?to whose benefit?
The evidence points to one answer for all these questions. The
Vaticans fabrications and incoherencies about the Third Secret and
Fatima as such, cannot be a silly play by a few bored prelates. There must
be an important purpose to the fabrications that can be unmasked with no
great difficulty. Why risk this exposure, unless for an important purpose?
As it is evident that the Third Secret is not abused to predict some
politically correct or convenient visions for the future, buton the
contraryis reduced to the past and deprived of any real importance,
the only purpose of the entire act of publication must be a strategic
diversion from the actual words of Our Lady: a vision and a prophecy
are turned into deception oras the intelligence communities like to call
itperception management.
This answer is far from being a mere speculation. Every piece of
evidence we have discussed so far, including the Third Secret vision
itself and other approved apparitions referred to by Cardinal Ratzinger
himself in 1984, points to the conclusion that the Third Secret in its
entirety must include words of Our Lady withheld from the public.
There cannot be many reasons for withholding part of a message
from Our Lady, if ever. It would be hardly conceivable that the part
withheld is so terrifying as to cause panic. Possibly the message might
be too symbolic to comprehend, as might be the case with a few lines
in the Apocalypse. A third possibility is that the message is quite clear
and explicit, but highly embarrassing for the ones who hold power over
its publication.
It seems evident that the first two possibilities are out of character
with Fatima and most Marian apparitions, which leads us to the third
possibility as our conclusion: The Vatican has something to hide that would
be extremely embarrassing. We recall the testimony of Father Joaquin
Alonso, who for sixteen years was the official archivist of Fatima:
This is entirely congruent with the 1846 apparition and message

310
Father Joaquin Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, (Centro Mariano, Madrid,
Spain, 1976) p. 73. In The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 704. See also The Fatima
Crusader, Issue 64, p. 121.
169
of Our Lady at La Salette, the apparition of 1634 of Our Lady of Good

Success, Quito, and a few others. And possibly we might know the
actual text of the Third Secret: There is the story of some years ago of
a supposedly reliable French priest who heard a supernatural message,
while listening to a recording in a sort of Oratory. He claims to have
heard the following lines:
There will be a wicked council planned and prepared that
will change the face of the Church. Many will lose the Faith and
confusion will reign everywhere. The sheep will in vain search for
their shepherds. A schism will tear apart the tunic of My Son.
This will be the end of times, announced in the Holy Scriptures
and recalled to memory by Me in many places. The abomination of
abominations will reach its peak and it will bring the chastisement
announced in La Salette. My Sons arm, which I will not be able
to hold back anymore, will punish this poor world, which has
to expiate its crimes.One will not talk but about wars and
revolutions. The elements of nature will be unchained and will
cause anguish, even with the best (the most courageous). The
Church will bleed from all Her wounds. Blessed are they who will
persevere and search for refuge in My Heart, because in the end
My Immaculate Heart will triumph.
Of course, there is absolutely no proof for the authenticity of this

text. We must not claim this to be the real Third Secret. However, it
makes a great deal more sense than anything contained in the Vaticans
interpretation of the visional part of the Third Secret.
The heresies and the apostasy following Vatican II are of such a
tragic and widespread importance that common sense demands that
we believe this to be the Third Secret, or part of it. Is it possible that Our
Lady knew about the end of World War I, the beginning of World War II
under Pius XI, Russia spreading her errors, Russia being the instrument
of chastisement, a future Pope being shot by soldiers, but nothing about
the cataclysmic developments in the Church beginning with Vatican II,
an event that spiritually pales all wars into insignificance? We have
already mentioned that no less than Pope Paul VI said:
The Church finds Herself in an hour of unrest, of self-critique,
one might say, even of auto-destruction! It is like an internal, acute,
and complicated revolution, for which no one was prepared after
the Council. (Dec. 7, 1968)
He also mentioned the smoke of Satan that had entered the Church.
Even Paul VI, who found himself at the center of the crisis, perceived the
disaster to a point. And we have already mentioned the recent and quite
devastating admissions about the crisis by the former Cardinal Ratzinger,
speaking now as Pope. Is it conceivable that Our Lady of Fatima had
nothing to say about this unprecedented situation in the Church, when
even the former Cardinal Ratzinger admitted, the Third Secret of Fatima
170
speaks of dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian, and
therefore of the world? Clearly it is impossible for Our Lady not to have
mentioned the present-day apostasy and its causes!
And so while there is no proofwe say it againfor the authenticity
of the above-quoted message the French priest claims to have received,
there is no logical alternative to the Third Secret being something along
these lines. This can only mean that there is a text pertaining to the
Third Secret which the Vatican has yet to disclosea text that follows
the words about the dogma of the Faith being preserved in Portugal. We
will discuss the contents of this text in Chapters 12 and 13; and then,
in Chapter 14, we will review the explosive developments that have
confirmed its existence beyond any doubt. But first we must consider
in detail that famous and quite strange interview of Sister Lucy by
a highly placed Vatican functionarythe prelate who would go on
to conduct a virtual one-man public relations campaign in defense of
the Secretary of States Party Line on Fatima, including a book and a
series of television and radio appearances whose aim was to control
the damage caused by overwhelming evidence of a Vatican cover-up of
the missing text. We mean the co-author of TMF and now the Cardinal
Secretary of State himself: Tarcisio Bertone.
Father Caillon (left) said,

An order came from Rome,
obliging everyone to say and
think: The Consecration is
done. The Pope [John Paul II]
having done all that he can,
Heaven has deigned to agree
to this gesture. It was around
this time, 1988-1989, that many
Fatima Apostolates who had
insisted that the Consecration
of Russia had not been done
suddenly began asserting that
the 1984 consecration fulfilled
the desires of Heaven (see
pages 112 and 354-355).
Chapter 11
Muzzling and
Hiding the Witness
Few revelations have been as unconvincing as the Vaticans version of
the Third Secret of Fatima. Those who thought, or hoped, that publication
of the vision of the Bishop dressed in white and the commentary in
the CDFs The Message of Fatima (TMF) ended matters were probably
surprised by the tumult that followed. There should be no surprise,
however. For over forty years nearly every tacticsilence, intimidation,
bad theology, disinformationhas been used to bury the real Message of
Fatima. Among these tactics: the imposition of silence on Sister Lucy for
forty-five years; the suppression of Father Alonsos 5,396 documents on
Fatima; a virtual campaign by the Vatican Secretary of State to prevent
public events promoting the authentic Fatima Message, including baseless
threats of suspension and even excommunication directed at Father
Nicholas Gruner, the most successful and determined public advocate
for Fatima; and the promotion of Fatima experts who distort and falsify
the Message in order to conform it to the Vatican Party Line that Fatima
belongs to the past.
Yet the cork keeps bobbing to the surface. On May 16, 2001, Mother
Angelica of the Eternal Word Television Network made a declaration on
live TV that reflected the growing skepticism of millions of Catholics
the world over:
As for the Secret, well I happen to be one of those individuals
who thinks we didnt get the whole thing. I told ya! I mean, you have
the right to your own opinion, dont you, Father? There, you know,
thats my opinion. Because I think its scary.
There could have been nothing more embarrassing to the Vaticans

official version of the Secret than this remark by a world-renowned
nun whose loyalty to Church authority was beyond question and who
could not be dismissed as one of those Fatimists. Mother Angelica had
committed the unpardonable crime of going against the Party Line and
so, by December 2001, Mother Angelica Livethat is, her regularly
programmed, live, spontaneous broadcasts shown every weekwere
yanked off the air. Since December 2001, never again has she been on
the air live!
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 triggered a chain reaction
of Fatima stories. The buzz in the press and on the Internet was that the
attacks were part of the Third Secret of Fatima, which had still not been
fully revealed. How exasperating for the drafters of TMF, who insist the
entire secret of Fatima is contained inside its covers. They simply are not
172
believed, in part because they are not believable, but also because of
a certain collective awareness, a shared sense of our impending doom.
Deep down we know that a civilization of love is utopian nonsense. It
has never existed. The real Message of Fatima implicitly confirms this:
hell is real and many souls are going there because there is no one to pray
and make sacrifices for them. Heavens remedy is not the well-publicized
inter-religious prayer meetings, but the consecration and conversion of
Russia, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Rosary. The
real Message of Fatima is not a request for more papal apologies. It is a
plea to Jesus to forgive us our sins, to save us from the fires of hell.
We are not experiencing the new advent of humanity. We are on the
Titanic as it slides into the blackness, and the world senses the impending
doom even as it continues to heap judgment on itself.
Yet not even the events of September 11, 2001 had deterred the
Vatican apparatus from continuing to promote Sodanos Party Line that
Fatima belongs to the past. On the contrary, the effort to impose the
Sodano Interpretation of Fatima on the Church only intensified, as if
Cardinal Sodano, et al. had recognized that the events of September 11
might actually jolt Catholics into an awareness thatjust a moment!
Fatima is not finished, because we are obviously not witnessing anything
like the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the promised period of
peace. Some sort of bold action to reassert the Party Line was needed.
On September 12, 2001, literally within hours of the fall of the Twin
Towers, the Vatican Press Office released its top bulletin for the day: a
Declaration from the Congregation for the Clergy concerning, not the
terrorist attacks, not the horrendous scandals erupting almost daily from
the ranks of the priesthood, not the profusion of heresy and disobedience
among the clergy over the past forty years, but Father Nicholas Gruner,
the Fatima priest. The Declaration stated that it had been issued by
mandate of a higher authorityVatican-speak for then Secretary of
State, Cardinal Sodano, not the Pope (who is the highest authority).
The Declaration warned the entire Catholic world about a serious
threat to the good of the Church; a threat of such magnitude that
the Congregation for the Clergy could not even wait until the dust
had settled over the former Twin Towers. The threat consisted of a
conference on world peace and Fatima in Rome, sponsored by Father
Gruners apostolate.
Yes, the Vaticans top priority within hours of the worst terrorist
attack in world history was to tell everyone to shun a conference on
world peace and Fatima. Why? Because, said the Declaration, the
conference does not enjoy the approval of legitimate ecclesiastical
authority. Of course, the issuer of the Declaration knew quite well
that no approval for conferences of clergy and laity is necessary under
Church law. The Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II
(Canons 212, 215, 278, 299) recognizes the natural right of the faithful
to meet and discuss issues of concern in the Church today without any
Muzzling and Hiding the Witness
173
approval by anyone. Indeed, the Vatican issues no announcements

about the lack of approval for innumerable conferences conducted by
advocates of womens ordination and uncountable other heresies, even
though the participants in these conferences are abusing their natural
right and causing grave harm to the Church. One might as well say
that the apostolates Rome conference had not been approved by the
American Medical Association. What of it?
But that was not the worst of it. The Declaration also stated
that Father Gruner had been suspended by the Bishop of Avellino.
Suspended for what? For nothing, apparently, since no grounds were
stated. The reason for this curious omission was clear to anyone with
a knowledge of Father Gruners canonical proceedings: the grounds
were so flimsy that to state them publicly would be to invite laughter.
As we have already noted, the only pretext ever given for the
suspension was that Father Gruner must return to Avellino, Italy (where
he was ordained in 1976) or be suspended. Why? Because he had failed
to find another bishop to incardinate him. But the Declaration failed to
mention that three successive friendly bishops had offered to incardinate
Father Gruner with express permission to continue his apostolate,
and that all three incardinations had been blocked (or declared nonexistent) by the same Vatican bureaucrats who had now announced
the resulting suspension. That is, Father Gruner had been suspended
for failing to obey an order his accusers themselves had prevented him
from obeying. (Not to mention that the Bishop of Avellino by September
12, 2001 had absolutely no authority over Father Grunersince Father
Gruner was now incardinated in another diocese.)
Nearly forty years after the springtime of Vatican II began,
the Consecration of Russianot the world, not youth in search
of meaning, not the unemployed, but Russiaremains undone.
The world is convulsed by regional wars, Islamic terrorism and the
holocaust of abortion, as it becomes clearer by the hour that we are
heading for an apocalypse. The Islamic fundamentalists, whom Vatican
diplomats now like to call our Muslim brothers, hate us and wish to
subjugate or kill us in accordance with the dictates of their Koran. After
forty years of utterly useless ecumenical dialogue, the Protestant sects
are even more decrepit than when they began, and the Orthodox are
more adamant than ever in rejecting submission to the Vicar of Christ.
The Church is gravely wounded by heresy and scandal in dioceses
throughout the world, where She has lost all credibility because of the
corruption of Her human members. The new orientation of Vatican II
is a total debacle; a ruinous failure. Yet in the midst of all this death,
chaos, heresy, scandal, and apostasy, all now reaching their respective
apogees, the Vatican had considered it imperativeright now!to alert
the world to the menace of Father Nicholas Gruner.
So, one day after September 11, 2001, Father Grunerwho had
committed no offense against faith and morals, who had kept his vows
174
for the entire 25 years of his priesthood, who had not molested any
altar boys or women, who had not stolen any money or preached any
heresywas publicly condemned before the entire Church in a socalled Declaration that gave no grounds for the condemnation, and
which cited the mandate of an anonymous higher authority who
did not even have the courage to name himself. In the living memory of
the Church, nothing like this had ever happened to a faithful Catholic
priest. The Secretary of States obsession with destroying Father
Grunersymbol of resistance to the Party Linehad reached the level
of obscenity.
Why? It could only be a deep-seated antipathy toward the Message
of Fatima and all that it implies for the new orientation of the Church,
which Cardinal Sodano (friend of Gorbachev) and his collaborators
implement so unswervingly. Fatima, it seems, alarms them more than
the current state of the Church and the world. And yet the state of
the Church and the world would surely change radically for the better
if only Father Gruners persecutors would simply do what Our Lady
requested at Fatima: If My requests are granted, many souls will be
saved and there will be peace.
But Cardinal Sodano had surely miscalculated. The issuance
of this baseless condemnation of the Fatima priest within hours of
September 11 had such a stink about it that many who might otherwise
have been disposed to accept the Declaration at face value began to
wonder about its grotesquely inappropriate timing. In a Church being
undermined and disgraced by clerical traitors in every nation, why was the
Vatican apparatus so concerned about this one priest, who was not even
accused of any specific wrongdoing?
The scapegoating of Father Gruner would be no more successful
than the other anti-Fatima stratagems. Contrary to what some Vatican
prelates seem to be hoping, the Fatima controversy cannot be reduced
to the status of one priest. In the weeks following the Declaration
on Father Gruner, other prominent Catholics began to express serious
doubts about Sodanos Party Line on the Third Secret. It was not only
Mother Angelica who believed that we didnt get the whole thing.
On October 26, 2001, the story broke wide open, as reporters
say, when Inside the Vatican news service (along with various Italian
newspapers) ran an article entitled: The Secret of Fatima: More to
Come? The article reported that: News has just emerged that Sister
Lucia dos Santos, the last surviving Fatima visionary, several weeks
ago sent Pope John Paul II a letter reportedly warning him that his
life is in danger. According to Vatican sources, the letter, claiming that
events spoken of in the Third Secret of Fatima had not yet occurred,
was delivered sometime after September 11 to John Paul by the bishop
emeritus [retired] of Fatima, Alberto Cosme do Amaral.
When asked about the letter, the then-Bishop of Fatima, Serafim de
Sousa Ferreira e Silva, did not deny that Sister Lucia had sent a letter to
175
the Pope, but said [drawing a Jesuitical distinction] there are no letters
from the seer that express fear for the life of the Pope. The Inside
the Vatican report further revealed that Sources have also suggested
that Sister Lucias letter encourages the Pope to fully reveal the Third
Secret, and that her letter to the Pope is said to contain this warning:
Soon there will be great upheaval and punishment.
The Inside the Vatican article reports on yet another secret encounter
with Sister Lucy behind the convent wallsonly this one does not
follow the Party Line. According to Inside the Vatican, an Italian diocesan
priest, Father Luigi Bianchi, claims to have met Sister Lucia dos Santos
last week at her cloistered Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal.
Echoing the suspicions of Mother Angelica, Father Bianchi speculated
on the possibility that the Vatican did not reveal the full secret to avoid
creating panic and anxiety in the population; to not scare them.
Concerning the ludicrous interpretation of the Secret as a
prophecy of the 1981 attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II, Father
Bianchi stated that The message doesnt speak only about an attempt
on the pontiff, but speaks of a Bishop dressed in White who walks
amongst the ruins and bodies of murdered men and women This
means that the Pope will have to suffer greatly, that some nations will
disappear, that many people will die, that we must defend the West
from becoming Islamicized. That is what is happening in these days.
Inside the Vatican was careful to point out, as has The Fatima
Crusader, that Sister Lucy is not allowed to speak with anyone who has
not received prior permission from the Vatican Accordingly, Inside
the Vatican hedged its bets by stating that it is not immediately clear
whether Bianchi received that approval, circumvented the need for it,
or did not actually meet Sister Lucia as he maintains. But no one,
including Sister Lucy herself, has ever denied that the meeting with
Father Bianchi took place.
That at least some of Inside the Vaticans sources are within the
Curia itself was suggested by Cardinal Ratzingers response to these
developments. Inside the Vatican quoted him as having said that
the rumors about this alleged letter are the continuation of an old
polemic fed by certain people of dubious credibility, for the purpose
of destabilizing the internal equilibrium of the Roman Curia and of
troubling the people of God. Notice, however, that neither does
Cardinal Ratzinger actually deny the existence of the letter from Sister
Lucy to the Pope.
This remark by the Cardinal who became Pope was quite telling.
How could people of dubious credibility destabilize the internal
equilibrium of the Roman Curia? If their credibility were so dubious,
the Roman Curia would hardly be destabilized by what they say. And
just who are these people of dubious credibility? The Inside the Vatican
piece suggested that Cardinal Ratzinger might have been referring to
Father Gruner. But what about Mother Angelica? What about Father
176
Bianchi? What about Inside the Vatican itself, whose editor, Robert
Moynihan, is, if anything, beholden to the Vatican apparatus, as the
title of his magazine suggests? And what about the millions of other
Catholics who harbor the well-founded suspicion that Msgr. (now
Cardinal) Bertone and the former Cardinal Ratzinger are not being
entirely forthcoming in their claim that the prophecies of the Message
of Fatima, including the Third Secret, belong to the past, and that its
warning of a great chastisement of the Church and the world need no
longer concern us? Indeed, what serious Catholic really believes this in
his heart, given the perilous state of the world today?
Despite a determined effort to impose Sodanos Party Line (an effort
that now included a Soviet-style declaration that Father Gruner is to be
regarded as a non-person in the Church), Catholics the world over
continue to wonder what has happened to the words which follow the
key phrase In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved
etc. Why had TMF run away from this phrase by removing it from the
Message of Fatima and placing it in a footnote? What has happened
to the missing words of the Virgin? Where is the promised conversion of
Russia? Why has there been no period of peace in the world, as the Virgin
promised?
In the face of these questions that would not go away, the Vatican
apparatus made yet another attempt to put a lid on the rising speculation
of a cover-up, before the pot boiled over and became uncontainable.
Indeed, Cardinal Ratzingers statement about a destabilized curia
would indicate that the Party Line on Fatima was now meeting with
resistance from within the Roman Curia itself, perhaps in view of the
increasing destabilization of the world at large, which hardly squares
with the notion that Fatimas warnings belong to the past.
The stratagem this time would be another secret interview of Sister
Lucy in her convent in Coimbra. The interview was conducted on
November 17, 2001 by Archbishop Bertone, who in five years would
succeed Cardinal Sodano as Vatican Secretary of State, thus becoming
the standard-bearer for the official account of the Secret and the one
whose own revelations would (as we shall see in Chapter 14) break the
Fatima case wide open.
For some reason the results of this secret interview were not
revealed for more than a month. It was not until December 21, 2001
that LOsservatore Romano (Italian edition) published Msgr. Bertones
brief communiqu about the interview, entitled Meeting of His
Excellency Mons. Tarcisio Bertone with Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and
the Immaculate Heart. This was followed by an English translation in
LOsservatore Romanos English edition on January 9, 2002.
The substance of the communiqu was that, according to Msgr.
Bertone, Sister Lucy said that the 1984 consecration of the world
sufficed for a consecration of Russia, and that everything has been
published; there are no more secrets. As we demonstrated in Chapter
177
6, the former statement contradicts everything Sister Lucy has said to

the contrary for the better part of seventy years. The latter statement is
presented as Sister Lucys answer to a question about the Third Secret
but the question, oddly enough, is not provided.
Now, when a newspaper or magazine publishes an interview with a
person of note, the reader rightly expects a series of complete questions
followed by complete answers, so that the reader can see for himself
in its full contextwhat the interviewee had to say in his or her own
words. Not in this case. Although we are informed that Msgr. Bertone
and Sister Lucy conversed for more than two hours, Msgr. Bertone
had provided only his summary of the conversation, sprinkled with a
few words attributed to Sister Lucy herself. No transcript, audiotape or
videotape of the two-hour session has been produced. In fact, less than
ten percent of what Sister Lucy is quoted as saying had anything to do
with the stated purpose of the interview, namely, to address continuing
doubts in the minds of millions of Catholics about the Consecration of
Russia and the completeness of the Vaticans disclosure of the Third
Secret.
Perhaps we should have become accustomed to suspicious
irregularities in the way the Vatican apparatus handled Sister Lucy,
and this belatedly disclosed, elliptical interview was no exception.
The Msgr. Bertone communiqu demonstrates that Sister Lucy was still
being treated as if she were a member of the federal Witness Protection
Program. Yes, of course, she was a cloistered nun. But an interview
is an interview, and two hours of talk is two hours of talk. Where is
the interview, and what happened to the two-hour conversation? And
how can one square this curious substitute for a real interview with
the claim that Sister Lucy had told us everything there was to know
about the Message of Fatima? If she had told us all she knew, then there
was nothing to hide. If there was nothing to hide, why not publish
everything she was asked and all that she answered during those two
hours? Indeed, why wouldnt they have simply allowed Sister Lucy to
speak to the world herself, and lay all the questions to rest?
Yet despite publication of TMF, which was supposedly the last word
on Fatima, revealing all that remains to be known, Sister Lucy was still
being kept far away from open microphones and neutral witnesses. She
was completely invisible during the process of revealing the Third
Secret in May-June of 2000, and she remained invisible until her death,
even thoughso the Party Line goesFatima belongs to the past.
Before addressing the particulars of the interview of November
2001including the grand total of forty-four words attributed to
Sister Lucy herself during an alleged two hours of conversation about
the matters in controversyit must be noted that Msgr. Bertones
communiqu undermines its own credibility immediately with the
following claim: Going on to discuss the problem of the third part of
the secret of Fatima, she [Sister Lucy] says that she has read attentively
178
and meditated upon the booklet published by the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith [i.e., The Message of Fatima (TMF)], and confirms
everything it says.
This could not possibly be anything but a deception. To begin with,
Msgr. Bertone is asking the faithful to believe all of the following:
Sister Lucy confirms TMFs contention that the vision contained
in the Third Secret incorporates images Sister Lucy may have seen
in devotional books and her own intuitions of the faith. In other
words, Sister Lucy confirms that she made it up.311
Sister Lucy confirms Cardinal Ratzingers praise of the modernist
Jesuit Edouard Dhanis as an eminent scholar on Fatima, even
though Dhanis dismissed as unconscious fabrications every
prophetic aspect of the Message of Fatimafrom the vision of hell,
to the prediction of World War II, to the consecration and conversion
of Russia. (This is discussed more fully below.)
Sister Lucy confirms, in essence, that she could very well be a
sincere and pious fake, who only imagined that the Virgin Mary
called for the consecration and conversion of Russia, so that TMF
was quite correct in ignoring these key elements of the Message of
Fatima, treating them as if they did not exist.
One must be sensible about this. When a Vatican functionary, no
matter what his stature, comes out of a locked convent and declares
that a 94-year-old nun inside confirms everything in a forty-page
document he has co-authored, reasonable minds expect a bit more in
the way of corroboration. All the more so when the forty-page document
politely suggests that the nun in question concocted a pious fable that
has held the Church in suspense, needlessly, for more than 80 years.
On these grounds alone one must conclude that the last secret
Sister Lucy interview was but another attempt to manipulate and
exploit a captive witness, who had yet to be allowed to come forward
and speak at length to the faithful in her own unfiltered words. The
last surviving Fatima visionary was still being subjected to closeted
interviews during which she was surrounded by handlers, who then
reported her testimony in little bits and piecesan answer without
the question, a question without the answer. And now the faithful
were being asked to swallow the whopper that Sister Lucy, the divinely
chosen seer of Fatima, agreed with everything in 40 pages of neo311
On the contrary, as Father Alonso documents, Sister Lucy affirmed that everything
connected with the apparitions of the Lady was seen no longer as a simple recollection,
but as a presence impressed upon her soul as though by fire. She herself points out
to us these things remain impressed upon her soul in such a way that she could not
possibly forget them. These reminiscences of Sister Lucia, therefore, are rather like rereading inscriptions which are forever engraven in the deepest depths of the soul of
the authoress. She appears to be seeing rather than remembering. The ease of her
remembering is indeed so great that she has only to read, as it were, from her soul.
Father Joaquin Alonso, Introduction, Fatima in Lucias Own Words, p. 13.
179
modernist commentary which, as even the Los Angeles Times could

see, gently debunks the Fatima cult.
While it is clear on these grounds alone that the interview of
November 17, 2001 isto say the leasthighly suspect, there is still
an obligation to demonstrate the point more amply for the historical
record.
To begin with, the Bertone interview was expressly conducted to
squelch growing doubt among the faithful about the Vaticans blatant
campaign to consign the Message of Fatima to the dustbin of history. As
Msgr. Bertones communiqu admits:
In recent months, above all after the sad event of the terrorist
attack of last September 11th, in foreign and Italian newspapers
have appeared articles regarding presumed new revelations of
Sister Lucy, announcements of warning letters to the Supreme
Pontiff, apocalyptic reinterpretations of the Message of Fatima.
Moreover, emphasis has been given to the suspicion that the
Holy See has not published the integral text of the third part of
the secret, and some Fatimist movements have repeated the
accusation that the Holy Father has not yet consecrated Russia to
the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
For this reason it was considered necessary to organize a meeting
with Sister Lucy ...
We recall here that the Message of Fatima contains both promises, if

the Virgins requests are obeyed, and warnings about the consequences
of a failure to obey:
The Promises:
If Russia is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
the Immaculate Heart will triumph,

Russia will be converted,
many souls will be saved from hell (which the three seers were
shown in a terrifying vision),
and a period of peace will be granted to mankind.
The Warnings:
If Russia is not consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Russia will spread its errors throughout the world,

raising up wars and persecutions against the Church,
the good will be martyred,
the Holy Father will have much to suffer,
and various nations will be annihilated.
180
While the eventual fulfillment of the Fatima prophecies is

inevitableIn the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy
Father will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a
period of peace will be granted to mankindthe question for us today
is whether the world will first have to suffer the predicted chastisements
in full, including the annihilation of nations, an event clearly suggested
in the half-ruined city outside of which the Pope is executed in the Third
Secret vision. We recall Sister Lucys warning to the Pope (one year
after the assassination attempt in St. Peters Square) in the purported
letter dated May 12, 1982, reproduced in TMF itself:
And if we have not yet seen the complete fulfillment of the
final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it with great
strides.312 If we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge,
injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality
and violence, etc. And let us not say that it is God who is punishing
us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are
preparing their own punishment.
The Bertone interview, however, had failed to address continued

public concern in the Church concerning the Fatima warnings. Quite
the contrary, Msgr. Bertone had staked his entire position, and indeed
the fate of the world, on the Party Line, to which he had adhered quite
faithfully with his preposterous claim in TMF (his own commentary)
that The decision of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to make
public the third part of the secret of Fatima brings to an
end a period of history marked by tragic human lust for
power and evil Thus, the Bertone interview had one aim: to
persuade the world that peace is at hand, that the Fatima saga is over
and can now safely be considered a part of history.
Let us examine the circumstances of the interview with reference to
the standards of credibility even godless civil tribunals require for the
acceptance of testimony from an important witness. We do not suggest
that Sister Lucy ought to have been subjected to anything like the
indignity of a civil trial, but only that the proponents of Sister Lucys
last testimony should have been held to these minimal standards in
asking us to believe it.
Suspicious Circumstance #1: Although Sister Lucy was
available to testify in person, she had never been produced by the party
who controls access to her, at the time, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The Bertone communiqu revealed that Sister Lucy could not even
speak to Archbishop Bertone without permission from Cardinal Ratzinger.
This confirms what The Fatima Crusader has been reporting for years
and what the aforesaid article in Inside the Vatican also noted: no one
was allowed to speak to Sister Lucy without the Cardinals permission.
312
See footnote 267 in Chapter 9.

181
That is a very curious restriction on the liberty of a witness who, so we

are told, had nothing to add to what she has already said.
Under the minimal standards of trustworthiness in civil proceedings,
witnesses are required to testify in person if they are available, so that
the parties to the case, whose rights may be affected by the testimony,
will have the opportunity to pose questions to the witness. If one party
has control over a witness but fails to produce him or her, civil judges
instruct juries that they may draw the conclusion that the witness
testimony would have been unfavorable to that party. This is only
common sense: a party would not fail to produce a favorable witness,
but would very likely fail to produce an unfavorable one.
Sister Lucy was available to take the stand before the bar of history
in the Fatima Case. She was not bedridden, crippled or otherwise unable
to make an appearance. On the contrary, the Bertone communiqu
claims that on the date of the secret interview Sister Lucy appeared
in great form, lucid and vivacious. Why was this lucid and vivacious
witness, who was available to testify, never produced by the party who
controls all access to her? Why was her latest testimony obtained
behind closed doors and presented secondhand in a communiqu from
Archbishop Bertone?
What would happen in a civil case if one of the parties offered a
fragmentary report of a key witness testimony when the witness herself
could readily testify in person? The jury would rightly conclude that
something was being hidden. In the Fatima Case, the inference can and
should be drawn that Sister Lucy had been kept off the stand because
her live, uncontrolled testimony would have contradicted Sodanos
Party Line. If Sister Lucy could have been counted on to hew to the
Party Line, then she would have been produced long ago to testify in
person, and at length, before the Church and the world. Instead, it was
Msgr. Bertone, not the witness herself, who testified.
But even if we assume that Sister Lucy had been bedridden
or otherwise unavailable to testify, the other circumstances of the
purported interview could not have failed to raise suspicion in the mind
of any reasonable person. Let us proceed.
Suspicious circumstance #2: The interview of this 94-year-old
nun was conducted in secret by Archbishop Bertone, an authority figure
with a clear motive to manipulate the witness.
In a civil law context, undue influence is presumed when someone in
a position of authority or dominance over a very elderly person extracts
a statement from that person, such as a will or power of attorney. In this
case, Archbishop Bertone is clearly a dominant party with the imposing
authority of a Vatican title, whereas Sister Lucy was not only very elderly
but has vowed to submit in holy obedience to the requests of her superiors,
by whom she was surrounded during the two-hour session.
Furthermore, Msgr. Bertone was clearly intent on using the
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interview to defend his own credibility against mounting public

skepticism toward the Party Line that Fatima is finished. Given recent
world events, Archbishop Bertone was obviously suffering a massive loss
of face over his utterly indefensible statement in TMF that the decision
to publish the Third Secret vision brings to an end a period of history
marked by tragic human lust for power and evil Msgr. Bertone,
being only human, would have had every motive to induce Sister Lucy
to confirm his ridiculous claim of a world at peace due to the great
fulfillment of the Third Secret in 1981, when the Pope survived the
assassination attempt. (Even the secular radio commentator Paul Harvey
was openly contemptuous of the Ratzinger/Bertone interpretation of
the Third Secret as found in TMF.)
Under these circumstances, Msgr. Bertone conducting the interview
and then reporting its results was akin to a prosecutor interviewing a
key witness and then testifying in place of the witness, who is kept
out of the courtroom. Objectively speaking, Msgr. Bertone was the last
person who should have conducted the interview. The Church and the
world are entitled to hear from this vital witness directly, rather than
to receive reports from a partisan interrogator with an axe to grind.313
Suspicious Circumstance #3: The Bertone communiqu is
extremely brief, occupying a mere quarter-page in LOsservatore Romano.
Yet the communiqu states that the interview went on for more than
two hours.
What did Bertone and Sister Lucy discuss for more than two hours,
given that the entire communiqu can be read in less than two minutes?
By way of comparison, a one-hour address delivered at a normal rate
of speech would require roughly 14 single-spaced typewritten pages
to transcribe; a two-hour address would require about 28 pages, or
approximately 14,000 words.
Yet Bertones communiqu concerning an alleged two-hour
interview provides a mere 463 words314 purportedly from the mouth of
Sister Lucy herself. These 463 words break down as follows:
165 words: A verbatim quotation of Cardinal Ratzingers

opinion in TMF (the June 26, 2000 Ratzinger/Bertone
commentary) that the phrase My Immaculate Heart
Unfortunately, a partisan interrogator with an axe to grind was mistranslated in the
Italian version of this book to read: a partisan interrogator with an axe in his hand.
In The Fourth Secret of Fatima, which we discuss in Chapter 14, Antonio Socci criticized
the mistranslated phrase as excessively harsh. (With some excess, Kramer writes:
a partisan interrogator with an axe in his hand. Fourth Secret, footnote 177.) The
harshness is the result of translator error, not polemical excess.
314
When referring to or quoting the Bertone communiqu, this chapter sometimes uses the
Vatican Information Service English translation of the December 2001 Italian original.
At other times, the English translation in the LOsservatore Romano English edition of
January 9, 2002 is used. And very rarely, our own translation of the Italian version is
used.
313
183
will triumph (from which, as we have mentioned, the

Cardinal deleted the words In the end) does not refer to
events somewhere after 1917 but rather to Marys fiat in
consenting to be the Mother of God 2,000 years ago.
Here we are asked to believe that Sister Lucy confirms that when
Our Lady of Fatima predicted four future eventsIn the end, My
Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia
to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to
the world.She was referring to the Annunciation in 1 B.C.! Bertones
Lucy apparently also confirms Cardinal Ratzingers removal of the key
words In the end from Our Ladys prophecy.
We note that the verbatim quotation (of 165 words) from TMF not
only includes Cardinal Ratzingers parenthetical citation to John 16:33
but also a summary of the rather complex theological conclusion to
his 40 pages of commentary. To quote all of this verbiage word-forword from memory is a feat very few peopleif anycould perform.
Either Sister Lucy had developed a photographic memory at age 94, or
someone added the entire quotation to her answeralong with the
parenthetical Scripture citation. (Or perhaps TMF was placed in front of
Sister Lucy for her to read aloud in obedience to her superiors.)
100 words: The significance of the heart Sister Lucy saw

in the left hand of the Virgin during the apparitions at
Fatima.
The Bertone communiqu informs us that this was an unpublished

particular which Sister Lucy had added to the Message of Fatima. That
is very interesting, but what does it have to do with the subject of the
interview for which Bertone traveled to Portugal on such an emergency
basis?
Notice also that the Bertone communiqu announces this new
detail with great excitementin italics, no less. Suddenly, Sister Lucy
was the reliable visionary again, as opposed to Cardinal Ratzingers
impressionable child who made things up from what she had read in
devotional books. Of course, this detail was a calculated distraction
from the issue at hand.
69 words: Sister Lucy denies press accounts that she is

very worried about recent events and that she can no
longer sleep and is praying night and day.
Again, this is beside the point. But at any rate, Bertones Lucy gives
this rather flippant answer: How could I pray during the day if I did
not rest at night? Obviously, no one had actually claimed that she
never slept at all. Another distraction.
Sister Lucy is said to have added: How many things they are putting
in my mouth! How many things they make me seem to do! Yes, but
who was it that was falsely putting words in Sister Lucys mouth and
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ascribed to her actions she had never taken? The objective witnesses
we have previously quoted, who spoke to Sister Lucy openly and during
unguarded moments, or the authority figures who surrounded Sister
Lucy during Bertones secret two-hour interrogation?
The reader will notice that Bertones Lucy never denied that she is
very worried about recent events. Who in his right mind would not be?
Most tellingly, she was never asked about her urgent letter to the Pope
(we mark this as the First Glaring Omission in the interview) or
her face-to-face meeting with Father Bianchi, during which, according to
Bianchi, she cast doubt on the Ratzinger/Bertone interpretation of the
Third Secret (this is Glaring Omission #2).
39 words: The effect the Fatima apparitions had on Sister

Lucys life.
What do these reminiscences have to do with the stated purpose of

the emergency secret interview in the convent? Sister Lucy had covered
this subject exhaustively in her voluminous memoirs. For this a Vatican
functionary traveled to Portugal for a two-hour encounter?
34 words: Sister Lucy denied that she has received any

new revelations.
Oddly enough, while Bertones Lucy denies any further revelations

from Heaven, in the same communiqu she declarescontrary to all
her prior testimonythat the 1984 consecration of the world has
been accepted in Heaven. (See her alleged words regarding this on
a later page in this chapter under the heading 21 words on the
Consecration of Russia.) How would she know this, absent any
new revelations?
12 words: Sister Lucy said the Carmelite community had

rejected the petition forms Father Gruners apostolate is
circulating for the Consecration of Russia.
What of it? What about the Consecration of Russia? Is it done or not?

Thus far we have accounted for 419 of the 463 words attributed to
Sister Lucy in the communiqus purported verbatim quotations. Only
44 words remain to deal with the questions being posed by millions of
Catholics.
Yes, incredibly enough, the loudly trumpeted Bertone communiqu
contains only forty-four words of Sister Lucy concerning the very
mattersthe Consecration of Russia and the disclosure of the Third
Secretthat supposedly prompted Bertone to travel all the way to the
convent in Coimbra on an emergency basis. Here is how the forty-four
words break down:
9 words concerning (so we are told) the Third Secret:

Everything has been published; there are no more secrets.
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The question that elicited this answer is not provided. Instead,

Bertones communiqu declares: To whoever imagines that some part
of the secret has been hidden she replied: followed by the nine
quoted words.
Replied to what? What exactly was Sister Lucy asked about the
Vaticans disclosure of the Third Secret? What was the full context of
the question and the answer? And why was Sister Lucy not asked the
one question millions of people around the world were asking: Where
are the words of Our Lady which follow the phrase In Portugal the
dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.? We mark this as
Glaring Omission #3.
Notice also that here, at the very crux of the matter, we are not
shown that Sister Lucy was asked even one precise question, such as:
What are the words of Our Lady following In Portugal the dogma of
the Faith will always be preserved etc?
Were any words spoken by Our Lady to explain the vision of the
Bishop dressed in White seen in the Third Secret?
Does the Third Secret include a separate text that explains the vision
of the Bishop dressed in White?
What did Sister Lucy say about the testimony of numerous witnesses
(including the Bishop of Fatima and Cardinal Ottaviani) that the
Third Secret was written in 25 lines of text, as opposed to the 62
lines of text in which the vision of the Bishop dressed in White is
written?
All such particulars are studiously avoided. We are not even given
the wording of the one question that was asked. This is Glaring
Omission #4.
14 words on the Ratzinger/Bertone interpretation

of the Third Secret: That is not true. I fully confirm the
interpretation [of the Third Secret] made in the Jubilee
Year.
Here Sister Lucy allegedly denied press reports that she expressed
doubts to Father Luigi Bianchi and Father Jose dos Santos Valinho about
TMFs interpretation of the Third Secret. Yet Bertone never asked Sister
Lucy about her letter to John Paul II, as reported by Father Bianchi,
nor does she deny that she met face-to-face with Father Bianchi at the
convent in Coimbra and that they discussed Sodanos interpretation of
the Third Secret.
We are thus expected to believe that Lucy agrees that the Third
Secret was fulfilled with the failed assassination attempt against Pope
John Paul II on May 13, 1981, even though her own letter to the Pope
on May 12, 1982a year latersays nothing about the attempt but
rather demolishes the Party Line by warning that we have not yet seen
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the complete fulfillment of the final part of this prophecy. And, once
again, in the same letter Sister Lucy makes no connection between the
assassination attempt and the Third Secret.
21 words on the Consecration of Russia: I have

already said that the consecration desired by Our Lady was
made in 1984, and has been accepted in heaven.
These words were allegedly uttered by Sister Lucy in answer to

the question: What do you say to the persistent affirmations of Father
Gruner who is gathering signatures in order that the Pope may finally
consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which has never
been done?
First of all, that the Secretary of the CDF would travel to Coimbra
to obtain comments about Father Gruner for publication to the entire
Church is a dramatic demonstration that the Vatican apparatus views
Father Gruners apostolate as a prime locus of opposition to the Party
Line.
Furthermore, what did Sister Lucy mean by the curious
affirmation that a consecration of the world was accepted in Heaven
as a consecration of Russia? Was Sister Lucy seriously claiming that
Heaven accepted a compromise imposed by Vatican diplomats? Since
when does Heaven accept a human substitute for a precise act that God
has commanded? Further, how would Sister Lucy know what Heaven
has accepted if, as Msgr. Bertone claims, she also said there have been
no new revelations to her?
Now, it may be that God accepts our refusal to comply with His
will in the sense that He will allow us the freedom to disobey Him
in this life. But that does not mean that what God has accepted is
pleasing to Him.
What is more, by saying that the act of consecration of the world
in 1984 was accepted, was not Sister Lucy saying nothing more than
that it was accepted in the same sense as the 1942 consecration by
Pius XII? Jesus said on the occasion of the 1942 consecration of the
world that it would shorten World War II, but Our Lord also explains
that it would not bring world peace because it did not fulfill the request
of Our Lady of Fatima concerning the Consecration of Russia. Was Sister
Lucy perhaps attempting to answer the question in a way that satisfied
her questioner, Msgr. Bertone, yet still signaling that while what was
accepted might confer some benefit on the world, it would not be
the period of world peace that the Virgin of Fatima promised if Her
precise request were honored? Indeed, where is the period of peace
She promised? That we have not seen it only demonstrates that even if
Heaven accepted the 1984 ceremony for what it was worth, Heaven
has not deemed that ceremony to be the fulfillment of Our Lady of
Fatimas specific request. No matter what the authority of Msgr. Bertone
and his Vatican collaborators, they cannot simply declare the existence
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of something that our own senses tell us does not exist: the conversion
of Russia and the worldwide epoch of peace that would follow a proper
consecration of that nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
In any case, we have already demonstrated abundantly that Sister
Lucy testified repeatedly, in widely reported statements, that the
consecration ceremonies of 1982 and 1984 did not suffice to honor
Our Ladys request, because on neither occasion was Russia mentioned,
nor did the world episcopate participate. According to the Bertone
interview, however, the witness has reversed her testimony, and now
testifies that the 1984 consecration ceremony has been accepted in
heaven.
What accepted in heaven means is anybodys guess. Did Heaven
decide to accept something less than what Our Lady of Fatima had
requested after negotiations between Heaven and Cardinal Sodano?
In any case, notice that Sister Lucy was not questioned about her
many prior statements to the contrary, and was not asked to explain her
purported change of testimony. This is Glaring Omission #5. We are
evidently supposed to assume that nothing Sister Lucy ever said before
carries any weight, and that only when she speaks in secret to Msgr.
Bertone does she tell the truth about this matter.
It is quite significant that Bertones Lucy does not tell us when,
where or to whom she has already said that the 1984 consecration she
once deemed unacceptable is now acceptable. Why such vagueness,
when Msgr. Bertone had every opportunity to nail down this issue
by eliciting specific testimony? Why did he not ask her, for instance,
to authenticate any of the various computer-generated letters which
began mysteriously to appear over her purported signature in 1989, the
letters which assert the consecration had been accomplished in 1984?
And this is most suspicious: As we have noted, TMF relies entirely
on one of these dubious letters, dated November 8, 1989, as proof that
the consecration has already been accomplished. We noted also that
this letters credibility was extinguished by its false statement that Pope
Paul VI consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart during his brief
visit to Fatima in 1967a consecration that never happened. Why did
Bertone make no effort to have Sister Lucy authenticate this hotly disputed
letter, when it was the only evidence cited in TMF?
Most telling in this connection is that Father Gruners Fatima
apostolate had published proof that the letter (whose addressee, Walter
Noelker, is not even revealed in TMF) is an obvious fake. The proof
was published in Issue No. 64 of The Fatima Crusader, of which there
were some 450,000 copies in circulation as of the date of the Bertone
interview in November of 2001.
Now Msgr. Bertone was surely aware that The Fatima Crusader had
exposed the fraudulence of the 1989 letter, yet he failed to ask Sister
Lucy to authenticate the letter and thereby deliver a serious blow to
the credibility of Father Gruners apostolate. This failure could not have
188
been an oversight, since an attempt to refute the position taken by

Father Gruner and his apostolate was the very reason Msgr. Bertone had
conducted the interview of Sister Lucy in the first place.
Why would Msgr. Bertone pass up a golden opportunity to use
Sister Lucy, his star witness, to refute Father Gruners claim that the
1989 letter was a fake? Obviously, because Msgr. Bertone must have
known that it was a fake, and thus he would not have dared to ask
Sister Lucy to authenticate it during the interview. We must mark this is
as Glaring Omission #6.
This, then, is the sum totalforty-four wordsof what Sister Lucy
was alleged to have said during a two-hour interview on one of the
greatest controversies in the history of the Church. We are asked to
accept these forty-four words from a closeted witness as the end of
the story of Fatima. These words are supposed to allay all the doubts,
questions and fears of millions of the faithfuleven though Russia has
manifestly failed to convert and the gathering forces of violence and
rebellion against God and His law loom larger by the day.
Suspicious Circumstance #4: No tape recording or transcript
of the interview has been made available.
Why has no transcript, audio tape, video tape or any other
independent record of the interview been produced in order to show
the precise questions Msgr. Bertone asked, the full answers Sister Lucy
gave, the sequence of the questions and answers, and any comments or
suggestions Msgr. Bertone and others might have made to Sister Lucy
during the more than two hours they were in the same room together?
Where is the give and take one always sees in published interviews?
Further, why did Msgr. Bertone require more than two hours to
extract forty-four words from Sister Lucy about the matters at issue?
Assuming it took Sister Lucy a full minute to utter those 44 words, what
did she say, and what did Msgr. Bertone, Father Kondor and the Mother
Superior say, during the remaining 119 minutes of the encounter? Was
Sister Lucy reminded of her duty of obedience? Was it implied that
the whole Church was depending on her to give the answers that would
end this divisive controversy? Was it suggested that loyalty to the
Holy Father required that she accept the Party Line, even though her
own purported 1982 letter to the Pope contradicts it? Was she told how
important it was to the Church that she assure everyone that Russia
has been consecrated, despite everything she has said to the contrary
throughout her life? Was she given the impression that to say otherwise
would be to contradict the Pope himself?
Or did Sister Lucy perhaps give many answers that were
unsatisfactory to her questioner, only to be asked the same questions
repeatedly and in different ways until she got the answers right? To
what subtle, or not-so-subtle, importuning was the witness subjected
during the two hours she was surrounded by imposing authority figures
189
in a closed room?
Surely, if there was nothing to hide Msgr. Bertone would have made
certain that such a crucial interview with the only surviving witness of
the Fatima apparitions, age 94 at the time, was recorded on audio or
video tape, or at least transcribed verbatim by a stenographer so that
the witness testimony could be preserved in case of her deathwhich
at her age was certainly very near (she died on February 13, 2005).
We would wager, however, that there is no recording, no transcript, no
independent record whatsoever of the Bertone interview. For it seems
there had been for the last 45 years of her life a terrible fear of allowing
this witness to speak at length, in her own words, in response to a series
of simple and direct questions. Every one of the forty-four words from
Sister Lucy which appear in the Bertone communiqu is carefully
measured out, as if from an eyedropper.
No doubt the risk of creating such a record was too great. What if
Sister Lucy consistently gave the wrong answers? What if the answers
she did provide had to be extracted through leading questions or subtle
persuasion by the interviewer or the others in attendance? What could
be done with a record that revealed such things? How could it be kept
from the public or only partially released? How could it be hidden or
destroyed once it was created?
We would be happy to be proven wrong. Perhaps there is a tape or
transcript of the entire two-hour session. But if there is, it will be most
telling if the Vatican never produces it. (As of December 2009, the tape
has never been produced.)
Suspicious Circumstance #5: The Italian communiqu purports
to be signed by both Msgr. Bertone and Sister Lucy, but the English
version drops her signature.
In the first place, why would Sister Lucy have signed Msgr. Bertones
statement in Italian about what she allegedly told him in Portuguese?
Why did Sister Lucy not make and sign her own statement in her own
language? If Sister Lucy really spoke with Msgr. Bertone for more
than two hours, why not simply prepare a faithful transcript of her
own words in Portuguese and then have her sign that, instead of Msgr.
Bertones self-serving communiqu?
Further, why was Sister Lucys signature dropped from the English
translation of the communiqu? In fact, to what document was her
signature actually affixed in the first placethe Italian communiqu
or a Portuguese original of the same document that has not yet been
produced?
Of what value, in any case, was Sister Lucys signature on a
document written in a language she does not speak, which partially
quotes her testimony, but only in Italian translation (Sister Lucy did not
speak Italian) and without setting forth the full questions she was asked
or the full answers she gave?
190
The inescapable conclusion is this: Msgr. Bertone and the Vatican

apparatus had no intention of ever allowing Sister Lucy to give her own
statement at length, entirely in her own words, about the major questions
which remain concerning the Message of Fatima. This is borne out by the
next suspicious circumstance.
Suspicious Circumstance #6: Sister Lucys published 303-page
book on the Message of Fatima completely avoids any of the subjects
supposedly covered in the secret Bertone interview.
In October 2001 the Vatican Library publishing house published a
book by Sister Lucy entitled The Appeals of the Message of Fatima. Sister
Lucys introduction to the book, which was reviewed and approved by
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, states that it is intended
to be an answer and a clarification of doubts and questions addressed
to me. The preface, by the current Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, likewise
observes that Sister Lucy had asked the Holy Sees permission to write
a book on Fatima in order to answer multiple questions in a global
manner, not being able to answer every person individually.
Yet despite the books stated purpose, its 303 pages fail to address
any of the prevailing doubts and questions about the Message of
Fatima. The errors of Russia, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, the
consecration and conversion of Russia, the period of peace promised
by the Virgin as the fruit of the Consecration, and the Third Secret
are not even mentioned in the book, let alone discussed. Not even the
vision of hell is mentioned in Sister Lucys discussion of eternal life
and seeking Gods pardon. In short, the book presents a thoroughly
expurgated Fatima message, stripped of every one of its prophetic and
admonitory elementsprecisely in keeping with the Party Line. The
version of Fatima presented in this book hardly required a Miracle of
the Sun to confirm it.
Now this is very curious: When Sister Lucy was allowed to write
a 303-page book to address doubts and questions concerning the
Message of Fatima, she said nothing about the doubts and questions
millions of people really have. Only when she was interviewed in
secret by a self-interested questioner, who happened to be an imposing
authority figure, was Sister Lucy allowed anywhere near these
doubts and questions. But even then her answers were fragmentary
and did not come from her directly, in her own language. Instead, they
were conveyed by Archbishop Bertone, who provided us with fortyfour relevant words out of two hours of conversation with his captive
witness.
Now let us sum up the suspicious circumstances surrounding the
handling of the key witness in the Fatima Case:
No one was allowed to speak to the witness without the permission
of one party to the case, who controlled all access to her, even though
191
we are told she had nothing further to say.

When doubts arose about official versions of the witness testimony,
she was subjected to a secret interview at the age of 94, conducted
by an imposing authority figure who then presented her fragmentary
answers to his questions in a communiqu to which her signature was
affixed, even though the communiqu was not in her own language.
One version of the communiqu purports to bear the witness signature
below that of her interrogator, but her signature was removed from
another version, on which only the interrogators signature appears.
The communiqu failed to provide the full questions asked and the
answers given by the witness, in their full context.
Out of 463 words attributed to the witness in the communiqu,
only 44 related to the matters in controversyout of two hours of
conversation!
No transcript or other independent record of the witness testimony
was provided.
The secretly elicited, fragmentary testimony contradicts many prior
statements by the same witness.
No effort was made by the witness, or by anyone else, to explain her
prior inconsistent statements.
During the secret interview of the witness, no attempt was made to
have her authenticate letters attributed to her whose authenticity
was clearly in doubt, nor was any effort made to authenticate the
very letter on which the interrogator himself had placed sole reliance
as proof of the witness alleged change of testimony (regarding the
Consecration of Russia).
The secret examination of the witness avoids any specific questions
about widely known major discrepancies in the case of which the
witness had peculiar knowledgeincluding the six glaring omissions
set forth here.
When the witness was allowed to publish an entire book to address
doubts and questions she had received regarding the Message of
Fatima, the book contains no references to any of the doubts and
questions that actually concern millions of people, which doubts and
questions are addressed only in a secret interview for which there is
no transcript or other independent record.
Archbishop Bertone, now Cardinal Bertone, is a man with a very
high office in the Church. With all due respect to his office, however,
nothing can overcome the reasonable doubts that these suspicious
circumstances and glaring omissions engender in reasonable minds. No
court on earth would accept the testimony of a witness fraught with so
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many indications of unreliability. Surely in the Church we could have

expected at least that measure of openness and disclosure a civil judge
would require. If there exists a video or audio tape of the interview, let
us hear the witness, for Heavens sake!
We must, in candor, state the conclusion that would be obvious
to any neutral observer of the mysterious handling of Sister Lucia
of the Immaculate Heart: There is every reason to believe that a key
witnessin fact the last surviving witnesswas being tampered with.
This witness tampering is another element of the major injustice of de
facto hiding the full Fatima Message and prophecies. Indeed, Antonio
Socci would cite the inexplicable suspiciousness of this interview as
part of the overwhelming evidence that led to his conversion to the
Fatimist position. As he wrote of the interview in his bombshell of a
book on the Third Secret controversy: The few words attributed to her
[Sister Lucy] are such as to not have objective credibility.315 As Socci
concluded, with devastating effect for the official account:
Let us reflect on this. Sister Lucia in November-December 2001
was a very old person, who lived in isolation from the world with
a prohibition on meeting anyone, who was bound to silence and
obedience and was not able to control the account of this meeting
and the words that were attributed to her.316
But why would Bertone perpetrate such a manipulation of the only

surviving Fatima seer and her precious testimony, less than four years
before her death on February 13, 2005? Beyond the apparent motive
already demonstratedthat of furthering at all costs the new orientation
of the Church, which collides with the Message of Fatimawe believe a
further motive exists. We base this conclusion on what we discussed in
Chapter 8: the express approbation in TMF of the views of Edouard Dhanis,
S.J.the neo-modernist debunker of Fatima. With the endorsement of
Dhanis as an eminent scholar on Fatima, Cardinal Ratzinger had made
it perfectly clear that he, with Dhanis, held that the prophetic elements
of the Message concerning Russia and so forthagain, what Dhanis
belittled as Fatima IIare little more than fabrications by a simple and
well-intentioned, but seriously misguided person.
As we noted earlier, TMF followed the line of Dhanis by stating that
the Third Secret itself may be largely a concoction: 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. If that were true of the Third Secret, it would also be true of
the entire Message of Fatima. What other conclusion could the Cardinal
have intended to suggest?
We recall also that the culmination of the Message of Fatimathe
triumph of the Immaculate Heartwas reduced to nothing more than
Antonio Socci, Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima], English ed., p.
117; popular ed., p. 82; Italian ed., p. 125.
316
The Fourth Secret of Fatima, English ed., p. 116; popular ed., p. 81; Italian ed., p. 124.
315
193
the Virgin Marys fiat 2,000 years ago. In like manner, TMF deconstructed
the Virgins prophecy that To save them [i.e. souls from hell], God
wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart.
Under Cardinal Ratzingers interpretation (which would surely please
Dhanis), devotion to the Immaculate Heart means nothing more than
acquiring an immaculate heart of ones own. To quote TMF again:
According to Matthew 5:8, the immaculate heart is a heart which,
with Gods grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore sees
God. To be devoted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means therefore
to embrace this attitude of heart, which makes the fiatyour will be
donethe defining centre of ones whole life. Cardinal Ratzinger
removed the initial capitals from Immaculate Heart in order to reduce
it to an immaculate heart that anyone can have by simply conforming
himself to Gods will. This exercise, however, removed every bit of the
Message of Fatimas explicitly Catholic prophetic content.
Here we arrive at the precisely additional motive in the former
Cardinals case: Disbelief or skepticism (at least before his elevation to
the papacy) concerning the authenticity of the Message of Fatima317an
attitude he shared with Dhanis, the only Fatima authority the Cardinal
cited. Thus, far from intending to perpetrate a fraud, the Cardinal may
have believed that the suppression of Sister Lucys full and unfettered
testimony was actually a service to the Church. If the Cardinal did not really
believe in the prophetic elements of the Message of Fatima concerning
the need for the consecration and conversion of Russia and the triumph
of the Immaculate Heart in our time, or the disastrous consequences to
the Church and the world in failing to heed these elements of prophecy,
he would have considered the suppression of these elements as the
protection of the Church from falsehoods that are troubling the faithful,
and upsetting the balance of the Roman Curia, to recall his own words,
however much Sister Lucy may have believed them to be true.
It is clear enough from everything the Cardinal himself said, that
the then-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, like
Dhanis, placed little or no credence in the testimony of Sister Lucy
that the Virgin requested the consecration and conversion of Russia in
order to bring about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in
the world. The Cardinal evidently did not believe that with the Miracle
of the Sun God authenticated this testimony beyond any doubt. What
other conclusion can one draw from the former Cardinals prominent
endorsement of the very theologian who attempted to debunk the
entire Fatima prophecy?
But then he owed it to the Church and mankind to be candid about his
317
It should also be noted, in defense of Cardinal Ratzinger, that in writing his commentary
in TMF he relied upon the credibility of the testimony of Msgr. (now Cardinal) Bertone as
to what exactly Sister Lucy had agreed to during the meeting of April 2000. Had Cardinal
Ratzinger had the benefit of the now-overwhelming evidence that Bertones testimony is
simply not reliable, and is, in fact, demonstrably falsesee, in particular, Chapter 14
Cardinal Ratzinger might have commented differently.
194
real intentions. It seems that the Cardinal may have shared the attitude of
other enlightened Vatican insiders who think that the simple faithful
are too naive to appreciate what is best for them. This may explain why
the Cardinal did not reveal his prejudices to the unenlightened, but
rather expected that everyone would trust his judgment.
Cardinal Ratzinger, speaking now as the Pope, has exhibited what
would appear to be a change of heart concerning the veracity of the
Fatima prophecies. He said in Brazil that Fatima is the most prophetic
of all Our Ladys apparitions in the 20th Century. In particular he also
states he hopes in the yet-to-take-place Triumph of the Immaculate
Heart (as we have shown in the preceding pages). Nevertheless it
seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Message of Fatima
remains in the custody of those who simply do not believe in it and who
wish to have done with it once and for all, as they set their sights on
the Vaticans new policies of ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, a
world brotherhood of religions and a civilization of love under the
guidance of the United Nations. This will become quite clear in Chapter
14, where we examine the leading role assumed by Cardinal Bertone,
now Vatican Secretary of State, in the Fatima affair.
It remains for us, however, first to examine more closely the evidence
pertaining to the actual contents of what is clearly a yet-to-be disclosed
text of the Secret, a text whose existence Bertones own words and
actions have subsequently confirmed.
Sunday, March 25, 1984,

4:00 p.m.: Pope John Paul
II venerates the Pilgrim
Virgin Statue inside St.
Peters Basilica in Vatican
City. His Holiness admitted
at that time that Our Lady
of Fatima was still awaiting
the Consecration of Russia
by the Pope in union with
all the Catholic bishops.
See LOsservatore Romano
article
photographically
reproduced on page XVI in
the photo section for more
details.
Chapter 12
The Third Secret Predicts: The Great
Apostasy in the Church after Vatican II
If, as seems to be the caseand as millions of responsible Catholics
believethere is more to the Third Secret than an obscure vision of the
Bishop dressed in White with no explanation by Our Lady of Fatima of
how it is to be interpreted, then in what would the missing part of the
Secret consist? We have already suggested an answer. In this chapter,
we develop the answer in some detail.
Every Witness Agrees

The testimony of every single witness who has spoken on the
question points to only one conclusion: the missing part of the Third
Secret of Fatima foretells a catastrophic loss of faith and discipline in
the human element of the Churchthat is, in short, a great apostasy.
Let us recall the testimonies on this point, which we first presented in
Chapter 4:
The Future Pope Pius XII - 1931

I am worried by the Blessed Virgins messages to Lucy of Fatima.
This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the
in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul.
Fr. Joseph Schweigl - 1952

I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning
the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns
the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would
have to be the continuation of the words: In Portugal, the dogma
of the Faith will always be preserved.
Father Fuentes (reporting the testimony

of Sister Lucy) - 1957
On December 26, 1957, with an imprimatur and the approbation
of the Bishop of Fatima, Father Agustn Fuentes published the following
revelations by Sister Lucy concerning the Third Secret:
paid any attention to Her message, neither the good nor the bad.
The good continue on their way but without giving any importance
to Her message. The bad, not seeing the punishment of God falling
upon them, continue their life of sin without even caring about the
196

message. But believe me, Father, God will chastise the world and
this will be in a terrible manner. The punishment from Heaven is
imminent.
Father, how much time is there before 1960 arrives? It will be very
sad for everyone, not one person will rejoice at all if beforehand
the world does not pray and do penance. I am not able to give any
other details because it is still a secret. ...
This is the Third part of the Messsage of Our Lady which will
remain Secret until 1960.
Tell them, Father, that many times the most Holy Virgin told
my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many
nations will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that
Russia will be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to
punish the world if we do not obtain beforehand the conversion of
that poor nation.
Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle
against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that
most offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for
him the greatest number of souls. Thus, the devil does everything to
overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way, the devil will
succeed in leaving souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders,
thereby the more easily will he seize them.
That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the
Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The devil
knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful
vocation drag numerous souls to hell. The devil wishes to take
possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to
lull to sleep the souls of laypeople and thereby lead them to final
impenitence.
Father Alonso - 1976

Before his death in 1981, Father Joaquin Alonso, who for sixteen
years was the official archivist of Fatima and had many opportunities
for speaking with Sister Lucy during those years, testified as follows:
318
Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, p. 704.
Third Secret Predicts: Apostasy after Vatican II
197
dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, ... it can be clearly

going to become obscure or even lost altogether.319
Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances? It
is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of the faith
communications Sister Lucy has had on this subject.320
Cardinal Ratzinger - 1984

[A]ccording to the judgment of the Popes, it [the Third Secret]
adds nothing different to what a Christian must know concerning
what derives from Revelation: i.e., a radical call for conversion; the
absolute importance of history; the dangers threatening the faith
and the life of the Christian, and therefore of the world. And then
the importance of the novissimi [the last events at the end of
time]. If it is not made publicat least for the time beingit is
in order to prevent religious prophecy from being mistaken for a
quest for the sensational [literally: for sensationalism]. But the
things contained in this Third Secret correspond to what has
been announced in Scripture and has been said again and again
in many other Marian apparitions, first of all that of Fatima in
what is already known of what its message contains. Conversion
and penitence are the essential conditions for salvation.321 (11
November 1984)
Bishop Amaral - 1984

Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the Secret with
catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to
deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent
is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is
continually diminishing in Europe.322
It is important to note that, as part of the general attempt to conceal

and suppress the truth about Fatima, Bishop Amaral was pressured
to withdraw his remarks shortly after they were made. But then, ten
years later, and then safely retired, the bishop casually reaffirmed his
Ibid., p. 687.
Ibid., p. 705.
321
Jesus magazine, November 11, 1984, p. 79; see the actual Italian text of the key part of
Cardinal Ratzingers interview in Jesus magazine photographically reproduced on page
352 of this book (in Appendix II), with our English translation provided in the text box on
page 353. See also Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol.
III, pp. 822-823; and The Fatima Crusader, Issue 37, Summer 1991, p. 7.
322
319
320
198
testimony in a public interview in 1995, adding a crucial bit of evidence:

Before I asserted in Vienna (in 1984) that the Third Secret concerned
only our Faith and the loss of Faith I had consulted Sister Lucy and first
obtained her approval.323 Thus, Sister Lucy herself indirectly confirmed,
yet again, that the true and complete Third Secret of Fatima predicts
apostasy in the Church.
Cardinal Oddi - 1990

It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The
Blessed Virgin was alerting us against the apostasy in the Church.
Cardinal Ciappi - 1995

Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, who was nothing less than Pope John
Paul IIs own personal papal theologian as well as the personal papal
theologian of his four predecessors, in a personal communication to a
Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg (Austria), revealed that:
In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the
great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.324
To this train of witnesses we must add two others who have spoken
more recently: First, Father Jos dos Santos Valinho, who is Sister Lucys
own nephew. Second, no less than the late Pope John Paul II himself.
Father Valinho - 2000

In a book by Renzo and Roberto Allegri entitled Reportage su
Fatima [Milan 2000], publishedprovidentially enoughvery shortly
before the disclosure of the Third Secret vision and the publication of
TMF, Father Valinho expressed the view that the Third Secret predicts
apostasy in the Church.325 Coming from the very nephew of the last
surviving Fatima seer, who had spoken to his aunt innumerable times
over the years, this opinion has substantial weight.
Pope John Paul II Has Twice

Revealed the Essence of the Secret - 2000 and 1982
As if all this were not enough, it is apparent that John Paul II revealed
the essential elements of the Secret in his sermon at Fatima on May 13,
1982, and in his sermon during the beatification ceremony for Blessed
Jacinta Marto and Blessed Francisco Marto at Fatima on May 13, 2000.
Indeed, in The Fourth Secret of Fatima Antonio Socci argues that these
papal revelations represent a compromise solution engineered by the
Vatican, according to which it was decided to reveal the missing portion
of the Third Secret indirectly through pointed references to verses 1, 3
CRC, December 1997.
See Father Gerard Mura, The Third Secret of Fatima: Has It Been Completely Revealed?,
in the periodical Catholic, (published by the Transalpine Redemptorists, Orkney Isles,
Scotland, Great Britain) March 2002.
325
Ibid.
323
324
199
and 4 of Chapter 12 of the Book of the Apocalypse. The idea, writes

Socci in an allusion to Scripture, was: He who can understand, let
him understand.326 In this way, the Vatican could assert (with a mental
reservation) that the Secret has been revealed in its entirety.
In 1982 John Paul II posed this question in his sermon at Fatima:
Can the Mother, Who with all the force of the love that She fosters in the
Holy Spirit and Who desires everyones salvation, can She remain silent
when She sees the very bases of Her childrens salvation undermined?
The Pope then answered his own question: No, She cannot remain
silent. Here the Pope himself tells us that the Fatima Message concerns
Our Ladys warning that the very bases of our salvation are being
undermined. Notice the striking parallel between this testimony and
that of Pope Pius XII, who spoke of the suicide of altering the Faith in
the Churchs liturgy, theology and Her very soul.
Then, on May 13, 2000, during the beatification ceremony, the Pope
issued this startling warning to the entire Catholic world:
Another portent appeared in Heaven; behold, a great red
dragon (Apoc. 12:3). These words from the first reading of
the Mass make us think of the great struggle between good and
evil, showing how, when man puts God aside, he cannot achieve
happiness, but ends up destroying himself.
The Message of Fatima is a call to conversion, alerting humanity
to have nothing to do with the dragon whose tail
swept down a third of the stars of Heaven, and dragged
them to the earth (Apoc. 12:4).
Mans final goal is Heaven, his true home, where the heavenly
Father awaits everyone with His merciful love. God does not want
anyone to be lost; that is why 2,000 years ago He sent His Son to
earth, to seek and to save the lost (Lk. 19:10).
In Her motherly concern, the Blessed Virgin came here to
Fatima to ask men and women to stop offending God, Our Lord,
who is already too much offended. It is a mothers sorrow that
compels Her to speak; the destiny of Her children is at stake. For this
reason She asks the little shepherds: Pray, pray much and make
sacrifices for sinners; many souls go to hell because they have no one
to pray and make sacrifices for them.
We have already noted that His Holiness cited Chapter 12 verses

3 and 4 of the Book of the Apocalypse, and that the reference in those
verses is commonly interpreted to mean one-third of the Catholic clergy
being swept down from their exalted state through loss of faith or moral
corruptionand we are seeing both among possibly even one-third of
the Catholic clergy today. Notice the exact coincidence of the Popes
sermon with Sister Lucys warning to Father Fuentes about how The
326
E.g., He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (Matt. 11:15)
200
devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful
vocation drag numerous souls to hell.
Therefore, it seems perfectly clear that Pope John Paul II was trying to
tell us that the Third Secret relates to the great apostasy foretold in Sacred
Scripture. Why did the Pope not say these things directly and explicitly, but
rather in a somewhat hidden manner, in language only the more learned
would grasp? Was the Pope trying to send a signal to the more astute about
what he thought was going to be revealed very soonnamely, the whole of the
Third Secret? As it turned out, of course, we received only the vision of the
Bishop dressed in White and the so-called commentary in TMF. Perhaps
the Pope recognized the strength of the resistance posed by Cardinal
Sodano and his collaborators, and hoped that he would at least be able
to disclose in his sermon the essence of the Secret in the hope that sooner
or later the whole truth would come out. Perhaps John Paul II did not feel
that he could speak freely, precisely because he had allowed himself to be
surrounded by clerics, religious, bishops and Cardinals whom he had later
discovered now to be untrustworthy but whom he felt unable to replace
(like King David felt regarding his general, Joab [2 Kings 3:26-39; 3 Kings
2:5]), who were still in office and who were undermining the Faith, who
were (and maybe still are) part of that one-third of the consecrated souls
swept down from their high stations by the devil. Perhaps the Pope either
did not know who they were, or he did know but did not think he could
speak out publicly and survive for long. (We recall here the sudden death
of Pope John Paul I.) Whatever the reason, John Paul II did not speak very
clearlyyet clearly enough that one can discern his meaning. As Jesus told
His disciples on one occasion: He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
In sum, a train of witnesses, from the future Pope Pius XII in the
1930s through John Paul II in 2000and indeed the currently reigning
Pope when he was Cardinal Ratzingeris unanimous on this point:
the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima pertain to a crisis of faith
in the Catholic Church, an apostasy, with grave consequences for the
whole world. Not a single witness has ever denied that this is what the
Third Secret portends. Nor did Sister Lucy ever correct any of these
testimonies before her death in 2005, even though throughout her life
she had not hesitated to correct those who misrepresented the contents
of the Message of Fatima.
A Compromise Solution?
Here we stress in particular the testimony of Pope John Paul II
that the Message of Fatima foretells a widespread loss of faith, and a
fall from grace among the Catholic clergy of various ranks, under the
malign influence of the tail of the dragon to which the Pope referred
at Fatima on May 13, 2000the very date on which Cardinal Sodano
announced the coming publication of the text of the vision of the
Bishop dressed in white on June 26, 2000.
Socci tells us that while Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II
201
had wanted to release the full text of the Third Secretincluding the
25 lines with Our Ladys own wordsthey were opposed by Archbishop
Bertone and Cardinal Sodano.
The Popes truly astounding reference to the dragon seen in
Chapter 12 of the Book of the Apocalypse led Antonio Socci to conclude
that John Paul II wished to reveal the entirety of the Third Secret, but
that a compromise solution was reached with Cardinal Sodano and
Archbishop Bertone whereby the still-unpublished portion of the Secret
would be revealed indirectly through John Paul IIs sermon at Fatima,
which clearly links the Fatima prophecies to apostasy in the Church by
pointed references to verses 1, 3 and 4 of Chapter 12 of the Book of the
Apocalypse. The idea, writes Socci in an allusion to Scripture, was: He
who can understand, let him understand.327
This indirect revelation of the missing text to those in the know,
combined with publication of the wordless vision, would permit them
[the Vatican bureaucracy] to say in [good] conscience that all of the Third
Secret had been revealed, but without an integral explicit publication
so as to avoid (in their opinion) a great shock to the Christian people,
sensationalistic broadcasts and a reaction of panic.328
Gateway to the Missing Text

Now, the first two parts of the Secret of Fatima say absolutely
nothing about apostasy in the Church. Likewise, the visional portion
of the Third Secret, concerning the Bishop dressed in White, says
absolutely nothing about an apostasy. If every witness says that the
Third Secret speaks of apostasy in the Church, yet those portions of the
Message of Fatima revealed to date, including the vision of a Bishop
dressed in White, say nothing about it, the inescapable conclusion
is that some portion of the Third Secret has been withheld. But what
precisely does this part of the Secret actually say about the coming
crisis of apostasy?
The logical place to begin is with the telltale phrase from Sister
Lucys Fourth Memoir; the phrase that the Vatican apparatus has been
at great pains to demote and obscure as if it were a mere footnote to
the Message of Fatima: In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always
be preserved etc. This phrase is the only evident reference to a coming
apostasy in the published portions of the Message (although we hasten
to add, that even without this phrase it would still be clear from all the
evidence that the Third Secret relates to an apostasy in the Church).
Here, and only here, the revealed portion of the integral Message of
Fatima touches upon the question of the dogmas of the Faith, and how
they will be preserved in Portugal.
And what would be the point of Our Lady mentioning the preservation
of dogma in Portugal if not to warn us that dogma was not going to be
327
328
Ibid.
202
preserved elsewhere in the Church? As we have earlier suggested, the

elsewhere is undoubtedly described in the words comprised within
Sister Lucys etc.
Given that the vision published on June 26, 2000 contains no
further words of Our Lady, it can only be concluded that the missing
words of Our Lady are found in the sound track, as it were, of the
Third Secret, in which Our Lady would explain the vision. The vision, it
would seem, is the end result of this catastrophic loss of faith: The Pope
and remaining hierarchy are being hunted down and killed outside
the half-ruined city of Rome, perhaps (we can only speculate since
the words of Our Lady are missing) after a nuclear holocaust. This,
indeed, fits perfectly with Cardinal Ratzingers admission in 1984 that
the Third Secret relates to dangers threatening the faith and the life
of the Christian, and therefore (the life) of the world. On the figurative
level, the corpses surrounding the Pope as he walks haltingly toward
the hill where he is executed by soldiers would represent the victims
of apostasy, and the half-ruined city the condition of the Church during
this time of apostasy.
That telltale etc in Lucys Fourth Memoir is, therefore, the gateway
to the missing text of the Secret in which precisely the dogmatic crisis
in the Church is foretold in connection with subsequent apostasy and
calamity for the whole world.
The Greatest Threat of All:

The Loss of Catholic Dogma
When Mother Angelica stated on national television on May 16,
2001 that she believes we didnt get the whole thing (i.e., the whole
Third Secret) because I think its scary, she was surely correct. There
is nothing more frightening than the danger of a widespread loss of
Faith in the Church, especially when the danger emanates from the
top as Cardinal Ciappi, Pope John Paul IIs own personal theologian,
said concerning the Third Secret. The result of this danger, if it is not
averted, will be the eternal damnation of millions of souls (maybe even
billions).329 And who knows how many have been lost already for lack
of the Third Secrets salutary warnings and advice?
The vision published on June 26, however, simply does not express
anything that frightening. The vision, in fact, expresses nothing so
terrible that the Vatican would have kept it under lock and key for
forty years. Indeed, Cardinal Ratzinger tells us that the Third Secret,
as represented by the vision alone, contains no great surprises. That
is because the surprises follow the still-hidden conclusion of the phrase
In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc
again, the very phrase the TMF commentary has removed from the
329
See the sermon of St. Leonard of Port Maurice and the introduction published in The
Little Number of Those Who Are Saved, The Fatima Crusader, No. 92 (May 2009), pp.
12ff; also on the web at http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr92/cr92pg12.pdf
203
integral text of Our Ladys words in Sister Lucys Fourth Memoir.

Now, when Pope John Paul II spoke of the very bases of our
salvation undermined in his Fatima sermon in 1982, he certainly
meant the undermining of the Catholic Faith. We know this from the
constant teaching of the Catholic Church. For example, the Athanasian
Creed says: Whoever wishes to be saved must before all else adhere
to the Catholic Faith. He must preserve this faith whole and inviolate;
otherwise he shall most certainly perish in eternity. The foundation of
our salvation is belonging to the Catholic Church and holding on to our
Catholic Faith whole and inviolate. The loss of this foundation must be
what the Third Secret concerns. Every witness said so, Pope John Paul II
said so, and the telltale phrase In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will
always be preserved etc. also said so.
As Our Lord warned us: What does it profit a man to gain the whole
world if he loses his own eternal soul? If a person loses his soul for the
new orientation of the Church; the New World Order; or the Masonic,
man-made One World Religion; it profits him nothing, for he will burn
in hell for all eternity. For this reason alone, the Third Secret is vitally
important to us. It could not be any more important, because it concerns
the salvation of our own individual souls. It also concerns the salvation
of the souls of the Pope, Cardinals, bishops, priests, and indeed of every
living person. Thus, the Third Secret concerns every man, woman and
child on the face of the earth, and particularly Catholics.
We recall again that in 1984 Cardinal Ratzinger admitted that if
the Secret was not published at least for the time being it was to
prevent religious prophecy from being mistaken for a quest for the
sensationala far cry from his claim in 2000 that, according to
Sodanos Party Line, the Third Secret culminated in 1981 with the
failed assassination attempt. Further, the Third Secret is a prophecy
that began to be realized in 1960, which Sister Lucy said was the
year by which the prophecy will be much clearer (mais claro). As
Frre Michel points out, a prophecy that starts to be realized obviously
becomes much clearer. The prophecy, therefore, started to be realized at
least by 1960. It is, therefore, a prophecy that tells us about our time. It
is a loving warning from Our Lady, and also advice on how to respond
to the clear and present danger in the Church.
Now let us look more closely at the essence of the Third Secret.
As the former Cardinal Ratzinger admitted 25 years ago (in 1984)
again, before Cardinal Sodano issued the Party Line on Fatimathe
Third Secret concerns, first of all, the dangers to the Faith. St. John tells
us what it is that overcomes the world: he says it is our faith. Therefore,
in order for the world to overcome the Church, it first has to overcome our
faith as Catholics.
The Third Secrets essence then concerns the worlds attempt to
overcome our Catholic Faith. As we have demonstrated abundantly in
the previous chapters, the forces of the world have conducted a major
204
assault on the Catholic Faith since 1960. There is simply no question

about this, based on the overwhelming evidence which we have only
outlined here.
Still more particularly, the Secret concerns the dogma of the Faith.
Our Lady of Fatima spoke about the dogma of the Faith always being
preserved in Portugal, not simply the Faith. Why did Our Lady focus
on Catholic dogma? Clearly, She did so because the Secret is a prophecy
that Catholic dogma, specifically, would be the target of those who
would attack the Church from within and without. As Our Lord Himself
warned us in Sacred Scripture: For false Christs and false prophets shall
rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible,
even the elect (Mk. 13:22). As the Arian crisis demonstrates, these
false prophets can include even priests and bishops. We can cite here
Cardinal Newmans famous description of that time in Church history:
The comparatively few who remained faithful were discredited and
driven into exile; the rest were either deceivers or deceived. In such
times of crisis, Catholics must adhere to the dogmas of the Faith.
What is dogma? Dogma is what has been infallibly defined by the
Church. Dogma is what Catholics must believe in order to be Catholic.
The dogmas of the Faith are what is contained in the solemn, infallible
definitions of the Magisteriumnamely, the Pope alone, speaking in
a way that clearly binds the Universal Church to believe in what he
is pronouncing, or an ecumenical council of all the Catholic bishops
presided over by the Pope which issues such binding pronouncements,
or those things taught by the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium of
the Church.
What is meant by the infallible definition of dogma? The word
infallible means cannot fail. Therefore, the definitions of the Faith,
solemnly defined by the Church, cannot fail. We know what the Faith is,
what the dogmas of the Faith are, by means of the infallible definitions.
If we believe and hold fast to these infallible definitions, then we cannot be
deceived in those matters so defined.
How do we know that a matter has been defined infallibly as an
article of the Catholic Faith? We know it from the manner in which the
teaching is presented.
Four Sources of Infallible Teaching

There are four principal ways Church teaching is presented to us
infallibly:
First, through the promulgation of creeds by the Popes and
ecumenical councils, which provide a summary of what Catholics must
believe in order to be Catholic.
Second, by means of solemn definitions containing such phrases as
We declare, pronounce and define, or some similar formula indicating
that the Pope or the Pope together with an ecumenical council clearly
intend to bind the Church to believe in the teaching. Such definitions
205
are usually accompanied by anathemas (condemnations) of those who

would in any way deny the defined teaching.
Third, the definitions of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium,
meaning the constant teaching of the Church in an ordinary manner,
always and everywhere, even if the teaching is never solemnly defined
by such words as We declare, pronounce and define... (One example
of this is the Churchs constant teaching, throughout Her history, that
contraception and abortion are gravely immoral.)
Fourth, there are definitive judgments of the Pope, usually
condemned propositions, which are those propositions a Catholic is
forbidden to believe. When a Pope, or a Pope and Council together,
solemnly condemn a proposition, we can know infallibly that it is
contrary to the Catholic Faith.
An example of a creed is the Profession of Faith promulgated by the
Council of Trent. We present it here, conveniently arranged in the form
of points, with the language unaltered:
I, N., with firm faith believe and profess each and every article
contained in the Symbol of faith which the holy Roman Church uses;
namely:
I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Creator of Heaven and
earth, and of all things visible and invisible; and in
one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the
Father before all ages; God from God, light from light, true God from
true God; begotten not made, of one substance (consubstantial) with
the Father; through whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and
was made incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was
made man.
He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, died, and was
buried; and
He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended
into Heaven;
He sits at the right hand of the Father, and He shall come again in
glory to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there will
be no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who
proceeds from the Father and the Son; who equally with the Father
and the Son is adored and glorified; who spoke through the prophets.
And I believe that there is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.
I confess one baptism for the remission of sins; and I hope for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
206
I resolutely accept and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical

traditions and the other practices and regulations of that same
Church.
In like manner I accept Sacred Scripture according to the meaning
which has been held by holy Mother Church and which She now
holds. It is Her prerogative to pass judgment on the true meaning
and interpretation of Sacred Scripture. And I will never accept or
interpret it in a manner different from the unanimous agreement of
the Fathers.
I also acknowledge that there are truly and properly seven sacraments
of the New Law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and that they
are necessary for the salvation of the human race, although it is not
necessary for each individual to receive them all.
I acknowledge that the seven sacraments are: Baptism,
Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Holy Orders,
and Matrimony; and that they confer grace; and that of the seven,
Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders cannot be repeated without
committing a sacrilege.
I also accept and acknowledge the customary and approved rites of
the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of these sacraments.
I embrace and accept each and every article on Original Sin and
justification declared and defined in the most holy Council of Trent.
I likewise profess that in the Mass a true, proper, and propitiatory
sacrifice is offered to God on behalf of the living and the dead, and
that the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of Our
Lord Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the
most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, and that there is a change
of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole
substance of the wine into the Blood; and this change the Catholic
Church calls transubstantiation.
I also profess that the whole and entire Christ and a true Sacrament
is received under each separate species.
I firmly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained
there are helped by the prayers of the faithful.
I likewise hold that the saints reigning together with Christ should be
honored and invoked, that they offer prayers to God on our behalf,
and that their relics should be venerated.
I firmly assert that images of Christ, of the Mother of God ever Virgin,
and of the other saints should be owned and kept, and that due honor
and veneration should be given to them.
I affirm that the power of indulgences was left in the keeping of the
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Church by Christ, and that the use of indulgences is very beneficial

to Christians.
I acknowledge the holy, Catholic, and apostolic Roman Church as the
mother and teacher of all churches; and
I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff, vicar of
Christ and successor of Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles.
I unhesitatingly accept and profess all the doctrines (especially
those concerning the primacy of the Roman Pontiff and his infallible
teaching authority330) handed down, defined, and explained by the
sacred canons and ecumenical councils and especially those of this
most holy Council of Trent (and by the ecumenical Vatican Council
I). And at the same time:
I condemn, reject, and anathematize everything that is contrary to
those propositions, and all heresies without exception that have been
condemned, rejected, and anathematized by the Church.
I, N., promise, vow, and swear that, with Gods help, I shall most
constantly hold and profess this true Catholic faith, outside which no
one can be saved and which I now freely profess and truly hold. With
the help of God, I shall profess it whole and unblemished to my dying
breath; and, to the best of my ability, I shall see to it that my subjects
or those entrusted to me by virtue of my office hold it, teach it, and
preach it. So help me God and His holy Gospel.
As for solemn and infallible definitions of Catholic dogma, one
recent example is the Apostolic Letter of Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus
(1854), infallibly defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of
Mary:
We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which
holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of Her
conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty
God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human
race, was preserved free from all stain of Original Sin, is a doctrine
revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly
by all the faithful.
Hence, if anyone shall darewhich God forbid!to think
otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and
understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has
suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity
of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs
the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in
words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he
330
The words in parenthesis in this paragraph are now inserted into the Tridentine profession
of faith by order of Blessed Pope Pius IX in a decree issued by the Holy Office, January 20,
1877. (Acta Sanctae Sedis, X [1877], pp. 71ff.)
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thinks in his heart.
Here we recall that in TMF Cardinal Ratzinger claimed that

According to Matthew 5:8, the immaculate heart is a heart which,
with Gods grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore
sees God. No, no, no! The Immaculate Heart is not a heart, but
the heartthe one and only heartof the Blessed Virgin Mary, Who is
the only merely human being Who was conceived without Original Sin
and Who never committed even the slightest personal sin during Her
glorious life on this earth.
Finally, there is the condemned proposition. A prime example of this
is the Syllabus of Errors of Blessed Pius IX, wherein this great Pope
enumerated the many errors of liberalism in the form of propositions
which he solemnly, definitively and infallibly condemned as errors
against the Faith,331 including proposition #80 (which we mentioned
earlier): The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself and
come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.
As we have shown, here too Cardinal Ratzinger appeared to
contradict prior Church teaching, telling us that the teaching of
Vatican II was a countersyllabus, which was an attempt at an official
reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789 and an effort to
correct what he called the one-sidedness of the position adopted by
the Church under Blessed Pius IX and Saint Pius X in response to the
situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French
Revolution 332 Making his apparent rejection of the solemn, infallible
teaching of Blessed Pius IX even more explicit, the Cardinal declared
that at Vatican II, the attitude of critical reserve toward the forces
that have left their imprint on the modern world is to be replaced by a
coming to terms with their movement.333 This opinion flatly contradicts
the teaching of Blessed Pius IX that the Church must not come to terms
with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.
This abuse of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception and
dismissal of the Syllabus as one-sided exposes the very core of the
post-conciliar crisis in the Church: an assault on the infallible definitions
of the Magisterium.
In Paragraph 6 of the Encyclical Quanta Cura which was issued with the Syllabus on
December 8, 1864, Blessed Pope Pius IX stated solemnly: Amid, therefore, so great
perversity of depraved opinions, We, well remembering Our Apostolic Office, and very
greatly solicitous for Our most holy Religion, for sound doctrine and the salvation of souls
which is entrusted to Us by God, and (solicitous also) for the welfare of human society
itself, have thought it right to raise up Our Apostolic voice. Therefore, by Our Apostolic
Authority, We reprobate, proscribe and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and
doctrines severally mentioned in this Letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly
held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned. (Our
emphasis) Taken from The Popes Against Modern Errors, (TAN Books and Publishers,
Rockford, Illinois, 1999) p. 21.
332
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, (Ignatius Press, San Francisco,
1987) pp. 381-382.
333
Ibid., p. 380.
331
209
Now, for the most part, this assault has been rather indirect. The
infallible definition is usually not directly denied, but rather undermined
through criticism or revision. The innovators in the Church are not so
direct and forthright to declare that an infallible Church teaching is
wrong. And, in their supposed enlightenment these innovators may
actually think they are deepening or developing Catholic teaching
for the good of the Churchagain, we are not judging their subjective
motivations. But the effect of what they do is obvious: the undermining
of the infallibly defined teachings of the Magisterium.
Another example of this undermining is the attack on the dogma
that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. The Tridentine
creed, quoted in full above, states: I shall most constantly hold and
profess this true Catholic faith, outside which no one can be saved
In Chapter 6 we show how, over and over again, the Magisterium
has solemnly defined the dogma that there is no salvation outside the
Catholic Church. Yet today, the dogma is denied and undermined by an
ecumenism which declares that neither the Protestant heretics nor
the Orthodox schismatics need return to the Catholic Church, because
this is outdated ecclesiology.334 And in many places today, the dogma
is directly denied, and in other places it is not directly denied but in
practice it collapses from insidious, repeated, indirect attacks and, as a
result, it is no longer believed and followed in those places.
It is undeniable that since Vatican II a host of novel notions has
been passed off in the Church as development of Catholic doctrine,
even though these novelties at least implicitly (and sometimes
explicitly) contradict (or at least undermine) the infallible definitions.
The idea, for example, that the Council document Gaudium et Spes
is a countersyllabus that counters the solemn condemnations of
Blessed Pope Pius IX335 undermines the whole integrity of the infallible
Magisterium. Such talk is an assault on the very credibility of the
teaching office of the Church, and is thus, in the end, an assault on
Catholic dogma itself.
There Cannot be
a New Understanding of Catholic Dogma
This post-conciliar attack on dogma through undermining as well as
implicit and explicit contradiction cannot be justified as a development
or new insight into dogma. As the First Vatican Council solemnly
taught: For, the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter
that they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might
guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the Apostles and the
deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth.336
Further, as Vatican I taught, there cannot be any new understanding
The Balamand Statement, No. 30, June 23, 1993.
See footnote 331 of this chapter.
336
Vatican Council I - 1870 A.D., see Denzinger (Dz.) 1836.
334
335
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of what the Church has already infallibly defined:

[T]hat understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually
retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there
must never be a recession [moving away] from that meaning under
the specious name of a deeper understanding.337
Thus, it is a matter of Catholic Faith that we believe that no new

doctrine has been revealed by God since the death of the last Apostle, Saint
John, and that no new understanding of doctrine has arisen because of
Vatican II or otherwise.
Therefore, this new doctrine or counter-doctrine we have heard
so much about since Vatican II can only be pseudo-doctrine. This pseudodoctrine is being taught very subtly. When pseudo-doctrine contradicts
doctrines that have been infallibly defined, then Catholics must cling to
the infallible doctrines and reject the new doctrines.
The dogma of the Faith cannot fail, but novelties can fail us. Men
can fail; lay people can fail; priests can fail; bishops can fail; Cardinals
can fail; and even the Pope can fail in matters which do not involve
his charism of infallibility, as history has shown us with more than one
Pope who taught or appeared to teach some novelty.
For example, Pope Honorius was posthumously condemned by the
Third Council of Constantinople in 680 A.D. for aiding and abetting
heresy,338 and that condemnation was approved by Pope Leo II and
repeated by later Popes. As another example, Pope John XXII, in the
14th Century (1333 A.D.), gave sermons (but not solemn definitions)
in which he insisted that the blessed departed do not enjoy the Beatific
Vision until the day of General Judgment. For this he was denounced
and corrected by theologians, and he finally retracted his heretical
opinion on his deathbed.
In the case of Pope John XXII,339 knowledgeable Catholics (in this
case theologians) knew that John XXII was wrong in his teaching about
the Particular Judgment. They knew that something was wrong with
John XXIIs teaching because it contradicted what the Church had
always believed, even if there had not yet been an infallible definition.
Vatican Council I, see Dz. 1800.
Through his negligence, Pope Honorius had been largely responsible for the spread of the
Monothelite heresy by asserting that there is only one will in Christ, the divine willan
error that implicitly denies that Christ is both true God and true man, although he
understood this in a Catholic sense, namely that there could not be a conflict between
the divine will and the human will of Christ. However, his formulation allowed the
Monothelite heretics to assert that there was only one will in Christ and that the Pope
agreed with them.
339
John XXII (1316 1334) was a very erudite Pope who condemned the Waldensians, Jean
Pouilly, Marsilius of Padova, and Eckhard, in 1331 and 1332. However, he preached that
the blessed departed do not enjoy the Beatific Vision until the day of General Judgment.
In 1333 he even wrote a booklet about it and sent it to the University of Paris. The King
of France called in the Inquisition and on January 3, 1334, the Pope submitted and on
his deathbed solemnly recanted, leaving the final decision to his successor, Benedict XII
(D.S. 1000).
337
338
211
Catholics who knew their faith in the 14th Century did not simply say:
Oh, the Pope has given a sermon, therefore we must change our belief.
Looking at the Churchs constant teaching that the blessed departed
enjoy the Beatific Vision immediately after Purgatory, the theologians
knew Pope John XXII was wrong, and they told him so.
As it turned out, the immediacy of the Beatific Vision was solemnly and
infallibly defined by John XXIIs successor in 1336. This placed the matter
beyond all further disputewhich is precisely why an infallible definition
was needed. The same is true with every other matter infallibly defined
by the Church. We can, and must, rely on these infallible definitions with
absolute certainty, rejecting all opinions to the contraryeven if contrary
opinions were to come from a Cardinal or even a Pope.
There are other examples of Popes failing. Even the first Pope, St.
Peter, failed, as shown in Sacred Scripturenot by what he said but
by the example he gave. Saint Peter refused to sit at table with Gentile
converts, in Antioch about 50 A.D. By shunning these converts he gave
the false impression that the First Council of Jerusalem was wrong
in its infallible teaching that the Mosaic ceremonial law, including
the prohibition against Jews eating with unclean Gentiles, was not
binding on the Catholic Church. This was the incident for which St. Paul
rebuked St. Peter to his face in public. (Gal. 2:11)
Another example is Pope Liberius in 357 A.D., who failed by signing
a Creed which the Arians proposed to him, leaving out any reference to
the Son being consubstantial with the Father. He did this after two years
in exile and under the threat of death. And he also failed (under duress
while in exile) by wrongly condemning and excommunicatingin
reality, only giving the appearance of excommunicatingSt. Athanasius,
who was defending the Faith in this matter. Liberius, the first Pope not
to be proclaimed a saint by the Church, was wrong because Athanasius
was teaching the Catholic doctrinethe true doctrine, the infallible
doctrinetaught infallibly by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. It was
that infallible definition, not the defective teaching of Pope Liberius,
that had to be followed in that case and must be followed now and
forever. Amen!
From these examples in Church history we learn that everything
proposed to us for our belief must be judged by those definitions. And
so if a Cardinal, a bishop, a priest, a layman or even the Pope teaches us
some novelty that is contrary to any definition of the Faith, we can know
that the teaching is wrong and that it must be rejected for the salvation
of our immortal souls. Yes, even the Pope can fail, and he does fail if he
expresses an opinion that is contrary to a solemn, infallible definition
of the Catholic Church. This does not mean the Church fails when this
happens, but only that the Pope has made a mistake without imposing
it on the whole Church. And, of course, if even the Pope can make a
mistake in teaching some novelty, then certainly Cardinals, bishops and
priests can make mistakes in their teaching and opinions.
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And so, when Our Lady speaks about the dogma of the Faith, She
indicates to us that the dangers threatening the faith and the life of
the Christian and therefore (the life) of the worldto recall Cardinal
Ratzingers admissionwill arise when solemn dogmatic definitions
of the Catholic Faith are contradicted or undermined; for it is these
definitions which are the very foundation of the Catholic Faith, and
therefore the foundation of our salvation, to recall Pope John Paul IIs
1982 sermon at Fatima.
To the objection that mere priests, or mere lay people, cannot
disagree with high-ranking prelates, or even (in the kind of extraordinary
case for which we have just given examples) the Pope, one must reply:
That is why the Church has infallible definitions. It is by measuring
any given teaching against solemn, infallible definitions that one can
know that a teaching is true or falsenot by what rank in the clergy
a person has. As St. Paul taught: But though we, or an angel from
Heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached
to you, let him be anathema. (Gal. 1:8) The faithful are to regard even
an Apostle as anathemaaccursed, cut off from the Church, worthy of
hellfireif he contradicts the infallible teaching of the Church. That is
why theologians were able to correct Pope John XXII (in 1333 A.D.) in
his erroneous teaching from the pulpit; and it is why Catholics today
can tell right from wrong teaching, even if they have a rank lower than
the prelate who is committing the error.
A prime historical example of this is found in the case of a lawyer
named Eusebius, who pointed out that Nestorius, a high-ranking
Archbishop in Constantinople, the highest ranking prelate after the
Pope, was wrong when he denied that Mary is the Mother of God.
Eusebius stood up in his pew on Christmas Day, during Mass, and
denounced Nestorius for preaching heresy. Yet all the high-ranking
priests and bishops had remained silent in the face of Nestorius
heresy. Thus, a mere layman was right and all the rest of them were
in error. The Council of Ephesus was called to hear the matter, and it
was solemnly and infallibly defined that Mary is the Mother of God.
And since Nestorius refused to recant, he was deposed and declared a
heretic. Nestorius was excommunicated!
To summarize, truth is not a matter of numbers or rank; truth is
a matter of what Christ and God have revealed in Sacred Scripture,
dogma and Tradition, what has been solemnly defined by the Catholic
Church, and what the Catholic Church has always taughttaught
always, not just since 1965!
The Disastrous Effects

of Tampering With Infallible Definitions
History likewise provides us with a prime example of what can
happen to the Church when even one dogma is contradicted on a wide
scale. The heresy of Arianism caused catastrophic confusion in the Church
213
from 336 A.D. to 381 A.D. After Arianism had been formally condemned
at the First Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., the Arian heretics reintroduced
it to the general public of the Catholic Church around 336 A.D. The
heresy eventually claimed about 90% of the bishops before it was finally
defeated about forty years later. In the resulting confusion and loss of
faith, even the great St. Athanasius was excommunicated by the Pope
in 357. Arianism was still in full bloom for some time between 360 and
380. The results were utterly devastating to the Church. However, by 381
Arianism had been defeated by the First Council of Constantinople.
The Arian crisis has much to teach us about the probable contents
of the missing text of the Third Secret. One reason the Arians were
able to succeed for a time, was that they successfully attacked a
dogma that had been solemnly and infallibly defined at the Council of
Nicea in 325that Christ is God from God, Light from Light, true God
from true God; begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father. This
solemn and infallible definition is in the Credo of the Council of Nicea,
which we say every Sunday at Mass.
The Arians overturned the definition by getting many of the
faithful to argue for replacing it with a false definition that was
not infallible. In 336 they replaced the Greek word Homoousion with
another word Homoiousion. The word Homoousion basically means
consubstantial with the Father. For God the Son to be consubstantial
with the Father, the Son must not only be God but the same one God
as the Father, so that the substance of the Father is the substance of
the Son, even though the Person of the Father is not the Person of the
Son. Thus, there are three Persons in one GodFather, Son and Holy
Ghostbut there is only one God, with one substance, in three Persons.
That is the mystery of the Trinity. The new word Homoiousion, however,
means of similar substance to the Father. Thus, the critical phrase
in the dogma consubstantial with the Fatherwas changed to of
similar substance with the Father or like the Father.
Thus the Arians brought about mass confusion in the Church by
adding one letter to the word Homoousion to create a new word with
a new meaning: Homoiousion. They attacked a solemn definition,
claiming that their new definition would be better than the solemn
definition. But, of course, the new definition could not be better than
the solemn definition, because the solemn definition of the Council of
Nicea was infallible.
By adding one letter to one word, the Arians got rid of an infallible
definition. This opened the way for the Arians and the semi-Arians,
leading to actual warfare. People were martyred, persecuted, driven out
into the desert, driven into exile over this one change to one infallible
dogma. St. Athanasius was driven into exile five different times by the
national conference of Egyptian bishops (and spent at least 17 years
in exile as a result). But he was right and the heretical bishops of that
Synod were all wrong.
214

Infallible Definitions Are Higher
than Any Learning or Rank in the Church
Why did Athanasius know he was right? Because he clung to the

infallible definition, no matter what everyone else said. Not all the
learning in the world, nor all the rank of office, can substitute for the
truth of one infallibly defined Catholic teaching. Even the simplest
member of the faithful, clinging to an infallible definition, will know
more than the most learned theologian who denies or undermines
the definition. That is the whole purpose of the Churchs infallibly defined
teachingto make us independent of the mere opinions of men,
however learned, however high their rank.
Now, in 325 A.D. the solemn definition of the Council of Nicea
was infallible, but many people then did not fully realize that solemn
definitions of the Faith were infallible. That is, at this time in Church
history the Church had not yet issued the solemn definition teaching
that the definitions of Faith are infallible. But in 1870 A.D., the First
Vatican Council solemnly and infallibly defined the infallibility of the
Churchs solemn definitions. Now we know, infallibly, that solemn
definitions are infallible. Once again: they cannot failever.
The Infallible Definitions

Are Under Attack in Our Time
In our day, therefore, there is no excuse for being taken in by heresy
and giving up the defense of solemn definitions. But that is precisely
what is happening today, just as in the time of Arius. Churchmen are
judging things in light of the Second Vatican Council instead of judging
the Second Vatican Council in light of the infallible definitions. They
have forgotten that the infallible definitions, not Vatican II, are the
unchanging standard by which one measures every doctrine, just as a
36-inch yardstick is the unchanging standard for measuring a yard. One
does not suddenly decide that the new standard for measuring a yard
is a 35-inch stick. Likewise, the Church cannot suddenly decide that
Vatican II is the new yardstick of the Faith.
And so we arrive again, after a more detailed examination, at the
crux of the Third Secret. This is why it begins with Our Ladys reference
to the dogma of the Faith. This is why Sister Lucy said the Third Secret
would be much clearer after 1960. And here it must be noted that we
are clearly living in the midst of the period of calamity the Third Secret
predicts. How do we know this? We know this from four facts:
The first fact is that the Third Secret is really the third part of one
secret. So we need to understand and read the Third Secret in context.
The Third Secret starts with the words: In Portugal the dogma of the
Faith will always be preserved etc. We also know the end of the Third
Secret which is Our Ladys words: In the end, My Immaculate Heart
will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will
215
be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

The second fact is, we know that the Third Secret is a prophecy;
that is, it is a foretelling of future events. We know this from Cardinal
Ottaviani who said this in 1955. We know the prophecy foretells that
dogma will be preserved in Portgual, and it is implicit that it will not
be preserved in other parts of Europe and possibly even the rest of the
world.
The third fact is, we know that the prophecy begins on or about
1960. We know this by deducing from Lucys comment that the Third
Secret, which foretells events still in the future, will be clearer in 1960.
Now why does a prophecy become clearer in 1960? Because by that
year enough events have happened so that when the prophecy is heard
in 1960 it would be more understandable than if it were heard before
the events of 1960 took place. Thus the Third Secret will be clearer
in 1960 because the prophecy begins to be realized or is about to be
realized in the year 1960. We now know that the Third Secret mentions
explicitly a council (see The Fatima Crusader, Issue 92, May 2009, pp.
7-11), as testified to by Father Dllinger, and Vatican II was announced
on January 25, 1959.
The fourth fact is, we know that we are living in the period of
the Third Secret because we know it started on or around 1960 (as
explained above) and we also know we have not yet arrived at the
consecration and conversion of Russia and the resulting period of peace
predicted and promised at the end of the Third Secret. Since we are
living after 1960 and we have not yet arrived at the period of peace,
therefore we are still living within the period of the prophecy of the
Third Secret.
The Second Vatican Council Announced in 1959

and the Councils Subtle Attack on Dogma
Now what we have seen since the Second Vatican Council is a
very subtle, indirect attack on the solemn definitions of the Church.
We have had a so-called pastoral council that refused to speak with
solemn definitions andin the view of someactually went against
certain solemn definitions. But the Council, as we have seen, wished
to be pastoral, to avoid solemn definitions, to avoid condemnations
of error, as Pope John XXIII declared in his opening speech. Well, what
is wrong with that? What is wrong is that by the subtle mistake of
refusing to make solemn definitions, the door is opened for a Council
to use language that could undermine existing solemn definitions
exactly this trick was used by the Arians in the Fourth Century in order
to bring about confusion in the Church. And they almost succeeded in
overcoming the whole Church.
This same process has been occurring again since the opening of
the Second Vatican Council. But the faithful have a remedy for the
problem: Vatican II is not authoritative to the extent it did not exercise
216
its supreme Magisterium, its power to define doctrine and its power to
anathematize error. Since it did not exercise this authority, everything
taught by Vatican II that had not been taught infallibly before Vatican
II has to be examined in light of the infallible dogmatic definitions and
teachings of the Catholic Church.
However, that is not what is happening today. What is happening
today is people are redefining the faith in light of Vatican II. It is
surely this process that Our Lady of Fatima speaks about when, going
right to the heart of the matter, She says that the dogma of the Faith
will always be preserved in Portugalbut clearly lost in many other
placestelling Sister Lucy that this warning must be made known by
1960, by which time the Council had been announced.
This conclusion is confirmed by Pope John Paul IIs sermons at
Fatima in 1982 and 2000. In 1982 the Pope said that the bases of our
salvation were being undermined. And in 2000, in his sermon during
the beatification of Blessed Jacinta and Blessed Francisco, Pope John
Paul II warned us about the dangers to our salvation today by telling us
that The Message of Fatima is a call to conversion, alerting humanity
to have nothing to do with the dragon whose tail swept down a third of
the stars of Heaven, and dragged them to the earth (Apoc. 12:4). Again,
where do we find this in the revealed parts of the Fatima Message?
Nowhere. It must, therefore, be in the Third Secret. The Pope is telling
us that the Third Secret concerns dangers to the Faith and that one-third
of the Catholic clergy in fact are working for the devil and therefore
dragging many of the faithful to hell.340
The Attack is From Within the Church

Now we will focus on yet another particular of the Third Secrets
essence. Pope John Paul II also pointed out that the attack on the Catholic
Faith is coming from within. He said in 1982: Can the Mother, Who
with all the force of the love that She fosters in the Holy Spirit and Who
desires everyones salvation, can She remain silent when She sees the
very bases of Her childrens salvation undermined? The word undermine
implies a weakening of the foundation of our salvation from within.
An external enemy of the Church attacks from without, an infiltrator
undermines from within. In the latter case, the attack is not expected
and everyones guard is down; the attacker is viewed as a friend.
So we have John Paul II telling us that the Catholic Faith is being
undermined from within (May 13, 1982: the very bases of Her
childrens salvation undermined) by the one-third of Catholic clergy
(May 13, 2000: one-third of the stars of Heaven).
We conclude this point by noting that there is another source from
340
See a traditional Catholic commentary on this Scriptural passage in The Book of Destiny
by Father Herman Bernard Kramer, (First edition 1955, republished by TAN Books and
Publishers, Inc., Rockford, Illinois, 1975) pp. 280-284. See also pages 120-121 in Chapter
9 of this book, The Devils Final Battle.
217
which we can glean this aspect of the Third Secret. In 1963 the German
publication Neues Europa revealed what was purported to be part of
the Third Secret: that Cardinal would oppose Cardinal, bishop oppose
bishop. We know that when asked whether the Neues Europa account
should be published, Cardinal Ottaviani, who also had read the Third
Secretwho had a very dry personality and was pretty much opposed
to most reported apparitionsexclaimed very emphatically: Publish
10,000 copies! Publish 20,000 copies! Publish 30,000 copies!341
Then we have the testimony of the late Father Malachi Martin that
the message of Garabandal contains the Third Secret or parts of the
Third Secret. Father Martin, who knew the Third Secret because he had
read it himself, and who also read the message of Garabandal, said that
because the Vatican chose not to release the Third Secret in 1960, Our
Lady had appeared at Garabandal in 1961 in order to disclose the Third
Secret. What is in the Garabandal message? The Garabandal message
says, among other things: many Cardinals, bishops, and priests are
on the road to hell and dragging many more souls with them. Notice
yet again the concept of dragging souls down into hell. The same
terminology appears in Sister Lucys remark to Father Fuentes that
The devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their
beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to hell,342 and in John Paul IIs
sermon on May 13, 2000, which refers to the scene in the Book of the
Apocalypse in which the tail of the dragon drags down one-third of the
stars of Heaven (Cardinals, bishops and priests).
While the Garabandal apparitions are not formally approved,
the Bishop with jurisdiction over Garabandalthat is, the Bishop
Personal testimony of retired Vatican Msgr. Corrado Balducci to Father Nicholas Gruner,
Christopher Ferrara and various other witnesses. This fact is also attested to by Marco
Tosatti in his book Il Segreto Non Svelato [The Secret Not Revealed], (Edizioni Piemme
Spa, Casale Monferrato, Italy, May 2002), p. 86.
Marco Tosatti writes: Father Mastrocola, director of a religious newsletter Santa
Rita, asked Cardinal Ottaviani the permission to reprint the prophecies made in Neues
Europa. The reply was encouraging, but in the light of the revealing of the secret
of June 26, 2000, embarrassing. Do it, do itreplied the Cardinal custodian of the
Third Secretpublish as many copies as you want, because the Madonna wanted it to
be published already in 1960. And of that text Vatican Radio also spoke in 1977 on the
occasion of the tenth anniversary of the trip of Pope Paul VI to Fatima. The text of Neues
Europa received great circulation and was republished even in the LOsservatore Romano
Sunday edition of October 15, 1978.
The Italian original is as follows: Padre Mastrocola, direttore di un foglio religioso,
Santa Rita, chiese al cardinale Ottaviani il permesso di riprendere lanticipazione fatta
da Neues Europa. La risposta fu incoraggiante, ma alla luce dello svelamento del
segreto del 26 giugno 2000, imbarazzante. Fatelo, fatelo purerispose il porporato
custode del terzo segretopubblicatene quante copie vi pare, perch la Madonna voleva
che fosse reso noto gi nel 1960. E di quel testo parl anche la Radio Vaticana nel 1977,
nel decennale del viaggio di Paolo VI a Fatima. Il testo di Neues Europa conobbe grande
fortuna, e venne ripreso persino il 15 ottobre 1978 dall Osservatore della Domenica.
342
See Francis Alban, Fatima Priest, First Edition, (Good Counsel Publications, Pound Ridge,
New York, 1997) Appendix III, A Prophetic Interview with Sister Lucy of Fatima, p. 312.
See also The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. III, pp. 503-510 for the text of this interview
together with further explanations by Frre Michel.
341
218
of Santandersaid that nothing in the message was contrary to the

Catholic Faith.
The Attack Includes Bad Practices

As Well As Bad Doctrine
Here it must be noted that whether a member of the clergy (or the
laity) is good or bad is not determined solely by whether he verbally
upholds or does not uphold the Faith. Besides comparing the teaching
(i.e. the words) of a priest, a bishop, a Cardinal or the Pope to the
infallible teaching of the Magisterium, one needs to see if the person
is also upholding the orthodox practices of the Catholic Church by his
words (written and spoken), by his actions and by the Christian conduct
of his life. One needs to know if the person (priest, bishop, Cardinal
or Pope) is engaging in heteropraxispractices contrary to the Faith
such as disrespect for the Blessed Sacrament.
The Faith can be attacked by actions done in either an obvious or
a subtle manner. Our actions must support our words. We uphold the
Faith by upholding the doctrines in our thoughts, words, and writings
and also by upholding the pious practices of the Church that support
our adherence to the Faith. By introducing novel practices into the local
parish (or the local diocese or the local ecclesiastical province, or even
into the Universal Church as Catholic Doctors have written is possible
to happen) that give the impression that the defined Faith is not to be
believed, one scandalizes the little ones and even some learned souls
by this heteropraxis.
For example, we know by the solemn definitions of the Council of
Trent that God guarantees to us that the consecrated Host is indeed
His Real Presencethat is, really present in the Blessed Sacrament is
the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, together with His Soul
and Divinity. Now, the Protestant rebels wanted to deny this article
of the Faith and they wanted to influence others to do the same. So
they reintroduced the practice of Communion in the hand (it had been
originally introduced as a widespread practice by the Arian heretics of
the Fourth Century to deny that Jesus is God). By this symbolic action,
their denial would be clear to all.
Heteropraxis has been used in our day by the enemies of the
Church to scandalize many Catholics into losing their Faith in the Real
Presence. That is why the abuse of Communion in the hand forbidden
by the universal law of the Church for many centuries and still
forbidden by the law of the Church to this day is widely promoted.
The recent indult [i.e. permission] to go against the letter of the law is
only allowed if this practice does not lead to the lessening of the Faith
in the Real Presence and does not lead to less respect for the Real
Presence. But the actual practice of Communion in the hand always
does, as we can see from our own everyday experience with this form
219
of heteropraxis.343
The practices which uphold orthodox doctrine, on the other
hand, are referred to as orthopraxis (i.e. orthodox Catholic practices).
These include: genuflecting in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament,
distributing/receiving Communion on the tongue, maintaining
the tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament as the primary focus of
attention (and worship) in the center of the sanctuary; and the solemn
behavior of the clergy within the sanctuary,344 showing due reverence
to the Presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament. These examples of
orthopraxis (orthodox actions upholding the Faith) testify to the truth
of the dogma that the Blessed Sacrament is the Real Presence of God
the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the
appearance of breadas well as the proper respect of man to God.
Examples of heteropraxis against the dogma of the Real Presence
include Communion in the hand. This form of heteropraxis conveys the
erroneous message to the faithful that the Blessed Sacrament is just not
that important, that It is just bread, and promotes the heresy that It is
not the Real Presence of Godthe Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our
Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread. Another example of
heteropraxis in this area is the permanent removal of the tabernacle with
the Blessed Sacrament from the sanctuary to a side room or broom closet,
so that the primary focus of attention (and worship) in the sanctuary
becomes the chair of the celebrant or Presider over the assembly.
The message is subtly given, and received, that the person sitting in
the chair is more important than the Blessed Sacrament. And since the
Presider (or president of the assembly) represents the people, then
subtly the message is given that God is less important than the people.
These examples remind us yet again of the words of Pope Pius XII,
quoted earlier:
Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of the errors of
Russia mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most
visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the
Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation ... I am worried by
the Blessed Virgins messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence
of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine
warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy,
Her theology and Her soul. ... I hear all around me innovators who
wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame
of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse
for Her historical past.... A day will come when the civilized world
will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted.
She will be tempted to believe that man has become God ... In our
See Fatima Priest, Editions 1 and 2, Appendix V, Regarding Communion in the Hand.
See also The Fatima Crusader, Issue 28, June-July 1989, pp. 33ff, 34ff, 36ff; The Fatima
Crusader, Issue 29, September-November 1989, p. 16; and The Fatima Crusader, Issue 7,
Spring 1981, p. 11.
344
See Sanctuary, on page 379.
343
220

churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where
God awaits them, like Mary Magdalene weeping before the empty
tomb, they will ask, where have they taken Him?345
From Pius XIIs words, it seems then that these above-mentioned

forms of heteropraxis against the Blessed Sacrament were explicitly
mentioned in the Third Secret of Fatima, because while Pius XII relates
them to the Fatima Message, they are not mentioned in any part of the
Message that has been published. That is why they must be mentioned
in the Third Secretthat is, the part that is not yet published. Pius XII
clearly says that it is Our Lady of Fatima who warns us against the
suicide of altering the Faith in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul.
Therefore, the Third Secret warns us about both false doctrine and
heteropraxis as attacks upon the dogma of the Faith.
The Attack Includes the

Moral Corruption of the Clergy Which We Now Witness
As we have seen, with the eruption of a massive, worldwide
scandal involving the sexual misconduct of members of the priesthood,
there is a third line of attack on the Church during this time of great
crisis: the moral corruption of many consecrated souls. The tail of the
dragon sweeps souls from the heavensdown from their consecrated
statenot only through heterodoxy and heteropraxis, but also through
immorality. Let us recall the statements of Sister Lucy to Father Fuentes:
The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He
tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of lay people
and thereby lead them to final impenitence. That which afflicts
the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall
of religious and priestly souls. The devil knows that religious and
priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous
souls to hell.
Today we see widespread corruption among the Catholic clergy

which is now being manifested in sexual scandals of an unspeakable
nature in dioceses throughout North America, Europe and Africa. The
tail of the dragon has dragged many members of the clergy down into
the rankest forms of immorality.
As a result, the credibility of the many priests who do honor
their vows and keep the faith is being destroyed, along with the very
credibility of the Church as an institution. Even if there is good doctrine
and good practice, the benefits of these often are negated when moral
corruption undermines the credibility of the Church.
Who Is Responsible?
Now the question arises: But who is identified in the Third Secret as
being responsible for the undermining of the Faith through heterodoxy,
345
Pope Pius XII, quoted in the book Pie XII Devant LHistoire, pp. 52-53.
221
heteropraxis and the moral corruption and fall of consecrated souls? First
of all, it is members of the Vatican apparatus itself. We note again the
revelation of Cardinal Ciappi, Pope John Paul IIs official papal theologian,
that In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great
apostasy in the Church will begin at the top. Thus, the responsibility lies
first and foremost with men in the Vatican. In this, we see the fulfillment
not only of the Third Secret, but also the warning of St. Pius X in his 1907
encyclical Pascendi, wherein he writes: The partisans of error are to be
sought not only among the Churchs open enemies; but ... in Her very
bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. These
enemies are lay people, priests and bishops thoroughly imbued with the
poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and who put
themselves forward as reformers of the Church.346
St. Pius X insists:
The Church has no greater enemies. For they put into
operation their designs for Her undoing, not from without but
from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins
and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the
very fact that their knowledge of Her is more intimate.347
They seize upon professorships in the seminaries and
universities, and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence.348
It is time to tear away the mask from these people and to
show them to the Church such as they are.349
But then it will be asked: How do we know which of the clergy are
part of the one-third of the stars alluded to by Pope John Paul II; how
do we know who the partisans of error are? The answer again lies in
what has been infallibly defined. Those who uphold the Faith, who hold
fast to the doctrine of Jesus, are friends. (Apoc. 12:17) Those who do
not are foes. As Our Lord said, By their fruits you shall know them.
(Mt. 7:16) One can tell whom to trust by whether they are upholding
the Catholic Faith as defined by the solemn definitions. Another sign is
that they are living their Catholic Faith as well.
In conclusion, when Pope Paul VI lamented in 1967 that the smoke
of Satan has entered the Church and in 1973 that the opening to
the world has become a veritable invasion of the Church by worldly
thinking he was only confirming the contents of the Third Secret; so was
Pope John Paul II in his more veiled statements in 1982 and 2000. The
second part of the Great Secret of Fatima warns of the spread of Russias
errors throughout the world. The Third Secret, in its full contents, is
surely a warning that those errors will infiltrate the Church Herself, and
especially taking hold through the opening to the world at Vatican II.
Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, para. no. 2.
Ibid., no. 3.
348
Ibid., no. 61.
349
Ibid., no. 3.
346
347
222
The infiltration of the Catholic Church by Masonic, Communist, neomodernist and homosexual elements is seen in the ruinous results of
their activities and the loss of faith among Catholics in the pew.
To those who scoff at the claim that such a disaster has befallen the
Church in our time, we can only say that they are blind, and that they
have ignored the Churchs own history, which shows that something
very similar has happened before. We alluded earlier to Cardinal
Newmans description of the state of the Church during the Arian
heresy. A more extended quotation from that description, found in his
book On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, suffices to prove
that the state of affairs in the Church today is not without precedent:
The body of bishops failed in their confession of the Faith. They
spoke variously, one against another; there was nothing, after Nicea,
of firm, unvarying, consistent testimony, for nearly sixty years. There
were untrustworthy Councils, unfaithful bishops; there was weakness,
fear of consequences, misguidance, delusion, hallucination, endless,
hopeless, extending into nearly every corner of the Catholic Church.
The comparatively few who remained faithful were discredited and
driven into exile; the rest were either deceivers or deceived.350
The point of Cardinal Newmans book was that it was the laity,
clinging to the defined dogma of the Faith, along with a few good
priests and bishops such as Saint Athanasius, who kept the Faith alive
during the Arian crisis. So it is today.
But one of the great differences between the Arian crisis and the
current crisis in the Church is that the Virgin Mary not only gave us a
warning many years in advance of the current crisis, but also the means
to avoid it by following Her requests at Fatima. To have deprived the
Church of the warning contained in the Third Secret, to have covered
up the prophecy of apostasy that implicates the very men who have
imposed a ruinous new orientation upon the Church and allowed Her
to be invaded by the enemy, to have thus prevented the faithful from
understanding the cause of it all and arming themselves against it, is
another key element of the great and terrible injustice against God and
all the faithful of the Catholic Church.
Yet the cover-up had not entirely succeeded. Disbelief in the
completeness of the purported disclosure of the Third Secret was
widespread and growing in the years following publication of the vision
alone in 2000. And by the breakthrough year of 2006, the evidence
for the existence of a second distinct text pertaining to the Secret,
the soundtrack of the vision, had become overwhelming. Before we
undertake a discussion of the breakthrough for Fatima that occurred
in 2006, a final systematic review of the evidence for the existence of a
second text is in order. That is the subject of the next chapter.
350
John Henry Newman, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, (Kansas City,
Sheed and Ward, 1961) p. 77.
Chapter 13
The Third Secret Consists of
Two Distinct Texts
Even before the breakthrough year of 2006 and the rapid-fire series
of events that have followed since, knowledgeable Catholics the world
over simply did not believe that a wordless and rather obscure vision of
a Bishop dressed in White could be all there was to a secret the Vatican
had kept under lock and key for forty years. When Mother Angelica
declared on live TV in 2001 that we didnt get the whole thing, she
was expressing the conviction of millions of Catholics that there had to
be another text, a companion to the vision which tells us how and why
a Pope comes to be executed by soldiers outside a half-ruined city filled
with cadavers. For these faithful Catholics, it was inconceivable that Our
Lady of Fatima could have failed to explain the vision to the Church and
the world, leaving it to Vatican Cardinals to concoct a patently untenable
proposed interpretation 83 years after the Fatima apparitionsan
interpretation ludicrously suggesting that the clearly apocalyptic scene
in the vision represented John Paul II escaping death at the hands of a
would-be assassin, and then living on for another 24 years.
Let us briefly review evidence for the existence of two texts as it
stood before 2006. It was indeed this body of evidence that led Antonio
Socci to recognize that the Fatimists were right, and to change his
mind completely. Later he was given the irrefutable testimony of the
still-living eyewitness, Archbishop Capovillathe personal secretary
to Pope John XXIII. Armed with all this information and more, he
published his breakthrough book in that year, declaring his conviction
that the Vatican has suppressed a second text pertaining to the Secret.
We note, first of all, that even before 2006 the best witness in
support of the claim that something had to be missing was, ironically
enough, Cardinal Ratzinger himself, speaking in 1984 in the Jesus
magazine interview we have already discussed in depth. From 2000
to 2006 people continued to ask: What had happened to the religious
prophecy the Cardinal had mentioned back then, concerning dangers
threatening the faith and the life of the Christian, and therefore (the
life) of the world? What about his statement in 1984 that the things
contained in this Third Secret correspond to what has been announced
in Scripture and has been said again and again in many other Marian
apparitions, beginning with that of Fatima itself in its [already] known
contents? Nothing in the vision of the Bishop dressed in White repeats
what has been said in many other Marian apparitions, for in this vision
Mary says nothing at all. And if, as Cardinal Ratzinger in 2000 was then
224
claiming, the Bishop dressed in White was Pope John Paul II escaping
death in 1981, why had Cardinal Ratzinger in 1984 not simply revealed
this and declared the Third Secret to have been fulfilled?
Furthermore, as we noted in Chapter 4, the existence of two
documentsone being a letter 25-lines long written on a single sheet of
paper and sealed in an envelope, the other being 62-lines long written
in a notebook that Sister Lucy turned over along with the envelope
was clearly suggested by the testimony of numerous credible witnesses,
including Sister Lucy herself. The leading source in this regard was
(and still is) Frre Michels massive study The Whole Truth About Fatima
- Volume III: The Third Secret. The 20,000 copies of the French edition
of Volume III were published in 1985 and 1986 (after more than 4 years
of research), and 50,000 copies of the English edition were published
in 1990 and another 25,000 were printed in 2001. To our knowledge
this book has never been questioned as to either the authenticity or
thoroughness of its research. Volume III alone has over 1,150 footnotes,
citing numerous documents, witnesses, and testimonies. Likewise, Frre
Michels sources and his own testimonies have never been questioned.
Thus, Frre Michel himself must be considered a key witness.351
Here we must recall, as Frre Michel documents, what Sister Lucy
wrote to Bishop da Silva on January 9, 1944:
Examination of the original Portuguese reveals that Sister Lucy means

to say that the Secret proper is in the envelope,353 and that the envelope
is in one of her notebooks which she also consigned to Archbishop
Manuel Maria Ferreira da Silva (the Archbishop of Gurza) for carrying
to Bishop Jos Alves Correia da Silva of Fatima in June of 1944. As Frre
In some proofs, we are dealing with circumstantial evidence. There are two reasons for
this: (1) over 5,000 original documents in 24 volumes compiled by Father Alonsothe
result of 11 years of research by Father Alonso, then the official archivist of Fatimahave
been prevented from being published since 1976 (though two were later published in
heavily-edited form) by religious authorities (i.e. the Bishop of Fatima and the Provincial
of the Claretians based at Madrid, Spain), and (2) the continued imposition of a regime
of silence upon Sister Lucy (in force since 1960) until her death in 2005, even though we
were told in 2000 she had nothing further to reveal.
352
Quoted by Father Alonso, Fatima 50, October 13, 1967, p. 11. See also Frre Michel de la
Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima (hereafter, WTAF) - Vol. III: The Third Secret,
(Immaculate Heart Publications, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A., 1990, republished in 2001)
pp. 46-47. See also footnote 61 in this book.
353
The text in Portuguese is as follows: J escrevi o que me mandou: Deus quis provarme um pouco (,) mas afinal era essa a sua vontade: Est lacrada dentro dum envelope
e este dentro dos cadernos... Cited in Father Alonso, O Segredo de Fatima, Fatima
50, October 13, 1967, p. 11. Our own translation from the above Portuguese text is as
follows: Now I wrote what Your Excellency ordered me [to write]: God wanted to try
me a little (,) but finally this was His will: It [the part of the Secret that I did not give
before] is sealed inside an envelope and this [envelope] [is] inside the notebooks. This
translation depends on the context of Father Alonsos above-mentioned article. This is
further explained in footnote 61.
351
The Third Secret Consists of Two Distinct Texts
225
Michel notes:
The seer discreetly handed the Bishop of Gurza the notebook
in which she had slipped the envelope containing the Secret. That
same evening, the bishop placed the envelope into the hands of
Bishop da Silva ...354
But what happened to the notebook? Surely it contains some text

relevant to the Third Secret. Why else would Sister Lucy have entrusted
both the sealed envelope and the notebook to the Bishop of Fatima?
Even before the decisive revelations of 2006-2007 the evidence pointed
unmistakably to the existence of a text from Sister Lucys notebook as
one of two texts pertaining to the Secret.
The table on the next page sets forth ten facts pointing to the
existence of two manuscripts for the Third Secret of Fatima: one in
the envelope, containing the words of Our Lady, and another in the
notebook, probably containing the vision of the Bishop dressed in
White which was revealed on June 26, 2000. We will examine these
facts in the subsequent sections. We must emphasize at the outset,
however, that one cannot discount the possibility that the text in the
envelope has been lost or destroyed and that it may never be produced
in its original form.
Fact #1:
Supporting Documentation for Fact #1
Text #1 Contains the Words of Our Lady
In Chapter 4 we noted the Vatican announcement in the February
8, 1960 communiqu of the Portuguese news agency A.N.I. (at Rome),
which admits that the text of the Third Secret (i.e. Text #1 referred to
in the table) contains the actual words of Our Lady:
It has just been stated, in very reliable Vatican circles, to the
representatives of United Press International, that it is most likely
that the letter will never be opened, in which Sister Lucy wrote
down the words which Our Lady confided as a secret to the three
little shepherds in the Cova da Iria.355
We also have Sister Lucys own testimony that the Third Secret
contains Our Ladys actual words, not simply a wordless vision. Frre
Michel reports:
... in her third Memoir, written in July-August, 1941, Sister
Lucy had been content to mention the existence of a third part of
the Secret, but as yet she had said nothing about it. A few months
later, in her fourth Memoir, written between October-December,
1941, she decided to say more. She recopied almost word for word
354
355
WTAF - Vol. III, p. 49.

Quoted by Father Martins dos Reis, O Milagre do sol e o Segredo de Fatima, pp. 127-128.
Cf. Father Joaquin Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, (Centro Mariano, Madrid,
Spain, 1976) pp. 55-56. See also WTAF - Vol. III, p. 578.
226
Third Secret Text #1

Alluded to by Various Witnesses
(see Chapter 4)
Third Secret Text #2

Published by the Vatican
June 26, 2000
(1)
Text contains words of Our Lady.
Text does not contain any words of

Our Lady.
(2)
Text transferred to Holy Office - April Text transferred to Holy Office - April
16, 1957.356
4, 1957.
(3)
25 lines of text.
62 lines of text.
(4)
Text was ready on January 9, 1944.
Text was ready and dated on January

3, 1944.
(5)
Pope John Paul II read the text in Pope John Paul II read the text on July
October 1978, a few days after his 18, 1981.
election on October 16, 1978.357
(6)
Pope John Paul II consecrated the This text was not read by Pope John
world on June 7, 1981 after reading Paul II prior to his act of consecrating
the text in 1978 but before reading the the world on June 7, 1981.
62-line text which he only read on July
18, 1981.
(7)
Written in letter form (addressed and Not written in letter form (not
signed, possibly on letter paper).
addressed or signed), but as an entry
in Sister Lucys notebook. Clearly
written on notebook paper.
(8)
Stored by Pope Pius XIIs bedside. Stored in the Holy Office building.
Stored in the desk called Barbarigo
in the papal bedroom by John XXIII.
(9)
This text has margins on each side of This text has no margins.
three quarters of a centimeter.
(10)
Explains the vision.
Describes the vision.
356 357
The book by Father Alonso, The Secret of Fatima: Fact and Legend, first published in
Spanish in 1976 and republished in English in 1979, while he was still alive, affirms as
a fact that the Third Secret was received by the Vatican on April 16, 1957. Frre Michel,
citing Fr. Alonso, refers to the same date for the arrival of the Third Secret at the Vatican.
Considering Father Alonsos impeccable credentials and his reputation as a capable and
most responsible researcher, we have no reason to question his statement. Since this book
was first published in 2002, however, one critic has suggested that Fr. Alonso could not
have known that date as certain because he did not, according to this critic, have access
to the Holy Office files. But such a criticism seems rather superficial. Surely, considering
the extreme attention to detail that Bishop Venancio showed in measuring everything,
and his handling the Third Secret with such extreme care, it is reasonable to assume
that he obtained a dated receipt from the Vatican confirming delivery of the text; and
certainly such a receipt would have been accessible to Fr. Alonso, as Bishop Venancio was
his personal friend and was also the one who had appointed Fr. Alonso official archivist
of Fatima. Perhaps Father Alonso knew of the date from another source, but we will not
know all of Fr. Alonsos sources until the 5,396 documents he was ready to publish in
1976 are finally released from the embargo the Vatican has imposed on them. Until those
documents are published whole and entire, the critics objection cannot be taken seriously.
We would expect that if they ever publish those documents Father Alonsos positive
assertion regarding April 16, 1957 to be perfectly vindicated and validated.
357
Since the first edition of this book was published, it has come to the attention of the
editors that there is more to be said about Fact #5. Not only did John Paul II read the
Third Secret on two different dates years apart, it has now come to light that Pope Paul VI
356
227
the text of the third Memoir, but adding after the final words...
and a certain period of peace will be granted to the worldthe
new sentence: Em Portugal se conservara sempre o dogma da fe
etc.358
This new sentence translates into: In Portugal the dogma of the

Faith will always be preserved etc.directly quoting words of the
Virgin of Fatima. Frre Michel also reports:
Indeed in 1943, when Bishop da Silva had asked her to write
down the text [of the Third Secret], and she was encountering
insurmountable obstacles in obeying this order, she declared that
it was not absolutely necessary to do so, since in a certain
manner she had said it.359 Undoubtedly Sister Lucy was
alluding to the ten words she had discreetly added in December,
1941 to the text of the great Secretbut added so discreetly that
almost nobody noticed them.360
It is very telling that these discreetly added wordsIn Portugal the

dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc. are the very ones The
Message of Fatima (TMF) tries to avoid by demoting them to a footnote,
as if they were of no consequence, and by relying on the Third Memoir
for the text of the Great Secret, which does not contain these added
words.
We repeat the question we asked earlier: Why would Cardinal
Sodano, Cardinal Ratzinger and Msgr. Bertone choose the Third Memoir
when the Fourth Memoir offers a more complete text of the Fatima
Message? The answer, clearly, is that they chose the Third Memoir in
order to avoid any discussion of the momentous phrase In Portugal
the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc. By this expedient
they deftly navigated around an obvious indication that the Message of
Fatima includes further words of the Virgin embraced within the etc.,
and that these missing words must pertain to the Third Secret. If it
were not so, then they would not have displayed such an aversion to
this phrase. They would simply have used the Fourth Memoir, including
that phrase, in TMFs discussion of the first two parts of the Great Secret
of Fatima. One can only conclude that the phrase to which they were
so averse is indeed the gateway into the Third Secret of Fatima, and
that they did not wish the faithful or the world at large to focus on this
gateway, for it raises too many questions about what lies beyond it.
The rest of the Secret indicated by the etc. was not recorded in
also read the Third Secret on two different dates years apart. It should also be noted that
John XXIII read the Third Secret on August 17, 1959 and again sometime in 1960. See
Chapter 14 (pages 246-249) for more details about these facts. For further evidence of
the contradictory dates provided for when these Popes read the Third Secret for the first
time, see the entries in Appendix II to this book, A Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up,
for the dates given here and in Chapter 14.
358
359
Father Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, p. 64. See also WTAF - Vol. III, p. 684.
360
228
the Fourth Memoir but in the later text at issue, the missing text of the
Third Secret which explains the vision of the Bishop dressed in White.
In fact, the authors of TMF neglect to mention that immediately
after In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved
etc. we find in the Fourth Memoir: Tell this to no one. Yes, you may
tell Francisco. Now, if this referred only to the Faith always being
preserved in Portugal, Our Lady would hardly have directed the seers to
hide this heavenly compliment to the Portuguese people. Hence, this
clearly involves a reference to how the dogma of the Faith would not
always be preserved in other placesmany other places. That is the
very conclusion the authors of TMF have attempted to hide by demoting
the key phrase to a footnote.
As we pointed out in Chapter 4, these ten wordsEm Portugal
se conservara sempre o dogma da fe etc.introduce a new, and
incomplete, thought into the Secret of Fatima. The phrase suggests, as
every reputable Fatima scholar concluded, that there is more to follow
and that the etc. is but a placeholder for the third part of the Secret.
But the Vaticans June 2000 manuscript of the Third Secret (i.e. Text
#2 referred to in the table on page 226), published in TMF, contains no
words of Our Lady; it describes only the vision of the Secret seen by the
three children of Fatima. This text does not explain the new sentence
in the Fourth Memoir, nor does it provide the words embraced within
the etc.
Did Our Ladys actual words, spoken personally by the Mother of
God, end with etc.? Certainly, they did not. There is undoubtedly
more text after the etc. What happened to it?
What Can Be Concluded Regarding Fact #1

All this evidence demonstrates that there must be two documents:
one containing the words of Our Lady, the other containing the vision
seen by the three children, but with no words at all which are attributed
to Our Lady.
Fact #2:
Different Dates of Transfer
Father Alonso tells us when the text of the Third Secret was
transferred to the Holy Office (now known as the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith):
These facts are now known: The sealed envelope containing
the letter was received by Msgr. Cento, the Apostolic Nuncio in
Lisbon, from Msgr. Venancio in mid-March, 1957 and forwarded to
Rome. It arrived there on April 16, 1957.361
361
Father Joaquin Alonso, The Secret of Fatima: Fact and Legend, (Centro Mariano, Madrid,
1976; republished by The Ravengate Press, Cambridge, 1979 and 1982) p. 50. See also
Alonso, De nuevo el Secreto de Fatima, (Ephemerides Mariologicae, 1982) p. 86; and
229
It is important to recall what we noted earlier: that the Pope was the
head of the Holy Office prior to Pope Paul VI reorganizing the Roman
Curia in 1967. Therefore, it was quite appropriate for the Pope to retain
the Third Secret in his possession and for the box containing it to be
labeled as Secret of the Holy Office. With the Pope being the head of
the Holy Office, this box became part of the Holy Office archives.
The Vatican commentary, however, states that Sister Lucys original
manuscript of the Third Secret was transferred to the Holy Office on
April 4, 1957. Furthermore, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, then Secretary
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, tells us:
The sealed envelope was initially in the custody of the Bishop of
Leiria. To ensure better protection for the secret the envelope was
placed in the Secret Archives of the Holy Office on 4 April 1957.362

This difference of dates supports the conclusion that there are
two documents: one document containing the vision was transferred
to the Secret Archives of the Holy Office on April 4, 1957; the other
document, containing the words of Our Lady of Fatima, was transferred
to the Popes apartment, which can be considered a part of the Holy
Office, on April 16, 1957.
Fact #3:
Text #1 is 25 Lines of Handwritten Text
In addition to the evidence cited so far, Frre Michel and Frre
Franois both agree that the text of the Third Secret contains only 20
to 30 lines:
... we are just as certain that the twenty or thirty lines of the
third Secret 363
The final Secret of Fatima, written on a small sheet of paper, is
therefore not very long. Probably twenty to twenty-five lines ...364
[Bishop Venancio looked] at the envelope [containing the
Third Secret] while holding it up to the light. He could see inside
a little sheet of which he measured the exact size. We thus know
that the Third Secret is not very long, probably 20 to 25 lines ...365
On the other hand, the Vaticans June 2000 manuscript of the

Third Secret contains 62 lines of handwritten text. Again, something is
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, SDB, Introduction, The Message of Fatima (hereafter,
TMF), June 26, 2000, p. 4.
363
364
365
Brother Michael of the Holy Trinity, The Secret of Fatima Revealed, (Immaculate Heart
Publications, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A.,1986) p. 7.
362
230
seriously amiss.
On the Porta a Porta broadcast of May 31, 2007, Cardinal Bertone was
asked only one pointed question concerning the Third Secret. On the live
broadcast, the Vaticanista Marco Politi testified to the fact that Cardinal
Ottaviani had said publicly that the Third Secret consisted of Sister Lucy
writing 25 (twenty-five) lines of text. He pointed out that what Bertone
published was 62 lines of text. He asked Bertone to reconcile these two
facts. Cardinal Bertone never denied the fact that Ottaviani had indeed
said the text was 25 lines long. Rather, he struggled for several minutes,
even with the benefit of a 4-minute commercial break on the broadcast,
and still with all this time he came up with only very weak excuses for why
he thought Cardinal Ottaviani was mistaken in that testimony. Clearly,
the text seen by Cardinal Ottaviani was only 25 lines long, and clearly
the text we were given on June 26, 2000 was 62 lines long. There is
obviously another text, as we know now from the direct testimony of the
living witness, Archbishop Loris Capovilla. See Socci, The Fourth Secret
of Fatima, Chapter 4 and also Ferrara, The Secret Still Hidden, Chapter 8.

This discrepancy demonstrates that there are two documents: one
with 25 lines of text, the other with 62 lines of text.
A Further Clarification
One additional note regarding the existence of two documents:
As we showed in Chapter 4, Cardinal Ottaviani, as Prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1967, stated that he had
read the Third Secret and that it was written on a single sheet of paper.
He testified to this fact on February 11, 1967, at a press conference
during a meeting of the Pontifical Marian Academy in Rome:
And then, what did she [Lucy] do to obey the Most Holy
Virgin? She wrote on a sheet of paper, in Portuguese, what the Holy
Virgin had asked her to tell ...366
Cardinal Ottaviani is a witness to this fact. In the same press

conference, he states:
I, who have had the grace and the gift to read the text of the
Secretalthough I too am held to secrecy because I am bound by
the Secret ...367
Note well: Cardinal Ottaviani read the Third Secret. Cardinal

Ottaviani later said it was written on a sheet of papernot the four
distinct pages of the vision of the Bishop dressed in white which the
Vatican published on June 26, 2000.368
368
The text as reproduced on June 26, 2000 in The Message of Fatima (TMF) was apparently
photographically reproduced on pages 17-20 of TMF, giving rise to the false impression
that it consisted of four different sized sheets (the first page is 6 inches and 9/16; pages
366
367
231
Fact #4:
Text #1 Was Not Ready by January 3
As we showed in Chapter 4, Lucy first attempted to write down the
text of the Third Secret in October 1943. From that mid-October until
early January 1944, Lucy was prevented from obeying a formal order to
write down the Third Secret by an unspeakable anguish.
We noted also that the order to write down the Secret came after
Sister Lucy came down with pleurisy in June of 1943, which caused
Canon Galamba and Bishop da Silva to fear that she would die without
having revealed the final part of the Great Secret of Fatima. Canon
Galamba later convinced Bishop da Silva to suggest to Sister Lucy that
she write down the Secret. However, Sister Lucy would not comply
without a formal order from the Bishop, which was finally given in
mid-October 1943.
Even then Sister Lucy was unable to obey for another two and a
half months, until the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her on January
2, 1944, confirming that it was Gods will that she commit the Secret
to writing. Only then was Lucy able to overcome her fear and anguish
and write down the Secret.369 But it was not until January 9, 1944, that
Sister Lucy wrote the following note to Bishop da Silva, informing him
that the Secret was finally written down:
The Vaticans manuscript of the Third Secret, however, was

completed on January 3, 1944, as shown by the date appearing at the
end of Sister Lucys 62-line handwritten document.371 Furthermore, in
2000 Archbishop Bertone told us that:
The third part of the secret was written by order of His
Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and the Most Holy Mother ... on 3
January 1944.372

2, 3 and 4 are each 7 inches and 5/16), but in one of the revelations of 2007 (the Porta
a Porta telecast of May 31 mentioned in Chapter 4), Cardinal Bertone showed on camera
that the text consists of four pages on a single folio, folded in half. It might be suggested
that the single folio pertaining to the vision, folded to make four distinct pages, is the sheet
of paper referred to by Cardinal Ottaviani. But, as we shall see, in 2007 Cardinal Bertone
would admit that Cardinal Ottaviani had testified categorically that the Third Secret
involved a single sheet of 25 lines, not the 62 lines of the published vision. Bertones attempt
to explain this discrepancy on television, discussed in Chapter 14, is patently not believable.
369
WTAF - Vol. III, pp. 37-47.
370
Quoted by Father Alonso, Fatima 50, p. 11. See also WTAF - Vol. III, pp. 46-47; and
footnotes 61 and 353 in this book.
371
Original text of Sister Lucy, Third Part of the Secret, TMF, p. 20.
372
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, SDB, Introduction, TMF, p. 4.
232
Considering that Sister Lucy had finally written down the Secret
after an apparition of the Blessed Mother, why would she not have
immediately informed Bishop da Silva as soon as the document was
ready, given the Mother of Gods assurance that it was Gods will
that she deliver the document? Why would Sister Lucy, trained in
obedience, wait another six days after obeying Heavens command to
write down the Third Secretfrom January 3 to January 9before
informing her bishop? From this we may conclude that the text of
the Third Secret was not ready until January 9, 1944 or very shortly
before.
This difference of dates lends further support to the existence of
two documents: one containing the vision, completed on January 3,
1944; the other containing Our Ladys words which explain that vision,
completed on or very shortly before January 9, 1944.
Admittedly, this conclusion is dependent on circumstantial evidence;
but Fatima scholars must rely on this kind of evidence because the antiFatima establishment has, since 1976, blocked publication of the works
of Father Joaquin Alonso, consisting of over 5,000 documents in 24
volumes373 which are the result of his 11 years of research up to that
time. As we have noted, Fr. Alonso was official archivist of Fatima for
sixteen years.
The other conclusions supported by the pre-2006 evidence (except
possibly the conclusion regarding Fact #10) are not dependent on
circumstantial evidence.
Fact #5:
Different Dates for When Pope John Paul II First Read
the Secret
On July 1, 2000, The Washington Post reported that Vatican officials
recently provided contradictory dates for when Pope John Paul II read
the Third Secret for the first time:
On May 13, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the
Pope first read the Secret within days of assuming the papacy in
1978. On Monday, an aide to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of
the Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that
the Pope first saw it in the hospital after his attack.374
An article in the June 26, 2000 edition of The New York Times
identified the aide to Cardinal Ratzinger:
The first two volumes of the 24-volume series were finally published in the 1990s
(with approximately only one-half of the original texts prepared by Father Alonso for
publication); none other have been published since, to the present day (December 2009).
If everything had been revealed on June 26, 2000, why are these over 5,000 documents
and 22 volumes still not published to this date?
374
Bill Broadway and Sarah Delancy, 3rd Secret Spurs More Questions; Fatima Interpretation
Departs From Vision, The Washington Post, July 1, 2000.
373
233
John Paul II read for the first time the text of the third secret of
Fatima after the attack, a top aide to Ratzinger, Monsignor Tarcisio
Bertone, told journalists during a news conference to present the
document.375
According to the Vaticans commentary, however, John Paul II did not

read the Third Secret until July 18, 1981. Archbishop Bertone tells us:
John Paul II, for his part, asked for the envelope containing
the third part of the secret following the assassination attempt
on 13 May 1981. On 18 July 1981 Cardinal Franjo Seper, Prefect
of the Congregation, gave two envelopes to Archbishop Eduardo
Martinez Somalo, Substitute of the Secretariat of State: one white
envelope, containing Sister Lucys original text in Portuguese;
the other orange, with the Italian translation of the secret. On
the following 11 August, Archbishop Martinez returned the two
envelopes to the Archives of the Holy Office.376

All these statements are true and can be reconciled if there are two
documents: In 1978 John Paul II read the one-page, 25-line document
originally sealed in the envelope, containing the words of Our Lady;
and then on July 18, 1981 His Holiness read the 62-line document
describing the vision of the Bishop dressed in White. Similarly, as we
shall see on pages 246-249, on June 27, 1963 Paul VI read the 25-line
document and then on March 27, 1965 he read the 62-line document;
and on August 17, 1959 John XXIII read the 25-line document and then
in 1960 he read the 62-line document.
Fact #6:
Text #1 Inspired Pope to Consecrate World
Immediately following the statement of Archbishop Bertone quoted
in support of Fact #5, the Archbishop goes on to tell us:
As is well known, Pope John Paul II immediately thought
of consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
and he himself composed a prayer for what he called an Act of
Entrustment, which was to be celebrated in the Basilica of Saint
Mary Major on 7 June 1981 ...377

How could Pope John Paul II be moved by the Third Secret to
consecrate the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on June 7, 1981,
when, according to Archbishop Bertone, the Pope did not actually read
The Associated Press, Vatican: Fatima Is No Doomsday Prophecy, The New York Times,
June 26, 2000.
376
377
Ibid.
375
234
the Third Secret until July 18, 1981six weeks later?

Again, both statements can be reconciled if there are two documents:
the Pope read the one-page document containing the words of Our Lady
in 1978and this is the text that moved him to consecrate the world on
June 7, 1981and then he read the four-page document describing the
vision on July 18, 1981. Pope John Paul IIs own statements demonstrate
that he viewed this act of consecration of the world (and subsequent
ones) as setting the stage for when he would finally feel free to perform
the Consecration of Russia.
Fact #7:
Text #1 is a Letter
Sister Lucy, herself, tells us that the Third Secret was written as a
letter. We have the written testimony of Father Jongen who, on February
3-4, 1946, interrogated Sister Lucy:
You have already made known two parts of the Secret. When
will the time arrive for the third part? I communicated the third
part in a letter to the Bishop of Leiria, she answered.378
As Canon Galamba testified:

When the bishop refused to open the letter, Lucy made him
promise that it would definitely be opened and read to the world
either at her death or in 1960, whichever would come first.379
In February 1960, the Patriarch of Lisbon declared:

Bishop da Silva enclosed (the envelope sealed by Lucy) in
another envelope on which he indicated that the letter had to be
opened in 1960 by himself, Bishop Jose Correia da Silva, if he was
still alive, or if not, by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon.380
Father Alonso tells us:

Other bishops also spokeand with authorityabout the year
1960 as the date indicated for opening the famous letter. Thus,
when the then-titular Bishop of Tiava, and Auxiliary Bishop of
Lisbon, asked Lucy when the Secret was to be opened, he always
received the same answer: in 1960.381
In 1959, Bishop Venancio, the new Bishop of Leiria, declared:

I think that the letter will not be opened before 1960. Sister
Lucy had asked that it should not be opened before her death, or
Revue Mediatrice et Reine, October 1946, pp. 110-112. See also WTAF - Vol. III, p. 470.
Quoted by Father Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, pp. 46-47. See also WTAF
- Vol. III, p. 470.
380
Novidades, February 24, 1960, quoted by La Documentation Catholique, June 19, 1960, col.
751. See also WTAF - Vol. III, p. 472.
381
La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, p. 46. See also WTAF - Vol. III, p. 475.
378
379
235
not before 1960. We are now in 1959 and Sister Lucy is in good
health.382
Finally, the Vatican announcement of February 8, 1960 through the

A.N.I. press agency also tells us that the text of the Third Secret was
written as a letter:
... it is most likely that the letter will never be opened, in which
Sister Lucy wrote down the words which Our Lady confided as a
secret ...383
Now, the text of the vision of the Third Secret has also been
identified as a letter in the Vaticans commentary. However, that text is
plainly not a letter, as it:
is not addressed to anyone; and
is not signed by Sister Lucy or anyone else;
clearly, therefore, is anything but a letter.
Copies of letters written by Sister Lucy have been included in her
published memoirs. These letters all have an addressee, a date, and her
signature.
Thus, we can expect that the one-page document that was available
on January 9, 1944 is a letter addressed to someone (Sister Lucy told
Father Jongen in February 1946 that she sent it to the Bishop of Leiria),
and is signed by Sister Lucy.
Here it is important to note that Sister Lucy was offered the option
to write the Third Secret in the form of a letter or in her notebook, and
that she decided to write it as a letter. According to Father Alonso, Sister
Lucy wrote to Bishop da Silva on January 9, 1944:
Again, as we have noted above, Frre Michel reports that, on June

17, 1944:
The seer discreetly handed the Bishop of Gurza the notebook
in which she had slipped the envelope containing the Secret. That
same evening, the bishop placed the envelope into the hands of
Bishop da Silva ...385

La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, p. 46. See also WTAF - Vol. III, p. 478.
Quoted by Father Martins dos Reis, O Milagre do sol e o Segredo de Fatima, pp. 127-128.
Cf. Father Alonso, La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, pp. 55-56. See also WTAF - Vol.
III, p. 578.
384
Quoted by Father Alonso, Fatima 50, p. 11. See also WTAF - Vol. III, pp. 46-47; and
footnotes 61 and 353 in this book.
385
382
383
236
The pre-2006 evidence supports this conclusion: There are two

documentsthe text of the Third Secret containing Our Ladys words
in the form of a 25-line letter; and 62 lines of text from the notebook
describing the vision.
Moreover, as we have noted, the text of the vision is dated January
3, 1944, whereas Sister Lucys letter to the Bishop of Fatima stating I
have written what you asked me; God willed to try me a little, but finally
this was indeed His will: it [the text] is sealed in an envelope and this
[the sealed envelope] is in the notebooks is dated January 9, 1944. It is
entirely possible that Sister Lucys notebooks contain a number of other
things pertaining to the Third Secret which she wrote during the period
January 3-9, 1944. These other things may be lesser points pertaining
to the Secret, leading up to the final disclosure of the most fearsome
part of the Secret on January 9namely, the Virgins explanation of the
Secret in Her own words. We recall here Father Schweigls testimony
that there are indeed two parts to the Secret: one pertaining to the Pope
and the other representing the conclusion of the words In Portugal the
dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.
In this connection it is important to remember that Sister Lucy was
given the choice of writing the Third Secret in her notebooks or on a
sheet of paper. Evidently, she availed herself of both options. Again,
why else would she have turned over both a sealed envelope and a
notebook to the Bishop of Gurza for delivery to the Bishop of Fatima?
Is it not entirely likely, then, that the obscure visiona safer part
of the Third Secretwas written down in the notebook, whereas the
concrete explanation of the vision in the words of the Virgin Herself
whose impact was quite terriblehad to be sealed in the envelope that
Sister Lucy placed inside the notebook? There seems to be no other
sensible explanation for why Sister Lucy, in response to the Bishop of
Fatimas order to write down the Third Secret, provided him with both
a sealed envelope and a notebook.
In short, the vision of the Bishop dressed in White, described in
62 lines of text, was contained in the notebook, but the explanation
in 25 lines of text that numerous witnesses have attested towas
sealed in the envelope. That is why the notebook accompanied the sealed
envelope.386
386
On the live Porta a Porta television broadcast of May 31, 2007, Cardinal Bertone
displayed two envelopes sealed by Sister Lucy, each with her own handwriting regarding
Our Ladys order about 1960 (see the two photosFigures 2 and 3on page XV in the
photo section). Sister Lucy indicated in her letter of January 9, 1944 to Bishop da Silva
that there was only one sealed envelope containing the Third SecretIt [the part of
the Secret that I did not give before] is sealed inside an envelope and this [envelope]
[is] inside the notebooksand Frre Michel confirmsThe seer discreetly handed the
Bishop of Gurza [in June of 1944] the notebook in which she had slipped the envelope
containing the Secret. That same evening, the bishop placed the envelope into the hands
of Bishop da Silva ... Apparently, between January 9 and June 17, 1944, Our Lady
instructed Sister Lucy to put the second text (from her notebook) in a second sealed
envelope as well.
237
Thus, the 62 lines of text released by the Vatican on June 26, 2000
are the visional part of the Third Secret contained in the notebook,
certainly not the 25-line letter that was sealed in the envelope on
January 9.
Fact #8:
Text #1 Stored in Papal Apartment
Frre Michel reports the testimony of journalist Robert Serrou who,
while doing a photo story at the Vatican on May 14, 1957,387 about
one month after the Third Secret had arrived at Rome on April 16,
1957, discovered that the Third Secret was being stored in the Popes
apartment by his bedside. As Frre Michel tells us:
... we now know that the precious envelope sent to Rome by
Msgr. Cento was not placed in the archives of the Holy Office, but
that Pius XII wanted to keep it in his own apartment.
Father Caillon received this information from the mouth
of journalist Robert Serrou, who himself got it from Mother
Pasqualina, in this way. Robert Serrou was doing a photo story for
Paris-Match in the apartments of Pius XII. Mother Pasqualinathis
woman of great common sense who directed the handful of Sisters
acting as the Popes housekeepers, and who sometimes received
his confidenceswas present.
Before a little wooden safe placed on a table and bearing the
inscription Secretum Sancti Officii (Secret of the Holy Office), the
journalist questioned the Mother: Mother, what is in this little
safe? She answered: The third Secret of Fatima is in there ...
The photograph of this safe, which we have reproduced on
the following page, was published in Paris-Match a year and a half
later ...388
The photograph of this safe, published in the October 18, 1958

issue of Paris-Match (Issue No. 497, page 82), is shown on the next
page. The details of Serrous testimony were later confirmed in a letter
he wrote to Frre Michel on January 10, 1985. In this letter, Serrou
states:
It is exact that Mother Pasqualina did tell me, while showing
me a little safe bearing a label with the mention, Secret of the
Holy Office: In there is the third Secret of Fatima.389

Ibid., p. 485.
389
Letter to Frre Michel de la Sainte Trinit of January 10, 1985. See also WTAF - Vol. III, p. 486.
387
388
238
Photo from Paris-Match magazine in 1958, showing

the wooden safe in the papal apartment of Pius XII in
which a text of the Third Secret was safeguarded. The text
in this safe was not the text in the Holy Office archives.
The Vaticans commentary of June 26, 2000 (TMF), however, tells

us that the Third Secret had been stored in a different building which
houses the Holy Office. Again, according to Archbishop Bertone:
The sealed envelope was initially in the custody of the Bishop of
Leiria. To ensure better protection for the secret the envelope was
placed in the Secret Archives of the Holy Office on 4 April 1957.390
In addition, the pre-2006 evidence also demonstrated, with Fact #3

and Fact #5, that Pope John Paul II read the text of the Third Secret
(i.e. the 25-line document containing the words of Our Lady) in 1978
and then he read the 62-line document describing the vision on July 18,
1981. As discussed in Fact #5, the Holy Office records that John Paul
II asked for the Third Secret in 1981, but there is no record of the Pope
asking for the Secret in 1978 because he didnt need toit was in the
papal apartments.

These testimonies, all known before 2006, established that there
are two documents stored in two different locations and in two different
archives. In 1978 Pope John Paul II read the text of the 25-line letter
containing Our Ladys words, which was stored in his apartment, a
document the Pope did not need to request from the Secret Archives
of the Holy Office. But in 1981 John Paul II read the 62 lines of text
containing the description of the vision from Sister Lucys notebook,
which was stored in the Holy Office building. It was this text he had to
request from the Secret Archives of the Holy Office.
390

239
Fact #9:
Text #1 has Margins of 3/4 Centimeter on Both Sides
Here we have the testimony of Bishop John Venancio, the second
Bishop of Fatima, who examined a silhouette of the text under a strong
light and noted precisely the margin outlines of the page on which it
was written.
Bishop Venancio related [to Frre Michel] that once he was
alone at home, he took the great envelope of the Secret and tried
to look through it and see the contents. In the bishops large
envelope he discerned a smaller envelope, that of Lucy, and inside
this envelope an ordinary sheet of paper with margins on each side
of three quarters of a centimeter. He took the trouble to note the
size of everything. Thus the final Secret of Fatima was written on
a small sheet of paper.391
Again, the text of 62 lines, which TMF reproduced on four separate

pages of photocopies, containing the Third Secret vision, display no
margins whatsoevera small but very telling discrepancy to be added
to all the other discrepancies.

This discrepancy also demonstrates that the text released by
Cardinal Ratzinger and Msgr. Bertone on June 26, 2000 is not the text
of the Third Secret which Sister Lucy placed in the sealed envelope
on January 9, 1944, and therefore we have not yet been given the
complete text of the Third Secret, even though high Vatican officials
claim the contrary.
Fact #10:
Text #1 Explains the Vision
In Sister Lucys Fourth Memoir we read that, during the apparition
of Our Lady on June 13, 1917, after Sister Lucy had asked Our Lady to
take the three seers to Heaven, Our Lady responded:
Yes, I will take Jacinta and Francisco soon. But you are to stay
here some time longer. Jesus wishes to make use of you to make
Me known and loved. He wants to establish in the world devotion
to My Immaculate Heart. To whoever embraces this devotion I
promise salvation ...392
Sister Lucy then proceeds to give us a description of the vision that

the three seers were then graced to see immediately after Our Lady
spoke the above wordswords which explain the meaning of the vision:
391
392

Sister Lucy, in an account written for her confessor, Father Aparicio, at the end of 1927.
240

As Our Lady spoke these last words, She opened Her hands
and for the second time, She communicated to us the rays of that
immense light. We saw ourselves in this light, as it were, immersed
in God. Jacinta and Francisco seemed to be in that part of the light
which rose towards Heaven, and I in that which was poured out
on the earth.393
Thus, we see that when Our Lady provides a vision to the children
She explains it as well. Indeed, even in TMF we read Sister Lucys
description (taken from her Third Memoir) of the vision of hell given
to the three little shepherds during the apparition of Our Lady on July
13, 1917:
Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be
under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in
human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or
burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised
into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves
together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every
side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and
amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us
and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished
by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown
animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant.
How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother,
who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition,
to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear
and terror.394
Following that account, Sister Lucy then proceeds to tell us Our

Ladys words explaining what this vision means, even though it was quite
obvious that the vision was a vision of hell:
You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To
save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My
Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be
saved and there will be peace.395
So, even though the children knew what they saw, nevertheless Our
Lady tells them: You have seen hell. Once again, we see that when
Our Lady provides a vision to the children She explains it as well.
In contrast to the above-noted visions and the corresponding words
Sister Lucy, Fourth Memoir, December 8, 1941, p. 65. See also Frre Michel de la
Sainte Trinit, The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. I: Science and the Facts (WTAF - Vol. I),
(Immaculate Heart Publications, Buffalo, New York, U.S.A., 1989) p. 159.
394
English translation of text in Sister Lucys Third Memoir quoted in First and Second
Part of the Secret, TMF, pp. 15-16. See also Sister Lucy, Fourth Memoir, Fatima in
Lucias Own Words, (Postulation Centre, Fatima, Portugal, 1976) p. 162. See also Sister
Lucy, Memorias e Cartas da Irma Lucia, (Porto, Portugal, 1973, edited by Father Antonio
Maria Martins) pp. 338-341.
395
Sister Lucy quoted in TMF, p. 16. See also Sister Lucy, Fourth Memoir, p. 162. See also
Sister Lucy, Memorias e Cartas da Irma Lucia, pp. 340-341.
393
241
of Our Lady explaining them, TMF provides only the text of a vision that
clearly requires an explanation, including the following:
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 ... 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.396
This text of the Third Secret contains no words of Our Lady. Why
would Our Lady explain something as obvious as the vision of hell, but
offer not one word to explain the obscure vision described by Lucy,
which was presented by the Vatican?
Here it must be noted that immediately following the words In
Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc., Our Lady
said to Sister Lucy: Tell this to no one, yes you may tell it to Francisco.
The this that can be told to Francisco refers to the last thing said
during the vision. If it was only a vision, without an explanation, then
Francisco didnt need to be told anything, because he had just seen it
himself already. But if this refers to additional words of the Virgin by
way of explanation of the vision, then Francisco would have to be told
because, as we know, he could not hear Our Lady during the Fatima
apparitions. Francisco saw but did not hear, and would thus have
needed to be informed about what Our Lady had said about the vision.
Nor can one argue plausibly that you may tell it to Francisco
refers merely to the words Our Lady spoke during the second part
of the Secret. The phrase Tell this to no one. Yes, you may tell it to
Francisco follows immediately after In Portugal the dogma of the
Faith will always be preserved etc.397 Clearly, then, the etc. indicates
the words, not yet written down, that Sister Lucy could tell Francisco
orally. Those words clearly belong to the Third Secret, which was finally
written down in 1944 under orders from the Bishop of Fatima.

Where, then, are the words of Our Lady to explain this vision? If
Our Lady said nothing to explain this vision, Her actions would have
been inconsistent over the course of the apparitions. Given that the
teaching authority of the Churchmeaning a formal papal or conciliar
pronouncementis not imposing a specific interpretation on this
vision, and if we have not been given any special grace to understand
this vision on our own, then there is all the more reason to believe that
Our Lady would explain to us the meaning of the vision of the Third
Secret of Fatima. And there is obviously an absolute need for the true
396
397
English translation of Sister Lucy, Third Part of the Secret, TMF, p. 21.
Father Fabrice Delestre, Society of St. Pius X, June 26, 2000: Revelation of the Third
Secret of Fatima or a Curtailed Revelation, SSPX Asia Newsletter, July-August 2000, p.
24.
242
explanation by Our Lady Herself.

In fact, Cardinal Ratzinger admits in TMF that his own comments
are merely an attempt at an interpretation of the vision of the Third
Secret:
In what follows, therefore, we can only attempt to provide a
deeper foundation for this interpretation, on the basis of the criteria
already considered.398 [emphasis added]
Cardinal Ratzinger also confirmed that a specific interpretation is

not being imposed on this vision. On July 1, 2000, The Washington Post
reported:
Ratzinger, asked to comment on the Popes reading of the
vision, said there is no official interpretation and that the text is
not dogma.399
Now, does it seem likely that the Virgin of Fatima would have given
the three children a vision so obscure that even the Prefect of the CDF
can only attempt to interpret it, when the rest of the Message of
Fatima is not only crystal clear, but fully explained by the Virgins own
words in all its visional aspectseven the obvious vision of hell?
Furthermore, the probability of Our Lady having provided a detailed
explanation of the Third Secret vision rises to the level of certainty
when one considers the erroneous interpretation offered by Sodano/
Ratzinger/Bertonei.e. that the killing of a Pope and many other
members of the hierarchy by soldiers is merely the failed assassination
attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981. Then there is Cardinal Ratzingers
interpretation of devotion to the Immaculate Heart, which he demotes
to the immaculate heart of anyone who avoids sin, and the triumph of
the Immaculate Heart, which he reduces to the fiat of the Virgin 2,000
years ago.
This, of course, is totally false. Our Lady of Fatima certainly foresaw
these falsehoods and provided a definitive explanation of the vision to
combat them. The Mother of God would never allow such an incorrect
interpretation of Her Message to stand. This makes all the more urgent
the disclosure of the true interpretation which is found, we are morally
certain, in the missing words of the Virginmost probably indicated by
the etc.400
Overall Conclusion from the Evidence

In conclusion, even before the revelations of 2006-2007, but
beyond any reasonable doubt since then (as we shall see), the evidence
overwhelmingly supports the existence of two documents:
One document consists of 62 lines of text (with no margins)
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Theological Commentary, TMF, p. 39.
Bill Broadway and Sarah Delancy, The Washington Post.
400
This conclusion is supported by the research provided in Antonio Socci, Il Quarto Segreto
di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima], published in 2006. It is also proved again by
Christopher A. Ferrara in The Secret Still Hidden, published in 2008.
398
399
243
originally written in Sister Lucys notebook (not written as a letter),

which describes a vision seen by the three children of Fatima but does
not contain any words of Our Lady. This text was written down by Sister
Lucy on January 3, 1944, transferred to the Holy Office on April 4, 1957,
read by Pope John Paul II on July 18, 1981 (but it obviously did not
and could notmove him to consecrate the world to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary on June 7, 1981, 6 weeks earlier), was stored in the Holy
Office, and released by the Vatican on June 26, 2000.
The other document is a 25-line letter (with 3/4 centimeter
margins) containing Our Ladys own words which explain the vision,
and is written in the form of a letter and is sealed in an envelope. This
text was written down by Sister Lucy on or very shortly before January
9, 1944, transferred to the Holy Office on April 16, 1957, read by John
Paul II in 1978 (moving him to consecrate the world to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary on June 7, 1981), was stored in the Popes apartment by
his bedside, and to this day remains unreleased by the Vatican.
The 62-line document was published by the Vatican on June 26,
2000. The 25-line document is yet to be published, despite Our Lady
ordering it to be revealed in 1960.
We can affirm these conclusions with moral certitude because a
mountain of evidence supports them. We must, therefore, agree with
Soccis conclusion, first mentioned in Chapter 4: that there is a part
of the Secret not revealed and considered unspeakable is certain. And
todayhaving decided to deny its existencethe Vatican runs the risk
of exposing itself to very heavy pressure and blackmail.401 Clearly,
divine providence has made it impossible for the Vatican to bury the
Message of Fatima and the truth about the Third Secret in particular.
In the next Chapter we discuss the truly providential events since 2006
that have placed beyond all doubt the existence of a part of the Secret
not revealed and considered unspeakable.
401
p. 173.
Chapter 14
Breakthrough for Fatima:
The Revelations of 2006-2007
On February 13, 2005 Sister Lucy of Fatima died at the age of 97
(six weeks short of her 98th birthday). On April 2, 2005 Pope John Paul II
followed the last surviving Fatima seer into eternity. Seventeen days later
the former Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to the papacy, taking the name
of Benedict XVI. On June 22, 2006, Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal
(formerly Archbishop) Tarcisio Bertone to replace Cardinal Sodano as
Vatican Secretary of State, and Bertone assumed the office on September
15, 2006. Following these events the landscape of the Fatima affair
would change dramatically, as the truth about the Third Secret broke
through the surface in a veritable earthquake of new revelations.
The earthquake began with the publication of Antonio Soccis
The Fourth Secret of Fatima on November 22, 2006, an event we have
mentioned in Chapter 4 and elsewhere in the preceding chapters. As
a renowned Catholic author, journalist and television personality in
Italy, a prominent figure of the mainstream Church, and a personal
acquaintance and collaborator of both the new Pope and Cardinal
Bertone, Socci was certainly no friend of the Fatimists when he set
out to write about their claims. In fact, as we have already mentioned,
his intention was to refute those claims as empty conspiracy theories.
His suspicions aroused by Cardinal Bertones refusal to grant him
a friendly interview concerning the Third Secret controversy, despite
their prior acquaintance and collaboration, Socci began to suspect that
something was being hidden. Examining the Fatimist claims with
an open mind, he encountered the overwhelming evidence we have
presented here. In fact, Soccis book cites the first edition of this book
no fewer than 32 times, along with at least 110 other citations to the
works of Frre Michel and other sources on which The Devils Final
Battle is based. In the end, writes Socci, I had to surrender. Here I
recount my voyage into the greatest mystery of the 20th century and set
forth the result I honestly reached. A result that sincerely contradicts
my initial convictions402
That result is Soccis conclusion that something is missing from
the Vaticans disclosure: a separate text of the Third Secret containing
the words of the Madonna [which] preannounce an apocalyptic crisis
of the faith in the Church starting at the summit. This second text is
probably also an explanation of the vision (revealed on June 26,
402
Antonio Socci, Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima], English ed., p. 4;
popular ed., p. 11; Italian ed., p. 14.
Breakthrough for Fatima: The Revelations of 2006-2007
245
2000).403 It is this text that Socci describes as unspeakable and whose

concealment by the Vatican apparatus exposes the Vatican, as he writes,
to heavy pressure and blackmail.404
Amazingly enough, Socci recounts that he received a personal letter
from Pope Benedict XVI concerning my book, thanking me for the
sentiments which have inspired it.405 Furthermore, the Pope had not
written a single word publicly (or evidently even privately) criticizing
Soccis conclusion that the Vatican apparatus, now led by Cardinal
Bertone, was engaged in a veritable conspiracy to conceal precious
words of the Mother of God from the Church and the world! Indeed,
the Holy See has to this day observed a conspicuous official silence
concerning Soccis book, leaving Cardinal Bertone to fend for himself.
Soccis open-minded validation of the case presented by the
unjustly derided Fatimists was in itself an enormous breakthrough
for the cause of Fatima. The promoters of the Vatican Party Line could
not dismiss a man of Soccis stature as a kook, which is why his book
served as the provocation for a series of moves by Cardinal Bertone that
would, as we shall see shortly, reduce the official account to rubble.
But perhaps Soccis most important contribution to the search for
truth in this matter was to give wide publicity to the testimony of a living
eyewitness who finally and decisively confirmed the existence of two texts
comprising the Third Secret in its totality: Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla,
who was personal secretary to Pope John XXIII. Soccis book relates how
Archbishop Capovilla, now age 92 and residing in Bergamo, Italy, granted
an interview to a young Catholic intellectual, Solideo Paolini, on July
5, 2006 in connection with Paolinis research for a book on the Fatima
controversy. During the interview Paolini asked the Archbishop whether
there was an unpublished text of the Third Secret, and the Archbishop
replied: I know nothing. That answer puzzled Paolini, who expected
that if the mysterious and never-revealed text were a fantasy, the prelate,
one of the few who know the Secret, would have been able to and was
obliged to reply to me that this is a completely unfounded idea and that
everything had been revealed in 2000. Instead he answered: I know
nothing. (Nulla so!) An expression that I imagine he wanted to invoke,
ironically, a certain omert [code of silence].406 By this sly and indirect
reference to a code of silence, the Archbishop himself was trying to tell
us that he was bound by a certain illicit conspiracy that required him to
conceal the truth. That impression was confirmed by subsequent events.
On July 18, 2006, Paolini received from Capovilla in the mail a
405
Antonio Socci, Dear Cardinal Bertone: WhoBetween You and Meis Deliberately
Lying?, May 12, 2007, at http://www.antoniosocci.com/2007/05/caro-cardinal-bertonechi-e-fra-me-e-lei-che-mente-sapendo-di-mentire-e-lasciamo-stare-la-massoneria/;
English translation at http://www.fatima.org/news/newsviews/052907socci.asp. See also
The Fatima Crusader, No. 86 (Summer 2007), pp. 35-42; see also Appendix III in this book.
406
403
404
246
package of papers from the Archbishops files, along with a perplexing

cover letter advising him to obtain a copy of CDFs document The
Message of Fatima (TMF), which Capovilla must have known Paolini, a
student of Fatima, would already have. Was this not, thought Paolini,
an invitation to read something in particular in that publication in
relation to the documents sent by the same Archbishop? That intuition
was correct. Among the documents Capovilla had sent was a stamped
confidential note by Capovilla, dated May 17, 1967, in which the
Archbishop had recorded the circumstances of the reading of the Third
Secret by Pope Paul VI. According to the note, Paul VI read the Secret on
June 27, 1963, only six days after his election to the papacy and before
he had even been officially enthroned in the Chair of St. Peter at the
papal coronation Mass (which took place on June 29). But according
to TMF and the official account in general, Paul VI read the Secret for
the first time nearly two years later: Paul VI read the contents with
the Substitute, Archbishop Angelo DellAcqua, on 27 March 1965, and
returned the envelope to the Archives of the Holy Office, deciding not
to publish the text.407
The huge discrepancy between the date recorded by Capovilla
and that set forth in TMF prompted Paolini to telephone Capovilla, at
precisely 6:45 p.m. on the same day he received the documents, to ask
the Archbishop to explain the discrepancy. Capovilla protested: Ah, but
I spoke the truth. Look I am still lucid! When Paolini politely insisted
that, still, there was an unexplained discrepancy, Capovilla offered
explanations that suggested eventual lapses of memory, interpretations
of what a person might have intended to say, whereupon Paolini
reminded Capovilla that he [Paolini] was referring to the date of the
reading by Paul VI in an official Vatican document, namely The Message
of Fatima (TMF), which in turn was based upon the official notes from
the Vatican archive. Capovilla then gave this reply: But I am right.
Perhaps the Bertone envelope is not the same as the Capovilla envelope.
Immediately, Paolini interrupted him and asked the question: Therefore,
both dates are true, because there are two texts of the Third Secret?
After a brief pause of silence, the Archbishop gave the explosive answer
that confirmed the existence of a missing envelope and missing text of
the Third Secret of Fatima: Exactly so! (Per lappunto!).408
The confidential note completely corroborated Capovillas
testimony. According to the note recounting events on the date Pope
Paul read the Secret (June 27, 1963), Monsignor Angelo DellAcqua
the same Substitute referred to in TMFtelephoned Capovilla to
ask: I am looking for the Fatima envelope. Do you know where it is
kept?409 The note records that Capovilla replied: It is in the right hand
The Fourth Secret of Fatima, English ed., p. 131; popular ed., p. 91; Italian ed., p. 141;
and citing TMF, p. 15 (English ed.).
408
409
Notice DellAcqua evidently had reason to presume that the envelope was somewhere
407
247
drawer of the writing desk called Barbarigo, in the bedroom. That is,
the envelope was in the former bedroom of John XXIII, which was now
the bedroom of Paul VI; it was not in the Holy Office archives. The
note further records that the Fatima envelope was found in that desk:
An hour later, DellAcqua telephoned me again. Everything is fine.
The envelope has been retrieved. Finally, the note records that in an
audience the next day Paul VI asked Capovilla directly: Why is your
name on the envelope? Capovilla replied: John XXIII asked me to
inscribe a note concerning the manner of arrival of the envelope in his
[Pope Johns] hands and the names of all those to whom he considered
it necessary to make it known.410 Further, Pope John directed him to
write on the outside of the envelope (plico) or wrapping (involucro):
I leave it to others to comment or decide.411
Thus, we now know for certain that a text of the Third Secret was
kept in the papal bedchamber, was read by Paul VI on June 27, 1963,
and was contained in an envelope on which Archbishop Capovilla had
noted his name and the names of others at the instruction of Pope John
XXIII and the papal dictation I leave it to others to comment or decide.
Hence not only John Paul II, but also Paul VI read two texts of the Third
Secret on two different dates.
It is opportune to mention here another circumstance whose
significance had been little noted before the publication of Soccis book: In
1960 Pope John read a text of the Secret he had no trouble understanding
without assistance, but then, according to Archbishop Capovilla, in
August 1959 the Pope read a text that contained difficult Portuguese
dialect expressions requiring a translation by Monsignor Paulo Jos
Tavares.412 As Socci concludes: These two opposed pieces of information
can be explained by considering that the matter involves two readings
of two different texts.413 Pursuing this lead, Socci obtained the services
of a Portuguese linguist, Professor Mariagrazia Russo, who analyzed the
text of the vision published by the Vatican in 2000. In an appendix to
Soccis book, the professor states her conclusion that the text of the vision
contains no difficult expressions of Portuguese dialect. Ergo, the text John
XXIII had difficulty reading would be the one he kept in his desk drawer.
So, it is now known that three Popes (John XXIII, Paul VI and John
Paul II) read texts of the Third Secret on two different occasionsmany
in the papal apartment, not in the Holy Office archive, of which Capovilla was not
the custodian. Otherwise, DellAcqua would have asked the custodian of the archive,
Cardinal Ottaviani, where the Fatima envelope was, rather than Capovilla, Pope Johns
former personal secretary.
410
411
The Fourth Secret of Fatima, English ed., p. 133; popular ed., p. 93; Italian ed., pp. 143,
165.
412
See the August 17, 1959 and second 1960 entries in the Appendix to this book, A
Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up. See also WTAF - Vol. III, pp. 555 and 568ff and
Prospettive nel mondo, VI, 1991, cited in The Fourth Secret of Fatima, English ed., p. 139;
popular ed., p. 96; Italian ed., p. 149.
413
248
months, even years apartduring their respective pontificates, whereas

the official account in TMF of the history of the Secret claims only one
reading by each Pope.414 This can hardly be a coincidence or an error of
historical record somehow repeated three times in a row. The mention
of a second reading by each Pope can only have been omitted from the
official account because we were not meant to know of that second
reading, which points unmistakably to the existence of two different
texts pertaining to one and the same Third Secret of Fatima, one of
which has not been revealed.
So, on the basis of Capovillas testimony alone, it has been
established beyond doubt that there are two envelopes which hold
between them the entire contents of the Third Secret of Fatima: the
Bertone envelope, kept in the Holy Office archives, whose contents
were published on June 26, 2000, and the Capovilla envelope, whose
contents remain unpublished, kept in the papal bedchamber, as long ago
confirmed by the photographs in Paris-Match magazine, the statement
of Sister Pasqualina, and now, beyond any doubt, the testimony and
documentation of Archbishop Capovilla.
Now, the Vatican has never produced the Capovilla envelope and the
text of the Secret that it contains. Yet, as we are about to see, Cardinal
Bertone has been forced to admit the Capovilla envelopes existence,
even as he fails to produce it. This fact alone deprives the official
account of all credibility.
Socci rightly observes that Archbishop Capovillas testimony provides
the only possible explanation for the many discrepancies (most of
which have already been noted in the previous chapter) concerning
the date of reception, format and location of the document at issue,
as revealed in the accounts presented up to this point. To recapitulate:
a document written on January 3, 1944the date of the document
published by the Vatican in 2000and another document that was
not ready until January 9, 1944, which has yet to be published;
a document which arrived at the Holy Office on April 4, 1957,
published by the Vatican in 2000, and a second document, not yet
published, which arrived at the Vatican on April 16, 1957;
a document lodged in the Holy Office archivesthe published
visionand a different document lodged in the papal apartment of
Pius XII;
a document Pope John XXIII understood completely without need
of a translation and which contains no difficult dialect expressions
the one published in 2000and another document whose dialect
expressions had to be translated for Pope John XXIII by Monsignor
414
The evidentiary chart in Chapter 13 can be supplemented to reflect the reading of two
different texts at two different times by both John XXIII and Paul VI as well as John Paul
II, so that the chart would depict, not ten, but an even dozen facts in support of the two
texts deduction.
249
Tavares;
a document read by John XXIII and returned to the Holy Office
archives, that being the vision published in 2000, and another
document which never left Pope Johns apartment and was still in
his bedroom writing desk when Paul VI took office, as Archbishop
Capovilla attests;
a document Paul VI read on March 27, 1965 and then returned to the
Holy Office archivesthat is, the published visionand a different
document Pope Paul read on June 27, 1963, having retrieved it from
the writing desk called Barbarigo in the papal bedchamber, as
Archbishop Capovilla has revealed;
a four-page415 document containing 62 lines of text, produced by
the Vatican in 2000, but also a one-page document in the form of a
letter to the Bishop of Leiria, containing 25 lines of text, as attested
to by Bishop Venancio, Cardinal Ottaviani and others, which we have
not yet seen;
the description of a vision published on June 26, 2000 which records
no words spoken by Our Lady, and another document containing
the words which Our Lady confided as a secret to the three little
shepherds in the Cova da Iria, suppressed in 1960 and unpublished
to this day;
a document (per Pius XIIs emissary, Father Schweigl) that concerns
the Pope, published in 2000, and another document, not yet
published, that contains the logical continuation of the words: In
Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.;
a document in which Our Lady says nothing to Lucy, that being the
published vision, and a different document which (per Cardinal
Ottaviani, who read the Secret) contains what Our Lady told her
[Sister Lucy] to tell the Holy Father;416
a document from the Holy Office archives read in July 1981 by Pope
John Paul II in the hospital after the assassination attempt and then
published in 2000, and another document the Pope read in 1978
within days of his election, not found in the archives.
Bertones Campaign to Save the Official Account

Unlike the unjustly marginalized Fatimists,417 Socci simply could
See footnote 368.
Once again, the operative words are what Our Lady told her, not the Cardinals
interpolation to tell the Holy Father.
417
Marginalized by the illegal and immoral campaign (orchestrated by the Secretary of State)
of lies, innuendoes, and half-truths which continue to this day. See, for example, Francis
Alban and Christopher A. Ferrara, Fatima Priest (Pound Ridge, New York: Good Counsel
Publications, 2001, Fourth Edition), which chronicles this vile campaign from 1981 to
2001.
415
416
250
not be ignored. Then again, how could he be answered without great

risk to the official account in the form of further discrepancies, telling
silences and inadvertent disclosures? In the course of Cardinal Bertones
efforts to limit the damage Socci had caused to the Party Line, there
would in fact be innumerable such missteps, resulting (for those who
trouble themselves to investigate the matter) in a complete demolition
of the official version of the Third Secret.
It is impossible here to detail all of the ins and outs of Bertones
failed campaign to keep the lid on the Third Secret controversy, which
was lifted sensationally by Fourth Secret and Capovillas frank testimony.
For a complete account one would need an entire book in itself, such
as the one Socci himself has written or the investigation published by
the Catholic attorney and commentator Christopher A. Ferrara, cited
previously, which (like Fourth Secret) has been published in both Italy
and America.418 Or one could take an hour to watch a documentary
film, The Secret Still Silenced, in either English or Italian to obtain a
good overview of the facts spelled out in detail by Socci and Ferrara. For
our purposes it suffices to touch upon the major developments in 20062007, the time period of Bertones ill-fated campaign to save the official
account. Those developments support no reasonable conclusion but
that a text pertaining to the Secret has been suppressed.
A Book that Answers Nothing

Cardinal Bertones first move was to rush into print on May 10,
2007 a book of his own, LUltima Veggente di Fatima (The Last Visionary
of Fatima), to answer Soccis accusation that he and the Vatican are
concealing a text of the Secret. The book was in the form of an interview
by Giuseppe De Carli, a Vaticanista (reporter on the Vatican beat) and
ardent admirer of the Cardinal, whose fawning questions not only posed
no real challenge to the Cardinal, but actually assisted him in promoting
what Socci had called the official reconstruction of the Third Secret.
As Socci shows in his response to Bertones book on May 12,
2007 in the Italian newspaper Libero,419 Bertones effort is a major
embarrassment to him and to the Vaticana disaster, in fact, because
it leaves untouched the entire case in support of the thesis that the
Vatican is hiding part of the Secret, while raising still more doubts about
Bertones credibility. At the same time, Bertone demeans his high office
by recklessly hurling invective at Socci, pronouncing his contentions
Cf. Christopher A. Ferrara, The Secret Still Hidden, which systematically presents every
pertinent detail of the events following the publication of Fourth Secret and the Cardinals
efforts to rebut Soccis book and the Fatimist evidence it presents. This chapter
incorporates a portion of Mr. Ferraras text with his kind permission.
419
Socci, Dear Cardinal Bertone: WhoBetween You and Meis Deliberately Lying?,
May 12, 2007 edition of the Italian newspaper Libero; at http://www.antoniosocci.com;
also available photographically reproduced from the publisher of this book. English
translation at http://www.fatima.org/news/newsviews/052907socci.asp; see also The
Fatima Crusader, No. 86 (Summer 2007), pp. 35-42.
418
251
ravings, calling him a deliberate liar (mendace), and even accusing

him of the tactics of Freemasonry, which has to be one of the most
ironic remarks of the post-conciliar epoch. Bertone acts like a desperate,
wounded man instead of the Vatican Secretary of State.
Bertones Last Visionary is essentially 140 pages of meandering
answers in which Bertone fails to address the merits of a single one of
Soccis well-supported arguments. For example, as to the key contention
that the missing words of the Virgin are found within Sister Lucys
etc., Bertone does nothing more than restate the contention without
answering it. Small wonder, for it was Bertone and his collaborators
who (as Socci discusses in his own book) deliberately evaded the telltale
etc. by detaching it from the integral text of the Fatima Message and
relegating it to a footnote without explanation in Bertones TMF, the
so-called official commentary on the Third Secret.
To take another example, regarding the substantial evidence
(including three eyewitnesses and a photograph) that the missing 25line, one-page text containing the Virgins words was kept separately in
the papal bedchamber rather than in the Holy Office archives, where
the 62-line, four-page text of the vision was maintained, Bertone ducks
the issue by stating that a one-page text was never in the archives, while
saying nothing about what, if anything, was in the papal bedchamber.
Having conspicuously failed to deny that a missing text was in the
bedchamber, Bertone suddenly announces, for the first time ever,
that some seven years ago Sister Lucy told him during an unrecorded
interview that the four-page text of the vision is the Third Secret and I
have never written other.
We are asked to believe that Sister Lucy uttered this never-beforementioned phrase during one of three interviews conducted by Bertone,
totaling ten hours, which, as Soccis response notes, were incredibly
not taped, nor filmed, nor transcribed. Bertone claims, however,
that he took notesa total of four minutes worth of phrases out of
ten hours of alleged conversation. Socci rightly asks: Why was such an
important phrase not reported by Bertone in the official publication [in
2000]? Moreover, why was it not reported until Sister Lucy was dead,
and could no longer deny anything? As Socci shows with this and other
examples of alleged statements by Sister Lucy during the purported
interviews, Bertones mysterious notes rather conveniently yield just
what Bertone needs, just when he needs itand not a moment sooner.
Yet somehow not one of the same alleged statements of Sister Lucy found
its way into the Vatican commentary of 2000, where they would have
handily supported the Vaticans position. Indeed, Sister Lucy was kept
incommunicado throughout the revelation of the Third Secret in that
year, even though she was the only living witness to its true contents.
Soccis response poses the $64,000 question that Bertone continues
to duck: [W]hy did the prelate not ask the visionary if she had ever
written the sequel to the mysterious words of the Virgin suspended by
252
et cetera (In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved)
which have always been considered by the experts the beginning of the
Third Secret? Very strange. Or perhaps Bertone did ask her, and got
an answer he does not wish us to know. Perhaps the answer is in his
notes. But dont expect these notes ever to see the light of day.
As Socci further observes in his reply, Bertones book not only fails
to answer any of the points he raised in Fourth Secret, but also poses
further problems. I was even embarrassed to read a thing so bungled
and self-wounding. For example, in order to bolster the Vatican Party
Line that the Message of Fatima (and thus the Third Secret) belongs to
the past because Russia has already converted, Bertone credits the
rumor that Gorbachev, in the historic visit to Pope Wojtyla of December
1, 1989, made a mea culpa before the Popea myth that was officially
denied by the Vatican Press Office on March 2, 1998.
Another self-inflicted wound is Bertones statement (in his book,
Last Visionary, on page 89 of the English edition and page 101 of
the Italian edition) that Sister Lucy never worked with a computer.
Here Bertone forgets that, when it was expedient for him to do so, he
asserted precisely the opposite: that Sister Lucy even used a computer
in 1989a claim that, as Socci notes, served to accredit certain letters
that Sister Lucy had not written in her own hand and which contradicted
everything she had said before on the consecration of Russia. Bertone
has thus undermined all claims that Sister Lucy was the author of those
letters, especially the alleged letter of November 8, 1989 to Mr. Noelker,
cited in TMF as the sole evidence for claiming that the Consecration of
Russia was done in 1984.
The damning omissions, admissions and inconsistencies in Bertones
attempt to answer Socci only reinforced Soccis conviction (and millions
of others) that, as he states in his reply to Last Visionary, It is evident
that the Fourth Secret of Fatima (or rather the hidden part of the Third)
exists and in my book I think that I have demonstrated it.
But Socci is not pleased by his vindication through Bertones flailing
and ineffectual attacks. As he explains:
For any author it would be a coup to see himself personally
attacked by the Secretary of State without even a trace of
argument. But for me it is a disaster, because I am first of all a
Catholic before being a journalist. I would have preferred to be
confuted. Or else I would have wanted the Holy See to reveal the
whole truth about the Third Secret of Fatima, publishingas the
Madonna requestedthe part still hidden. Otherwise I would have
preferred to be ignored, snubbed, boycotted. It is one thing to be
mistaken, another to evade, and that is precisely what Bertone has
done: publicly exposing himself without responding to anything
and on the contrary adding disastrous findings. For him and for
the Vatican. 420
420
Socci, Dear Cardinal Bertone: WhoBetween You and Meis Deliberately Lying?, loc. cit.
253
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this

development: a prominent and unimpeachable Catholic journalist and
intellectual has publicly accused the Vatican of hiding a text containing
a prophecy of the Virgin concerning apostasy in the Church and
perhaps apocalyptic events for the world at large, and the Vatican offers
no defense to the charge except a rambling collection of evasions and
insults uttered by its Secretary of State.
Bertones book boasts an introduction in the form of a letter from
Pope Benedict, which tellingly avoids any details of the controversy. But,
in a thickening of the plot, Socci reveals that he has received a letter from
the Pope concerning my book, thanking me for the sentiments which
have suggested it. Socci says that the Popes words are comforting
before the insults and coarse accusations Bertone has hurled at him.
While Socci is understandably comforted by the Popes letter, however,
it raises troubling questions: Why would the Pope thank Socci for a book
that accuses the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State of censoring the very
words of the Mother of God and at the same time send a generic letter
of apparent support to the same Secretary of State for his book which
includes an attack on Socci, filled with insults and evasions that only
confirm the suspicions of the faithful? If what Bertone says is true and
what Socci says is false, then why did the Popes letter to Socci apparently
contain not a word of rebuke or correction? There is only one reasonable
answer: the Pope knows that Socci is onto something, and thus the Pope
cannot bring himself to condemn his book. And that is precisely why
neither the Pope nor the Holy See has issued any official pronouncement
against The Fourth Secret of Fatima. That official silence is thunderous,
and in itself is confirmatory of the entire Fatimist position.
The Cover-Up Collapses

Recognizing that his book had failed to control the damage to the
official account provoked by Soccis book, Bertones next move was
an utterly extraordinary television appearance to attack Soccis book.
On May 31, 2007 Bertone appeared on Porta a Porta [Door to Door],
Italys most popular talk show, as the guest on a segment entitled The
Fourth Secret of Fatima Does Not Exist. While the title of the show
was a direct reference to Soccis Fourth Secret, Socci was not invited to
participate, evidently because the Cardinal would not allow himself to
be subjected to any difficult questions.
Bertone appeared as a guest like any other, on a remote feed from
his Vatican office and without any official mission from the Holy See,
which had said absolutely nothing about Soccis book (apart from
the personal letter of acknowledgment the Pope had sent Socci). His
appearance was billed as a sensational on-camera display of the Third
Secret documents that would supposedly end the controversy once and
for all. In fact, the display of documents on live television and Bertones
own statements were utterly devastating to Bertones version of events.
254
A complete account of this fateful telecast is not possible here.421 We

focus on only four of the most important revelations, which suffice to
show beyond question that a text of the Secret remains, as Socci puts it,
well hidden422 in the Vatican:
The first revelation, by Cardinal Bertone on Porta a Porta, is
that there are two sealed envelopes which Sister Lucy prepared for
the Third Secret. Each envelope had three large wax seals on the back
of the envelope, besides being glued closed in the usual way. Bertone
displayed both envelopes, front and back, on camera (see the photos on
page XV in the photo section).
The second revelation is that each of these two envelopes
shown during that telecast contains the identical order in Lucys own
handwriting with the exact same words: By express order of Our
Lady, this envelope can only be opened in 1960 [only] by the Cardinal
Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria. We can distinguish between
these two envelopes because on one envelope the words Nossa
Senhora (Our Lady) are both on the same line, whereas on the other
envelope Nossa and Senhora are on different lines (see page XV in
the photo section for the photos of these two envelopes).
These first two revelations were enough to destroy the official
account. We note, first of all, that for the seven years preceding the
May 31, 2007 telecastbeginning with publication of TMF on June
26, 2000Bertone had represented to the world that Sister Lucy
confessed to him that she had never received any directive from the
Virgin regarding disclosure of the Secret in 1960. Bertone had made this
claim both in TMF and in his book Last Visionary.423 The claim that Lucy
confessed that she had simply invented a connection of the Secret to
the year 1960which would make the seer a liarwas clearly intended
to accomplish three purposes: (1) severing any connection between the
Secret and that year, in which the Second Vatican Council had recently
been announced, (2) lending support to Bertones interpretation of
the vision of the Bishop dressed in white as a depiction of the 1981
attempt on the life of John Paul II, and (3) distracting attention from
the salient fact that the vision has no connection whatsoever to 1960,
which would lead one to doubt that the vision standing alone is the
whole of the Third Secret.
But now here was Bertone on national television blithely
contradicting his own representations that Sister Lucy had never
received any order from the Virgin regarding 1960. As if nothing were
For a complete account see Christopher Ferrara, The Secret Still Hidden, Chapter 8.
Antonio Socci, Bertone in the Wasps Nest of the Polemics, June 2, 2007, at http://
www.antoniosocci.com/2007/06/bertone-nel-vespaio-delle-polemiche; also available
photographically reproduced from the publisher of this book. English translation at
http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr86/cr86pg43.asp; see also The Fatima Crusader, No.
86 (Summer 2007), pp. 43ff.
423
TMF, p. 29; Last Visionary, English ed., p. 80; Italian ed., p. 92.
421
422
255
amiss, he had just displayed for the camera two envelopes referencing
precisely such an order to the seer from the Mother of God! Either he
was lying about the order from the Virgin or Sister Lucy was. Who
was more likely to have told a lie about the 1960 orderLucy, who
had no reason to lie about the Virgins precise connection of the Third
Secret to that year, or Bertone who had powerful motives to deny that
connection? The question answers itself. And given the self-evident
answer, why should anyone believe anything at all Bertone has to say
about the Third Secret of Fatima?
Now, as to the revelation that there are two sealed envelopes
pertaining to the Secret, we know that Sister Lucy, on January 9, 1944,
had referred to a single sealed envelope in her letter to Bishop da Silva
(I have written what you asked it is sealed in an envelope). Yet
Bertone suddenly revealed for the first time that there had been two
sealed envelopes all along, with each bearing its own 1960 order.
What could be more obvious than that the two different envelopes were
meant for two different parts of the same Secret: the vision, and the
words of the Virgin explaining the vision (just as She had explained to
the Fatima seers something as obvious as the vision of hell: You have
seen hell, where the souls of poor sinners go.).
The Cardinal presented the two envelopes on camera as if Lucy had
placed one inside the other, even though neither the Cardinal nor Lucy
herself had ever mentioned such a curiously redundant double sealed
envelope (both with three wax seals) at any time. It would hardly make
sense to have created two sealed envelopes, each thrice sealed with
wax and bearing the same command on the outside, in order to use the
resulting two top secret envelopes for only one top secret text.
Indeed, it would be something of a joke to write on an outer envelope
not to be opened before 1960 only to write on the inner envelope not
to be opened before 1960. Had Lucy done such an odd thing, Bertone
certainly would have said so and would have had her authenticate both
sealed envelopes during the meeting of April 2000 mentioned in the
Introduction to TMF, rather than creating needless suspicion about a
second envelope suddenly revealed for the first time on Porta a Porta.
Here it is crucial to note that if Sister Lucy had used two envelopes,
both sealed, for the same text, then she and others would not have
referred so consistently to one sealed envelope. For example:
it is sealed in an envelope (Lucy, 1944);
It has been written and placed in a sealed envelope (Cardinal
Cerejeira, 1946);
in the bishops larger envelope he [Bishop Venancio] discerned a
smaller envelope, that of Lucy, and inside this envelope, an ordinary
sheet of paper (Bishop Venancio to Frre Michel).424
424
The Whole Truth About Fatima Vol. III, pp. 47, 471, 481.
256
Most tellingly, in his own book Last Visionary, ostensibly published

for the very purpose of rebutting Antonio Soccis claim that the Vatican
is hiding a text of the Secret, Bertone quotes Sister Lucy as referring to
only one sealed envelope prepared by her for the text she was asked to
authenticate in an April 2000 meeting with the Cardinal. Sister Lucy,
reported by Cardinal Bertone, allegedly said: This is my envelope, this
is my writing, this is my text.425 As Bertone states on the same page of
his own book, the authenticated text was contained in only one sealed
envelope of Lucys: An external with the note Third Part of the Secret,
and an internal of Sister Lucys with the date 1960.426
These admissions leave no room for argument: Cardinal Bertone and
Bishop Venancio both testified to a document ensemble consisting of an
outer envelope that was not Sister Lucys inside of which was only one
envelope, sealed, that was Sister Lucys. On this basis alone we can lay to
rest any speculation that Lucy, for some strange reason, decided to use a
redundant second envelope, with a redundant second order about 1960,
to contain the text published by the Vatican on June 26, 2000.
In answer to the objection that Cardinal Bertone would not have
revealed the second envelope if he had had something to hide, we can
only say that its revelation may have been a mishap or else a calculated
effort to smuggle into the picture, as if it had always been there, the longsuspected second envelope, whose existence could no longer be denied
following Soccis publication of Archbishop Capovillas testimony about
the Capovilla envelope in the papal apartment. In any case, the problem
is not ours to confront, but rather the problem of those whose long course
of conduct has been to obviously lie to us over and over again.
Since we have learned from Bertone himself (at long last) that
there are two sealed envelopes from Sister Lucy, each bearing its own
order concerning the year 1960, and since, moreover, both Bertone and
Venancio attest to having seen only one such sealed envelope, then we
are obviously dealing with two different envelopes pertaining to two
different documents, only one of which (the text of the vision) has been
revealed.
But when was the second sealed envelope containing the second
document created? As suggested in Chapter 4, it could only have been
sometime before June 17, 1944 when Sister Lucy delivered the entire
Secret to Bishop da Silva and sometime after she wrote to Bishop da
Silva on January 9, 1944 to advise of the existence of a sealed envelope
and notebooks that were evidently to be conveyed along with it. Only
one reasonable conclusion is possible: something from Lucys notebook
ended up in one of the two envelopes.
Questa la mia busta, questa la mia scrittura, questo il mio testo. LUltima Veggente,
p. 49.
426
Notice the rather misleading suggestion that the envelope had only the date 1960
written on the outside, when Bertone had to know, as he himself revealed only weeks
later, that the outside of the envelope actually said: By express order of Our Lady, this
envelope only can be opened in 1960
425
257
Which brings us to the third revelation during the telecast. As

Bertone showed the camera, what the Vatican published in June of
2000 is precisely a folio of notebook paper folded to make four sides on
which there are 62 lines of writing, not the four separate pages TMF
had appeared to present in photocopy form. This can only mean that
the other sealed envelope must have been intended for the one-page
document we have yet to see, the document containing only 25 lines of
text famously revealed by both Bishop Venancio and Cardinal Ottaviani
as discussed in Chapter 4. That one-page document was probably found
in the Capovilla envelope in the papal apartmentin the writing
desk called Barbarigo. As we will see in the next section, during his
own television presentation of September 21, 2007, Bertone publicly
conceded before the whole world that the Capovilla envelope exists, yet
he has conspicuously failed to produce it.
In the fourth major revelation of the telecast of May 31, 2007,
Cardinal Bertone, backed into a corner, indirectly confirmed the truth
of Cardinal Ottavianis decisive testimony. During the broadcast the
Vaticanista Marco Politi queried Bertone on the discrepancy between
Cardinal Ottavianis revelation that the Third Secret involved a text of 25
lines on a single page, and the Vaticans claim that the Secret only involved
the 62 lines on four pages comprising the vision of the Bishop dressed in
white. Confronted by the discrepancy, Bertone not only did not deny that
Ottaviani had so testified, but responded that I was a little amazed that
Cardinal Ottaviani had said categorically a folio of 25 lines
And, in the ensuing moments of the broadcast, Bertone offered a
most unconvincing explanation of why the late Cardinal would have
said such a thing. Following a four-minute commercial break during
which he had ample time to consider the problem posed for the official
account, Bertone proposed on camera what he called an attempt at an
explanation of Cardinal Ottavianis testimony: that the late Cardinal had
counted the first and fourth pages of the four-page vision as if it were
one page consisting of 25 lines, while disregarding the second and third
pages! Putting aside the utter implausibility of the claim that the very
Cardinal entrusted with reading the Secret could have overlooked half its
content in describing it to others, the fact is that the first and fourth pages
of the text of the vision contain 32 lines in total, not 25 lines, or 30 lines if
one discounts J.M.J on the first page and the line containing the date on
the fourth page. The Fatimist account of Ottavianis revealing testimony
was thus admitted by Cardinal Bertone himself.
Certainly, Cardinal Bertone had had ample time to count the lines
in question during the commercial break. Thus, he either deliberately
misstated the number of lines, or never bothered to count them but only
ventured a haphazard guess. In either case, Bertone had demonstrated
a willingness to fudge the facts in order to serve the official account.
But if this was the only explanation he could contrive for Cardinal
Ottavianis categorical affirmation contradicting the official account,
258
then in effect Bertone had no explanation at all. Thus, Cardinal Bertones

attempt at an explanation only further confirms (albeit indirectly) the
existence of a one-page text of the Secret containing only 25 lines.
All in all, Bertones appearance on Porta a Porta was a disaster for
Bertone but a triumph for the truth. As Socci wrote of the telecast,
Bertone had not only failed to give even one answer to Soccis book,
but On the contrary, he did more: He offered the proof that I am right.
Not only did Bertone fail to kick a goal into the empty net on Soccis
side of the field, he
scored the most sensational goal against himself: he demonstrated
(involuntarily) that as a matter of fact the explosive part of the
Third Secret of Fatima exists yet is well hidden. For this
service to the truth (although indirect) it is necessary to thank the
Cardinal. And to encourage him now to tell everything because
as the Gospel explainsthe truth will make you free.427
The Cardinal Bertone Show

Facing disaster, Bertones next move was to stage his own television
show, broadcast on the Telepace channel on September 21, 2007. The
press were invited to attend. Billed as a presentation of Bertones Last
Visionarymonths after that book had already been presented to the
public with great fanfarethis too was an unofficial initiative, with no
backing from the Holy See, to discredit Socci and save the official
account. Socci, in fact, came as an invited journalist to the auditorium
where the telecast was conducted in the hope of questioning Bertone,
but was thrown out of the building by security guards.428
Part of this Cardinal Bertone Show was a heavily-edited videotaped
segment of an interview of Archbishop Capovilla conducted, not by the
Vatican, but by none other than Giuseppe De Carli, the same fawning
Vaticanista who had collaborated with Bertone on Last Visionary.
While the interview segment was clearly offered in an effort to counter
Capovillas testimony to Solideo Paolini as discussed above, Capovilla
failed to mention that testimony or even mention Paolinis name, even
once. On the contrary, he confirmed all of the following facts on camera:
that on June 27, 1963 Paul VI contacted him, through Monsignor
DellAcqua, to determine the location of the Capovilla envelope in
the papal apartment,
that the envelope was retrieved from the Barbarigo desk in the
apartment,
Antonio Socci, Bertone in the Wasps Nest of the Polemics, June 2, 2007, at www.
antoniosocci.com.
428
Fourth Secret of Fatima: Socci challenges Cardinal Bertone, thrown out by gendarmes,
Bartolini Bruno, Corriere della Sera, September 22, 2007. See Bertones Cover-up of Third
Secret Continues to Unravel in The Fatima Crusader, No. 87 (Autumn 2007), pp. 16ff; at
http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr87/cr87pg16.asp
427
259
that Paul VI read its contents on that date,

that Paul VI replaced the text and resealed the Capovilla envelope,
having left it to others to decide, as had John XXIII.
To leave the reader with no doubt about the matter, here is the
verbatim transcript of what Capovilla said on this score:
On June 27, 1963 I was, that afternoon, with the Sisters of the
Poor in Via Casilina. A worried Monsignor DellAcqua telephoned
me. The Fatima envelope could not be found. I replied that probably
it could be found in the writing desk called Barbarigo, because it
belonged to Saint Gregory Barbarigo and was gifted to Pope John
by Count della Torre. Pope John held it dear, in his bedroom, like a
relic. There were on the right and on the left five or six drawers.
Later, DellAcqua telephoned me and communicated that the
envelope had been found.
On June 28 Pope Paul called me and asked who had dictated the
lines on the envelope. I explained that it was the Pope himself who
wanted to indicate the persons who had knowledge of the text.
Pope John did not say anything else to you?, Pope Paul asked me.
No, Holy Father, he left it to others to decide. I will also do as
much, responded Pope Montini. The envelope was resealed and I
dont know if it was spoken of further.429
So Bertone had finally admitted through Archbishop Capovilla,

whom he had made his own witness, that there was indeed a Capovilla
envelope located in the papal apartment and containing a text of the
Secret read some two years before the date provided in the Bertone
official account. Yet, through his surrogate De Carli, Bertone proceeded
brazenly to claim on live television that the never-produced Capovilla
envelope was the same as the documentation he had already produced
on Porta a Porta. As De Carli declared to the camera:
I conclude, therefore, there is not a Capovilla envelope
to contrast to a Bertone envelope. The two envelopes are the
same document.
But this was utter nonsense, since we know that the Capovilla
envelope bears the handwriting of Archbishop Capovilla indicating the
names of all those who had read its contents, his own name, and the
dictation of John XXIII that I leave it to others to comment or decide.
Bertone had never at any time over the previous seven years produced
this envelope, nor did he produce it during the telecast of September
21, 2007. Nor has he done so as of the publication of this second edition
of The Devils Final Battle (December 2009). Yet Bertone has shown
us the Bertone envelope, and it clearly is not the Capovilla envelope
testified to by Archbishop Capovilla in such exacting and irrefutable
429
Cf. Christopher A. Ferrara, The Secret Still Hidden, p. 187.
260
detail during the very telecast Bertone himself had orchestrated. Thus De
Carliand by extension Bertone himselfhad the audacity to declare
what he and Bertone had to know was precisely the opposite of the
truth. And notice that it is De Carli, not Archbishop Capovilla, who
concludes this, providing the testimony he clearly could not extract
from the Archbishop since it was manifestly false.
There are other telling slip-ups in this telecast, but the details of
these need not delay us, as significant as they are.430 For we have already
seen enough in the three moves, each disastrous, Soccis book had
provoked Bertone to undertake. Bertones book and his two telecasts
had only served to confirm what was already apparent: that there are
two envelopes and two texts comprising the Third Secret of Fatima in
its entirety, and that we have seen only one of the textsthe text of the
visionwhile the text containing the words of the Virgin explaining
the vision and predicting a crisis for the Church and the world remains
hidden, evidently inside the Capovilla envelope that Bertone wishes
to pretend he has produced without actually producing it.
As Scripture says, He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it431
Despite all his efforts to the contrary, Cardinal Bertone had only
further revealed that which, as Socci courageously recognizes, Cardinal
Bertone and his collaborators in the Vatican apparatus wish to conceal.
Five years after this book first appeared, Divine Providence had written
straight with Bertones crooked lines, shining the light of Heaven itself
on the Secret still hidden.
But that is not all. Before the guards threw Socci out on the street at
the location of the telecast of September 21, 2007, he was able to play
for the assembled journalists an audiotape of Capovillas statements to
Paolini during a further meeting of the two on June 21, 2007. As the
major Italian daily Il Giornale reported, on the tape Capovilla is heard to
state: Besides the four pages [of the vision of the bishop dressed in white]
there was also something else, an attachment, yes. As the reporter from
Il Giornale concluded, Capovillas statement would confirm the thesis of
the existence of a second sheet with the interpretation of the Secret. The
mystery, and above all the polemics, will continue.432
Thanks to the revelations of 2006-2007 the mystery and the polemics
will indeed continue. Meanwhile, however, not only the Church, but the
whole world, is moving inexorably toward the ultimate consequences
the missing text of the Third Secret no doubt foretells and gives us the
means to avoid. The next chapters of this book will focus on the ever
increasing danger posed by deliberate concealment of the Heaven-sent
text that completes the Third Secret of Fatima.
Cf. The Secret Still Hidden, Chapter 10, for a full account.
Ecclesiastes, 10:8.
432
Non esiste un quarto segreto di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima does not exist],
Il Giornale, September 22, 2007.
430
431
Chapter 15
Bertone versus Benedict
Throughout this book we have developed the theme of a Vatican
Party Line on Fatima dictated by the Secretary of State, with even
Pope John Paul II hewing to its requirements: that the Message of
Fatima be consigned to the past, that the Third Secret be interpreted
as merely a depiction of past events (supposedly culminating with
the 1981 assassination attempt) and that its explicitly Catholic call
for the consecration and conversion of Russia be revised in keeping
with a new orientation of the Church. This new orientation involves
ecumenism, dialogue, and Vatican diplomacy, including the VaticanMoscow Agreement according to which Vatican II observed (and the
Vatican apparatus continues to observe) a shameful silence in the face
of Communist persecution of the Church.
We have also shown that key figures involved in implementing
this Party Line have left the scene of the crime, so to speak, since
the first edition of this book appeared: the former Secretary of State,
Cardinal Angelo Sodano; the former head of the Congregation for the
Clergy, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos; and, of course, the former Cardinal
Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. But, as the preceding chapter
demonstrates in considerable detail, one key figure remains very much
involved in perpetuating the Party Line: the current Vatican Secretary of
State, Cardinal Bertone. As should be obvious from what we recounted
in Chapter 14, Cardinal Bertone perseveres in the Party Line even more
vigorously than his predecessorand this despite the devastating
revelations of 2006-2007, which have exposed it as nothing less than
a fraud upon the Church, as even Antonio Socci, an acquaintance and
collaborator of the Cardinal, was forced to conclude.
At the same time, however, the former Cardinal Ratzinger has
undergone a certain transformation of his former revisionist views on
Fatimaviews evidently dictated by the Party Line. As Pope, the former
Cardinal Ratzinger
Has abandoned the view, expressed in his theological commentary
on the Message of Fatima in June of 2000, published as part of TMF,
that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart occurred 2,000 years ago
when Mary agreed to become the Mother of God. Today, Pope Benedict
speaks of that Triumph as a future event, and declares: May it be so!
Has thus implicitly abandoned the view, expressed by Cardinal Bertone
in his Introduction to TMF, that Fatima belongs to the past and that
publication of the vision of the Bishop dressed in white on June 26,
2000 brings to an end a period of history marked by tragic human
262
lust for power and evila preposterous and reprehensible falsehood

designed to lull the faithful to sleep in the face of grave danger.
Has abandoned the view, also expressed in TMF, that the Immaculate
Heart is like any heart that draws close to God. Today, Pope Benedict
declares that the Immaculate Heart is the Heart most like that of
Jesus, the Heart closest to His among all of humanity. He no longer
places the words Immaculate Heart in the skeptical quotation
marks and lower case letters we saw in TMF.
Has abandoned the view implied by his citation to Edouard Dhanis
as an eminent scholar on FatimaDhanis having contended that
everything Sister Lucy reported about the consecration and conversion
of Russia was her own invention. Today, Pope Benedict pronounces
the Message of Fatima to be the most important prophetic message
of the 20th Century.
Has admitted that the Church is in the midst of a terrible crisis of faith
and discipline, which is no doubt foretold in the part of the Third Secret
consisting of the 25 lines attested to by Cardinal Ottaviani, and which
the Pope has read. Pope Benedict, unlike his immediate predecessors,
does not speak of the renewal or springtime of Vatican II, but of a
true ecclesial disaster of unprecedented proportions.
In view of these papal words and deeds, the divergence between
Benedict XVI and Cardinal Bertone and his Party Line on Fatima is now
so dramatic that it is fair to speak of a situation that can be described as
Bertone vs. Benedict.
Furthermore, it is evident that the former Cardinal Ratzinger, precisely
because he has read the Third Secret in its entirety (giving tantalizing
hints of its contents in 1984), is today as Pope attempting to implement
(however partially) a program of ecclesial course correction that would
seem to be aimed at addressing what the unpublished part of the Third
Secret predicts: a truly apocalyptic collapse of faith and discipline in the
Church, leading to what the Pope himself called (in September 2009) a
secularized ecclesial environment and a desert without God. We have
seen that the Popes attempt to change course has included his historic
liberation of the Latin Mass, his lifting of the excommunication of the
bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X, and his extraordinary exclusive
invitation to the Societys representatives to engage in theological
discussions with the Vatican concerning the enormously problematical
Vatican II texts (which discussions commenced on October 26, 2009).
Cardinal Bertone, on the other hand, continues as before, pursuing
unswervingly the worldly wisdom of a Vatican bureaucracy that wishes
to be done with Fatima once and for all. In Chapter 14 we outlined
how the revelations of 2006-2007 exposed the Party Line as a tissue
of lies. We recall here three of the most flagrant lies the Cardinal has
perpetrated over the past several years, despite conclusive evidence
Bertone vs. Benedict
263
that he cannot possibly be telling the truth:

That Sister Lucy confessed to him that Our Lady of Fatima never
said anything to her about the Third Secret being connected to 1960,
when Bertone himself produced on television two envelopes (clearly
meant for two different texts pertaining to the Secret) on each of
which Sister Lucy had recorded the express order of Our Lady that
the contents were not to be revealed until that year. This falsehood
alone destroys the Cardinals credibility.
That the Capovilla envelope Bertone has never produced is the same
as the Bertone envelope. It is Bertone himself who presented the
testimony of Archbishop Capovilla on television that the Capovilla
envelope, containing a text pertaining to the Secret and lodged in
the papal apartment, bears the Archbishops handwriting, a list of the
names of the prelates who had read its contents, and the dictation of
Pope John XXIII that I leave it to others to comment or decide. It
requires unbelievable audacity for Bertone to maintain that what he
has never produced is the same as what he has produced. Yet he persists
in this falsehood even though it is perfectly obvious that it is false.
That publication of the vision on June 26, 2000 brings to an end a
period of history marked by tragic human lust for power and evil.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan; the rise of a neo-Stalinist, abortion-ridden Russia and a
new Sino-Soviet military alliance; the worldwide economic collapse of
2008-2009 (provoked precisely by greed) and the continuing descent
of the entire world into ever-worsening moral depravity, make a
mockery of this falsehood. And yet the Cardinal refuses to recant it.
We refer the reader to the preceding pages for the facts regarding
all the falsehoods that comprise the Party Line on Fatima. All of these
falsehoods, of course, have served the Big Lie that Fatima belongs to
the past and that its prophecies need no longer concern us.
Cardinal Bertone persists in the Big Lieand all the smaller lies
that serve itdespite the very public collapse of his version of events,
and the very public correction he has received from Socci and other
Catholics whose legitimate objections he has utterly failed to answer,
even as he pretends, with great fanfare, to have given an answer.
Consider these key events recounted on the preceding pages, which
remind us of the pertinacity with which the Cardinal clings to his utterly
discredited testimony:
On November 22, 2006, Antonio Socci published his devastating
expos on the Third Secret, including the testimony of Archbishop
Capovilla that there are two texts and two envelopes (the Capovilla
envelope and the Bertone envelope) pertaining to the Secret. Pope
Benedict himself sent Socci a personal note of acknowledgment and
264
thanks for his book, even though Socci had accused Bertone of a
cover-up of the second text.
In the face of this damning indictment, Bertone not only refused to
back down, but published his own book on May 10, 2007, attacking
Socci while failing to address a single point he had raised.
When Socci replied publicly (on May 12, 2007) that Bertones book
had ignored every single issue and had thus conceded Soccis entire
case, Bertones only answer was silence.
On May 31, 2007, however, Bertone appeared on the Italian television
show Porta a Porta to attack Socci a second timeagain without
answering him. In the process, Bertone not only failed to address
the evidence Socci had presented, but also revealed devastating new
evidence against his own position, including the existence of two
different sealed envelopes pertaining to the Third Secret, each with
its own order from the Virgin that it could not be opened before
1960, and Bertones admission that Cardinal Ottaviani had testified
categorically to the existence of a text of the Third Secret comprised
of one page and 25 lines.
When, on June 2, 2007, Antonio Socci publicly replied that Bertones
appearance on Porta a Porta had only confirmed that he was
concealing the second text of the Third Secret, Bertone once again
observed a telling silence.
On September 21, 2007, his position now in shambles, Bertone
conducted his own telecast during which he not only failed (yet again)
to answer any of the questions that Socciand now Bertones own
disclosureshad raised, but also produced a heavily-edited videotape
interview of Archbishop Capovilla, during which the Archbishop
confirmed the existence of the very envelope (the Capovilla envelope)
Bertone has failed and refused to produce, even as Bertone audaciously
and falsely continued to maintain that he has produced everything.
Before the start of the telecast of September 21, 2007, Socci was
thrown out of the building in which the telecast was conducted so that
he would not be able to pose any questions to Bertone, but not before
he played for other journalists an audio tape in which Archbishop
Capovilla is heard to admit that there is an attachment to the text
of the vision of the Bishop dressed in whitean attachment that has
never been published, and probably contains the explanatory words of
the Virgin. When the Italian press reported on this revelation the next
day, Bertone again observed a telling silence, conspicuously failing to
deny that there is an unpublished attachment to the text of the vision.
In June-July 2008 the Italian translation of a book by the Catholic
attorney and commentator Christopher A. Ferrara was published
(the original English was published a few months earlier), wherein
265
all of the developments mentioned above and numerous others are

presented in a way that systematically demonstrates that Cardinal
Bertone is not telling the truth about the Third Secret. Although
Ferraras book was published in Italian and circulated throughout
Italy, Bertone offered no response other than to complain privately
about the book in a letter to a priest, without addressing any of the
points it raisesthus repeating his suspicious silence with respect to
the questions raised by Soccis book.
In sum, Cardinal Bertone is a thoroughly impeached witness who
stubbornly persists in defending his testimony long after his credibility
has been destroyed. He thus represents an even greater problem for
the Churchby farthan his predecessor in the office of Secretary of
State. For Bertone is not only committed to defending the Party Line,
but also his personal reputation, which has been damaged by a public
scandal in which one of Italys most prominent Catholics, Antonio
Socci, has accused him of concealing the words of the Mother of God.
This is what accounts for Bertones furious public relations campaign
in defense of his discredited testimony, including a book and two
television appearances that have only confirmed the incredibility of his
account. And yet Bertone digs in his heels, refusing to admit the obvious
implications of his own disclosures and admissions. He has thus created
in himself a major obstacle to the Churchs obedience to the Message of
Fatima. It is literally the case that the personal pride of a lone Vatican
bureaucrat has placed the Church and the world at risk.
Now, back in the year 2000 Bertone was the former Cardinal
Ratzingers subordinate as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, and both Ratzinger and Bertone were carrying out the Party
Line under former Secretary of State Sodano. Under those circumstances,
it was at least arguable that Cardinal Ratzinger was able to justify to
himself that the testimony of then-Archbishop Bertoneas the emissary
Sodano had sent to interview Sister Lucywas reliable in April of
2000 in connection with the impending publication of the vision of the
Bishop dressed in white. Again in November 2001 Cardinal Ratzinger
still felt justified in believing the testimony of Archbishop Bertone for
that infamous interview from which, out of an alleged two hours of
unrecorded conversation with the seer, Bertone published exactly nine
words he attributed to her concerning the Third Secret. Perhaps at that
time Ratzinger felt he had no choice but to follow the testimony of
Archbishop Bertone and the dictates of Cardinal Sodano, the then Vatican
Secretary of State, as indicated by his numerous deferential references
to Sodanos interpretation of the vision in his theological commentary
in TMFan interpretation Sodano had absolutely no authority or
competence to make, but which he simply arrogated to himself.
And, as we have suggested earlier, perhaps under the compromise
solution hypothesized by Socci, in 2000 the former Cardinal Ratzinger
266
felt justified in adopting a mental reservation concerning the still hidden

one-page text of 25 lines that undoubtedly contains the words of the
Virgin explaining the vision. Pursuant to the compromise solution,
it may well have been determined that during Bertones interviews
of Lucy (of which, conveniently, there is no independent record of
any kind) he would obtain Lucys agreementthat is, the obedient
cloistered nuns submissive acceptance or at least non-objectionto the
proposition that the unpublished text might not be authentic. Then
Pope John Paul II could be permitted to reveal only the substance of
the disputed text by way of his apocalyptic references to the tail of
the dragon at Fatima on May 13, 2000, and those veiled references,
together with the vision, could be presented as the entire Third Secret
without any overt misrepresentation, exactly as Socci suggests.
But this speculation aside, the former Cardinal Ratzinger is now the
Pope, and since he became Pope evidence has surfaced which makes it
objectively impossible to believe Bertones testimony. Indeed, the Popes
own dramatic changes of position since his election to the papacy indicate
that he knows quite well that the Third Secret contains precisely those
prophetic warnings we have not yet been allowed to see. Then too there
is the Popes telling note to Socci, thanking him for a book in which Socci
accuses the Vatican Secretary of State of deliberately concealing part of
the Third Secret. One can be certain that if Socci had falsely accused
Bertone of such a grave misdeed, the Pope would have told him so and
directed him to make reparation for the scandal.
Clearly, then, the Pope knows he cannot commit to Cardinal
Bertones version of the facts because it does not correspond to the
truth. And yet the Pope, in the face of decisions made before he became
Pope, finds himself in a quandary: the text which, in fact, actually is
not yet published has been revealed in a veiled way by John Paul II
at Fatima, but under the compromise solution which involved that
veiled revelation of the missing text which itself has been conveniently
deemed by the anti-Fatima Cardinals Bertone and Sodano and the
anti-Fatima Party in the Vatican to be questionable oreven worse
inauthentic. How can the Pope now reveal it without risking a
revolution in the papal household?
And yet reveal it he must. As Socci wrote on June 2, 2007, following
Bertones appearance on Porta a Porta, the Pope himself had opened
the road to the truth by stating in a letter Bertone included in his
book that the authentic words of the third part of the Secret were
published, which clearly implies that there exist words of the Secret
deemed not authentic. Courage, then: publish everything. The truth
will make you free.433
The truth will make us free. And the Vatican Secretary of State must
no longer be allowed to impede its revelation. Benedict is the Roman
433
Libero, June 2, 2007; see also footnote 422.

267
Pontiff, and Bertone is merely his subordinate. It is time for the Roman
Pontiff to end the Secretary of States domination in the Fatima affair.
It is incumbent on the Pope to undo the damage Bertone and Sodano,
his predecessor, have caused and continue to cause by their ongoing
deception. The Roman Pontiff alone is in a position to remedy this grave
injustice instantly. In addition to revealing the entirety of the Third
Secret and performing the Consecration of Russia so long overdue, the
remedy would involve either Bertones public recantation of the Party
Line and his own demonstrable falsehoods in support of it, or else his
removal from office for the good of the Church and all humanity. We are
constrained to request nothing less than this in the Petition to the Holy
Father with which this book concludes.
Sister Lucy, at the time of this photograph, was a Sister of the

Dorothean nuns, and about three years after this picture was taken,
she received a message from Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself telling her
to relay to the Pope and bishops what will happen to them personally
if they delay too long to do the Consecration of Russia. Jesus said:
Make it known to My ministers, given that they follow the
example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My
command, like him they will follow him into misfortune.
The vision of the execution of the Pope and the bishops which was
released by the Vatican on June 26, 2000 would be explained by the
words of Our Lord Himself quoted above.
268
The Big Three in the Third Secret Cover-up

Angelo Cardinal Sodano (left), former Vatican Secretary of State,
who managed the revelation of the vision of the Bishop dressed
in white in 2000 and whose patently untenable interpretation
of the vision as a depiction of the 1981 attempt on the life of John
Paul II was widely rejected by the faithful. Sodanos interpretation
was cited no fewer than four times in the Vatican commentary on the
vision, The Message of Fatima, published together with the vision on
June 26, 2000. But what business is it of the Vatican Secretary of State
to interpret the Message conveyed to the Church and the world
by the Virgin Mother of God back in 1917? Here we see how Vatican
diplomacy has made a captive of the Message of Fatima for the sake
of fallible human initiatives, including dialogue, ecumenism and
Ostpolitik.
Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone (center). Successor to Cardinal Sodano
as Secretary of State, and formerly Secretary of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith as Archbishop Bertone (in which capacity he
co-authored The Message of Fatima). Bertones actions, disclosures
and revelations between 2000 and 2008 concerning the cover-up of
an unpublished text of the words of the Blessed Virgin, a text no doubt
explaining the published vision, are central to the whole detective
story and are extensively discussed in this book.
Giuseppe De Carli (right): The Vaticanist (journalist of Vatican
affairs) whose fawning, softball questions and biased defense of
Bertone have been instrumental to the cover-up. It was De Carli who,
acting as Bertones private agent, conducted a heavily edited interview
of Archbishop Capovilla, eyewitness to the existence of a second text
of the Third Secret kept in the papal apartment. In this interview, De
Carli attempted to use leading questions to induce the Archbishop to
change his testimony about the existence of an unpublished text of the
Secret. The effort not only failed, but on the contrary the Archbishop
confirmed that the Capovilla envelope containing this text exists.
Yet it has never been produced by Bertone or Sodano.
Chapter 16
Counting the Cost
In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father
will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of
peace will be granted to the world. So the Mother of God promised the
Church and the world at Fatima. But something has gone wrong. The
Fatima prophecies, fulfilled unerringly in every other respectexcept
for the annihilation of nationshave not been fulfilled here. Did the
Mother of God mislead us? Or is it, rather, certain men who have misled
us?
As this book moves toward its conclusion, we must recall that with
Our Ladys promise comes an ultimatum concerning the consequences
of failing to perform the Consecration of Russia in time: If My requests
are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not,
she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and
persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father
will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.
So, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart will take placein the
endfor nothing mere men can do will prevent the ultimate fulfillment
of the divine plan for our time as announced at Fatima. But Catholics
who believe in the Message of Fatima rightly wonder how much more
the Church and the world will have to suffer before the Consecration is
done and we reach the glorious fulfillment that Antonio Socci describes
as a victory for Our Lady more astonishing than the one over Islam at
the Battle of Lepanto, a radical and extraordinary change in the world,
an overthrow of the mentality dominating modernity, probably following
dramatic events for humanity. Must we first witness the annihilation of
nations and other dramatic events for humanity before the Triumph
of the Immaculate Heart comes to pass? How many souls have been
lost, and how many will be lost on account of human failure to follow
the Blessed Virgins simple prescriptiona failure attributable to a
worldly wisdom that seeks an accommodation of the Church to worldly
powers?
On March 3, 2002, Time magazine reported that a month after the
Sept. 11 attacks, top federal officials feared a nuclear weapon obtained
from the Russian arsenal was being smuggled into New York. The White
Houses Counterterrorism Security Group, part of the National Security
Council, was alerted to the danger through a report by an agent codenamed DRAGONFIRE, according to the magazine, but New York officials
and senior FBI officials were not informed in an effort to avoid panic.
Although the report later proved to be inaccurate, in Washington, D.C.
a shadow government facility has been installed in underground
270
bunkers, and nuclear detectors have been arrayed at key locations

throughout the United States in anticipation of what the President and
his advisors believe to be an inevitable, and far more deadly, attack by
Islamic terrorists. As The Washington Post reported on March 3, 2002:
Alarmed by growing hints of al Qaedas progress toward obtaining a
nuclear or radiological weapon, the Bush administration has deployed
hundreds of sophisticated sensors since November to U.S. borders,
overseas facilities and choke points around Washington. It has placed
the Delta Force, the nations elite commando unit, on a new standby
alert to seize control of nuclear materials that the sensors may detect.
Based on fallible human intelligence reports, political leaders
showed sufficient prudence to prepare for the worst, which they know
is coming sooner or later. But the Fatima revisionists in the Vatican
apparatus, following the Party Line on Fatima, tell us that the Fatima
prophecies, including the Third Secret, belong to the past (to recall
Cardinal Sodanos and Cardinal Bertones truly infamous words),
that we may safely disregard a heavenly intelligence report from an
infallible source, warning us of the annihilation of nations and the loss
of countless souls. Worse, they hide from the Church a vital portion
of that heavenly intelligence reportthe still-missing words of the
Secretwhile assuring us that everything has been revealed. And
it seems that as the world hurtles towards disaster, there is no short
supply in the Church of what Lenin, speaking of Western liberals, called
useful idiots, people who are only too happy to parrot the Party Line
while helpfully denouncing anyone who questions it.
The promises of Our Lady at Fatima entail two great gifts to all of
humanity: peace in the world through the conversion of Russia, and
peace and renewal in the Church also consequent to the Consecration
of Russia as well as the worldwide establishment of devotion to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary. And yet, as of the time the second edition of
this book appears (December 2009), we manifestly have neither.
Russia Has Not Been Converted

Twenty-five years after the Vatican ceremony in which the world
was consecrated to Mary, but any mention of Russia was deliberately
avoided so that the Russian Orthodox would not be offended, those who
preach the Party Line speak of the fall of communism, a mere regime
change, as if this were the miraculous conversion of Russia the Mother
of God promised. But the factsand as Saint Thomas teaches, against
a fact there is no argumenttell us that Russia has not converted in
any sense of the word, no matter how one wishes to twist conversion
to mean something other than what the Mother of God intended: the
return of the Russian people to union with Rome through their embrace
of the integral Catholic Faith.
There is no argument against a fact. No argument, no matter how
high the authority proposing it, can establish that the Eiffel Tower is
Counting the Cost
271
located in Rome. And no argument, no matter how high the Churchman

proposing it, can establish that Russia has been converted since the
1984 ceremony from which any mention of Russia was excluded. The
facts destroy the Party Line, and bring to light the terrible cost of the
Churchs continued adherence to it. Let us summarize some of the facts
here:
A. No conversion to the Catholic Faith

Father Joaquin Alonso, probably the foremost Fatima expert of the
20th Century, had many interviews with Sister Lucy. In 1976 he wrote:
...we should affirm that Lucia always thought that the
conversion of Russia is not to be limited to the return of the
Russian people to the Orthodox Christian religion, rejecting the
Marxist atheism of the Soviets, but rather, it refers purely, plainly
and simply to the total, integral conversion of Russia to the one
true Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church.434
Why is Our Lady of Fatima so insistent on the conversion of Russia?

The answer is that the Catholic Church has thrice defined as infallible
dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church: at the Fourth
Lateran Council (1215 AD) by Pope Innocent III; in the Bull Unam
Sanctam (1302) by Boniface VIII; and at the Council of Florence, in the
Bull Cantate Domino (1442) by Pope Eugene IV. Christ did not found
His Church for nothing, or to serve as an optional body of believers.
He founded it for one purpose: to sanctify souls and save them from
hell, through the grace He won for all men on the Cross.
We know Our Lady came to Fatima precisely to obtain the salvation
of souls: If My requests are granted many souls will be saved. From
which it obviously follows that many souls will be lost if Her requests
are not granted, for otherwise the request would have been pointless.
In this context the word conversion as used in the Message of Fatima
cannot possibly mean anything other than a conversion to Catholicism
and thus membership in the Catholic Church. It is nonsensical, therefore
to argue, as some do, that by conversion the Mother of GodWho is
also known by Catholics under the title Mother of the Catholic Church
meant that Russia would embrace the Orthodox religion following the
fall of communism in 1991. The Mother of the Catholic Church did
not come to Fatima to announce the conversion of Russia to a state
of schism from Rome. What is more, Russian Orthodoxy was already
the predominant religion in Russia when Our Lady appeared at Fatima.
Therefore, according to this argument, Russia would already have been
434
La Verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima, Fatima sin mitos, Father Joaquin Alonso, (2nd
edition, Ejercito Azul, Madrid, 1988) p. 78. English translation by Joseph Cain. Original
Spanish reads: ... podriamos decir que Lucia ha pensado siempre que la conversin de Rusia
no se entiende solo de un retorno de los pueblos de Rusia a la religion cristiano-ortodoxa,
rechazando el ateismo marxista y ateo de los soviets, sino que se refiere pura y llanmente a la
conversion total e integral de un retorno a la unica y verdadera Iglesia, la catolica-romana.
272
converted in 1917 and Our Lady of Fatimas statement that Russia

will be converted would have been senseless.
Now, it is simply undeniable that Russia has shown no sign
whatsoever of conversion rightly understood. More than a quarter
century after the ceremony of 1984, Catholics remain a tiny and
benighted minority in Russia. Consider these facts:
There are a mere ten Russian-born priests in the whole countryfive
in Siberia and five in Kazakhstan. Ninety-five percent of the priests
and nuns in Russia are foreign born. In Archbishop Bukovskys frank
opinion the Catholic Church is small.435
According to the Vatican, there are 500,000 Catholics in Russia, and
most of these are in Siberia, where Stalin had sent their grandparents
in exile.436
Statistics revealed by the flagship Russian Embassy in Washington,
D.C. paint a grim picture for Roman Catholicism in converted Russia
as of 2009.437 According to the Embassy report on Religion in Russia
today, the Russian Orthodox have nearly 5,000 approved religious
associations in the country; the Muslims, 3,000; the Baptists, 450;
the Old Believers, over 200; and Roman Catholics only 200only
132 more than the Hari Krishna people, who have 68.
All told, Russias 2 million Protestants have 1,150 communities, or
five times more than the Catholics.
The number of Muslims in Russia (19 million) is about thirty-eight
times higher than the number of Catholics.
There were 150 Roman Catholic parishes before the Russian
Revolution in 1917, but today there are only 83 parishes.
If this is a conversion of Russia, then the word conversion has
lost its meaning.
B. The Church is persecuted in Russia

Not only has Russia manifestly failed to embrace the Catholic Faith
since 1984the only reasonable meaning of the word conversion
the years since 1984 have witnessed a steady decline of the Churchs
position in Russia, to the point where the Church has been undergoing
outright persecution under the Yeltsin regime and now today the Putin/
Medeved regime. Consider these facts:
In 1997 Russia enacted a new law on freedom of conscience
which gave privileged status to Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism
and Buddhism as Russias traditional religions, while forbidding
Sarah Karush, Foreign Priests Spark Controversy, Associated Press, February 12, 2002.
Radio Free Europe Report, June 20, 2001. See also Catholic News Service, February 17,
2002.
437
Religion in Russia, at http://www.russianembassy.org/RUSSIA/religion.htm.
435
436
Counting the Cost
273
Catholic proselytism and requiring Catholic parishes to obtain

approval from local bureaucrats for their very existence.
The small percentage of Catholics who even go to Mass on Sunday
(most of them in Siberia) is dependent almost entirely on a total of
165 Russian priests, nearly all of whom are foreign-born clerics not
allowed into Russia without visitors visas that require a departure
from the country every three months to seek renewal, which can be
denied at any time and for any reason, often for no reason at all.
In 2002 Russian authorities began expelling non-Russian Catholic
clergy from the country. As of November 2002 five priests, including
the bishop for Siberia, Bishop Jerzy Mazur, had been expelled and
their visas confiscated without explanation. Bishop Mazur learned
that he had been added to a secret list of Catholic clergy who are
considered undesirables and will no longer be allowed to enter
Russian territory. After ignoring even the Popes request for an
explanation of the expulsions, Vladimir Putin sent a perfunctory letter
stating nothing more than that the expulsions were in accordance
with Russian law.438
The Russian Orthodox hierarchy exploded in outrage when the Vatican
announced in February 2002 that its apostolic administrations in
Russia would be designated as dioceses. These would not even be
dioceses in the traditional Catholic sense. There would, for example,
be only an Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow; and the
Archbishop in charge of this structure will not be called the Archbishop
of Moscow, lest the Vatican give offense to the then Russian Orthodox
Partriarch of Moscow, the ex-KGB agent, Alexy II.
On March 2, 2002, Pope John Paul II conducted a Saturday prayer
service that was broadcast from the Vatican by satellite into Russia.
The broadcast was totally blacked out by the same Russian television
networks now under Vladimir Putins thumb. Only by shipping
special equipment into the country (that was held up at customs
until the last possible moment) could a few thousand Catholics
see the Pope on television screens set up at Assumption Cathedral
in Moscow. The BBC reported that Patriarch Alexy of the Russian
Orthodox Church said it (the satellite broadcast) was an invasion of
Russia and referred to the Polish occupation of Moscow in the early
17th Century. John-Paul is of Polish origin.439 Hence, after 40 years
of Ostpolitik and ecumenical dialogue, the Orthodox hierarchy
will not even tolerate a video image of the Pope in even one single
Catholic Church in Moscow.
Trying to put a happy face on the debacle in Russia, Archbishop Tadeusz
Rebuff for the Pope: Vatican Fears New Persecution, The Catholic World Report, October
2002, p. 9.
439
BBC Online, March 2, 2002.
438
274
Kondrusiewicz, the then head of the Archdiocese of the Mother of

God at Moscow, claimed that Its all a misunderstanding, referring
to Orthodox charges that the Catholic Church is proselytizing in
Russia.
An Associated Press story on Kondrusiewiczs reaction to Orthodox
hostility noted that Parishioners have come to Kondrusiewicz in
tears recently, complaining that the indignant rhetoric by Orthodox
leaders on national newscasts since February 11 has made them
afraid to practice their faith.440
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz has issued a formal protest on behalf
of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia, entitled Religious
Liberty in Russia is in Serious Danger. The protest declares:
Catholics in Russia ask themselves: What will happen next?
Are the constitutional guarantees valid also for them, including
liberty of conscience and of the right to have their own pastors,
which comprises inviting them from abroad, not forgetting that for
81 years the Catholic Church was deprived of the right of forming
and ordaining its own priests? Perhaps the State really considers
Catholics second-class citizens? Are they (the State) returning to
the times of persecution of the faith? The expulsion of a Catholic
bishop who has not violated any law, surpasses all imaginable
limits of civilized relations between the State and the Church.
With grave worry, we express our decisive protest in respect to
violation of the constitutional rights of Catholics.441
By October 2002 Pope John Paul IIs own spokesman, Joaquin

Navarro-Valls, had declared that the actions against the Catholic
Church by Russian authorities had reached the level of a true
persecution.442
The situation has not improved materially since 2002. In at least
one way it has gotten worse. As the U.S. State Department reported
in its 2008 International Report on Religious Freedom, in 2007 the
Russian government introduced new visa rules that allow foreigners
(including religious workers) with business or humanitarian visas to
spend only 90 of every 180 days in the country.443
In other words, the new visa rules create a preposterous situation
for the Church in Russia: nearly every Catholic priest in the country is
obliged to leave Russia for what amounts to six months out of every year,
to remain in Russia for no more than 90 days at a time, and to reapply
at least twice a year for readmission at the discretion of bureaucrats. As
the State Department notes, the Catholic Church is particularly hard
AP News, March 1, 2002.
National Catholic Register Online Web Edition, April 28 - May 5, 2002.
442
The Catholic World Report, October 2002, p. 10.
443
U.S. Department of State, International Religious Freedom Report (2008), at http://www.state.
gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2008/108468.htm.
440
441
Counting the Cost
275
hit by this provision because, given the almost total lack of Russianborn priestsa quarter-century after Russias supposed conversion
the Church is forced to rely almost exclusively on priests from outside
the country The new provision thus limits their [priests serving in
Russia] ability to work and significantly increases their expenses.
The aim of the 2007 law is clear: to prevent the Catholic Church
from sinking any roots in Russian soil, while giving the false appearance
of religious freedom to a marginalized and bureaucratically hounded
tiny minority of priests and faithful struggling to survive.
To speak of a conversion of Russia to the Faith despite all these
facts is, quite simply, ludicrous. No wonder Fatima revisionistsi.e.,
those who revise the Fatima Message to mean what they wish it
to mean instead of what it really meanshave tried to redefine the
word conversion to make their false claims fit the evidence. Fatima
revisionism is, in fact, the very essence of the Party Line on Fatima as
examined thematically in the earlier chapters.
C. Russia has not even converted to Russian Orthodoxy

One of the revised meanings of conversion the Fatima revisionists
have proposed is an alleged conversion of Russia to Russian Orthodoxy,
already mentioned above. But even if this claim could be reconciled
with the plain words of Our Lady of Fatimaand it cannotit too
founders on the evidence.
Here it suffices to note that more than 25 years after the supposed
Consecration of Russia in 1984, nearly all of those who designate
themselves Russian Orthodox do not practice their religion. The
Economist notes that Russia is suffering a crisis of faith and that 94%
of Russians aged 18-29 do not go to church.444
In fact, the aforementioned report by the Russian embassy in
Washington reveals that sixty percent of the Russian people do not identify
themselves as having any religion at all, not even the nominal Russian
Orthodoxy that almost no one takes seriously.
Even the late Russian Orthodox patriarch, Alexy II (he died in
December 2008), publicly admitted that Satanism, occultism and
witchcraft are on the rise in Russia.445
No Moral Conversion in Russia

Twisting the meaning of conversion even further away from its
true meaning, certain Fatima revisionists, hewing as always to the Party
Line of the Vatican Secretary of State, argue that there has been some
sort of moral conversion or turning away from evil in Russia since
1984. But not even this has taken place. Quite the contrary, since 1984
Russia has undergone a rapid moral decline, as if to make a mockery of
444
445
Zenit News, December 22, 2000.

Satanism on the Rise in Russia, compiled by John Vennari. See www.fatima.org/news/
newsviews/satanism2.asp.
276
this revisionist claim. Consider these facts:

Today, Russia has the highest abortion rate in the world at 53.7 per
1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44a rate even higher
than that in China (which has more total abortions).446
Fr. Daniel Maurer, C.J.D., who spent eight years in Russia, says that
statistically, the average Russian woman will have eight abortions
during her childbearing yearsthough Fr. Maurer believes the actual
number averaged out to be about 12 abortions per woman. He has
spoken to women who have had as many as 25 abortions. A major
reason for these dreadful figures is that other contraception methods
(which are immoral anyway) have not been introduced in Russia, nor
are they trusted. This leaves abortion as the cheapest way to limit
the family size.447
In Russia, abortions are free, but childbirth is not.448
The Russian birth rate is plummeting and Russias population is
dropping at the rate of 700,000 people each yearan unprecedented
event in a civilized nation during peacetime.449
Russia has the highest per capita rate of alcohol consumption in the
world.450
Homosexuality is rampant in Moscow and throughout the country.
In fact, in April 1993, nine years after the 1984 consecration, Boris
Yeltsin allowed homosexuality to be de-criminalized. Homosexuality
is now legal in Russia.451
Russia is a leading world center for the distribution of child
CBC News, July 30, 2009, 13 million abortions a year reported in China, at http://
www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/07/30/abortions-china.html.
447
Father Maurers remarks appeared in an interview in Catholic World Report, February
2001. A synopsis and commentary on this interview was published in The Myth of a
Converted Russia Exposed, Marian Horvat, Ph.D., Catholic Family News, March 2001.
448
Ibid.
449
See Mark Fellows, This Present Darkness, Part III, Catholic Family News, October 2000.
450
Regarding alcohol in Russia, researchers concluded: Russias rate of alcohol consumption,
traditionally among the highest in the world, and rising significantly in the 1990s, is a major
contributor to the countrys health crisis ... alcoholism has reached epidemic proportions,
particularly among males ... A 1995 Russian study found that regular drunkenness affected
between 25 and 60 percent of blue-collar workers ... In 1994 some 53,000 people died
of alcohol poisoning, an increase of about 36,000 since 1991. In the ten years since the
alleged consecration of Russia, there has also been a sharp increase in illegal drug use:
In 1995 an estimated 2 million Russians used narcotics, more than twenty times the total
recorded ten years earlier in the entire Soviet Union, with the number of users increasing
50 percent every year in the mid-1990s. From Mark Fellows, This Present Darkness,
Part II, Catholic Family News, September 2000. See also Mark Fellows, Fatima in Twilight,
(Marmion Publications, Niagara Falls, 2003) Chapter 19, p. 246.
451
Russia Legalizes Homosexuality, United Press International, May 28, 1993. To quote the
beginning of the article: Russias homosexual activists Friday celebrated a major victory
for gay rights in post-Soviet Russia following the repeal of Article 121 of the Soviet
criminal code, which outlawed consensual sex between men. This is great news for gays
and lesbians in Russia, said Vladislav Ortanov, editor of the Moscow gay magazine Risk.
446
Counting the Cost
277
pornography. The Associated Press reported on a Moscow-based

child pornography ring linked to another child pornography ring
in Texas. To quote AP: Russian law does not distinguish between
child pornography and pornography involving adults, and treats the
production and distribution of either as a minor crime, said Dmitry
Chepchugov, head of the Russian Interior Ministrys department for
high technology crimes. Russian police often complain about the
legal chaos that has turned Russia into an international center of
child pornography production. Unfortunately, Russia has turned into
a world trash bin of child pornography, Chepchugov told reporters in
Moscow.452
Russians are addicted to grossly immoral reality-based TV. On the
vilest of the reality-based shows, cameras film the intimate personal
lives of Russian couples, including their activity of breaking the
6th Commandment. Despite grumbles of disapproval from old
hard-line Communists, Russian viewers cannot get enough of this
pornography. The program boasts an audience share of more than
50% and thousands of Russians have endured sub-zero temperatures
and stood in line for more than an hour to catch a glimpse of it
through a window of the apartment. Millions have logged on to the
website, which has crashed frequently under the weight of the heavy
traffic.453
A moral conversion of Russia? Hardlyunless one means a
conversion to immorality leaving Russia even worse off morally than
before the 1984 ceremony.
No Political Conversion in Russia

Another argument of the Fatima revisionists, noted already, is that
conversion of Russia means only regime change since the fall of
communism. Of course, Our Lady did not come to Fatima to announce a
Russian regime change in the 1990s. The claim is absurd. Nevertheless,
here too the Fatima revisionists are confounded by the evidence.
By now the whole world knows that since he rose to power in 1999,
Vladimir Putin has systematically made himself the virtual dictator of
Russia: arresting and imprisoning his domestic critics on trumped up
charges; shutting down all opposition media; outlawing the popular
election of Russias local governors and replacing them with Kremlin
appointees.
Nor has the situation changed since 2008, with the election of
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev as President of Russia. Russian expert
Jonathan Dimblebys in-depth report, headlined Russia: A totalitarian
regime in thrall to a Tsar whos creating the new Fascist empire,
Activist Says Child Porn Prosecutions Will be Difficult in Indonesia, Russia, Christine
Brummitt, Associated Press, August 9, 2001 (emphasis added).
453
Big Brotherski goes too far for Staid Russians, Mark Franchetti, Sunday Times (London),
November 25, 2001.
452
278
observes that Putin has arranged Russian affairs so that the countrys
so-called President Medvedev operates as nothing more than his
executive assistant, and that No decision of any significance for the
Russian people or the rest of us will be made in the foreseeable future
without the say-so of Medvedevs unsmiling master.454
A. Stifling all political opposition

In 2002, as the London Times reported, Russias last independent
television station was closed yesterday, leaving the countrys entire
broadcast media under Kremlin control455the same broadcast media
that have since been denouncing the Catholic Church over the question
of Russian dioceses for the Church.
Over the past seven years the situation for the press and freedom
of speech in general has continued to deteriorate under both Putin
and his supposed successor, President Medvedev. In an editorial
published on June 9, 2008, The New York Times protested that Russias
national networks are routinely deleting news or opinions critical of
the Kremlin. In one notable case, Mikhail Delyagin, a political analyst,
criticized Vladimir Putin during the taping of a talk show. When the
program aired, most of Delyagin was missing. Only his disembodied
legs remained in thepicture. The Times noted that under Stalin Soviet
news agencies grew to be experts in removing unwanted comrades from
official photographs. People disappeared in the developing rooms just
as they disappeared in real life, and that the same thing is happening
all over again in Putins Russia.456
Consider these additional facts:
Diana Kachalova, editor-in-chief of a chain of newspapers in Russia,
declared in 2008 that United Russia is like a tank coming down on
the people, and that I feel like Im returning to when I was young,
in the 1970sthat is, during the Soviet era.457
In 2006 The New York Times reported Russia is unquestionably a
dangerous place for journalists, and that on average more than two
a year are murdered under mysterious circumstances.458
From 2000 to 2008 twenty-one journalists have been murdered in
Russia, according to the World Association of Newspapers. In 2008 a
student expressed the common fear that It is dangerous to want a
free press in Russia. When asked Just to want it?, she replied: It is
Jonathan Dimbleby, Daily Mail Online, at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-566931/
Russia-A-totalitarian-regime-thrall-Tsar-whos-creating-new-Facist-empire.html.
455
London Times, online edition, January 12, 2002.
456
Quoted in Christopher A. Ferrara, Putin Brings Russia Back to the Good Old Days, at
http://www.fatimaperspectives.com/cr/perspective567.asp
457
Free press under siege in Russia, The Star, January 12, 2008, at http://www.thestar.
com/comment/article/293303.
458
Steven Lee Myers, In Russia, free press comes with a price, October 11, 2006 (reprinting
article from International Herald Tribune), at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/
world/europe/11iht-russia.3117121.html.
454
Counting the Cost
279
dangerous just to want it.459

The situation for freedom of the press in Russia has reached the
point where Russian journalists are speaking of a last stand against
government oppression.460 As if by a prearranged schedule, the same
thing is happening in the Ukraine. The torch of liberty has grown
dimmer in the former Soviet republic of Ukraineas it has across
most of the territory of the old USSR.461
B. Making Criticism of the Kremlin a Crime

The Kremlins campaign against a free press and indeed any form
of political opposition to the Putin regime reached a new height at the
end of 2008. On December 17, 2008 Associated Press reported that
New legislation backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would allow
Russian authorities to label any government critic a traitora move
that rights activists said Wednesday was a chilling throwback to times
of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Quoting Russian rights activists, AP notes that this new law would
essentially let authorities interpret any act against the state as treasona
crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.462
C. Reviving the Soviet era and rehabilitating Stalin

In conjunction with his systematic takeover of the mass media, Putin
has been coordinating a campaign to bring back the glory days of the
former Soviet Union. He has restored the Soviet (i.e. Communist)
national anthem and ordered the production of a commemorative
calendar glorifying the Soviet-era Lubyanka Prison (capstone of the
Soviet gulag) and the Soviet-era butcher Felix Dzerzhinsky (who gloried
in torturing humans before killing them).
It was none other than Dzerzhinsky who founded the KGB, authorized
the torture and execution of Catholic priests, and presided over Lenins
liquidation of the Russian middle class. The calendar commemorating
this criminal against humanity is for use in the offices of the KGB, which
has been strategically renamed the FSB. This development is in keeping
with the situation observed by British historian Orlando Figes, who has
conducted extensive research on Stalins crimes: What we have now
[in Russia] effectively is the KGB in power.463
Egged on by Putins Kremlin, the Russian people are even
rediscovering the virtues of Josef Stalin, the very incarnation of the
evil of Communism and the errors of Russia. On December 27, 2008,
Kelly Toughill, Free press under siege in Russia, The Star, January 12, 2008, at http://
www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/293303.
460
Ibid.
461
WorldNetDaily, December 21, 2001.
462
Russian Bill Could Hit Kremlin Critics, AP report at http://www.breitbart.com/print.
php?id=D954K4Q80&show_article=1.
463
Richard Galpin, Stalins new status in Russia, BBC Online, December 27, 2008, at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7798497.stm.
459
280
the Russian expert Richard Galpin of the BBCs Moscow bureau reported
that during a nationwide TV poll on the question of who is the greatest
Russian of all time, none other than Stalin, the butcher of millions of
Catholics, led the pack with more than 3.5 million votes. Stalin dropped
from first place only after the shows producer appealed to viewers
to vote for someone else. The other poll leaders included Ivan the
Terrible and Lenin.464
Sergei Malinkovich, leader of the St. Petersburg Communist Party,
has stated that: In all opinion polls he [Stalin] comes out on top as
the most popular figure. Nobody else comes close. So for his service
to this country we can forgive his mistakes.465 Forgive his mistakes?
What about the conservatively estimated 20-30 million people Stalin
murdered, including some five million Catholic peasants in the Ukraine?
Nor is this just nostalgia on the part of older Russians for their
great leader. In a July 2007 poll, 54 percent of Russian youth agreed
with the statement Stalin did more good than bad and half agreed
with the statement that Stalin was a wise leader.466
What does it tell us about the spiritual state of the Russian people
that a substantial number of them, both young and old, would revere a
satanic madman, perhaps the worst persecutor of Catholics in human
history, who all but exterminated the Church in Russia?
This development reflects what Galpin describes as a much broader
campaign to rehabilitate Stalin that seems to be coming from the
highest levels of government. Historian Alexander Danilov told Galpin
that I believe it was the idea of former President, now Prime Minister,
Vladimir Putin. It fits completely with the political course we have had
for the last eight years467
Galpin identifies the source of this unity as Putinisma strident
form of nationalism according to which Russians are to be proud of
their history, not ashamed, and so those investigating and cataloguing
the atrocities of the past are no longer welcome.
By mysterious coincidence, a national cult of Vladimir Putin has
spontaneously emerged since 1999, including T-shirts decorated with
his face, immortalization in childrens books, sculptures, obsequious
media coverage and speeches in praise of the great leader, all reflecting
the reality that Putin loyalists now dominate the bureaucracy,
parliament and state broadcasting.468
These political developments were all summed up by Yelena Bonner,
widow of the Soviet dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov, when they
first began: Under Putin, a new stage in the introduction of modernized
Stalinism has begun. Authoritarianism is growing harsher, society is
Ibid.
Ibid.
466
Russian youth: Stalin good, migrants must go: poll, Reuters (July 25, 2007).
467
Richard Galpin, Stalins new status in Russia, loc. cit.
468
Electronic Telegraph, May 8, 2001.
464
465
Counting the Cost
281
being militarized, the military budget is increasing.469

Given all these facts, to hold that there has been a miraculous
political conversion of Russia since the consecration of 1984, and
that this is what Our Lady of Fatima promised, is not only preposterous,
but an insult to the Mother of God.
No Martial Conversion in Russia

Some Fatima revisionists even go so far as to propose a conversion
of Russia amounting to nothing more than a supposed turning away
from war, a kind of martial conversion, as if to suggest that Putins
Russia is beating its swords into plowshares, and that this miracle has
resulted from the 1984 consecration ceremony. Yet again, the facts
demolish the fantasy. Let us consider only a few of them:
In August 2008 the Russian Army invaded neighboring Georgia and
conducted bombing raids deep inside Georgia after South Ossetia
proclaimed itself a republic and Georgian forces moved to prevent
secession. Despite a peace agreement negotiated under EU auspices
requiring total withdrawal from Georgia, Russia still maintains buffer
zones on Georgian territory around South Ossetia that would serve
as beachheads for a full-scale invasion of the country.
Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer warns that Russia plans to invade
Georgia from these bases,470 and in May of 2009 U.S. Ambassadors to
Georgia William Courtney and Kenneth Yalowitz, and Denis Corboy,
warned of a Russia military buildup in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
As the journal Human Events has observed: The timing of Russias
invasion of Georgia signals an ominous new dawn for East-West
relations. If Moscow defeats the democratic forces in Georgia and the
West remains stymied on the sidelines, the rest of the former Soviet
satellites could again become the Kremlins puppets, and Moscow
could become more provocative with its words and its armed forces.471
Russia has stepped up the pace of its nuclear weapons development.
In June 2007 globalsecurity.org, in a report entitled Weapons of Mass
Destruction, reported on a major and quite threatening upgrade
of Russias ballistic missile arsenal: The RS-24, a new-generation
intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with a multiple
independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warhead The
new missile is expected to greatly strengthen Russias strike
capability, as well as that of its allies until the mid-21st century.472
Electronic Telegraph, March 2, 2000.
Plan of Georgian Occupation Worked Out in the Kremlin, Georgian Daily, February 23,
2009.
471
Robert Maginnis, Russian Invasion of Georgia Is an East-West Tipping Point, August 11,
2008, at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27975.
472
Weapons of Mass Destruction, at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/
rs-24.htm.
469
470
282
Further, Russia has developed single-warhead RT-2UTTH Topol-M

missiles, which Vladimir Putin boasted during a televised press
conference are hypersonic and capable of changing their flight path,
and which, according to one military analyst, act like a swarm of
bees.473
On August 4, 2009 Russia resumed nuclear attack sub patrols off
the United States coast for the first time in fifteen years, a rare
mission that has raised concerns inside the Pentagon and intelligence
agencies about a more assertive stance by the Russian military.474
As the Russians rattle their nuclear sabers, they are also ramping
up their military alliance with China, which was kicked off in a big way
with a massive joint Russian-Chinese military exercise in August 2007.
This new potent military alliance, writes Paul Craig Roberts, is a real
world response to neoconservative delusions about US hegemony.475
Delusions they are.
The idea that Putins nationalistic Russia no longer poses any threat
to peace and stability in the world because of a 1984 ceremony at the
Vatican which deliberately avoided any mention of Russia is itself a
delusion. There has been no martial conversion of Russia.
No Economic Conversion in Russia

Clearly desperate to explain away the non-conversion of Russia
since 1984, some Fatima revisionists even go so far as to redefine
conversion to mean the supposed economic transformation
of Russia after the fall of communism. Here as well, fact dispels
fantasy. Although Russias Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown
on account of the exploitation of its oil reserves, Russia today remains
economically a Third World country. The World Health Organization
ranks Russias health care system at 130th out of the 190 countries of
the United Nations. There is not even gas and running water in the
many rural villages associated with the now-abandoned agricultural
collectives.
As for the wealth generated by Russias booming oil-based
economy, investigative reporter Jonathan Dimbleby explains that a
criminal system of government [has] taken shape under Putin in which
the Kremlin has been selling state assets cheaply to Putins cronies
and buying other assets back from them at an exorbitant price. For
example, Roman Abramovich, one of Putins closest allies, paid $100
million for Sifnet (the Russian state oil company) only to sell it back
to the government ten years later, for $13.7 billion, an astronomical
sum and far above the going market rate.476 As Dimbleby concludes:
USA Today, On Deadline, January 31, 2006.
Marr Mazzetti and Thom Shanker, New York Times, August 5, 2009.
475
Paul Craig Roberts, US Hegemony Spawns Russian-Chinese Military Alliance, August 9,
2007, at http://antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=11422.
476
Daily Mail Online, May 17, 2008.
473
474
Counting the Cost
283
You can forget any talk from the new President [Medvedev] about
stamping out corruption. This social and economic disease is insidious
and rampant.477 In fact, Putin himself has benefitted mightily from the
plunder, and now has a personal worth of some $41 billion.478
What is more, on August 5, 2009 Associated Press noted that the
global financial crisis of 2008-2009 has revers[ed] eight years of solid
economic growth under Putins presidency479 And on August 10,
2009 an AFP report quoted Russias figurehead President Medvedev
as admitting that As soon as the crisis took place, (the economy)
crumbled. And worse than in many other countries. And now the
Russian government is forecasting a contraction of up to 8.5 percent
in GDP in 2009 as lower oil prices hit the energy sector and industry
battles a sharp decline in orders from abroad.480
Thus, even the supposedly vibrant Russian economy under Putin,
whose primary beneficiaries are his cronies, is collapsing some 25 years
after the alleged consecration of Russia. Not even real and lasting
temporal blessings have resulted from the 1984 ceremony. Despite
growth in GDP for the benefit of a relative few, In modern Russia twothirds of the population are on the verge of poverty. The health care
system is worse today than it was in the Fifties. Stalin murdered about
20 million, while in todays Russia the population is falling by a million
people a year.481
Conclusion:
No Conversion of Any Kind in Russia
Again, there is no argument against a fact, and the facts will admit
no contrary conclusion: Russia has not converted in any sense of the
wordnot to the Catholic Faith (which is the only correct signification
of the word convert in this context), not to Russian Orthodoxy, not
morally, not politically, not even economically. Furthermore, as the
rampant practice of abortion in Russia today demonstrates, Russian
society has not even converted to an adherence to the most basic
requirements of the natural law.
The same is true, of course, of societies throughout the world,
nearly a century after Russia began to spread her errors. As Pope
Pius XII declared on February 11, 1949: We are overwhelmed with
sadness and anguish, seeing that the wickedness of perverse men has
reached a degree of impiety that is unbelievable and absolutely unknown
Ibid.
See No-One Has Ever Disputed Vladimir Putins Secret Wealth, Soviet Analyst, Volume
31, No. 2 & 3, p. 20.
479
Lynn Berry, The Russian Bare: Putin Strips to Waist for Photographers, reported at
http://www.canadaeast.com/news/article/751712
480
Stuart Williams, Russian economy hitting dead end: Medvedev, AFP
report, August 10, 2009, at http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/
ALeqM5ipvpeAiu7MDwBWhAD420YzMRnmTQ
481
Bonner, Electronic Telegraph, March 2, 2000.
477
478
284
in other times.482 Two years later the Pope declared that almost
the whole human race is today allowing itself to be driven into two
opposing camps, for Christ or against Christ. The human race is involved
today in a supreme crisis, which will issue in its salvation by Christ, or
in its destruction.483 And Pius said these things even before Russias
legalization of abortion had spread to every nation, along with the
rest of Russias errorsprecisely as Our Lady of Fatima predicted.
Those who insist there has been a conversion of Russia since 1984
and that the Fatimists are just prophets of doom remind us of those
who scoffed at Noah as he labored obediently year after year on the
building of his saving Ark, while it seemed to the scoffers that their
comfortable world would go on forever.
No Peace in the World

Consider that as this, the second edition of this book, goes to
press (December 2009), it has been fully a quarter-century since the
supposed consecration of Russia on March 25, 1984. Since the Vatican
apparatus refuses to allow Russia to be mentioned in any consecration
ceremony, not only has Russia failed to convert, but the period of world
peace promised by Our Lady has not been seen either. The wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan speak for themselves, as does the never-ending crisis
in the Middle East, not to mention massive ethnic genocides in such
places as Darfur (in the Sudan) and Rwanda.
But there is another war that has gone on unceasingly all over the
world since 1984: the war on the unborn child. Throughout the world
the abortion holocaust burns ever higher in the sight of God. There have
been at least 600 million victims of the war on the unborn since the
consecration of 1984, the blood of every victim crying out to Heaven
for vengeance. Clearly, the time is ripe for a divine chastisement of all
humanity.
Yet it seems that nothing will deter the Vatican apparatus from its
pursuit of the new post-Fatima orientation of the Church. Instead
of the consecration of Russia, the Vatican staged another ceremony,
this time called an entrustment, during which John Paul II, in the
presence of some 1,500 bishops during the Jubilee of Bishops, declared
as follows:
We entrust to you all people, beginning with the weakest: the
babies yet unborn, and those born into poverty and suffering, the
young in search of meaning, the unemployed, and those suffering
hunger and disease. We entrust to you all troubled families, the
elderly with no one to help them, and all who are alone and
without hope.484
Noble words indeed, and no doubt those mentioned received a

Letter of February 11, 1949.
Evangelii Praecones, Acta Apostolicae Sedis, AAS 1951, p. 497.
484
Act of Entrustment to Mary Most Holy, October 8, 2000.
482
483
Counting the Cost
285
spiritual benefit from that papal entrustment. But Our Lady of Fatima
did not request an entrustment to Her of the unemployed, youth in
search of meaning, the sick and the hungry, or even families and the
elderly, as laudable as those intentions are. She came to ask for one thing
in particular: the Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart. But
this is the one thing the Vatican apparatus simply refuses to give Her.
The search for humanly devised substitutes for what Our Lady
requested continued with the World Day of Prayer for Peace at Assisi on
January 24, 2002. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Hindus, Muslims,
Jews, African animists, Buddhists, Shintoists, Confucians, Tenrikyoists
and Zoroastrians were shuttled from the Vatican to Assisi in what
LOsservatore Romano called a peace train. The representatives of
the worlds religions, including a witch doctor, all gave sermons on
world peace from a large wooden pulpit set up in the lower plaza of
the Basilica of Saint Francis. As part of the event, each non-Christian
religion was given a room in the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis
to perform pagan rituals and offer prayers for peace to various gods
and spirits. At the end of this scandalous and even sacrilegious event
the new orientation at its worstthe representatives of the worlds
religions placed little burning oil lamps on a table to symbolize their
supposed commitment to interreligious brotherhood and world peace,
and then went home.
Afterwards there was, of course, no peace. On the very next day the
Israelis began bombing Palestinian targets, as the Arab-Israeli conflict
continued to hurtle toward all-out war, while India tested a nuclear
missile. Over the next few weeks, the Hindus and Muslims whose
representatives had gone to Assisi to deposit their oil lamps on the
table began slaughtering each other in western India; the death toll in
just three days of riots was nearly 300.485 And the world has been at
war ever since, with the victims, both born and unborn, piling up by the
tens of millions.
In his landmark encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei (1922), Pope Pius XI
proclaimed what belongs to the essence of the Fatima Messagethat
the only peace worthy of the name is the peace of Christ, and that
only the Catholic Church can bring the peace of Christ to this troubled
world. As the Pope declared only 40 years before the new orientation
began to afflict the Church:
The Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to Her
safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the
promise of the assistance of Christ, She is able not only to bring
about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ,
but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute
greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the
making of war impossible in the future. For the Church teaches (She
485
New York Times, March 2, 2002.
286

alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with
authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups
and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God.486
In their relentless pursuit of the new orientation, however, the

Vatican bureaucracy of the present time disdains such clear preaching
as unecumenical and triumphalistic, preferring to continue a
fallible human program of seeking peace through human institutions
controlled by unbelievers and even positive enemies of God and the
Church. Hence in July 2002 Catholic news organs reported with
dismay that Cardinal Sodano actively supported the newly-created
International Criminal Court (ICC), even to the extent of making a
financial contribution to its coffers.487 Catholic commentators, joined
by secular political commentators, have long warned that the ICC is a
direct threat to the rights of sovereign nations and their peoples because
it will assert jurisdiction to conduct politically motivated trialsfrom
which there will be no appealof the citizens of any nation, based on
an ever-expanding list of prosecutable offenses.488 These trials would
be conducted without any of the procedural safeguards on admission
of evidence and the right to confront witnesses which are essential to
due process of law.489 And yet the Vatican Secretary of State, mingling
incompetent politics with his high ecclesiastical office, is actively
collaborating in the creation of this judicial monster, preparing yet
another disaster for the Church.
No peace in Russia, no peace in the world. Instead, what Pope
Benedict rightly calls the dictatorship of relativism is rising in every
nation, and we are confronted, more than ever before, by what John Paul
II described at Fatima in 1982: almost apocalyptic menaces looming
over the nations and mankind as a whole. This is the consequence of
ignoring the warnings in that heavenly intelligence report conveyed to
the world at Fatima.
No Peace in the Church

And what of peace within the Church? Here too the Virgin of Fatima
gave us a warning, and here too the men who tell us that the Third
Secret of Fatima belongs to the past have disregarded it. As the first
edition of this book made its appearance, the corruption and collapse
of the Churchs human element over the past forty years was already
erupting into full view for the entire world to chronicle daily and mock
to scorn. This was happening because churchmen themselves have
Ubi Arcano Dei, n. 44.
Vatican Contributes to International Criminal Court, Zenit news report, July 3, 2002.
488
World Court Now A Reality by Mary Jo Anderson, April 11, 2002, WorldNetDaily; and
Stopping the International Criminal Court, by Mary Jo Anderson, at www.catholic
education.org/articles/social_justice/sj0003.html
489
The International Criminal Court vs. the American People, by Lee A. Casey and David
B. Rivkin, Jr., a Heritage Foundation Report dated February 5, 1999, which can be found
at www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/BG1249.cfm
486
487
Counting the Cost
287
spurned the Fatima prophecies, which gave us the means to know in

advance and take measures to avoid the homosexual infiltration of the
priesthood that is now raging out of control.
As this book was first being composed in 2002 the press was
exposing the massive pedophile scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston,
where Cardinal Law had been hiding the activities of priestly predators
for decades. Evidently in a panic over potential liability, diocese after
diocese in North America had suddenly begun submitting lists of priests
suspected of sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities, after years of
hiding this information from the victims and their families and shifting
the perpetrators from one place to another. The diocese-by-diocese
review of priestly sexual abuse of little boys was provided in cover
stories by Newsweek and National Review and in a host of other stories
in national and local newspapers.
One can only imagine what lies beneath the tip of this iceberg, even
today. And it is widely known that among the few men who do enter
mainstream seminaries adhering to the post-conciliar reforms, a
very large percentage is homosexual. Father Donald Cozzens, head of
Saint Marys Seminary in Cleveland, Ohio, was only admitting what
everyone can see when he observed in his book The Changing Face of the
Catholic Priesthood that: At issue at the beginning of the 21st century
is the growing perception that the priesthood is, or is becoming, a gay
profession Heterosexual seminarians are made uncomfortable by
the number of gays around them. The straight seminarian feels out
of place and may interpret his inner destabilization as a sign that he
does not have a vocation for the priesthood. The sexual contacts and
romantic unions among gay seminarians create intense and complicated
webs of intrigue and jealousy.490
The plague of sexual abuse and perversion among the priesthood is
hardly limited to North America. England, France and Spain have their
own scandals involving homosexual and pedophile priests, and even a
leading Polish Archbishop had been turned over to the Vatican by the
fellow priests he had sexually extorted and abused. As recently as July
of 2009, Pope Benedict suspended and then accepted the resignation
of Uruguayan Bishop Francisco Domingo Barbosa Da Silveira of Minas
after he was blackmailed by two convicts with whom he had had
homosexual liaisons captured on cell phone photographs.491
Nor are the scandals confined to homosexual conduct. In Africa,
a vast scandal involving the sexual abuse of nuns by African priests
had been reported in the world press and admitted by the Vatican.
Vatican spokesman Father Bernardo Cervellera (director of Fides, the
Vaticans missionary news service) offered the outrageous defense that
Donald Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood, (Liturgical Press,
Collegeville, Minnesota, 2002) p. 135.
491
Pope accepts resignation of Uruguayan bishop accused of sexual misconduct, Catholic
News Agency, July 1, 2009.
490
288
the problem was limited to sub-Saharan Africa and related to negative

cultural views there of women and of the value of celibacy ... These
are not cases of psychopathic violence against women, but instead
a cultural way of living that is common throughout the region
The abuse of nuns by African priests is a cultural way of living in
Africa! African priests simply dont appreciate the value of celibacy!
According to Reuters, the Vatican is monitoring the situation but no
direct action has been taken.492
And yet, while there has been no direct action by the Vatican
against priests who sexually abuse nuns, Father Nicholas Gruner was
declared suspended in the Congregation for the Clergys only public
announcement concerning the discipline of any of the Churchs
260,000 diocesan priests in 2001suspended for an offense that has
never been specified, for none exists. Suspended, in fact, for no other
reason than that he has not desisted from promoting the authentic
Message of Fatima. Such are the Vaticans priorities under the new
orientation of the Catholic Church and the Secretary of States Party
Line on Fatima.
But as bad as the previously mentioned sexual scandals are, they
are dwarfed by the even greater scandal of massive apostasy among the
Catholic clergy and laity.493 Only a year after this books first edition,
and only two years before his death, John Paul II declared in his
apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Europa that European culture gives the
impression of silent apostasy on the part of people who have all that
they need and who live as if God does not exist. And we have already
seen that John Pauls successor, Benedict XVI, has since lamented that
in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a
flame which no longer has fuel, that after the Second Vatican Council
certain fundamental truths of the faith, such as sin, grace, theological
life, and the last things, were not mentioned anymore, and that the
Church now suffers from a secularized ecclesial environment and
even a desert without God.
A desert without God, indeed. It has long been known that the
majority of Catholics, victims of decades of senseless liturgical and
ecumenical reforms, no longer possess a faith in the Holy Eucharist
and no longer regard their Church as any different in essence from
a Protestant denomination; nor do they feel obliged to follow the
Churchs teaching on marriage and procreation. The seminaries and
convents of North America and Europe are practically empty or closed,
except for those operated by small traditionalist orders (like the SSPX
and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter) which follow the old ways.
There are not nearly enough vocations to replace the older priests who
are dying or retiring in the mainstream Church.
This would explain why Pope Benedict is attempting to change the
492
493
CNN, March 21, 2001.

John Paul II, Ecclesia in Europa, n 7 & 9, DC n 2296, July 20, 2003, pp. 671-672.
Counting the Cost
289
Churchs course of the forty years preceding his pontificate: liberating

the traditional Latin Mass and declaring that every priest in the Church
is free to offer it; refusing any longer to distribute Communion in the
hand at papal Masses; calling for a hermeneutic of continuity between
Vatican II and the Churchs constant teaching before the Council; lifting
the excommunication of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X;
and initiating theological discussions with the Societys representatives
precisely on the question of Vatican IIs conformity with Catholic
Tradition. Tellingly, the Pope has not simply demanded that the Societys
adherents obey Vatican II, whatever that might mean, but rather has
launched discussions about the Council and what it really teachesa
sure sign that the Council has been an enormous and unprecedented
problem for the Church.
As we suggested in Chapter 15, it is entirely likely that Benedict,
who as Cardinal Ratzinger read the Third Secret in its entirety, has taken
these steps as Pope because he knows that the Secret warns of apostasy
in the Church, perhaps in connection with a problematical Council and
the confusion it engendered. Even if the powerful anti-Fatima party in
the Vatican apparatus has expediently deemed the missing part of the
Secret to be inauthentic, following John XXIIIs dictate that he would
leave it to others to comment or decide on the supernatural origin of
what is contained in the Capovilla envelope we have yet to see, is it
not clear that Benedict, out of prudence, is trying to cure the plague
of apostasy foretold in the words of the Virgin that accompany that
wordless vision of the Bishop dressed in white?
And what are we to make of what Antonio Socci has observed in his
own examination of the Third Secretthat Pope Benedict has indicated
precisely martyrdom as his own pastoral program. In Fourth Secret
Socci notes that during the Mass for his installation as Popethe
Church of the new orientation refuses to call it a coronation, as all of
Tradition has donethe new Pope declared that we are not alone in
life nor in death, and then alluded to the danger of death that confronts
the Pope himself:
My dear friendsat this moment I can only say: Pray for me,
that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that
I may learn to love His flock more and morein other words, you,
the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together. Pray for
me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.
So, the Pope himself admits that he is surrounded by wolves! And

this after more than forty years of useless dialogue with the world
that was supposed to have made the Church better understood and
more attractive to contemporary man. As Socci writes, the Pope
has consistently presented the theme that one can only flee or face
martyrdom and that From its beginning, in sum, Benedict seems to
have given to his pontificate the horizon of martyrdom. Socci further
290
notes that during the consistory of March 24, 2006, at which he created
numerous Cardinals, the Pope reminded the new Cardinals that the
red they wear will signify for you a more intense participation in the
mystery of the Cross and in the sharing of the sufferings of Christ. And
we are all really witnesses of the sufferings of today, in the world and
also in the Church.
And two days later, on March 26, at the Angelus the Pope declared:
The sacrifice of life is a distinctive characteristic of Cardinals, as attested
by their oath and by the symbolism of the crimson, which has the color
of blood. And on May 7, 2006, Socci points out, the Pope attacked
careerism in the Church during a Mass for the ordination of fifteen
deacons for the diocese of Rome, reminding the ordinands that the
only legitimate assent toward the ministry of the pastor is the Cross
the pastor gives his life for the sheep To give life, not to take it. It is in
just this way that we can experience liberty.
Socci links Benedicts declarations concerning martyrdom to the
words of John Paul II at Fulda in November 1980, six months before
the assassination attempt, in which the late Pope, speaking of the Third
Secret, warned that We must prepare ourselves to suffer great trials at
a time not long from now, which will require from us a willingness to
part with our lives From all of which Socci reaches a conclusion with
which we concurthat the Third Secret predicts, among other things,
the unique event of a papal martyrdom in the midst of an apocalyptic
scenario:
Benedict XVI has not explained the reason for his continuous and
grave meditation on martyrdom, on the necessity of being ready to
give ones life, but objectivelyrereading these interventions from
the first year of his pontificateone cannot avoid remembering the
text of the most sensational public prophecy in the two thousand
years of Christianity, officially recognized by the Church: the socalled Third Secret of Fatima, which contains precisely the vision
of a pope who at the foot of a great Cross is killed by a group of
soldiers and at the same time there were dying with him, one
after the other, bishops, priests, religious and various members of
the laity, men and women of different classes and stations.
It is evident that the apocalyptic event prophesied here with
such solemnity by the Madonna of Fatima has a gravity absolutely
unique in the history of the world and of the Church, where
there are not lacking persecutions, immense massacres, and even
attempts on the life of the Pope.494
And yet, as Socci also concludes in the passages we have already

cited, the Church and the world have been deprived of the very words
of the Virgin which explain how the Pope depicted comes to be executed
on a hill at the foot of a cross, outside a half-ruined city filled with
494
Counting the Cost
291
corpses. But the Pope has seen those words, even if it appears that he
considers himself bound by the determination of his predecessors and
their advisors that the words are to be kept hidden from the faithful.
This would explain why the Pope would send Socci a note of thanks
for having written a book that accuses the Vatican apparatus of having
conspired to keep from the Church and the world the dire warnings of
the Virgin Mother of God.
While doubtless motivated by his knowledge of the Secret and its
warning of dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian,
and therefore (the life) of the world (to recall Cardinal Ratzingers
revelation of 1984), Pope Benedicts gestures toward a restoration of
the Church and his allusions to martyrdom have not sufficed to end the
crisis the Church and the world now face. On the contrary, the situation
grows worse by the day. Although the Churchs new orientation is a
disastrous failure in every respect, producing nothing but the bitterest of
fruits, the members of the Vatican apparatus who hound Father Gruner
persevere in it unswervingly. So far as they are concerned, there will be
no return to the model of the Church represented by the Message of
Fatima. There will be no embarrassing public Consecration of Russia.
There will be no outdated conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith.
There will be no triumph of the Immaculate Heart, for this would be a
setback to ecumenical dialogue with the Protestants and the Orthodox.
For this all would be a setback to the Masonic plans for turning the
Catholic Church into a tool for the Masons to manipulate the Church
into changing its purpose from saving souls to promoting the New World
Order (NWO) one world religionwith democracy being what justifies
whatever the NWO masters want. And so Russia has not converted, and
there is no peace in the world, and the Catholic Church remains in a
state of near-chaosjust as predicted in the Third Secret.
Everywherein the Church, in Russia, in the worldthe
practitioners of the Vatican Secretary of States Party Line on Fatima
see the evidence of its failure. Yet Cardinal Sodanos successor,
Cardinal Bertone, his collaborators and their Fatima revisionist dupes
throughout the Church, continue to insist that Russia was consecrated
to the Immaculate Heart 25 years ago, that recent events in Russia are
a miracle, that the Third Secret and the Message of Fatima as a whole
belong to the past and need no longer concern us. It seems not even
the Pope can rid the Vatican of the bureaucracy that continues to entrap
the Church in diplomacy, dialogue, and cooperation with worldly
powers and their increasingly diabolical New World Order.
Meanwhile, unjustly derided Catholics like Father Nicholas Gruner,
who continue to point out the obvious, are still subjected to the
equivalent of a Stalinist purge for their lack of fidelity to the Party Line.
They are denounced as disobedient and even schismatic, and their
loyalty to the Pope is questioned, even though neither John Paul II nor
Benedict XVI has ever personally endorsed or imposed the Party Line
292
on Fatima but rather both pontiffs have given compelling indications

of its utter falsity, as we have already shown: John Paul II by making it
clear that Our Lady is still awaiting the Consecration of Russia, and
Benedict XVI by declaring on May 13, 2009, the anniversary of the first
apparition at Fatima, that You promised the three children of Fatima
that in the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. May it be so! That
it is not yet so must be admitted by any objective observer of the state
of the Church and the world.
The Present and Future Cost

How does one count the cost of this foolhardy determination to
do away with the prophecies of the Mother of God at Fatima? The cost
in temporal suffering and harm to souls is already beyond all human
calculation: the misery of the Russian people and the continuing State
persecution of Russian Catholics; the abortion holocaust; a rising tide
of violence throughout the world; a worldwide economic collapse; and,
above all, the loss of innumerable souls through the undermining of the
Catholic Faith and the corruption of the Catholic clergy now on display
before the whole world. And yet all of this was predicted in that part
of the Third Secret we have not been allowed to see; and all of it could
have been avoided if the men who rule the Church today had followed,
rather than despised, the Virgin of Fatimas simple requests.
But what will be the cost in the coming days, if the course established
by the Vatican prelates we have mentioned is not corrected soon? Our
Lady of Fatima has already answered that question: wars and persecution
of the Church, the martyrdom of Catholics, the suffering of the Holy
Father, the annihilation of nations, the loss of millions more souls, until
we reach that scene in the vision of the Bishop dressed in white, wherein
a Pope (Benedict or a successor?) is executed outside a half-ruined city in
a world that has clearly undergone a divine chastisement.
Those who have engineered the Churchs new orientation and
imposed the Party Line on Fatima insist that we ignore the divine
warnings of the Third Secret, even though they were delivered by the
Mother of God Herself and authenticated by a public miracle without
precedent in human history. They insist that we obey them who have
no jurisdiction or authority to command such obedience. They insist
we obey them even though Sacred Scripture commands us: Do not
extinguish the spirit. Do not despise prophecies. (1 Thess. 5:19-20)
No, we cannot ignore the warnings. The time has come to declare
that it is not the Message of Fatima, but the all-too-fallible human advice
of these men that we must ignore. By their fruits ye shall know them, and
the fruits of their policies and judgments are there for all to see: the
Church is in the depths of Her worst crisis in 2,000 years, and the world
is headed toward an apocalypse.
We have made our case as best we can; we have discharged our
duty of conscience before the Church and the bar of history. Now, we
Counting the Cost
293
submit, a duty descends upon you, the reader. God commands that you
must seek the truth and serve it. You must consider the evidence we
have presented. We ask you to render your verdicta verdict that good
cause exists to ask that the highest authority in the Church judge and
correct the actions of these men, repairing the damage they have done
and thus doing justice to the community of the faithful in the Church
and to humanity at large.
But while we wait for justice to be rendered, we must do whatever is
in our power to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our fellow Catholics,
and the world from further harm.
This means, first of all, that we must reject the false counsel of those
in authority who have tried to replace the words of the Blessed Virgin
Mary with their own words, and Heavens plan for peace with their
own plan. We have seen the disastrous results of their fallible human
wisdom, which they continue to try to impose upon the Church against
the evidence of our senses, the dictates of our reason and the counsel
of the Mother of God Herself, speaking in the name of Her divine Son.
With all due respect to their offices in the Church, we must say of these
men that, insofar as the Message of Fatima and its implications for the
Church and the world are concerned, they have forfeited their own
credibility. We should no longer follow them.
As we have seen in Cardinal Newmans apt description of the Arian
crisis, the present crisis in the Church would not be the first time in Her
history that the laity were left to carry on the Faith without the help of
much of the upper hierarchy or even most bishops, relying instead on
their own sensus catholicus and a few good priests and prelates who did
not succumb to the reigning confusion. During the Arian crisis nearly
the entire hierarchy lost sight of something as fundamental as the
divinity of Christ, and the laityfor the safety of their own soulshad
to cease following those in authority for at least 40 years. It is manifest
that a comparable situation has arisen today. Can anyone looking
objectively at the present condition of the Church seriously deny that
She is undergoing a crisis of faith and discipline at least no less severe
than that in the time of Arius?
In The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, the renowned liturgist Msgr.
Klaus Gamber, lamenting the ecclesial destruction caused by the
liturgical reforms of Pope Paul VI, observed as follows in a book
praised by Cardinal Ratzinger, who is now our Pope:
Great is the confusion! Who can still see clearly in this darkness?
Where in our Church are the leaders who can show us the right
path? Where are the bishops courageous enough to cut out the
cancerous growth of the modernist theology that has implanted
itself and is festering within the celebration of the most sacred
mysteries, before the cancer spreads and causes even greater
damage? What we need today is a new Athanasius, a new Basil,
bishops like those who in the Fourth Century courageously fought
294

against the Arian heresy when almost the whole of Christendom
had succumbed to the heresy.495
The Pope cannot act alone in dispelling this confusion and darkness.
He needs a new Athanasius, or rather many such courageous prelates,
if the Church is to be restored and the Fatima prophecies fulfilled by
the collegial consecration of Russia. Until such leadership emerges in
the Church, until the current crisis has ended and things are set right
again, we must educate ourselves and others about the Faith, defending
it as best we can. In our time, this task requires that we also defend the
Message of Fatima; for as Saint Thomas teaches, in every age God sends
prophets, not to give a new doctrine, but to remind the faithful of what
they must do to save their souls. The great prophet of our age is Our
Lady of Fatima. As Sister Lucy herself said in the famous interview with
Father Fuentes in 1957:
paid any attention to Her Message, neither the good nor the bad.
The good continue on their way, but without giving any importance
to Her Message.
Tell them Father, that many times, the Most Holy Virgin told my
poor nation.
Any believing Catholic should be able to see that the annihilation of

nations surely is coming unless the men who govern the Church change
course, abandon their destructive novelties, and simply do what the
Mother of God told them to do at Fatima. Until then, we can no longer
risk relying on the advice of those who are determined to ignore the
true signs of the times, the signs of a gathering apocalypse foretold by
the Virgin. Imploring the grace of God, we will have to advance the
cause of true peace in the world and restoration in the Church without
the help of our own superiors, so many of whom have been blinded in
their pursuit of a new and alien vision.
In this undertaking we must gather together under the mantle of
Our Lady of Fatima, praying incessantly for Her intercession in this time
of confusion and darkness, never forgetting Her unbreakable promises
to the Church and the world. Our Lady of Fatima, Pray for Us!
495
Msgr. Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, (Foundation For Christian Reform,
Harrison, New York, 1993) p. 113.
Chapter 17
Framing a Grievance
Great is the calamity that now afflicts Holy Church and the world at
large. In the previous chapter we noted that Pope Benedict XVI himself
admits that in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out
like a flame which no longer has fuel, and that after Vatican II certain
fundamental truths of the faith, such as sin, grace, theological life, and
the last things, were not mentioned anymore, so that the Church now
suffers from a secularized ecclesial environment and even in many
places seems to be a desert without God.
This state of affairs did not arise by accident. The Popes admissions
are an implicit indictment of the members of the hierarchy who have
presided over this catastrophe and are responsible for it. The Pope,
who as Cardinal Ratzinger read the Third Secret in its entirety, is surely
speaking in light of what the full Secret reveals.
In these extraordinary times, just as in the time of the Arian crisis,
the laity must shoulder burdens that in ordinary times would not be
theirs. As members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we have a duty to
combat the current crisis according to our station in life. We must reject
the advice of those who tell us to indulge in the gross presumption that
God is in charge of the Church, by which they mean that we must do
nothing to oppose error and injustice perpetrated by members of the
hierarchy, but rather blindly submit to every decision of authority, no
matter how destructive its consequences.
Our Duty in Justice and Charity

to Speak Out
That is not the Catholic way. That is not what the laity and faithful
clergy did during the Arian crisis, and it is not what we should do today.
Our silence and acquiescence in the face of this ongoing disaster would,
first of all, be an injustice to the Church and a betrayal of our solemn
duty in justice as confirmed Catholics, as soldiers of Christ.
Then, too, there is our obligation in charity toward our fellow
Catholics, including our superiors in the hierarchy. We have a duty in
charity to our superiors to oppose what is happening in the Church, even
if that means taking the extraordinary step of having to rebuke our own
superiors in public.
As Saint Thomas Aquinas taught: if the faith were endangered, a
subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Why is it both just and
charitable for a subject to rebuke his prelate, even publicly, in such cases?
St. Thomas here observes that the public rebuke of a prelate would seem
to savor of presumptuous pride; but there is no presumption in thinking
296
oneself better in some respect, because, in this life, no man is without some
fault. We must also remember that when a man reproves his prelate
charitably, it does not follow that he thinks himself any better, but merely
that he offers his help to one who, being in the higher position among
you, is therefore in greater danger, as Augustine observes in his Rule
quoted above.496 Of course, there is also danger to our fellow Catholics
the gravest possible dangerfrom the current course of destructive
innovation being followed by certain members of the Vatican apparatus,
who have turned their backs not only on the Message of Fatima but on
the Churchs salvific dogma and mission.
This disordered desire to bury the past in the name of Vatican II and
a new orientation of the Church is what has provoked the currently
reigning Pope to call for a hermeneutic of continuity concerning the
Council, rather than a hermeneutic of rupture that treats the Council
as a break with the past. That the Pope would have insisted that the
Council is in continuity with the Churchs pastHer traditional teaching,
liturgy, practices and devotionsis itself a sign of the magnitude of
the crisis that confronts us. And yet Pope Benedicts attempts at a
restorationhis liberation of the Latin Mass, his rehabilitation of
the Society of Saint Pius X, his refusal to administer Communion in the
hand, and so forthare either ignored, protested or met with outright
resistance within the Church. And the Pope remains largely a captive of
a Vatican bureaucracy, dominated by the Secretary of State, that seems
to have a life of its own. And so it is necessary for the faithful to demand
relief from the acts and omissions of their own superiors, who are either
implicated in the crisis or have failed to act decisively against it.
The teaching of Saint Thomas on the duty to rebuke our superiors
when their actions threaten harm to the faith reflects the unanimous
teaching of the Saints and Doctors of the Church. As St. Robert Bellarmine,
Doctor of the Church, taught in his work on the Roman Pontiff, even the
Pope may be rebuked and resisted if he threatens harm to the Church:
Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff that aggresses the body, it is
also licit to resist the one who aggresses souls or who disturbs civil
order, or, above all, who attempts to destroy the Church. I say that
it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by preventing
his will from being executed; it is not licit, however, to judge, punish
or depose him, since these acts are proper to a superior.497
Likewise, the eminent Sixteenth Century theologian Francisco

Suarez (whom Pope Paul V praised as Doctor Eximius et Pius, i.e.
Exceptional and Pious Doctor) taught as follows:
And in this second way the Pope could be schismatic, if he
were unwilling to be in normal union with the whole body of the
Church, as would occur if he attempted to excommunicate the
496
497
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Q. 33, Art. V, Pt. II-II.

St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice, Book II, Chapter 29.
Framing a Grievance
297
whole Church, or, as both Cajetan and Torquemada observe, if

he wished to overturn the rites of the Church based on Apostolic
Tradition. If [the Pope] gives an order contrary to right customs,
he should not be obeyed; if he attempts to do something manifestly
opposed to justice and the common good, it will be lawful to resist
him; if he attacks by force, by force he can be repelled, with a
moderation appropriate to a just defense.498
If even the Pope may legitimately be resisted when he takes actions

that would harm the Church, all the more so the prelates mentioned in
the preceding pages. Quite simply, as Pope St. Felix III declared: Not
to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it.
Members of the laity and lower-ranking clergy are not exempt from that
injunction. All the members of the Church are subject to it.
We thus have a duty to speak out concerning what these prelates
have done or failed to do. We have a duty to bring to the Popes attention
what we believe in conscience is a well-founded allegation that they
have caused, and imminently will cause, grave harm to the Church
and the world by a veritable conspiracy against the Message of Fatima,
which conspiracy includes their goal to revise the Message in order
to conform it to the fallible worldly wisdom of men who think they can
update the Church and reconcile Her to the modern world. We have
a duty to petition the Holy Father for redress of this injustice against
Our Lady of Fatima and Her Message to the Church and all mankind.
Indeed, this entire book is effectively a petition to the Holy Father,
over and above the formal Petition set forth in Chapter 19. Likewise,
Antonio Soccis book, The Fourth Secret of Fatima, which also accuses
the Vatican Secretary of State of a cover-up of part of the Third Secret,
and of thwarting the Consecration of Russia, served as a petition of
sorts to the Holy Father, who not only has read Soccis book but, as
he has reported (see Chapter 14), the Pope sent him a personal letter
concerning my book, thanking me for the sentiments which have
suggested it.499 Let no one say, therefore, that this book exceeds or
abuses the right of the faithful to communicate to each other and to
the members of the hierarchy, including the Sovereign Pontiff, their
concerns about legitimate grievances in the Churcha natural right
codified in the Churchs Code of Canon Law.500
We are about to submit our case for your consideration as fellow
members of the Holy Catholic Church in the hope that you will join us in
petitioning the Holy Father for relief in the matter of Fatima. We will now
summarize briefly what the evidence has shown. In general, the evidence
presented in the preceding chapters has established five basic points.
De Fide, Disp. X, Sec. VI, N. 16.

Socci, Dear Cardinal Bertone, loc. cit.
500
Cf. 1983 Code of Canon Law, can. 212.
498
499
298

I.
The Message of Fatima is contrary to, and warns
against, the new orientation of the Church
imposed after the Second Vatican Council.
The Message of Fatima is a true and authentic prophecy of vital

importance for the Church and the world in this epoch of human
history. The Message was delivered in person by the Mother of God;
authenticated by indisputable public miracles witnessed by tens of
thousands of people; has been pronounced worthy of belief by the
Church; and has received the explicit endorsement of a series of seven
Popes, including John Paul II and Benedict XVI. In short, the Message of
Fatima simply cannot be ignored. As Pope John Paul II himself has said,
the Message of Fatima imposes an obligation on the Church.
The Message calls for the establishment in the world of devotion to
the Immaculate Heart of Maryand thus the Catholic Faiththroughout
the world. To that end, God Himself has decreed these things for our
time: the solemn public Consecration of Russiaspecifically and only
Russiato the Immaculate Heart by the Pope and the bishops together,
the conversion of Russia to Catholicism, and the consequent Triumph of
the Immaculate Heart in Russia and ultimately throughout the world.
The Third Secret of Fatima (in that portion yet to be revealed)
predicts what Catholics see all around them today: a catastrophic loss of
faith and discipline in the Churchheresy, scandal, apostasy reaching
into nearly every corner of the Catholic world. Aside from the mountain
of other evidence we have presented on this point, one piece of evidence
standing alone proves this: the crucial phrase in the Message, which has
been buried through the efforts of the Vatican Secretary of State in the
hope that we will all forget it: In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will
always be preserved etc.in Portugal, yes, but not in other countries,
as we have seen. To recall once again Pope Pius XIIs warning in light of
the Fatima apparitions only 31 years before the Council:
Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology, and Her soul. I hear all around
Sister Lucy insisted that the Third Secret be made public by 1960,
because in that year it would be much clearer. We know that by
1960 the Second Vatican Council had been called. The men who have
governed the Church since 1960 have given the human element of the
Church an entirely new orientation. They have done this by means
of an opening to the world through which dialogue with heretics,
schismatics, Communists, atheists and other opponents of the one true
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299
Church has de facto replaced the Churchs once manifest great love for
Her enemies by Her fierce opposition to error and Her faithfulness to
Her obligation to pass on to all the following generations the Catholic
Faith whole and inviolate, as Christ commanded the Church to do. Not
content with ignoring their own solemn duty to keep and pass on the
Faith, the Modernistic and anti-Fatima prelates also persecute those
who seek to adhere to that duty.
As early as 1973 Pope Paul VI was forced to admit that the opening
to the world has become a veritable invasion of the Church by worldly
thinkingthat is, by liberalism. This invasion of the Church by
liberalism, and the consequent collapse of faith and discipline within
the Church, represents the cherished goal of organized Masonry and
Communism: not the complete overthrow of the Church, which they
know is impossible, but the adaptation of the Church to liberal ideas.
The present state of the Church is precisely what these forces boldly
predicted they would achieve, and precisely what a long line of preconciliar Popes warned was the object of their conspiracies.
Instead of fighting against the new orientation that adapts the Church
to liberal ideas, however, post-conciliar churchmen, including those
we identify here, have unswervingly pursued the new orientation by
taking and implementing decisions in the name of Vatican II, including
(a) Ostpolitik, a policy by which many members of the Church are
made to avoid any condemnation of or active opposition to Communist
regimes; (b) the ecumenical venture and interreligious dialogue,
which de facto abandon both the conversion of non-Catholics to the
one true religion and the dogma that the Catholic Church is the one
true Church, outside of which there is no salvation; (c) the introduction
of novel and ambiguous terminology in conciliar and post-conciliar
documents which (like the formulas of the Arians in the 4th Century)
undermine belief in the dogmas of the Faith; (d) a totally unprecedented
reform of the liturgy by abandoning the traditional Latin Rite; (e)
permission for or toleration of various forms of heteropraxis (practices
which favor heretical beliefs) such as Communion in the hand, the altar
not facing ad orientem, removal of the tabernacle from the main altar,
etc., which undermine belief in the Catholic dogmas about the Holy
Eucharist, the Holy Mass and the sacrificial priesthood.
The Message of Fatima, with its simple call for the public
Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope
and bishops, the conversion of Russia to Catholicism and the Triumph
of the Immaculate Heart (and with it the miraculous growth of the
Catholic Church) throughout the world, cannot be reconciled with
the new orientation of the Church, in which Ostpolitik, ecumenical
dialogue and interreligious dialogue prevent the Church from
publicly declaring that Russia must be consecrated and converted to
the true religion for the good of that nation and the world.
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II.
The Vatican Secretary of State has adopted and
enforced a Party Line on Fatima that seeks
to minimize, place in the past, revise,
interpret and obscure the Message of Fatima,
including the Third Secret and the Consecration of
Russia to the Immaculate Heart, so that it poses no
obstacle to the new orientation of the Church.
The leading churchmen who have implemented the new orientation

have attempted to revise the Message of Fatima to make it conform
to the new orientation by insisting upon an interpretation of the
Message that
eliminates the Consecration of Russia by name (which, in their antiFatima prejudices, they regard as an intolerable ecumenical offense
or provocation to the Russian Orthodox),
eliminates the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith (which they
have expressly abandoned as outdated ecclesiology), and
eliminates the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart throughout the world
(which they ignorantly regard as triumphalistic, embarrassing and
non-ecumenical).
Under Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretariat of State,
which had assumed de facto control of the daily governance of the
Church since the reorganization of the Roman Curia by the Masonic
Cardinal Jean Villot (Secretary of State of Pope Paul VI), has dictated
this veritable Party Line on Fatima.
According to the Party Line, the Message of Fatima in general, and
the Third Secret in particular, are to be neutralized by stripping the
Message of its prophecies of future events, converting them into past
events, and reducing its specifically Catholic content to mere generic
Christian piety that will not offend the Russian Orthodox, the
Protestants or other non-Catholics.
Sodanos Party Line on Fatima is in keeping with the Balamand
Declaration (1993), negotiated by Sodanos representative, Cardinal
Cassidy, which declares that the return of the Orthodox to Rome
is outdated ecclesiologyas is, therefore, (according to Cardinal
Sodano) the conversion of Russia to the Catholic Faith called for by Our
Lady of Fatima.
Cardinal Sodano took control of the interpretation of the vision
of the Bishop dressed in white, published by the Vatican on June 26,
2000. While the vision depicts a Pope being executed by soldiers outside
a half-ruined city filled with bodies, Sodano offered what Antonio Socci
has called a preventative interpretation of the vision designed to
prevent anyone from linking the vision to the crisis in the Church and a
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301
related coming chastisement of the world.

According to the preventative interpretation, the clearly
apocalyptic scenario in the vision signifies nothing more than the
failed attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II by a lone assassin in
1981 and other events of the 20th Century, including World War II.
This patently false interpretation of the visionblatantly designed
to consign Fatima to the past in keeping with the new orientation of
the Churchwas cited no less than four times in the commentary on
the Message of Fatima and the Third Secret, TMF, composed by the
former Cardinal Ratzinger and Monsignor (now Cardinal) Bertone, and
published along with the vision in 2000.
In service of Sodanos Party Line, then-Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone
perpetrated a demonstrable fraud by asserting in TMF that Sister Lucia
personally confirmed that this solemn and universal act of consecration
[of the world in 1984] corresponded to what Our Lady wished (Sim,
est feita, tal como Nossa Senhora a pediu, desde o dia 25 de Maro de
1984: Yes it has been done just as Our Lady asked, on 25 March 1984:
Letter of 8 November 1989). Hence any further discussion or request
[for the Consecration of Russia] is without basis.
The fraud is demonstrable since the cited letter of 8 November
1989 was printed out by a computer that the aged Sister Lucy did
not use (as Cardinal Bertone admitted in his book, Last Visionary, on
page 89 of the English edition and page 101 of the Italian edition), and
contains an error of fact that Sister Lucy would never have made: that
Pope Paul VI performed a consecration of the world during his visit to
Fatima in 1967, when Pope Paul never consecrated anything during his
fleeting appearance there.
Yet Bertone deliberately relied solely upon the patently bogus
letter of 8 November 1989 even though he (and the rest of the Vatican
apparatus) had complete access to Sister Lucy in April-May 2000 and
could have asked her to confirm that the 1984 consecration of the
world sufficed for a consecration of Russiacontrary to her consistent
testimony for many decades.
Only one day after publication of the vision and TMF, Sodano
pointedly demonstrated his adherence to the new orientation by
inviting Mikhail Gorbachev, the pro-abortion, ex-Soviet dictator, to the
Vatican for a bogus press conference (no questions allowed), during
which Sodano, Gorbachev and Cardinal Silvestrini sat together to heap
praise on a key element of the new orientation, developed by Sodanos
predecessor, Cardinal Casaroli: namely, Ostpolitik, under which the
Church dialogues with Communist regimes rather than opposing
them, and observes diplomatic silence in the face of Communist
persecution of the Church.
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III.
The Vatican Secretary of State has overseen
the concealment of a part of the Third Secret of
Fatima: a text in which the Virgin, in Her own
words, gives the solution to present-day problems
in the Church while She explains the vision of
the Bishop dressed in white, which Secretaries
of State Sodano and Bertone have interpreted
falsely as a mere depiction of past events when,
in fact, it predicts the present-day, ongoing and
worsening apostasy in the Church and a divine
chastisement of the world.
That portion of the Third Secret which contains the words of the
Virgin referred to by the Vatican itself in 1960the words which
almost certainly follow the incomplete phrase In Portugal the dogma
of the Faith will always be preserved etc. and which explain the vision
of the Bishop dressed in whitehas been withheld from the faithful.
The Vatican commentary published in connection with the vision,
TMF, falsely characterizes the precious words of the Virgin pertaining
to the dogma of the Faith, recorded in Sister Lucys Fourth Memoir, as
merely some annotations by Sister Lucy, when in fact the words she
recorded are clearly those of the Mother of God. To avoid those words,
Sodano and his collaborators in TMF conspicuously avoided the Fourth
Memoir in favor of the less complete Third Memoir.
In a vain attempt to quell legitimate doubts about the completeness
of the disclosure on June 26, 2000, Sodano, dispatching then-Monsignor
Bertone for the task, obtained a secret interview of Sister Lucy in
November 2001, for which there is no transcript or other complete
record. It appears that during this interview the seer was essentially
induced to agree that she likely concocted those elements of the
Fatima Message that contradict the Party Line, and was further induced
to repudiate (without the slightest explanation) her unwavering
testimony for 60 years that the Consecration of Russia requires explicit
mention of Russia and the participation of both the Pope and the worlds
bishops in a joint public ceremony.
Although the interview is alleged to have lasted more than two
hours, Msgr. Bertone offered only forty-four words from Sister Lucy
related to the Consecration of Russia and the Third Secret, which words
are presented without any surrounding context, so that it is impossible to
tell exactly what Sister Lucy was asked, and how exactly she answered.
Among other incredible things, we are asked to believe that during this
two-hour interview, of which we are given only forty-four relevant words:
Sister Lucy repudiated a lifetime of unwavering testimony that Our
Lady asked for the Consecration of Russia by the Pope and all the
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303
worlds bishops, not the consecration of the world by the Pope and a
few bishops.
Sister Lucy confirms everything that is written in TMF, including its
suggestion that she concocted the Third Secret vision from things she
had seen in books, and that Edouard Dhanis is an eminent scholar
on Fatima, even though Dhanis asserted that Sister Lucy concocted
virtually every prophetic element of the Fatima Message.
Sister Lucy confirms that the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart has
nothing to do with the consecration and conversion of Russia, but
only the Virgin Marys fiat 2,000 years ago.
Instead of a transcript or other record of the two-hour interview,
the Vatican provided only an Italian-language summary in LOsservatore
Romano, signed by Msgr. Bertone and (purportedly) by Sister Lucy, who
did not even speak Italian. Sister Lucys signature does not appear on
the English translation of the summary.
The absence of any independent record of the interviewaudio,
video or even a certified and complete transcriptonly adds to the
grounds for suspicion, and Antonio Socci rightly concluded that the few
words attributed to the late seer lack credibility.
Msgr. Bertone conducted this patently suspect interview even
though he had a vested interest in coercing Sister Lucy to support the
Party Line, and to defend his own preposterous claim in TMF that the
press conference of June 26, 2000 brings to an end a period of history
marked by tragic human lust for power and evil
As successor to Cardinal Sodano in the office of Secretary of State,
Cardinal Bertone has continued the cover-up of the missing portion
of the Third Secret in which he participated as Archbishop Bertone.
Even as he has done so, however, his defense of the official account
and the Sodano/Bertone preventative interpretation of the vision of
the Bishop dressed in white has been demolished by the following
explosive further revelations in 2006-2007:
As revealed by Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla, the still-living personal
secretary of Pope John XXIII, there are two different envelopes and two
different texts comprising the Third Secret in its entirety: the Bertone
envelope, containing the vision of the Bishop dressed in white,
lodged in the Holy Office archives; and the Capovilla envelope and
its contents, lodged in the papal apartment, on which the Archbishop
wrote his name, the names of all those who had read the text inside,
and the dictation of Pope John XXIII that I leave it to others to
comment or decide.
Cardinal Bertone now admits the existence of the Capovilla envelope
in the papal apartment, but has thus far failed to produce it.
As Bertone himself revealed on television for the first time in 2007
304
(after having never mentioned it before), Sister Lucy prepared two

different sealed envelopesclearly for two different textspertaining
to the Third Secret, with each envelope bearing her handwritten
warning that By express order of Our Lady, this envelope can only
be opened in 1960 [only] by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or the
Bishop of Leiria.
Contrary to what the twin envelopes prepared by Sister Lucy confirm,
Bertone had been claiming for seven years (2000-2007) that Sister
Lucy confessed to him that she never received any communication
from the Virgin linking the Third Secret to 1960. The envelopes
expose Bertones claim as a falsehood and thus destroy his credibility
entirely, for it can hardly be the case that Sister Lucy, not he, was
lying about what the Virgin had said to her concerning the Third
Secret and its relation to 1960 and thus the already-announced
Second Vatican Council.
Three successive Popes have read texts of the Third Secret on two
different occasions during their respective pontificates: John XXIII
in 1959 and 1960, Paul VI in 1963 and 1965, and John Paul II in
1978 and 1981. Yet only one of the two readings by each Pope was
mentioned in the official account promulgated by then-Archbishop
Bertone and still defended by him to this day.
There was, according to Archbishop Capovilla, an attachment to
the vision of the Bishop dressed in white, which attachment has
never been produced.
In view of this and all the other evidence we have presented, Antonio
Soccia renowned and respected Catholic intellectual in Italy, and an
acquaintance and collaborator of both Bertone and Pope Benedict XVI
(when he was Cardinal Ratzinger)has concluded (reversing his earlier
opinion) that it is certain that the Vatican is concealing a text pertaining
to the Third Secret, containing the words of the Madonna [which]
preannounce an apocalyptic crisis of the faith in the Church starting at
the summit. This second text, he further concludes, is probably also an
explanation of the vision (revealed on June 26, 2000).
Despite the continuing cover-up, however, the Third Secret has in
fact been revealed in its essence not only by the testimony of numerous
witnesses, but by Pope John Paul II himself, who has twice (in sermons
at Fatima) explicitly linked the Message of Fatima to the Book of the
Apocalypse, and in particular to the fall of one-third of the stars of
Heaven (the clergy) after they are dragged down by the tail of the
dragon (Apoc. 12:3-4)an event nowhere seen in the first two parts of
the Message, and therefore undoubtedly to be found in the unpublished
part of the Third Secret.
Socci hypothesizes that the revelations by John Paul II are a
compromise solution devised by the Vatican under which the Pope
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305
would reveal the missing part of the Third Secret indirectly so that
it could be said by the Vatican Secretary of State and others (with a
mental reservation) that all has been revealed.
IV.
The Vatican Secretary of State has overseen the
persecution of Father Nicholas Gruner on account
of his opposition to the Party Line on Fatima and
his work in bringing to light the concealment of
part of the Third Secret.
Because he has in conscience refused to adhere to the Party Line on
Fatima and has raised compelling questions concerning the completeness
of the disclosure of the Third Secret under the management of
the Secretary of State, Father Nicholas Gruner, perhaps the Churchs
leading exponent of the authentic Fatima Message, has been subjected
to persecution by the Vatican Secretary of State (following worried
signals from Sodanos predecessor, Cardinal Casaroli, to Father
Gruners bishop in 1989). In particular:
Sodano is the higher authority (the Vatican term for the
Secretary of State) who announced a bogus suspension of
Father Gruner on September 12, 2001.
Documents falsely denouncing Father Gruner and pressuring
priests and bishops to shun his apostolates conferences
have been circulated throughout the world over the years by
apostolic nuncios, who are ecclesial diplomats attached to the
Secretariat of State.
Further, Sodano dictated the actions of Cardinal Dario Castrilln
Hoyos, formerly Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, respecting
the persecution of Father Gruner, including the following:
In the midst of the worst crisis of faith and discipline in Church
history, and a clerical sexual scandal of monumental proportions,
he issued public condemnations, notices of suspension and
even a threat of excommunication regarding only one priest in
the entire Catholic Church: Father Nicholas Gruner, who has
committed no offense against faith or morals, has kept his vow
of celibacy, has kept the faith, and has done absolutely nothing
to warrant any punishment.
In his letter to Father Gruner of June 5, 2000, Cardinal Castrilln
Hoyos threatened him with excommunicationonly days before
the June 26, 2000 press conference called to gently debunk the
Message of Fatima, under the direction of Cardinal Sodano.
On February 16, 2001, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos sent Father
Gruner another letter, renewing the threat of excommunication
306

and demanding that he publicly retract criticism of Cardinal
Sodano, and other matters of free opinion in the Church, found
in certain articles in The Fatima Crusaderan unprecedented
demand, and one that is quite ludicrous considering the
profusion of heretical literature promoted by unfaithful priests
and even bishops during his tenure, about which Cardinal
Castrilln Hoyos did nothing.
In the same letter, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos revealed his motive
of furthering the Party Line on Fatima, dictated by Cardinal
Sodano, when he castigated Father Gruner for not accepting
the new version of Fatima: the Blessed Mother appeared to the
three little visionaries in the Cova da Iria at the beginning of the
century, and marked out a program for the New Evangelization
which the whole Church finds itself engaged in, which is even
more urgent at the dawn of the third millennium. Of course, Our
Lady of Fatima said nothing about any New Evangelization,
but only the Consecration of Russia, the conversion of Russia to
Catholicism, and the triumph of Her Immaculate Heartall of
which Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos studiously ignored, along with
the other Vatican prelates identified here.
In a Church beset by widespread clerical corruption that he
generally tolerated during his tenure, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos
attempted to destroy the good name and lifes work of a lone
faithful priest, Father Nicholas Gruner, simply and only because
he would not accept a counterfeit of the Message of Fatima
dictated by the Vatican Secretary of State.
This persecution of Father Gruner and his Fatima apostolate
continues under Cardinal Bertone, with the current Secretary
of State attempting to prevent the attendance of bishops at
the apostolates Fatima conferences in Brazil and India, while
circulating through private channels the false insinuations or
accusations against Father Gruner (duly incardinated in the
Archdiocese of Hyderabad, India) including the ludicrous
suggestion that Father Gruner is suspended.
V.
The Vatican Secretary of States campaign to revise
and conceal the authentic Fatima Message has had
disastrous consequences for the Church and the
world, with even worse consequences to come.
As the direct result of the concerted effort, orchestrated by the
Vatican Secretary of State, to revise and conceal the authentic Message
of Fatima in favor of the new orientation of the Church
Russia has not been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of
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307
Mary as the Mother of God requested.

Russia has not converted to the Catholic Faith as Our Lady
promised if Her requests were heeded, but rather has only
further degenerated spiritually, morally, socially, politically,
and even economically, while the Kremlin prepares for war
in alliance with China and the Catholic Church suffers official
restrictions and outright persecution in that poor nation, as
Sister Lucy called it.
There is no peace in the world but only moral depravity,
wars and genocides in many places, social unrest and decay,
economic collapse and, worst of all, the holocaust of abortion
which cries out to Heaven for divine retribution.
The Church is in the depths of an unprecedented crisis, admitted
by the currently reigning Pope himself, and many millions of
souls are at risk.
But even worse consequences are to come, both for the Church and
all of humanity. As the Virgin of Fatima declared: If people do what I
ask, many souls will be saved. And as She has warned the Church and
the world: Many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and
make sacrifices for them. Regarding her own mission, Sister Lucy said
to Father Fuentes on December 26, 1957:
[M]y mission is not to indicate to the world the material
punishments which are certain to come if the world does not pray
and do penance beforehand. No! My mission is to indicate to
everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all
eternity if we remain obstinate in sin.
In sum, the evidence shows that in consequence of what can only be

called a conspiracy against Our Lady of Fatima, the world is facing the
eternal loss of many millions of souls and the annihilation of various
nations which Our Lady of Fatima warned would be the consequences of
spurning Her requests. The conspirators, acting according to the dictates
of a mere Vatican bureaucrat who was given no divine commission by
Our Lordthe Secretary of Statehave attempted to hide the missing
part of the Third Secret and do away with the Consecration of Russia
at precisely that moment in history when the Churchs correspondence
to Our Ladys requests would avert what anyone can see is a coming
global catastrophe.
The civil authorities of the world, armed with only the fallible
intelligence reports of their human operatives, are wise enough to
prepare for the worst. But Vatican prelates, in possession of a precious
and infallible heavenly intelligence report clearly warning of dire
coming events for the Church and humanity, dare to maintain that it
belongs to the past, is probably not reliable, and can in any event be
safely disregarded.
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A Summary of Falsehoods
The evidence shows that those who are determined to do away with
the Fatima prophecies have perpetrated at least ten distinct falsehoods
upon the Church and the world. These untruths have already caused
grave harm to the Church and mankind at large, and they imminently
threaten even graver harm to every man, woman and child on the
face of the earth, as the Virgin of Fatima Herself has warned us. Let us
review them:
Falsehood #1
The vision of the Bishop dressed in White published on June
26, 2000 is all there is to the Third Secret of Fatima.
This falsehood deprives the Church and the world of the obvious
prophetic warnings in the vision, which can only be explained by the
missing words of the Blessed Virgin. The missing words would not only
explain the vision but also tell us how to avoid the future catastrophe it
depicts, which includes the execution of a Pope (or a bishop dressed in
white) by a band of soldiers outside a half-ruined city.
We are told that the vision must be interpreted figuratively (as
representing the persecution of the Church during the 20th Century),
yet the same Vatican prelates who perpetrate this false reading, led by
Cardinals Sodano and Bertone, then turn around and interpret it literally
themselves as a depiction of the failed assassination attempt against the
Pope in 1981. They simply ignore Sister Lucys own explanation in the
published text of the vision that the Pope is killed. They also ignore
Sister Lucys purported letter of May 12, 1982which they themselves
offer as evidence in TMF! In that letter, supposedly written a year after
the assassination attempt, Sister Lucy warned: And if we have not yet
seen the complete fulfillment of the final part of this prophecy, we are
going towards it with great strides.
By withholding the words of the Virgin which are clearly missing
from the Third Secret, they have deprived us of precious heavenly
guidance in this time of unprecedented crisis in the Church, while
attempting to hide their own role in causing the crisis, which the Third
Secret in its entirety no doubt reveals.
Falsehood #2
The Third Secret depicts events that belong to the past,
including the failed attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II.
The effort to interpret the vision of a future disaster befalling

the Pope and the hierarchy (including a public execution) as nothing
more than a failed assassination attempt more than 25 years ago is
a most blatant error. As we have shown abundantly, this falsehood is
Framing a Grievance
309
the most dangerous aspect of the Secretary of States campaign against

Fatima, since it leads the entire Church down the primrose path to ruin
by counseling all the faithful to abandon any concern about vitally
prophetic warningsincluding the annihilation of various nations
which have clearly not yet come to pass.
This fraud is exposed by the former Cardinal Ratzingers description
of the contents of the Third Secret in 1984, standing alone and even
without all of the other evidence we have presented. At that time the
Cardinal said nothing of his 2000 interpretation that the Third Secret
culminated in the 1981 assassination attempt. This interpretation,
foisted upon the Church by the Vatican Secretary of State, is obviously
a recent fabrication designed to misdirect and mislead the faithful.
Recall here Cardinal Bertones effort to persuade the world that Sister
Lucy confessed to him that the Blessed Virgin had never told her that
the Third Secret was linked to 1960 and could not be revealed before
then, when in truth Sister Lucy had prepared two envelopes recording
the Virgins express order in that regard, as Bertone himself finally
revealed on television in 2007. This is clear evidence of a deliberate
attempt to mislead the faithful about the Third Secrets real meaning,
which involves its connection to the era of the Second Vatican Council.
Falsehood #3
The Message of Fatima offers no specific prescription for the
current crisis in the Church and the world beyond generic piety in
the form of prayer and penance.
The conspirators against Fatima we have identified and their

collaborators have endeavored to persuade the faithful that Our Lady of
Fatima did not specifically request, by the will of Almighty God Himself:
the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope
together with all the Catholic bishops of the world at the same time;
and the Five First Saturdays devotions, including the Holy Communions
of Reparation for mans sins against Our Ladys Immaculate Heart,
numbered among which are all of mans blasphemies against the
Immaculate Heart.
The evidence shows that these requests from Heaven have been buried
and ignored by the identified Vatican prelates because such things are too
explicitly Catholic for the new ecumenical and worldly orientation of
the Church which they obstinately pursue and promote. Thus the very
means God has ordained to obtain special graces in our time for the
salvation of souls from hell are inexcusably removed from view.
Falsehood #4
All the requests of the Virgin of Fatima, including the
Consecration of Russia, have been honored.
310
On the contrary, the Vatican prelates involved in the effort to do

away with Fatima have spurned Her requests. They have substituted
a consecration of the world, in which very few bishops participated,
for the Consecration of Russia that must be done by the Pope together
with all the worlds Catholic bishops in a solemn public ceremony. They
have adjusted what the Mother of God requested on the authority of
Her divine Son in order to fit their failed and worthless human plans
and initiatives, including an utterly fruitless ecumenism that has
produced nothing but continued contempt for the Pope on the part of
an unconverted, Kremlin-controlled, Russian Orthodox hierarchy.
Instead of seeking the conversion of Russia, the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart, and reparation for sins as God commanded them at
Fatima, these prelates have participated in the fraudulent repackaging
of the Message of Fatima as a bland and meaningless program for the
New Evangelization (to recall Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos ridiculous
assertion in this regard). As we have shown, the New Evangelization
abandons the constant teaching of the Church that not only the
Russian Orthodox but also all schismatics and heretics must return to
the Catholic Church, and that Moslems, Jews and pagans also need
conversion, faith in Jesus Christ and Baptism to be saved from hell. The
New Evangelizationmuch in the manner of Communist slogans
means the opposite of what it says. It means no evangelizationof
anyone!and thus no honoring of the Virgins requests concerning the
conversion of Russia.
Falsehood #5
The alarming state of the Church and the world is the best we
can expect from the falsely claimed obedience to the Message of
Fatima.
It is a very grave deception, with the most horrific consequences, to

tell the faithful that the current state of Russia and the world at large
represents in any way the fulfillment of the promises of the Mother of
God at Fatima. The Church and the world are thus robbed of the untold
temporal and spiritual benefits that God would bestow if the Message
of Fatima were respected and obeyed.
We have been given a demonstration of those benefits in the case of
Portugal, a nation miraculously transformed into a Catholic social order
following its consecration to the Immaculate Heart in 1931a result
the head of the Portuguese hierarchy explicitly declared would occur
throughout the world if Russia were likewise consecrated.
In fact, at the very least, it borders on blasphemy to attribute the
horrendous spiritual and moral condition of Russia and the world today
to the triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
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Falsehood #6
We can do nothing to avoid the great chastisement foretold by
Our Lady of Fatima, including the annihilation of various nations,
besides offering individual prayer and penance.
This falsehood conceals from the Church and the world the two
precise means that Heaven has ordained for protection from temporal
harm and the obtainment of extraordinary graces in this epoch of
Church history: namely, the Consecration of Russia and the widespread
practice of the Five First Saturdays devotions.
The prelates involved in perpetrating this falsehood have placed the
Church and civil society alike on the same path as that followed by the
unfortunate kings of France, who failed to heed Our Lords command
that France be consecrated to His Sacred Heart in a solemn public
ceremony. The execution of the King of France by French revolutionaries
in 1793 mirrors the fate that awaits the Pope and many members of the
hierarchy, as seen in the Third Secret vision: that is, the execution of the
Pope and his ministers by soldiers, outside the half-ruined city.
Yet we are told that the apocalyptic scenario depicted in the vision
represents nothing but a failed assassination attempt against the Pope
alone more than 25 years ago! It is hard to imagine a more reprehensible
falsification of the Message of Fatima, one that is designed precisely to
put the Church and the world into slumber in the face of the gravest
dangers.
Falsehood #7
The Message of Fatima is a mere private revelation that does
not impose any obligation on the members of the Church to believe
it or to follow it.
While paying lip service to the Message of Fatima, perhaps to humor

the late John Paul II, who clearly believed in it, the Vatican Secretary of
State and his collaborators have suggested that the Message of Fatima
is nothing more or less than a help which is offered, but which one is not
obliged to use. That is, they claim that the Church is not obliged to heed
the requests of the Virgin of Fatimaincluding the Consecration of
Russia and the widespread implementation of the Five First Saturdays
devotions.
Yet while they tell us that no one need believe or heed the Message
of Fatima, Pope John Paul II himself declared that the Message of
Fatima imposes an obligation on the Church. To demonstrate this, he
had a Feast of the Virgin of Fatima inserted into the new Roman Missal,
which the universal Church will celebrate on May 13 each year. Thus,
according to the worldly wisdom of the Secretary of State and those
who carry out his worldly policies, the Church celebrates a feast day in
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honor of an apparition in which no one has to believe!

To hold that a heavenly Message warning of the loss of many souls
and a great chastisement in which various nations will be annihilated
need not be given credence if we choose to disbelieve iteven though
it was authenticated by an unprecedented public miracle witnessed by
70,000 peopleis the height of human folly. The Second World War,
the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001, the worldwide economic collapse of 2008-2009all these
are but a foretaste of what the world will suffer as the consequence of
this arrogant demotion of the counsels of the Mother of God at Fatima.
Falsehood #8
The Fatima prophecies belong to the past, and the Third
Secret in particular contains no great mystery, no surprises,
and no warnings about the future.
By this falsehood the faithful are illegitimately deprived of heavenly

warnings and prescriptions of utmost importance for the Church in our
time. Had the Message of Fatima been heeded, incalculable temporal
and spiritual harm could have been avoided.
And, by continuing to perpetrate this falsehood, the Vatican prelates
involved leave the Church and the world powerless to avoid a literal
annihilation of various nations, the enslavement of whole surviving
populations of the world, and the loss of countless millions of souls in
hell for all eternitythe ultimate consequences of failing to heed Our
Ladys requests.
Falsehood #9
The pretense of a pious belief in the Message of Fatima by the
Vatican prelates arrayed against it.
While they hide behind a false appearance of belief in the Message of

Fatima, the objective words and deeds of the Vatican prelates mentioned
here reveal a systematic attempt to undercut and destroy all credence in
the explicitly Catholic prophetic content of the Message. They revealed
their true intention by citing Edouard Dhanis as an eminent scholar on
Fatima in TMF, when Dhanis cast doubt on every prophetic aspect of the
Message. By citing Dhanis as their great authority, the identified Vatican
prelates signal their fellow illuminated ones (but not the uninformed
general public) that they regard the Message of Fatima as essentially
the pious concoction of Sister Lucy, whose claim to have spoken with
the Virgin about the consecration and conversion of Russia, and so
forth, cannot really be taken seriously by the enlightened men of the
post-conciliar Church.
Their failure to admit openly that they really do not believe in the
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authentic Message of Fatima, even as they purport to interpret it for

us, is an outrage upon the Church. Just as in a court of law, where
judges and potential members of the jury must disclose any possible
prejudices they may have regarding the case at hand, so too should the
identified Vatican prelates have revealed their prejudices openly before
they pretended to be unbiased judges of the Fatima Message.
Falsehood #10
Catholics who do not agree with the identified Vatican prelates
concerning the Message of Fatima are disobedient to the
Magisterium.
By Magisterium the Vatican Secretary of State and his collaborators

in the Fatima affair mean nothing more than their own opinions about
the Message of Fatima, which opinions in fact contradict what Pope
John Paul II himself has said and done to vouch for the authenticity of
the Messageincluding his institution in 2002 of the Feast of the Virgin
of Fatima in the Churchs liturgical calendar.
Thus, ironically enough, it is the Vatican prelates who have
orchestrated a campaign to nullify the Message, who are being disloyal
to the Magisterium when they seek to demote it to the status of private
revelation that may be disregarded by the entire Church with complete
safety.
An Offense Beyond Calculation

How can one assess the magnitude of the offense committed by
those who would bury, in misrepresentation and concealment, a
precious Message from Heaven, delivered by the Mother of God Herself
for the temporal and eternal welfare of Her children? The offense is
beyond all human calculation because it involves not only temporal
calamity but also the loss of countless millions of souls, which could be
avoided by heeding the Virgins request for the Consecration of Russia
and Her other requests at Fatima (including the widespread promotion
of the Five First Saturdays devotions, which enlightened Vatican
prelates refuse to promote).
The Virgin of Fatima Herself promises the benefits we will receive
if only Her requests were obeyed: If My requests are granted, many
souls will be saved and there will be peace. Her requests have not been
granted, and those responsible (along with their collaborators) will be
liable before God and His Blessed Mother for the consequences to the
Church, to the world, and to countless millions of souls who have been
robbed of the graces Our Lady of Fatima came to provide them in the
name of Her Son.
A Mystery of Iniquity
Why are the Vatican prelates we have mentioned and those who labor
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with them in pursuit of the Churchs new orientation so adamant in their

refusal to reveal the entirety of the Third Secret and to allow the Pope
and the bishops to perform the simple ceremony that Our Lady of Fatima
requested? Why do they move mountains to prevent the utterance of one
wordRussiain a public consecration of that poor nation? What do
they have to lose (besides their personal pride) by revealing the words of
the Virgin which explain the vision of the Bishop dressed in white and
by carrying out Her requests to the letter, without amendments imposed
by Vatican diplomats and ecumenists? Nothing. And what do they, the
Church and the world have to gain? Everything.
There is simply no legitimate explanation for such perverse resistance
to the heavenly hand offered at Fatima. Something unnatural is at work
here. Without judging the subjective motives of the persons involved,
one is driven to the conclusion that their otherwise inexplicable and
seemingly senseless refusal to heed the Message of Fatima is the result
of diabolically insidious interventions resulting in a strategic, ongoing
(and thus far successful) campaign against the minds, hearts and wills
of numerous powerful Vatican prelates and other influential persons
in the Vatican itself. By this we mean what Sister Lucy herself meant:
an intervention by the Adversary himself, who, as Lucy declared, is in
the mood for engaging in a final decisive battle against the Blessed
Virgin.
As we have shown, this final battle being waged by the devilthe
very phrase from which the title of this book was derivedhas involved
the penetration into the Church of the organized forces that have long
sought to bring Her to ruin. This is what Pope Paul VI was compelled
to lament publicly when he declared that the smoke of Satan has
entered the temple of God. Whether they subjectively intend it or not,
the prelates involved in this controversy have acted in a way that only
serves the aims of the Churchs worst enemy. And the results of their
actions speak for themselves. By their fruits ye shall know them. (Mt.
7:16) What are the fruits of their governance of the Church? Simply
look at the condition of the Church today and you will know the answer.
Along with many others in high positions in the hierarchy, the Vatican
prelates who have literally conspired against the Fatima Message have
presided over the worst crisis of faith and morals in Church history. In
their pursuit of the ruinous novelties that have brought on the crisis,
they spurn a heavenly prescription that would restore the Church to
health and bring peace to a warring world. Instead of listening to the
advice of the Mother of God at Fatima, they press on with their utterly
fruitless ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, and dialogue with the
world; their hobnobbing with men of blood like Mikhail Gorbachev,
whose presence desecrated the Vatican only one day after the Message
of Fatima was gently debunked (to recall the words of the Los Angeles
Times) by the very prelates who had a duty to cherish, promote and
carry it out. As they and their collaborators continue to palaver endlessly
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with the forces of the world, countless souls in need of the light of
Christ for their salvation in Russia and elsewhere are allowed to remain
in darkness.
Over the years which have passed since that fateful year of 1960
the year when the Third Secret was to have been revealedthe enemies
of the Church have delighted in seeing Her rendered almost powerless
to oppose them, which is why they erupted in outrage when Pope
Benedict made tentative attempts to restore the Church by liberating
the Latin Mass and lifting the excommunication of the bishops of the
Society of Saint Pius X. In 2009, as when this book first appeared seven
years earlier, the Church continues to retreat as the forces of the world
continue to advance against Her. Yet Cardinal Bertone persists in his
suicidal attempt to embrace the world instead of truly loving all the
persons today living in the world by allowing Our Ladys Immaculate
Heart to sweetly conquer it spiritually for Christ the King. Cardinal
Bertone, who controls the Vatican apparatus at this time, does not wish
to offend the Russian Orthodox or anyone else with a show of Catholic
militancy, which he views as embarrassing and outdatedto use one
of the favorite words of the Modernists. The Churchs abject retreat
from battle warms the hearts of the Masons and the Communists,
who labored for generations in the hope of seeing the Church reduced
precisely to this pathetic condition.
And yet Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican apparatus he leads, and the
other members of the hierarchy involved in this almost unimaginable
debaclethe very debacle predicted in the Secretare not without
militancy of a sort. While they have done little or nothing to stop
infiltrators of the Church from spreading heresy and moral corruption
with virtual impunity, they pursue unswervingly their disastrous policies
of reform, openness and renewal, while hounding, denouncing
and ostracizing any Catholic who offers legitimate resistance. At the
same time, they thumb their noses at the Pope and his effort to restore
the Latin liturgy, which most bishops continue to quarantine as if it
were a strain of anthrax.
Consider that in the entire Catholic world of one billion souls,
only four people are deemed schismatic by enlightened opinion
in the Church today: the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius
X. And this continues to be the case even after the Pope lifted their
excommunication. It seems that the only remaining heresy, the only
remaining schism, consists of disagreement with a new orientation
of the Church that has definitively excluded the Message of Fatima in
its traditional Catholic senseor so they think.
This is the diabolical disorientation of the Church that only
obedience to the Message of Fatima will remedy. And since only the Pope
can lead the Church, including the worlds bishops, in that obedience, it
is finally to the Pope that we, the faithful, must now turn.
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The Remedies to Which the Faithful Are Entitled
What is it that we seek from the Holy Father as remedies for the acts
and omissions of the men we have identified? We seek the following:
First,
The Consecration of Russia
There Is Still Time
By this we mean precisely what Our Lady of Fatima requested: The
immediate Consecration of Russiaby name and without equivocation
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in a solemn public ceremony by the
Pope together with all the Catholic bishops of the world.
We must petition the Pope to command under pain of
excommunication all the Catholic bishops (except those prevented by
imprisonment or serious illness) to consecrate solemnly, publicly and
specifically Russia, according to the requests of Our Lady of Fatima,
together with the Pope on the same day and at the same hour specified
by the Pope.
Some will say it is already too late to obtain the Consecration and
that it is pointless to go on requesting it. That is simply not so. As Our
Lord Himself revealed to Sister Lucy in the revelation at Rianjo in
August of 1931:
Make it known to My ministers that given they follow the
command, they will follow him into misfortune They [the
ministers of the Catholic Church] did not want to heed My
command. Like the King of France they will repent of it, and they
will do it, but it will be late. Russia will already have spread her
errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the
Church. The Holy Father will have much to suffer.501
Further, as Our Lord also revealed to Sister Lucy on the same

occasion: It will never be too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.
That is, even though we are now suffering the consequences of delay in
the execution of Heavens command, the worst of those consequences,
including the annihilation of various nations, may yet be avoided if the
command to consecrate Russia is heeded, however belatedly.
It is outrageous that human respectfear of offending the Russian
Orthodoxhas been allowed until now to prevent the Churchs
fulfillment of Heavens plan for peace in our time. As members of the
Church Militant, we can no longer allow those who claim to speak
for the Pope to declare that the Pope has pronounced unequivocally,
authoritatively, and definitively the consecration to be accomplished.
We have shown how Pope John Paul II himself had publicly said quite
the opposite. We must implore His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to reject
501
The Whole Truth About Fatima - Vol. II: The Secret and the Church, pp. 543-544. See also
Toute la vrit sur Fatima - Tome II: Le Secret et Lglise, pp. 344-345.
Framing a Grievance
317
the manifestly bad advice he and his predecessor have been given, and
to follow Heavens advice instead.
With each passing day, our hindsight shows ever more clearly how
badly advised were all the Popes since 1931 in rejecting the command
to consecrate Russia. Seeing the disasters of World War II; the Soviet
gulag; the war of abortion with over 800 million innocent victims;
with ongoing wars in the Middle East, in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.; what
more disasters must be visited upon mankind before the Pope and his
advisors finally accept the obvious truth?
Second,
Disclosure of the Full and Integral
Third Secret of Fatima
This disclosure would have to include what we now know for certain
exists: the text of the words of the Blessed Virgin explaining the vision
that was published on June 26, 2000. That such a text exists has been
proven to a moral certainty by a mountain of direct and circumstantial
evidence, every piece of which points to a missing text of one page of
some 25 lines in letter form, containing the words of the Virgin Herself,
and probably contained in the Capovilla envelope that was lodged in
the papal apartment and which the Vatican Secretary of State has failed
and refused to produce.
The Church and the world have the right to know the contents of
the Third Secret, which obviously contains salutary warnings about the
current crisis in the Church involving, as Cardinal Ratzinger revealed in
1984, dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian, and
therefore (the life) of the world. Pope John Paul IIs clear indications
that the Secret relates to the apostasy and fall of consecrated souls
described in the Book of the Apocalypse tell us that he himself was
constrained by his advisors not to reveal the Third Secret in its entirety,
but rather to offer only hints of its contents. Meanwhile, those who
actually control the daily affairs of the Church continue to bury what
the Secret must reveal about their own failed governance of the Church.
Third,
A Call for Daily Recitation of the Rosary
Our Lady of Fatima exhorted us to remember what the Church has
long known: that the Rosary is infinitely more powerful than any weapon
devised by man. There is no difficulty that cannot be overcome, no battle
that cannot be won, with the aid of the Holy Rosary. If enough Catholics
pray the Rosary with the correct intention, the enemies of the Church will
be routed from their strongholds within Her and driven out. As Fatima
itself shows us, by the will of God the Virgin Mary is our refuge and our
strength in times of crisis. In this gravest of crises, the whole Church must
seek recourse to Her through daily recitation of the Rosary.
While we need not, and should not, wait to institute a perpetual
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Rosary Crusade at all levels in the Church where we can, we should also
petition the Pope to inspire such a campaign throughout the Church by
writing encyclicals on the Rosary every year in the manner of Pope Leo
XIII and appointing a dicastery headed by a Cardinal to promote the
Rosary by various initiatives through the network of Catholic shrines
and Marian priests (both religious and diocesan). Such initiatives, of
course, must be entirely in keeping with authentic Catholic doctrine
and practices promoting all the great privileges of Our Lady.
The Rosary should, of course, include the prayer prescribed by Our
Lady of Fatima as an addition to the Rosary: O my Jesus, forgive us our
sins, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially
those most in need. It is most telling about our situation that during the
entrustment of the world to the Immaculate Heart in October of 2000
the public recitation of the Rosary at the Vatican conspicuously omitted
this prayer, even though Sister Lucy said the prayer in her convent on
that very occasion. This is yet another sign of the new orientation,
which abhors any reference to hell and damnation.
It is crucial to recall here Pope Benedicts own admission that after
Vatican II a tendency arose in the Church according to which certain
the last things, were not mentioned anymore. That is exactly what we
are dealing with when it comes to Fatima and the new orientation of
the Churchan orientation that has produced what the Pope himself
calls a secularized ecclesial environment.
Fourth,
Promotion of the First Saturdays Devotions
Those who have undertaken to revise the Message of Fatima have
attempted to bury in silence this part of the Message, along with all its
other explicitly Catholic elements. Indeed, the whole concept of man
making reparation to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary for blasphemies
and other sins has been gravely diminished in the Churchs new
orientation. (One of the key elements obscured in the new liturgy is
that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice to make reparation to God for
sin, not merely a sacrifice of praise.)
The widespread promotion of the Five First Saturdays devotions
is one of Heavens chosen means to restore in our time a sense of the
need for reparation for sin by the members of the Church. Who can
doubt that now, more than ever before, the Church must renew Her
effort to offer reparation to God and to the Immaculate Virgin Mother
of God, thus staying the execution of Gods wrath? Yet the wrath of God
is another thing of which we hear nothing from modern churchmen.
By promoting the Five First Saturdays devotions, the Holy Father will
marshal the Churchs power to offer reparation for sin at this critical
time in world history.
Framing a Grievance
319
Fifth,
Reestablishment Throughout the Church of Devotion
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
The shameful attempt in TMF to equate the one and only Immaculate
Heart to the heart of anyone who repents of his sins is only typical of
the new orientation, which abhors the concept of Original Sin as much
as it does hell and damnation. As Pope, the former Cardinal Ratzinger
has evidently repudiated the theological revisionism of TMF, having
declared, as we have shown in Chapter 9, that
The heart that resembles that of Christ more than any other is
without a doubt the Heart of Mary, His Immaculate Mother, and
for this very reason the liturgy holds Them up together for our
veneration.
Among all human persons, only the Immaculate Heart of Mary

was preserved free from all stain of Original Sin and was never under
the dominion of Satan. In contemplating the one and only sinless
Immaculate Heart of Mary, we are drawn by the beautiful sweetness of
our heavenly Mother. At Rianjo it is Jesus Himself who urges us to often
pray Sweet Heart of Mary Reflecting on Her goodness, holiness
and kindness inspires us with hope in Her merits and intercession as we
become ever more aware of our own wretchedness. In all this we see
the need of all men for Baptism and the other sacraments of the Church
to preserve each of us in a state of grace.
The uniquely Catholic devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
is a rebuke of the new orientation of the Church, whose ecumenism
downplays the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (and the
Assumption) out of human respect for the sensibilities (which are based
on prejudices and ignorance) of non-Catholics. That is precisely why, as
Our Lady of Fatima told us, God wishes to establish in the world devotion
to Her Immaculate Heart. God wishes the world to see that devotion to
Mary is necessary for salvation, as St. Alphonsus proved in his book The
Glories of Mary. And also to see that it is the Catholic Church, and none
other, which is the ark of salvation. Pope Benedicts own words show
that he will be sympathetic to our petition in this regard.
Sixth,
The Removal of Prelates from Office as Necessary
to Secure Obedience to the Message of Fatima
As we have proven, the identified Vatican prelatesfirst and
foremost, Cardinal Bertonehave combined and conspired to do away
with the full Message of Fatima in its traditional Catholic sense. They
have tampered with the meaning of the very words of the Mother of
God, buried in silence and obscuration much, if not all, of the explicitly
Catholic and prophetic elements of the Message, and persecuted those
who have offered a principled opposition to their revisionist program,
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their Party Line on Fatima. By so doing, they have already caused untold
damage to the Church and have exposed both the Church and the world
to the gravest possible dangers, including the loss of millions of souls
and the annihilation of various nations foretold by Our Lady of Fatima
as the consequence of failing to heed Her requests. Her dire warning
bears repeating yet again: If My requests are not granted, Russia will
spread her errors throughout the world raising up wars and persecutions
against the Church, the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will
have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated. She also
promised: If My requests are granted, many souls will be saved and
there will be peace.
The continuing course of conduct we have traced in this book, in which
Cardinal Bertone and his collaborators obstinately persist, imminently
threatens the Church and the world with incalculable harm. We have
every right to petition the Pope for the removal from office of the prelates
responsible for revising the Message of Fatima and concealing a portion
of the Third Secret of Fatima, not excluding the Vatican Secretary of State
himself. Some will object, however, that it is the height of arrogance for
mere members of the laity to petition the Pope for the removal of any
high-ranking prelate. On the contrary, it is our duty as Catholics to do so,
no matter what the rank of the prelates in question.
Further, even though the offending prelates identified by name in
this book have, with the exception of Cardinal Bertone, moved on to
retirement or other offices in the Church and no longer appear to have
an active role in the course of conduct at issue, what we have shown
here applies with equal force to any member of the Vatican apparatus
now collaborating with the Secretary of State, or indeed any member
of the hierarchy at all who continues to serve the Secretary of States
Party Line on Fatima.
The Example of St. John Gualberto

No less than a canonized saint of the Catholic Church gives us the
example to follow when the faithful are confronted with a wayward
prelate who is harming the Church.502
St. John Gualberto lived in the 11th Century. He is not only a saint
but founder of the Val Ambrosian Benedictines. His feast day is July 12
in the old calendar. St. Johns heroic Christian virtue is demonstrated
by his having forgiven the murderer of his own brother. Encountering
the weaponless and defenseless killer in a blind alley, St. John (who
was not yet a monk) was moved to forgiveness when the man put up
his arms in the form of a cross and asked for mercy for the sake of
Christ crucified. St. John forgave the man even though he had been
searching for him with a band of soldiers in order to exact vengeance.
That very day, which was Good Friday, St. John saw the image of Christ
502
See Coralie Graham, Divine Intervention, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 70, Spring 2002,
pp. 8ff.
Framing a Grievance
321
on a crucifix come alive and nod His head toward St. John. At this
moment, Our Lord imparted to St. John an absolutely extraordinary
special grace, because he had forgiven his own brothers murderer. It
was that moment of grace which led St. John to become a monk.
Now, as we can see, St. John Gualberto was the very model of
Christian forgiveness. If he could forgive his brothers own murderer, he
could forgive any offense. He was also a man of considerable importance
in the hierarchy of the Church, having gone on to found a monastery
and an order of monks that still exists to this day. The order had
and still hascharge of a church in Rome, the Church of St. Praxedes,
wherein nothing less than the column at which Christ was scourged
is to be found. The church, literally just around the corner from St.
Mary Major, also contains a painting of St. John Gualberto forgiving his
brothers murdererclearly, a very significant event in Church history.
Yet despite his exemplary Christian mercy and forgiveness and his
great stature in the Church, St. John Gualberto did not hesitate to seek
the removal of a corrupt prelate of his own day. St. John went to the
Lateran (where the Pope resided in those days before the creation of
the Vatican enclave) to ask that the Archbishop of Florence be removed
because he was unworthy of his office. The grounds for St. Johns petition
were that the Archbishop had paid money to certain persons of influence
in order to have himself appointed Archbishop. That is, he had purchased
his ecclesiastical office, which constitutes a grave sin of simony.
After the Popes officials in the Lateranincluding no less than St.
Peter Damianwould take no action to remove the Archbishop, citing a
supposed lack of proof, God gave St. John a special inspiration: In order
to demonstrate that St. John was telling the truth about the Archbishop,
God would give a sign. One of the brothers in St. Johns order, Blessed
Brother Peter, surnamed Igneus, would walk through a bonfire from
which he would emerge miraculously unscathed, to testify to the truth
of St. Johns accusation against the Archbishop. St. John called all
the townspeople together and told them to construct a huge bonfire
with a narrow passage in the middle. He explained to them what was
about to happen and why. Then Brother Peter, under holy obedience,
walked through the narrow, fiery passage and emerged at the other end
without injury. For his own great faith, Brother Peter was beatified (his
feast day is on February 8 in the Roman Martyrology). When the lay
faithful saw this miraculous sign, they arose as one and literally drove
the Archbishop out of Florence. The Archbishop had to flee for his life,
and the Pope had to appoint an honest replacement.
The Removal of Wayward Prelates in Our Own Time

What does this event in Church history tell us about our own
situation today? It teaches us that the laity have the right and the duty
to protect themselves from wayward prelates who are harming the
Church and souls by their misconduct. And in this time of unparalleled
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crisis in the Church, we are hardly alone in seeking this extraordinary

remedy from the Pope.
Consider that in March of 2002 Pope John Paul II received a canonical
petition from various members of the faithful in the Archdiocese of
San Antonio, seeking the removal of Archbishop Flores from his office
on grounds that he had covered up criminal acts of sexual abuse by
homosexual priests under his charge and paid millions of dollars in hush
money to silence the victims of these predators. The petition to the
Pope charged that Archbishop Flores had been grossly negligent in the
exercise of his episcopal office, has failed to protect the temporal goods
of the archdiocese, and has endangered the faith of the people entrusted
to his care by allowing sexual predators within the clergy free rein.503
In like manner, thousands of members of the faithful called for the
resignation of Cardinal Law of the Archdiocese of Boston because of his
complicity in shielding dozens of homosexual predators from exposure
and punishment.504 And he did resign. Would anyone accuse the faithful
of the Archdiocese of San Antonio or the Archdiocese of Boston of
arrogance for exercising their canonical and God-given right to seek
the removal of prelates whose acts and omissions have caused so much
damage to the Church and to countless innocent victims?
By what peculiar standard of justice, then, are prelates who happen
to work in the Vatican apparatus exempt from accountability to the Pope
for their actions? Clearly, they are not exempt. And while the sexual
abuse of members of the flock by their very pastors is among the gravest
of scandalsjustifying a movement of the laity against the priests who
commit these unspeakable acts and the bishops, and even Cardinals,
who shield the offendersthere is a scandal even greater than this. We
mean the scandal of spurning the very prescriptions which the Mother
of God Herself gave to the Church at Fatimaprescriptions which, had
they been followed, would have prevented not only the sexual scandal
now racking the Church but indeed the entire ecclesial and world crisis
we now see. We mean also the scandal of a Vatican apparatus that
does nothing to combat the true enemies of the Church in Her very
midst, while it persecutes faithful traditional clergy for the offense
of being too staunchly Catholic for the ecclesial reality of todayto
recall once again the telltale phrase of Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos. For no
other reason than to prevent the collapse of faith and discipline which
we now witness did Our Lady come to Fatima. Yet it is precisely the
Abuse Victims File Petition Seeking Removal of Archbishop, The Wanderer, April 4,
2002.
504
Internal church documents showed that from the mid-1980s and into the 90s Cardinal
Law and his top aides were aware of the problems of Father Geoghan, who was
eventually accused of molesting more than 130 children over 30 years. In February, he
was sentenced to 9 to 10 years in prison for fondling a 10-year-old boy. After the Churchs
role [that is, the Boston Archdiocese officials role] in protecting Father Geoghan became
known, the Cardinal gave local prosecutors the names of more than 80 priests accused
of sexual abuse over decades. Quoted from As Scandal Keeps Growing, Church and Its
Faithful Reel, New York Times, March 17, 2002.
503
Framing a Grievance
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Message of Fatima which the opponents of Our Lady have devoted so

much time and effort to burying, while they do virtually nothing about
the ecclesial crisis that is raging all around them.
The example of St. John Gualberto teaches us also that when God
gives a sign through a chosen messenger, the laity are entitled to rely
upon that sign, even if the highest prelates in the Church choose to
ignore it. Such is the case with the Message of Fatima, for there could be
no greater sign from Heaven than the Miracle of the Sun. The Message
of Fatima clearly involves a warning of apostasy and malfeasance
among the members of the upper hierarchy, as well as the fall of many
consecrated souls from their stations. We are witnessing the fulfillment
of that prophecy at this very moment. We are entitled to rely upon the
sign of Heaven that authenticates that prophecy beyond all reasonable
doubt, no matter what the Message of Fatimas debunkers in the
Vatican may claim.
Knowing what Heaven has told us at Fatima, it is our duty as
members of the Church to try to convince the Pope to remove the errant
advisors who surround him and to follow instead the advice of the
Mother of God at Fatima. We must plead with the Pope to perform the
Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart exactly in the manner
She requested, without alteration by any worldly-wise member of the
Vatican apparatus. Further, we should ask the Pope to remove from
office, if necessary, any prelate in the Vatican who attempts to prevent
the Pope from carrying out the Virgins requests.
Likewise, we must petition the Pope to remove from office those who
have conspired to prevent full disclosure of the Third Secret of Fatima.
The Third Secret is obviously of the utmost importance in understanding
and combating the crisis in the Church, while protecting ourselves from its
devastating spiritual effectsof which the unspeakable crimes committed
by so many priests are but one manifestation. The faithful are entitled to
know what Heaven itself wishes them to know for their own spiritual safety.
The coordinated actions of those who prevent full disclosure of the Third
Secret are grave offenses against the Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary
and thus are crimes against Almighty God Himself.
The Churchs Urgent Need for Militant Prelates

Today the Church needs more than ever true soldiers of the Church
men possessed of an unabashed Catholic militancy, who are not afraid of
a confrontation with the forces of the world which invaded the Church
while those who should have been the Churchs guardians, including
prelates in the Vatican itself, did (and do) nothing or even encouraged
the invasion. The Church needs men who will act decisively to root out
the pandemic heresy and scandal in the Church, instead of hounding and
oppressing traditional Catholic clergy who decline to be inserted into
what Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos called the ecclesial reality of today. The
Church needs men to stand up for the truth and the rights of God and
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of the Church in all charity and zeal; in short, the Church needs spiritual
warriors, not practitioners of dialogue, ecumenism and Ostpolitik.
The Message of Fatima itself is a call to spiritual warfareto a battle
that is to culminate in the consecration and conversion of Russia and
the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The identified Vatican
prelates regard such things with the squeamishness of those who
seem to think themselves more enlightened than all the generations
of Catholic Saints, Doctors, martyrs and Popes whose militancy down
through the centuries is a living testament to the very words of Christ
Himself:
If the world hate you, know ye, that it has hated Me before
you. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own:
but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hates you. (Jn. 15:18-19)
Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not
to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance
against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a mans enemies
shall be they of his own household. (Mt. 10:34-36)
For far too long the Church has suffered under the governance
of those who would have us believe that there is no spiritual combat
between Christ and His Church on the one hand, and the world on
the other. For far too long these men have been allowed to pursue and
promote a false vision of a Church reconciled to the world, rather
than a world reconciled to the Church. For far too long these men have
yoked the Church to the utopian notion of worldly peace among men
of all religions or no religion at all, rather than the true peace that can
come only when the souls of men are conquered by the grace of Christ
the King, which He deigns to mediate to men through the Immaculate
Heart of Mary and through the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Fatima shows us the way to true peace in the world, the peace of
Christ in the Kingdom of Christ, as Pope Pius XI put it in his encyclical
Quas Primas. Yet the men we name and many other contributors to
the crisis in the Church have blocked our progress along that way,
exposing the Church and the world to the risk of an ultimate calamity.
If the victims of the scandal of sexual abuse by clergy have the right to
seek the removal of the prelates whose negligence brought about the
scandal, all the more are we entitled to seek that same remedy as to the
prelates who have presided over the scandalous campaign to nullify the
Message of Fatima. It is the men who have thwarted fulfillment of the
Fatima Message, not ordinary Catholics, who are lacking in vision. It is
they, not we, who are narrow-minded. It is they, not we, who are being
unrealistic. They must step aside for the good of all humanity.
Chapter 18
What Can Be Done in the Meantime?
The Petition to the Pope set forth in the next and final chapter of
this book is an important step in a program for obtaining the Churchs
obedience to the Message of Fatima and ending the crisis in the Church.
But, of course, unless there be raised up a groundswell of many people,
maybe even millions of people, speaking out as well as writing against
the anti-Fatima forces in the Vatican, there is no guarantee that the
men who surround the Pope will allow him to read any petition from
the faithful. Nevertheless, in the meantime we must still deal with the
crisis on our own. Until the Pope takes definitive actions to carry out
the imperatives of the Fatima Message, we must deal with the crisis as
best we can according to our stations in life. We recall here Cardinal
Newmans description of the state of the Church during the Arian crisis:
The body of bishops failed in their confession of the Faith.
They spoke variously, one against another; there was nothing, after
[the Council of] Nicea [325 A.D.], of firm, unvarying, consistent
testimony, for nearly sixty years. There were untrustworthy Councils,
unfaithful bishops; there was weakness, fear of consequences,
misguidance, delusion, hallucination, endless, hopeless, extending
into nearly every corner of the Catholic Church. The comparatively
few who remained faithful were discredited and driven into exile;
the rest were either deceivers or deceived.505
What, specifically, can Catholics do in this time of darkness for the

Church, as we wait for those who lead Her to put Her back on the
proper course? We must do whatever it is in our power to do, which
includes at least the following:
Above All, Prayer

First and foremost, there is the power of prayerand particularly
the most efficacious prayer of the Holy Rosary. The importance of
the Rosary and other forms of Catholic prayer in this struggle cannot
be overemphasized. We are dealing with forces and circumstances
that, humanly speaking, seem impossible to overcome. The Pope is
surrounded by powerful men who have thus far successfully impeded
fulfillment of the Message of Fatima. The Pope still has to contend with
these men or like-minded successors in office, for the internal enemies
of the Church are now legion.
How can we, simple members of the rank-and-file laity or clergy,
hope to reverse the current course of events in the Church and the
505
John Henry Newman, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, p. 77.
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world? How can we secure the Consecration of Russia when so many

of the high and powerful are so opposed to it? Humanly speaking,
we cannot. But with the power of the Holy Rosary, we can. Is this not
indeed why Our Lady of Fatima, with our present circumstances clearly
in view, called for daily recitation of the Rosary? As Our Lady, speaking
of Herself in the third person, declared: Only Our Lady of the Rosary
can help you!
First of all, then, pray the Rosary for the intention of Our Ladys final
triumph over the crisis in the Church and the world through fulfillment
of Her requests at Fatima, and urge your friends, relatives and
neighbors to pray for the same intention. If ten percent of the worlds
Catholics prayed the Rosary daily for this precise intention, the battle
would be won. History records that ten percent of the population of
Austria, by mounting a Rosary Crusade, brought about the miraculous
and otherwise inexplicable withdrawal of an invading Soviet army
after the end of World War II. Therefore, begin right now to organize a
Rosary Crusade among your friends and relatives and in your parisha
Rosary Crusade for the Consecration of Russia and the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary.
In addition to the powerful prayer of the Rosary, Catholics must
perform other spiritual works, including the Sacred Heart devotions
(the Nine First Fridays, having sacred images of Jesus in our homes,
and making frequent visits to the Blessed Sacrament) and, of course,
the Five First Saturdays devotions prescribed by Our Lady of Fatima
Herself. By these means we address spiritually the many sacrileges
and outrages committed against Our Lord, particularly Our Lord in the
Blessed Sacrament, Who has been abused innumerable times by the
sacrilege of Communion in the hand which is a part of the current crisis
of faith and discipline in the Church. By making reparation in this way,
we will hasten the coming of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
Catholics must also have recourse to the sacramentals of the Church
by which we can gain spiritual favors for ourselves and others. These
include the Brown and Green Scapulars, bestowed by Heaven itself,
which are all but forgotten in this time of diabolical disorientation in
the Church.
Finally, of course, each of us must strive to live a holy life with
prayer, penance, sacrifices and through frequent reception of the great
Sacraments of the Holy Catholic Church, whose grace arms us for the
battles ahead and keeps us from the pitfalls which have claimed so
many others in this crisis.
In short, through prayer (especially the Rosary) and the sacramental
life, we must do everything we can to become more fervent in the faith
and to make others more fervent as well. For this struggle is, first and
foremost, a spiritual combat in which every soul is needed, and every
soul is at risk.
327
We Must Also Work (Ora et Labora)

Naturally, Catholics must back up their prayer with good works. As
St. Ignatius said, we must pray as though everything depends on God
and work as though everything depends on us. What are some of the
things Catholics can do in their respective stations in life?
As simple members of the laity, we can

arm ourselves against the crisis by knowing our faith, and by
informing ourselves about the Message of Fatima and what it really
means;
tell our fellow Catholics, and everyone else we meet, about the
relation of the Message of Fatima to the crisis in the Church and the
crisis in the world;
provide by our lives an example of Christian faith and good morals;
respectfully insist that local bishops and pastors of parishes provide
sound Catholic doctrine and a sound liturgy, particularly the
traditional Latin Mass in obedience to Pope Benedict XVIs motu
proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007, declaring that every
priest in the Church is free to celebrate the traditional Latin liturgy,
and that the faithful who request it have a right to it, no matter what
a given bishop may think;
withhold financial support from parishes and dioceses where doctrinal
and moral corruption and liturgical abuse are allowed to festeran
action that many Catholics have already taken in response to the
sexual scandals now afflicting the priesthood;
call for the removal of morally and doctrinally corrupt priests and
bishops, in keeping with our God-given right to petition Church
authorities, including the Pope, for redress of grievances in the
Church;
pray and get others to prayespecially the Rosary, which can conquer
all heresies and other threats to the Church;
pray and offer sacrifices for the Holy Father, as Jesus urged Sister
Lucy to do, that the Pope might be moved to vanquish the enemies of
the Church and to fulfill the requests of Our Lady of Fatima.
As priests and religious, we can

preach and defend the traditional Roman Catholic Faith;
make known to everyone the Message of Fatima and what it requires
of the Church;
provide by our lives an example of Christian faith and good morals;
call upon our superiors, including the Pope, to honor the Message of
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Fatima and take other actions to end the moral and doctrinal crisis
in the Church, including the rooting out of morally and spiritually
corrupt leaders of whatever rank who are wolves among the sheep.
As Catholic journalists, authors and publishers, we

can
write the truth about Fatima and make it as widely known as possible;
write the truth about the current crisis in the Church, and its doctrinal,
liturgical, disciplinary and practical causes, as we have discussed in
this book;
investigate, expose and condemn the conspiracy against Fatima;
publish the truth about Fatima in whatever forums are available to
usas we have done with this book and as Antonio Socci has done
with his book, for which (as we have seen) Pope Benedict himself
expressed an appreciation to the author that confirms the right of the
faithful to publish on the matter.
As Catholic lay people; political leaders; captains

of industry, commerce and finance; diplomats; and
military leaders, we can
implore the Pope to pursue Heavens plan for peace as given to us
at Fatima, rather than the failed diplomacy and treaties of mere
men, including Vatican bureaucrats such as Cardinal Sodano, former
Secretary of State, and Cardinal Bertone, the current Secretary of
State;
support with our financial means those apostolates and apostolic
initiatives which promote, advance and defend the authentic and
complete Fatima Message;
use our influence to prevail upon members of the hierarchy to
cooperate in carrying out the imperatives of the Fatima Message for
the good of the whole world.
There is Still Time to Avert Disaster

No less than Pope Saint Gregory the Great declared:
It is better that scandal arise than that the truth be
suppressed.
Whatever our station in life, each of us is a member of the Church

militant, a soldier of Christ. As such, each of us has a duty to defend the
Church according to his ability. As Pope Saint Felix III declared:
Not to oppose error is to approve it, and not to defend truth
is to suppress it, and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when
we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them.
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It should be obvious to any Catholic that time is fast running out

for much of the present generation of leaders and laypeople in the
Church and for civilization at large. As Saint Paul warned us, God will
not be mocked. If salvation history teaches us anything, it teaches that
when men rebel against God on the massive scale such as we are now
witnessing, then the world will be swiftly and terribly punished with a
divine chastisement. The Message of Fatima is nothing if not a warning
that such a chastisement is imminent in our time if man does not turn
away from sin.
The Virgin of Fatima offered us the means to avoid that chastisement,
yet we find that many men of the Churchboth clergy and laypeople
have spurned the heavenly offer. Even bishops and Cardinals do so. Like
the Kings of France, who spurned Our Lords simple command for the
consecration of that nation to His Sacred Heart, the men who control
the Vatican apparatus today have charted a course toward disastera
disaster vastly greater than the one that befell France.
But there is still time to change course. It is the supreme urgency
of our situation that has moved us to write this book and to describe
the partisans against Fatima, their tactics, their errors and what you
can do, what you must do to oppose their schemes. We have presented
our case to you, not to engage in provocation for its own sake, and not
merely for the justice of this cause, but also as an act of mercymercy
not only for the victims of the great crime against Fatima but also for
those who are owed in charity an opportunity to be confronted with
the magnitude of what they have done so that they might change their
course and begin to make amends before it is too late for themand for
us. To recall the teaching of Saint Thomas mentioned in the previous
chapter, when a man reproves his prelate charitably, it does not follow
that he thinks himself any better, but merely that he offers his help to
one who, being in the higher position among you, is therefore in greater
danger as Saint Augustine observes...
The acts and omissions of Vatican prelates and their collaborators
have jeopardized the temporal safety of the Church and the world,
and the eternal safety of countless souls. How can we remain silent in
the face of this danger? To remain silent is to cooperate in objective
sins against the Church and humanity, whatever the intentions of the
persons responsible.
We Ask For Your Verdict

We believe the evidence we have presented imposes a duty that
cannot be ignored by Catholics of good will. It is no longer possible
to remain neutral at this critical point in the battle for the Church and
the world. We have shown you the evidence, and it is overwhelming.
Having seen the evidence, you must make a decision. As Sister Lucy
said:
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[F]rom now on we must choose sides. Either we are for God or
we are for the devil. There is no other possibility.
We pray that your decision will be to join us in this effort, however

humble, to set right what has gone so terribly wrong. Over the seven
years which have passed since the first edition of this book, you can
see that tremendous progresseven a breakthrough for Fatimahas
occurred. But we are still a long way from our goals: (1) full disclosure
of the Third Secret and the vital warnings and other counsels it no
doubt contains; and (2) the collegial Consecration of Russia, and the
Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, which Socci rightly describes as a
titanic victory over evil. He calls it a radical change in the world, an
overthrow of the mentality dominating modernity, probably following
dramatic events for humanity, as prophesied in the Third Secret.506
What we said seven years ago remains true today: We ourselves
are of little importance in the great drama of Fatima, but we labor in
the cause of the One Who, by the will of God, stands at its very center.
She cannot fail in what She promised, if only Her children, freed from
the designs of erring men, will do what little She asked of them: If My
requests are granted, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.
In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph.
506
p. 227.
Chapter 19
Petition to the Supreme Pontiff
To His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI (and, if necessary, his successor):
We, being faithful members of the Holy Catholic Church, are
compelled in conscience to submit this Petition to Your Holiness, who is
the final judge of matters in controversy in the Church.
This Petition is an extraordinary action by Catholics who have no
representative to intercede for them before Your Holiness in the midst
of the unprecedented crisis of faith and discipline that has followed the
Second Vatican Council.
This Petition is an exercise of our God-given right as baptized
Catholics to make direct recourse to the Supreme Pontiff, without any
intervening canonical procedures. (First Vatican Council - 1870 A.D.,
Dz. 1830, D.S. 3063; Second Council of Lyons - 1274 A.D., Dz. 466;
1983 Code of Canon Law, can. 212, can. 1417 1.)
The grounds for this Petition are contained in the study entitled
The Devils Final Battle (DFB). They are also to be found in the work
by Antonio Socci, The Fourth Secret of Fatima, whose conclusions
correspond to those of DFB. Your Holiness (who is acquainted with Mr.
Socci, a renowned and respected Catholic) has personally thanked him
for his book and the sentiments which motivated it.
Having considered the evidence, we are persuaded to a moral
certainty of the following things:
First, the Message of Fatima is a vital prophecy for our time, whose
veracity has been placed beyond all doubt by the absolutely extraordinary
circumstances of its revelation (including a public miracle witnessed by
70,000 people), its approval as authentic by competent Church authorities,
its acceptance by and incorporation into the life of the Church, and by the
very statements and actions of Pope John Paul II, including the institution
of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima on May 13 in the Churchs liturgical
calendar. As Pope, you yourself have vouched for the authenticity of the
Fatima apparitions by declaring on the anniversary of the first apparition:
You promised the three children of Fatima that in the end, My
Immaculate Heart will triumph. May it be so! (Prayer addressed
to Our Lady by Benedict XVI in Bethlehem, May 13, 2009)
You have also declared, Holy Father, that the Message of Fatima
is the most prophetic message of the 20th Century (at the National
Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil, May 13, 2007).
Second, the Vatican Secretary of State and those who have
collaborated with him have attempted to impose upon the Church an
expedient revision of the Message of Fatima in order to adapt it to a
332
supposed new orientation of the Church following the Second Vatican

Council, a break with the past that contradicts Your Holinesss own
call for a hermeneutic of continuity between the Council and all of
Catholic Tradition. This new orientation, which incessantly pursues
ecumenism, dialogue and Vatican diplomacy with worldly powers,
would negate the specifically Catholic prophetic content of the Fatima
apparitions: their warnings of imminent grave consequences for the
lives and souls of many millions of people, for the Church and, in fact,
for the whole world if the heavenly counsels, warnings and commands
of the Message are not heeded.
The version of Fatima promoted by Cardinal Sodano et al. is
incomplete, inexact and falsified. This revised Message of Fatima,
with its specious interpretation of the Third Secret and Marys call
for the specific Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, would
bury the entire Fatima event in obscurantism and leave its intended
recipientsevery Catholic and indeed every member of the human
racein ignorance of its true meaning and thus in grave peril of the
consequences it foretells with all the infallibility of the Virgin Mother of
God. In particular, this revision of the Message of Fatima:
(a) Dispenses with the Consecration of Russia requested by
Our Lady of Fatima and arbitrarily replaces it with a consecration of
the world, from which any mention of Russia has been deliberately
omitted for shallow political reasons.
(b) Erroneously representscontrary to what Your Holiness
himself declared on May 13, 2009that the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart has already occurred with a mere regime
change in Russia around 1991; even more offensively, that it
means nothing more than the Virgins fiat in agreeing to become
the Mother of God 2,000 years ago.
(c) Asserts that the visional aspect of the Third Secret, which
depicts the Pope and numerous members of the hierarchy being
executed by a band of soldiers outside a half-ruined city, signifies
nothing more than Pope John Paul II escaping death at the hands
of a lone assassin in 1981, thereby lulling the faithful into a false
sense of security in the face of the clearly apocalyptic scenario
depicted in the vision, for which we have not been provided the
words of the Virgin which undoubtedly explain the vision precisely
to avoid such false interpretations.
(d) Concludes (based on these false interpretations) that the
events depicted in the Third Secret, and thus the Message of Fatima
as a whole, belong to the past.
Third, the new orientation represents the substantial attainment

of the openly professed goal of the Churchs worst enemies, as various
Popes and prelates warned before the Council. That goal is to liberalize
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and instrumentalize the Church so that She will not only cease to
resist effectively, but actually lend Herself to, the process of universal
secularization and apostasy that has destroyed much of former
Christendom and now threatens to subjugate the whole world to a
universal secular collective, in which the Church will cease to openly
promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to have any effective public authority
or influence for Gods rights.
Fourth, the new orientation is partly the result of the demolition of
bastions that Hans Urs von Balthasar promoted. Not surprisingly, this
demolition of bastions has produced only confusion, loss of faith and
discipline, and ruin to the commonwealth of the Church, of which the
current worldwide sexual scandal among priests and bishops is only
one of innumerable manifestations. As even Pope Paul VI was forced to
admit shortly after the Council:
The smoke of satan has entered into the Church. The opening
to the world has become a veritable invasion of the Church by
worldly thinking. We have perhaps been too weak and imprudent.
Fifth, lamenting the current condition of the Church, your

predecessor, Pope John Paul II, spoke of a silent apostasy in his Ecclesia
in Europa, while Your Holiness himself has declared that in vast areas
of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no
longer has fuel, and that after the Second Vatican Council certain
the last things, were not mentioned anymore, and that the Church
now suffers from a secularized ecclesial environment and even what
seems in many places to be a desert without God.
Sixth, Cardinal Bertone and his collaborators, whose actions and
omissions have been documented in DFB and in Antonio Soccis work,
have sacrificed the Message of Fatima, with its explicitly Catholic
prophetic content, to a new worldly, liberalized, ecumenical, panreligious orientation for the Church, which they promote in the name
of Vatican II. In keeping with the said new orientation, Cardinal
Bertone and his associates mentioned in DFB and in Soccis work have
systematically prevented the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, which they falsely portray as a needless provocation of
the Russian Orthodox Church.
Seventh, in an effort to maintain their false interpretation of the
Message of Fatima, the identified Vatican prelates imposed an unjust
regime of silence and secrecy upon the late Sister Lucy, while attempting
to pressure her into embracing their interpretation. No objective party
was allowed access to Sister Lucy in order to investigate alleged sudden
changes in her unwavering testimony, for more than 60 years, that the
Virgin of Fatima requested the Consecration of Russia only, not the world,
precisely because God wished the world to know that it was the power of
His grace, mediated through the Blessed Virgin, which had miraculously
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converted Russia to the Catholic Faith.

Further, nearly all of the 24 volumes of Fatima documents compiled
by Father Alonso, which undoubtedly answer many questions about the
Third Secret and the Message of Fatima as a whole, remain under lock
and key 35 years after their being made ready for publication.
Eighth, in pursuit of their management of the Message of Fatima,
the prelates in question, their collaborators and successors in office,
acting under the auspices of the Secretary of State, have persecuted and
attempted to ostracize from the community of the faithful Father Nicholas
Gruner, who represents legitimate opposition to their attempt to do away
with the Message of Fatima in its traditional Catholic sense. At the same
time, very little, if anything, has been done to impose effective discipline
upon the true enemies of the Church within Her structure, who (to recall
the lamentations of Pope Paul VI) have opened the Church to the smoke
of satan and the invasion of the Church by worldly thinking.
Ninth, in an attempt to cover up their complicity in the ecclesial
debacle that the new orientation and all its novelties have produced,
the Vatican prelates who are identified in this book have fraudulently
withheld from the Church and the world a text which appertains to the
vision of the Third Secret. That text, as DFB and Soccis work conclude,
in all likelihood contains the missing words of the Virgin following Her
incomplete statement in the Fourth Memoir of Sister Lucy: In Portugal
the dogma of the faith will always be preserved etc.words which we
are convinced predict the current crisis in the Church and provide the
means to avoid or end it.
Indeed, Holy Father, in 1931 the future Pope Pius XII predicted
precisely the current situation in the Church in light of the Message of
Fatima:
I am worried by the Blessed Virgins messages to Lucy of Fatima.
This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the
in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. A day will come when
the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as
Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become
God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp
where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the
empty tomb, they will ask, Where have they taken Him?
Holy Father, what Pope Pius XII foresaw has happened! And given
that Pius XII foresaw these developments in light of Fatima, they can
only have been mentioned in the Third Secret since those portions of
the Message of Fatima thus far disclosed say nothing about such events
in the Church.
We also know, Holy Father, that Pope John Paul II alluded to the
Third Secret in his sermon at Fatima on May 13, 2000, which warns the
Church to beware of the tail of the dragon that drags down one-third of
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the stars of Heaven (commonly interpreted as one-third of the Cardinals,

bishops and priests). As Socci concludes, and as we agree, it appears that
John Paul II was constrained by his advisors to confine himself to this
veiled reference to a hitherto undisclosed portion of the Third Secret,
whose full disclosure his advisors had prevented him from making since
he was so enfeebled by illness.
Tenth, following the publication of Soccis book in late 2006, the
Catholic world has learned, through the widely publicized testimony of
Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla, the still-living personal secretary of Pope
John XXIII, that there was (and possibly still is) an envelope lodged in the
papal apartments. This envelope he called the Capovilla envelope, that
contains a text pertaining to the Third Secret, and that on the outside of
this envelope was written the Archbishops name, the names of all those
who had read its contents, and the dictation of Pope John expressing
his demurral from any judgment on the text. When asked by a Fatima
scholar if this meant that there are two different texts and two different
envelopes comprising the entirety of the Third Secret, the Archbishop
replied Exactly so. This envelope has never been produced, even though
the Secretary of State, who has led efforts to persuade the faithful that
nothing has been hidden, now admits its existence.
Further, Holy Father, the Secretary of State, in an effort to defend his
position, has appeared on Italian television in 2007 to reveal that Sister
Lucy prepared two different envelopes pertaining to the Third Secret,
and that she wrote on the outside of each of the envelopes an identical
express order of the Virgin that the contents were not to be revealed
before 1960. Yet, the Secretary of State had previously assured the public
that Sister Lucy told him she never received any such order from the
Virgin.
For this and many other reasons which would lengthen this Petition
unduly, Holy Father, we are deeply grieved and saddened because so
many of the faithful no longer trust the Vatican Secretary of State.
This is because they are convinced that Cardinal Bertone personally,
with others, is hiding a text of the Third Secret that contradicts his
clearly untenable interpretation of the vision. We must agree with the
conclusion of Antonio Socci, whose reputation, Catholic fidelity, and
veracity are well known to Your Holiness:
[T]hat there is a part of the Secret not revealed and considered
unspeakable is certain. And todayhaving decided to deny its
existencethe Vatican runs the risk of exposing itself to very heavy
pressure and blackmail.
We also agree with Soccis conclusion that this suppressed text contains
the words of the Madonna [which] preannounce an apocalyptic crisis of
the faith in the Church starting at the summit, and that it is probably
also an explanation of the vision (revealed on June 26, 2000).
Eleventh, a veritable conspiracy against the Message of Fatima
336
has deprived the Church of the benefits of this authentic Message and
prevented the Church from accomplishing what the Virgin of Fatima
requested: the Consecration of Russiaby nameto the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, the consequent conversion of Russia, the Triumph of the
Immaculate Heart, the salvation of many souls, and peace in the world.
(If My requests are granted, many souls will be saved and there will be
peace. In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father
will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a certain
period of peace will be granted to the world.)
The direct result of the acts and omissions of the Secretary of State
and the prelates collaborating with him is that the Church and the
entire world have suffered the loss of untold temporal and spiritual
benefits. These benefits are only faintly suggested by the miraculous
transformation of Portugal following the public consecration of that
nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1931. It was the Cardinal
Patriarch of Portugal himself, together with Sister Lucy, who declared
at that time that the benefits experienced by Portugal would spread
throughout the world if only Russia were similarly consecrated.
Twelfth, whatever their subjective intentions may be, the prelates
involved have committed what is, objectively speaking, an incalculable
crime against the Church and humanity. Their subversion of the Message
of Fatima exposes us all to the imminent threat of wars, famine, further
persecutions of the Church, further suffering for Your Holiness and your
successors, the annihilation of various nations, and the loss of countless
soulsall of which Our Lady of Fatima warned would follow from a
refusal to honor Her requests.
Therefore, we most respectfully but most urgently petition Your
Holiness for the following relief:
First, the immediate consecration of Russia, by name,
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, by Your Holiness together
with all the worlds bishops in a solemn public ceremony.
Second, full disclosure of the Third Secret of Fatima,
including the words of the Virgin that describe the vision
published on June 26, 2000.
Third, a lifting of the seal of secrecy imposed upon
Sister Lucys messages, letters, documents and recorded
conversations, and the publication in their entirety of
Father Alonsos 24 volumes of documents pertaining to the
Message of Fatima, which have been suppressed since 1975.
Fourth, an end to the persecution of Father Nicholas
Gruner, a faithful priest who has followed his conscience
in promoting the cause of Our Lady of Fatima.
337
Fifth, immediate Vatican intervention, through

apostolic visitations, investigations, and prompt disciplinary
measures, to (a) punish the guilty, rather than the
innocent; (b) restore sound orthodoxy in the seminaries;
(c) remove sexually deviant persons from the seminaries,
monasteries, diocesan clergy and episcopacy; and (d)
restore the many elements of Catholic tradition (including
traditional seminary life and priestly formation) that have
been abandoned in the pursuit of the new orientation of
the Church since Vatican II, including the traditional Latin
liturgy wherever the historic motu proprio issued by Your
Holiness on July 7, 2007, Summorum Pontificum, is being
ignored or defied.
Sixth, declare once and for all, with an exercise of
your infallible Magisterium where necessary, that neither
Vatican II nor any subsequent papal pronouncement
has altered in any way what Catholics must believe and
practice to keep the perennial and Apostolic Catholic Faith
as affirmed by all the Popes and Councils before Vatican II.
Seventh, the widespread promotion by Your Holiness
himself of the Five First Saturdays devotions and daily
worldwide recitation of the Rosary for an end to the crisis
in the Church and the world.
This is our Petition to Your Holiness from your spiritual children. As

your children, we are asking you for bread, not a stone or a scorpion.
(Luke 11:11-12) We petition Your Holiness with all the respect and
reverence owed to your exalted office as Vicar of Christ, but with all the
insistence our perilous situation demands. For the present suffering of
the Church and the world are as nothing compared to what will ensue if
there is no correction of the course charted by those who have despised
the prophecies of Our Lady of Fatima.
Yours most respectfully and reverently,
Please send your signed petitions to the publisher at the address provided
on page xxvi. The publisher will forward them to the Pope in Rome. You may
also write the Pope directly, at benedictxvi@vatican.va. For extra copies of
this petition, photocopy it or download it from our web site (http://www.
devilsfinalbattle.com) or write the publisher.
Appendix I
Pope John Paul II Acknowledges
Russia NOT Consecrated
On December 8th, 1983, Pope John Paul II wrote to all the bishops of the
world, inviting them to join in with him on March 25, 1984, in consecrating
the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He included with his letter his
prepared text of consecration. On March 25, 1984, the Pope, making the
consecration before the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, departed from his
prepared text to add the words highlighted above and translated below. As
you can see they were reported in LOsservatore Romano. The words he added
at this point indicate clearly, that the Pope knew then that the consecration of
the world done that day did not fulfill the requests of Our Lady of Fatima. After
performing the consecration of the world proper, a few paragraphs above, the
Pope added the highlighted words which translate: Enlighten especially the
peoples of which You Yourself are awaiting our consecration and confiding.
This clearly shows he knew Our Lady is awaiting the Pope and bishops to
consecrate certain peoples to Her, that is the peoples of Russia.
Reproduction of the March 26-27, 1984 issue of LOsservatore Romano, with

translation, enlarged, of Pope John Paul IIs words. Opponents of the Consecration
of Russia have, conveniently, from 1984 until this day, omitted to report that the
Pope actually said, in effect, that he had not done the Consecration of Russia as
requested by Our Lady of Fatima.
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_appendix_1.pdf
Appendix II
A Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up
A brief history of the interventions of Our Lady of Fatima to bring real
peace to all mankind and the ongoing campaign to thwart, silence,
falsify and obstruct Her message of peace, hope, joy and salvation.
The unprecedented terrorist attack on America on September 11,

2001, and the credible reports that Islamic terrorists have acquired nuclear
bombs as well as biological and chemical weapons, brings immediately
to mind Our Lady of Fatimas warning: (see insert about Fatima on pages
342-343) If Russia is not consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart various
nations will be annihilated, and that only by means of the Consecration
of Russia can the world achieve true peace in our time.
More than ninety years after Our Lady of Fatima first appeared,
Her request for the Consecration of Russia remains unfulfilled, and Her
warning unheeded.
And yet, as the world moves ever closer to a final apocalyptic event,
certain elements in the Vatican seem more determined than ever to
consign the Message of Fatima to the past, while persecuting those who
continue to proclaim it.
Only one day after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001
claimed more than 3,000 lives and stunned the entire worldonly one
day!the Vatican press office released a statement condemning Father
Nicholas Gruner and his Fatima apostolate and declaring that no one
should attend the apostolates conference (scheduled for October 7-13,
2001) on world peace through the Fatima Message!
Are these Vatican officials more afraid of Fatima than world
terrorism? Are they more concerned about a conference on Fatima in
Rome than they are about the heresy and scandal which are wounding
the Church throughout the worldon their watch? Clearly, these
Vatican officials have lost all sense of proportion about the state of the
world, and the state of the Church over which they preside.
Here we present key events in the long history of a great and terrible
paradox: the efforts of a few men, acting within the Catholic Church
itself, to suppress, revise and thwart the fulfillment of Heavens plan for
true peace in our time.
1925 - 1965
December 10, 1925 - The Blessed Virgin Mary fulfills Her promise
to Lucy and returns in an apparition to Lucy in her convent cell and
requested the Communion of Reparation of the Five First Saturdays. Our
Lady said:
340

...announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment
of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on
the First Saturday of five consecutive months shall confess, receive
Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep Me
company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries
of the Rosary, with the intention of making Reparation to Me.
At the same time, the Child Jesus accompanies the Blessed Virgin
and pleads for us to make reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
June 13, 1929 - Twelve years after Her original appearances at
Fatima, and in fulfillment of Her promise at Fatima on July 13, 1917,
Our Lady of Fatima appears most solemnly to Sister Lucy at Tuy, Spain.
Our Lady stands on a cloud in the presence of God the Father and the
Holy Ghost beside Her Divine Son Jesus, on the Cross, and says:
The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father to
make, and to order that in union with him and at the same time,
all the bishops of the world make the consecration of Russia to My
Immaculate Heart, promising to convert it because of this day of
prayer and worldwide reparation.
August 1931 - Our Lord Himself speaks to Sister Lucy. Concerning the
Consecration of Russia, He tells her:
Make it known to My ministers given that they follow the
command, like him they will follow him into misfortune.
January 21, 1935 - Sister Lucy writes to her confessor, Father

Goncalves, in answer to his questions: Regarding the matter of Russia,
I think that it would please Our Lord very much if you worked to make
the Holy Father comply with His wishes ... [You ask] if I think that you
should insist with the bishop? I think that it would please Our Lord very
much. If you should modify anything? I think that it should be exactly
as Our Lord asked it ...
May 1936 - Our Lord speaks again to Sister Lucy and tells her that the
conversion of Russia will occur only when that nation is solemnly and
publicly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart by the Pope together with
all the bishops. As Sister Lucy reported in her letter of May 18, 1936:
Intimately I have spoken to Our Lord about the subject, and
not too long ago I asked Him why He would not convert Russia
without the Holy Father making that consecration?
Then Our Lord said to her:

Because I want My whole Church to recognize that consecration
as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that it may extend
its cult later on, and put the devotion to this Immaculate Heart beside
the devotion to My Sacred Heart.
On other occasions, Our Lady tells Sister Lucy that Russia was to be
the instrument of world chastisement, unless beforehand the conversion
Appendix II: A Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up
341
of that poor nation was obtained. (See entry for December 26, 1957.)
October 31 and December 8, 1942 - Pope Pius XII, acting alone,
consecrates the world, but not Russia, to the Immaculate Heart. A few
weeks later Winston Churchill observes that the hinges of fate have
turned, and the Allies begin winning most of their battles against Hitlers
armies. In the spring of 1943, Our Lord tells Sister Lucy that world
peace will not result from this consecration. He said that the war will
be shortened because of the consecration of the world. World War II
continues for another two years.
September 1943 - Sister Lucy is very ill. The Bishop of Fatima fears
that she will die and take the Third Secret of Fatima (see insert on pages
342-343) with her to the grave. He suggests that she write it down and
put it in a sealed envelope. She replies that such an initiative would
be too much for herbut if the bishop would take responsibility by
formally commanding her, then she would willingly obey.
October 1943 - After one month of prayer and reflection, the Bishop
of Fatima, His Excellency Jos da Silva, gives Sister Lucy a formal,
written order to write down the Third Secret. Sister Lucy tries to obey
immediately, but for over two months is mysteriously unable to commit
the Third Secret to paper.
January 2, 1944 - Our Lady again appears to Sister Lucy and bids
her to write down the third part of the Secret entrusted to her at Fatima
in July 1917, which will become known as simply the Third Secret of
Fatima. The Virgin requests that the Third Secret be revealed to the
world not later than 1960. When later asked why the Third Secret had
to be revealed by 1960, Sister Lucy states: Because the Blessed Virgin
wishes it so, and It [the Third Secret] will be clearer then.
January 9, 1944 - Sister Lucy writes to tell the Bishop of Fatima that
after months of being unable to do so, and causing the bishop to wait
so long, she was finally able to obey his command that she write down
the Third Secret. The Bishop of Fatima is allowed to read the Secret
immediately, but chooses not to.
June 17, 1944 - Sister Lucy will not allow anyone but a bishop to
deliver to her bishop the one-page letter containing the words of Our
Lady in the Third Secret. Up to this date it has not been given to the
Bishop of Fatima. On this day a bishop visits near the Portuguese/
Spanish border and Sister Lucy leaves her convent in Tuy, Spain to
entrust the Secret to him. He in turn delivers it to Bishop Jos da Silva
of Fatima on that same day.
July 15, 1946 - In answer to a question from Professor William
T. Walsh, Sister Lucy points out that Our Lady did not ask for the
consecration of the world (as was done by Pope Pius XII in 1942), but
only and specifically RUSSIA. If this is done, says Sister Lucy, Our
Lady promises to convert Russia and there will be peace.
May 1952 - Our Lady appears to Sister Lucy and says: Make it known
to the Holy Father that I am always awaiting the Consecration of Russia
342
to My Immaculate Heart. Without the Consecration, Russia will not be

able to convert, nor will the world have peace.
July 7, 1952 - Pope Pius XII consecrates Russia specifically, but he is
not joined by all the Catholic bishops of the world because he did not
ask them to participate, not having been advised that this was necessary.
The war in Korea continues, and other wars follow.
September 2, 1952 - Father Schweigl interrogates Sister Lucy about the
Third Secret at her convent in Coimbra, Portugal. He had been sent there
by Pius XII on a special mission. On his return to the Russicum in Rome,
Father Schweigl confides this to one of his colleagues: I cannot reveal
anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the Third Secret, but I
can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope. The other, logically
although I must say nothingwould have to be the continuation of the
words: In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.
The Message of Fatima
Our Only Hope Against Terrorism and War

The appearance and message of Our Lady of Fatima is a beacon
of hope, joy and peace for our troubled world. Our obedience to the
message is our only hope for world peace and freedom from terrorism
as you will see below.
God worked the great Miracle of the Sun on October 13, 1917 as a
certain proof that the entire message indeed is guaranteed authentic as
coming from Him.
This prophetic message started during World War I when Pope
Benedict XVafter three years of terrible suffering in the greatest war
up to thenpleaded in great anguish with the Blessed Virgin in a very
public prayer of May 5, 1917 to ask Her to show him and all humanity
the way to peace. He knew and acknowledged that human efforts alone
were not enough.
The most gracious Virgin replied eight days later by giving a message
at Fatima which is addressed to every human being, as Pope John
Paul II said.
She gave this message through three shepherd children, Lucy,
Jacinta and Francisco. Our Lady appeared once each month from
May 13 to October 13. She returned to Sister Lucythe sole surviving
seeron December 10, 1925 and June 13, 1929 to further explain
and complete the requests for world peace (see the 1929 event in the
chronology above).
Also on July 13, 1917 Our Lady confided a secret to Sister Lucy
which was to be revealed later to the Pope and to all the faithful. This
Secret contains the key to world peace. The Secret is divided into three
parts. The first two parts were revealed by Sister Lucy in 1941. The third
part was to be released later, as we shall see in this appendix.
343
Our Lady promised If My requests are granted, many souls

will be saved and there will be peace. But She pointed out the
folly of ignoring Her message. She said, If My requests are not
granted the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have
much to suffer and various nations will be annihilated.
Because God has been publicly insulted by the 1917 Russian
revolutionthat, as its most cherished public policy, sought to exclude
God from Russia and conspired to use Gods children in Russia to
fight God and His followers everywhereGod, in the Fatima Message,
insisted on a public act of reparation for this most grave crime against
God Himself. On June 13, 1929 Our Lady of Fatima, in the presence of
the Most Blessed Trinity, explained that God asked for the Consecration
of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. (See June 13, 1929 and then
the 1931, 1935 and 1936 events noted in the chronology above.)
It is this act which God insists upon as an Act of Reparation for
the crime of state-imposed atheism, otherwise our sins will reap the
consequences of the terrible apostasy, heresy, vices and sins engulfing
the world. This act of obedience is our only hope of being delivered from
war and terrorism and is our only hope for world peacenot because
this act is so difficult but because it is so easy, and thus people will see
that the resulting peace is entirely due to God and the intercession of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
God insists in the Fatima Message that it is only by this means that
we will have peace and freedom from terrorism and war because God
wants to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
in order to save many sinners from going to hell.
May 17, 1955 - Cardinal Ottaviani, head of the Vaticans Holy
Office, is sent by Pius XII to the Convent in Coimbra to interrogate
Sister Lucy concerning the contents of the Secret. Cardinal Ottavianis
interrogation will be followed by an order that the text of the Third
Secret be transferred to the Vatican.
March 1957 - Just before its transfer to the Vatican, Bishop John
Venancio holds up to a strong light the outer envelope of Bishop da Silva
containing one inner envelope (sealed with wax) of Sister Lucy inside of
which he sees the single page upon which is written the Third Secret. He
carefully notes that the Secret is about 25 lines long and is written on a
single sheet of paper with 3/4 centimeter margins on both sides.
April 16, 1957 - The text of the Third Secret, sealed with wax in the
original envelope and the outer envelope, is transferred to the Vatican.
The text is placed in a safe in the papal apartments, as shown in a
photograph in Paris-Match magazine.
December 26, 1957 - Father Fuentes interviews Sister Lucy. She tells
him of many nations disappearing from the face of the earth and of many
souls going to hell as a result of ignoring Our Ladys Fatima Message. As
344
Sister Lucy told Father Fuentes:

Tell them, Father, that many times, the Most Holy Virgin told my
poor nation.
1958 - Father Fuentes publishes the interview with Sister Lucy with
the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Fatima. It is read widely and no one
questions its authenticity.
October 9, 1958 - Pope Pius XII dies.
July 2, 1959 - Father Fuentes interview with Sister Lucy is suddenly
denounced as fraudulent in an anonymous report from the bishops
chancery office in Coimbra. To this day, more than fifty years later, no
official will take responsibility for this report.
August 17, 1959 - First text of the Third Secret is read by Pope John
XXIII, who then instructs Archbishop Capovilla, his personal secretary, to
write on the envelope I leave it to others to comment or decide. This is
known as the Capovilla envelope. This text contained difficult Portuguese
dialect expressions, thus requiring that an Italian translation be prepared
by a native Portuguese priest before the Pope could comprehend it. This
Capovilla envelope is still hidden by Bertone.
November 10, 1959 - Meeting of Pope John XXIII with Bishop Venancio
and Cardinal Cento (the former Vatican nuncio who brought the Secret
to Rome in 1957). In a handwritten note John XXIII refers to Sister Lucy
who is now a good religious at Coimbra. The Holy Office will take care
of everything to a good end. (See Ferrara, The Secret Still Hidden, p.
219.) Shortly after this, Sister Lucy is placed under an order of complete
silence and not allowed to speak with almost any visitors.
February 8, 1960 - Despite Our Ladys express request to Sister Lucy, and
repeated promises from the Bishop of Fatima and the Cardinal Patriarch
of Lisbon, unknown persons in the Vatican anonymously announce that
the Third Secret will not be revealed and will probably remain, forever,
under absolute seal. The announcement (through A.N.I. news agency)
describes the text of the Third Secret as follows:
It has just been stated, in very reliable Vatican circles, that it is
most likely that the letter will never be opened, in which Sister Lucy
wrote down the words which Our Lady confided as a secret to the
three little shepherds in the Cova da Iria.
1960 - Sister Lucy is officially forbidden to speak about the Third Secret
and can receive no visitors except close relatives and people she has
known for a long time. Her own confessor of many years, Father Aparicio,
returns from Brazil and is not allowed to see her.
1960 - Pope John XXIII reads a second text of the Third Secret, contained
in another sealed envelope. Unlike the first text, which the Pope removed
345
from its envelope on August 17, 1959 but could not read without the
aid of a translator because of its difficult Portuguese, this text posed no
difficulty for the Pope and he was able to comprehend it completely on
his own reading. (Over the years since John XXIIIs reading of the two
texts, Archbishop Capovilla, the Popes secretary, repeatedly affirmed,
both orally and in writing, that the text read in 1959 contained difficult
Portuguese dialect expressions for which the Pope required a translation.)
1961 - Despite being defended by the Cardinal Primate of Mexico and
his own Archbishop, Pio Lopez, Father Fuentes is dismissed as Postulator
of the Cause for Beatification of Jacinta and Francisco Marto on the basis
of the anonymous July 2, 1959 Coimbra report.
October 1962 - Just before the opening of the Second Vatican Council,
the Vatican agrees with Moscow that the Council will not condemn Soviet
Russia or Communism in general, in exchange for which two Russian
Orthodox observers would attend the Council, as desired by Pope John
XXIII. This agreement launches the policy of Ostpolitik, which constrains
the Vatican from opposing Communism by name as well as prevents it
from condemning communist regimes which persecute Catholics. The
new Vatican policy is in favor of dialogue and negotiations with the
communists. This policy departs from the teaching of Popes Pius XII, Pius
XI, Saint Pius X, Leo XIII and Blessed Pius IX on the duty of the Church
to condemn and openly oppose Communism and to refrain from any
collaboration with communists, who always exploit such collaboration to
advance their war against Christ and His Church.
June 20, 1963 - Paul VI is elected Pope, within days he asks to see the
Third Secret.
June 27, 1963 - In the afternoon, the Substitute Secretary of State
telephones Archbishop Capovilla, personal secretary to Pope John XXIII,
anxious to know where the Third Secret is kept. Capovilla tells him
exactly where to find it in the papal apartment. Capovilla testifies to this
fact in his certified note of May 17, 1967 (see pages XII-XIV in the photo
section). He further testifies to this to Solideo Paolini in 2006 (see the
July 2006 entry later in this Chronology). A text of the Third Secret is
found and then read by Pope Paul VI.
June 28, 1963 - In the morning, Paul VI asks Archbishop Capovilla in
person why Capovillas name is on the envelope containing the Third
Secret. He responds that John XXIII asked him to write a note regarding
how the envelope arrived in John XXIIIs hands with the names of all
those to whom the Pope felt he should make it known. Paul VI then asks
if John XXIII said anything else regarding the Third Secret. Capovilla
responds, No, nothing except what I wrote on the outer envelope: I
leave it to others to comment or decide.
November 21, 1964 - Pope Paul VI, during the closing ceremonies of
the third session of the Second Vatican Council, consecrates the world
again. In keeping with Ostpolitik, there is no mention of Russia, lest the
communists be offended. World peace remains elusive. The Vietnam War
346
continues into the 1970s.

March 27, 1965 - Pope Paul VI reads the other text of the Third Secret.
According to the official account (in TMF), Cardinal Bertone claims that
Paul VI read the Third Secret for the first time on this date. However,
Archbishop Capovilla testified in July 2006 to Solideo Paolini, as reported
in The Fourth Secret of Fatima by Socci as well as in Capovillas certified
note of May 1967, that Paul VI read the Third Secret for the first time on
June 27, 1963 (see above).
December 8, 1965 - The Second Vatican Council closes.
1966 - 1983
1966 - In the aftermath of Vatican II, the Bishop of Fatima, Bishop John
Venancio, comes to understand the necessity and urgency of defending
the authentic message of Our Lady against the perfidious attacks of the
progressivistsall disciples of the modernist Jesuit, Father Dhanis. To
defend the Message of Fatima against revisionists, in 1966 the bishop
commissions a learned Claretian priest, Father Joaquin Alonso, to
establish a complete critical history of the revelations of Fatima. Ten
years later, Father Alonso will complete his work, entitled Fatima Texts
and Critical Studies. The massive work presents at least 5,396 documents,
ranging from the beginnings of the Fatima apparitions until 12 November
1974. His manuscripts were very well prepared, according to the Abb
Ren Laurentin, who consults them himself.
November 15, 1966 - New revisions in the Code of Canon Law
permit anyone in the Church to publish on Marian apparitions, including
those at Fatima, without need of an imprimatur. Out of the one billion
Catholics in the world, only Sister Lucythe very person who received
the Message of Fatimawas still forbidden to reveal the Fatima secret,
even though Our Lady had expressed Her will that the Secret be revealed
to the Church and the world no later than 1960. Sister Lucy remained
under an order of silence until her death on February 13, 2005, unable
to speak freely about Fatima without special permission from the Vatican,
specifically from then Cardinal Ratzinger or Pope John Paul II.
1967 - Sister Lucys Memoirs are published, in which she reveals Our
Ladys 1929 request for the Consecration of Russia. A huge public
campaign begins with the collection of thousands of signatures asking
the Pope to consecrate Russia.
February 11, 1967 - At a press conference, Cardinal Ottaviani, who
has read the Third Secret, reveals that the Secret is written on a single
sheet of paper.
May 13, 1967 - Sister Lucy meets Paul VI in the open public square of
Fatima during his visit there. In the presence of 1,000,000 pilgrims, she
pleads to speak with the Pope. She weeps when the Pope rebuffs her and
tells her speak to your bishop. According to at least one Fatima expert,
Sister Lucy pleaded with Pope Paul VI to release the Third Secret, but he
refused.
347
1975 - After 10 years of studying the Fatima archives, Father Alonso

declares, in public, that Father Fuentes published 1957 interview of
Sister Lucy was a true and accurate report of her statements concerning
the content of the Message of Fatima.
1975 - Father Alonsos 24 volumes of 800 pages each are ready for
publication. This monumental work on the Message of Fatima includes
at least 5,396 documents. The presses are literally stopped by the new
Bishop of Fatima, Monsignor do Amaral, preventing Father Alonsos
ten years of research from reaching the public. Two of the twenty-four
volumes will eventually be published (in 1992 and 1999, respectively),
but only in a heavily-edited form.
October 16, 1978 - Pope John Paul II is elected. He reads the Third
Secret within days of his election, according to a statement to Associated
Press (in May 2000) by the Popes spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls.
The statement by Navarro-Valls will be contradicted by Msgr. Bertone of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who will claim in June
2000 that the Pope read the Third Secret on July 18, 1981 for the first
time. John Paul II read the same text of the Secret which was placed in
the safe in the papal apartments in 1957. The statements in which two
different dates are provided for when three different PopesJohn XXIII,
Paul VI, and John Paul IIeach read the Third Secret for the first time (as
noted here and on pages 344-346 and in Chapter 14) clearly indicate the
existence of two distinct texts comprising the Third Secret in toto.
1980 - In only three years, in an expanded campaign sponsored by
Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, public petitions for the Consecration of Russia
garner over 3 million signatures, which are received at the Vatican.
May 13, 1981 - Pope John Paul II is shot on the very anniversary of the
first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. The shots are fired at the same
instant the Pope turns to look at a picture of Our Lady of Fatima pinned
to a little girls sweater. The bullets miss their mark. The Pope recognizes
that Our Lady of Fatima intervened to save his life.
June 7, 1981 - The Pope consecrates the world, but not Russia, while
still recovering from his wounds.
July 18, 1981 - According to Msgr. Bertone (who, as just noted, is
contradicted by the Popes spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, on this
point), Pope John Paul II reads the Third Secret for the first time.
December 12, 1981 - Father Alonso dies. But before his death, he
was able to publish a number of articles and short books on Fatima. Here
are some of the most important conclusions of his research on the Third
Secret:
dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,... it can be clearly
going to become obscure or even lost altogether
348

Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate period which
is in question [after 1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary], the text [of the Third Secret] makes concrete references
to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors
themselves. Father Alonso speaks further of internal struggles in the
very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence by the upper
hierarchy, of deficiencies of the upper hierarchy of the Church
Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances?
It is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of the faith
communications Sister Lucy has had on this subject.
Significantly, Sister Lucy never corrects these conclusions of Father

Alonso, even thoughwithin the limits posed by obedienceshe had
never hesitated to correct other statements by clerics and various authors
concerning Fatima when they were in error. Father Alonso has access to
the documents and to Sister Lucy herself. Thus, his testimony is of capital
importance.
March 21, 1982 - Sister Lucy meets with the Papal Nuncio, another
bishop and Dr. Lacerda and informs them of the requirements for a valid
Consecration of Russia according to the request of Our Lady of Fatima.
Sister Lucys full message is not transmitted to the Pope by the Nuncio,
who is told by the bishop who accompanied him not to mention the
requirement that the worlds bishops participate in the Consecration.
May 12, 1982 - On the eve of Pope John Paul IIs visit to Fatima,
LOsservatore Romanothe Popes own newspaperpublishes an article
by Father Umberto Maria Pasquale, S.D.B. about one of his conversations
with Sister Lucy and her subsequent letter to him on the subject of the
Consecration of Russia. In this interview, Father Pasquale reveals to
the world that Sister Lucy clearly and emphatically told him that Our
Lady of Fatima never asked for the consecration of the world but only the
consecration of Russia. Father Pasquale also publishes a photographicallyreproduced copy of a handwritten note by Sister Lucy attesting to their
conversation on this point.
Father Pasquale, a well-known Salesian priest, has known Sister Lucy
since 1939. Up to 1982 he has received 157 letters from her. Here is his
own testimony, as published in LOsservatore Romano:
I wanted to clarify the question of the Consecration of Russia,
in having recourse to the source. On August 5, 1978, in the Carmel
of Coimbra, I had a lengthy interview with the seer of Fatima, Sister
Lucy. At a certain moment I said to her: Sister, I should like to ask
you a question. If you cannot answer me, let it be! But if you can
349
answer it, I would be most grateful to you, for you to clear up a

point for me which does not appear clear to many people ... Has
Our Lady ever spoken to you about the consecration of the world
to Her Immaculate Heart? - No, Father Umberto! Never! At the
Cova da Iria in 1917, Our Lady had promised: I shall come to ask
for the consecration of Russia ... to prevent the spreading of her errors
throughout the world, wars among several nations, persecutions
against the Church ... In 1929, at Tuy, as She had promised, Our Lady
came back to tell me that the moment had come to ask the Holy
Father for the consecration of that country (Russia)...
After this conversation, Father Pasquale, wishing to have a written

declaration from Sister Lucy, had addressed this request to her: Has
Our Lady ever spoken to you about the consecration of the world to Her
Immaculate Heart? Father Pasquale then received a written response
from Sister Lucy, dated April 13, 1980. A copy is reproduced below.
Here is the translation of Sister Lucys handwritten note:
Reverend Father Umberto,
In replying to your question,
I will clarify: Our Lady of Fatima,
in Her request, referred only to the
Consecration of Russia.
In the letter which I wrote to
the Holy Father Pius XIIat the
direction of my confessorI asked
for the consecration of the world
with explicit mention of Russia.
Yours devotedly and in union
of prayers. Coimbra, April 13, 1980
(signed) Sister Lucia
May 12, 1982 - Sister Lucy writes a

letter, allegedly to the Holy Father. The Vatican document of June 26,
2000 will present a photographic reproduction of part of this handwritten
letter and will claim that it was addressed to Pope John Paul II. However,
a close comparison of the handwritten Portuguese text (a lesser portion
is photographically reproduced below) with versions provided by the
Vatican (English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese) reveals that a
crucial phrase, which proves that this letter could not have been written
to the Pope, has been omitted from all 5 versions.
The corresponding text in the English version provided by the Vatican

is photographically reproduced on the following page.
350
The third part of the secret is a symbolic revelation, referring to

this part of the Message, conditioned by whether we accept or not
what the Message itself asks of us: If my requests are heeded, Russia
will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her
errors throughout the world, etc..
In the above statement taken from Sister Lucys letter, just referred
to, the underlined text has been deliberately omitted from the Vaticans
printed versions: A terceira parte do segredo, que tanto ansiais por
conhecer, e uma revelao simbolica ... which translates to The third
part of the secret, that you are so anxious to know, is a symbolic
revelation ...
This omitted phrase (in bold text in the previous paragraph) states
that the recipient is so anxious to know [the Secret] even though Pope
John Paul II had already read the Third Secreteither in 1978, within
days of becoming Pope (according to the papal press secretary, Dr. Joaquin
Navarro-Valls) or on July 18, 1981 (according to then Msgr. Bertone).
Since the Pope had already read the Third Secret by 1981, why would he
be so anxious to know what it contained in 1982? Furthermore, how
could Sister Lucy possibly state that the Pope was so anxious to know the
Third Secret, when he could have obtained one text from the Holy Office
building archives and the other more important text of the Third Secret
from the desk in the papal apartment any time he wished?
The same letter states: And if we have not yet seen the complete
fulfillment of the final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it with
great strides. Why would Sister Lucy tell Pope John Paul II in 1982 that
the prophecy of the Third Secret was not yet fulfilled if the prophecy
had already been fulfilled with the failed attempt on the Popes life on
May 13, 1981 (as the then-Cardinal Ratzinger and Msgr. [now Cardinal]
Bertone will later claim on June 26, 2000)?
May 13, 1982 - John Paul II consecrates the world, but not Russia, at
Fatima. The bishops of the world do not participate.
May 19, 1982 - In LOsservatore Romano, the Holy Father explains why
he did not specifically consecrate Russia, declaring that he had tried to
do everything possible in the concrete circumstances.
July/August 1982 - The Blue Armys Soul Magazine publishes an
alleged interview with Sister Lucy in which she supposedly claims that
the Consecration of Russia has been accomplished by the ceremony of
May 13, 1982.
1982-83 - In private comments to friends and relatives, Sister Lucy
repeatedly denies that the consecration has been done. When asked to
say so publicly in early 1983, Sister Lucy tells Father Joseph de Sainte
Marie that she must have official permission from the Vatican before
she can make such a statement.
March 19, 1983 - At the Holy Fathers request, Sister Lucy meets
again with the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Portalupi; Dr. Lacerda; and this
351
time also with Father Messias Coelho. During this meeting Sister Lucy
confirms that the Consecration of Russia was not done because Russia did
not appear clearly as the object of consecration and the worlds bishops
did not participate. She explains that she could not say so publicly before
because she did not have the permission of the Vatican.
May-October 1983 - Father Caillon and Father Gruner publish several
articles exposing the July/August 1982 Soul Magazine interview as false.
1984
March 25, 1984 - The Holy Father at Rome, before 250,000 people,
again consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Immediately afterwards, Pope John Paul II departs from his prepared
text and prays Enlighten especially the peoples of which You Yourself
are awaiting our consecration and confiding. The Pope thus publicly
acknowledges that Our Lady of Fatima is still awaiting the Consecration
of Russia (see photo of LOsservatore Romano in Appendix I, page 338).
March 26, 1984 - The Popes own newspaper, LOsservatore Romano,
reports the words set forth above, exactly as the Holy Father spoke them.
March 27, 1984 - The Italian Catholic bishops newspaper Avvenire
reports that the Holy Father, on March 25 at 4:00 in the afternoon,
three hours after he consecrated the world, prays at St. Peters, asking
Our Lady to bless those peoples for whom You Yourself are awaiting
our act of consecration and entrusting, and thus again admits that the
Consecration of Russia remains unfulfilled.
May 1984 - Fatima expert Father Messias Coelho, under a pen name,
insists that the Consecration still has not been done (Mensagem de Fatima,
Issue 158, May 1984). He will consistently maintain this position until
the summer of 1989.
September 10, 1984 - Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral, the Bishop of
Fatima, declares during a question and answer session in the aula magna
of the Technical University of Vienna, Austria: Its [the Third Secrets]
content concerns only our faith ... The loss of faith of a continent is worse
than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually
diminishing in Europe. His remarks are published in the February 1985
issue of Mensagem de Fatima published by Father Messias Coelho.
November 11, 1984 - Cardinal Ratzinger gives an interview in Jesus
magazine, a publication of the Pauline Sisters. The interview is entitled
Here is Why the Faith is in Crisis, and is published with the Cardinals
explicit permission. In the interview Cardinal Ratzinger states that the
crisis of Faith is affecting the Church around the world. In this context,
he reveals that he has read the Third Secret and that the Secret refers to
dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian
and therefore of the world.
The Cardinal thus confirms Father Alonsos thesis that the Secret
pertains to widespread apostasy in the Church. Cardinal Ratzinger says
in the same interview that the Secret also refers to the importance
352
of the Novissimi [the Last Times / the Last Things],507 the absolute
importance of history, and that If it is not made publicat least for
the time beingit is in order to prevent religious prophecy from being
mistaken for a quest for the sensational ... The Cardinal further reveals
that the things contained in this Third Secret correspond to what has
been announced in Scripture and has been said again and again in many
other Marian apparitions, first of all that of Fatima ...
In the portion of the text of the interview shown in the photo below,
the Cardinal says that the Third Secret contains religious prophecy
which cannot be revealed to prevent [its] being mistaken for a quest for
the sensational. Yet on June 26, 2000, the same Cardinal Ratzinger says
that the Third Secret refers only to events which had already happened
Photo of Original Italian Extract from Jesus Magazine
We give here a photographic
reproduction of the actual typeset
of the key part of Cardinal
Ratzingers interview as it has
been approved by His Eminence
in the first days of October and
published in the November 11,
1984 issue of Jesus magazine,
concerning the Third Secret. The
original Italian text reported at left
was photographically reproduced
and published in The Fatima
Crusader, Issue 37, Summer 1991.
The English translation (appearing
on the following page) together
with a photographic reproduction
of the original Italian text were
published in The Fatima Crusader,
Issue 18, October-December 1985
and in The Fatima Crusader,
Issue 37, Summer 1991 (with
a circulation of 500,000). The
Fatima Crusaders translation of
Cardinal Ratzingers warning that
the Secret contains the dangers
threatening the faith and the life of
the Christian, and therefore of the
world, which is the heart of the
Secret, has never been challenged
by anyone.
507
See footnote 89 in Chapter 4.

353
(culminating in the attempted assassination of the Pope in 1981) and

contains no prophecy concerning the future. What has happened to make
Cardinal Ratzinger change his prior testimony? Why does he suggest on
June 26, 2000 that the Third Secret could be the result of Sister Lucys
imagination alone? Does he really believe in the Message of Fatima? If
not, can his personal interpretation of the Message of Fatima be trusted?
1985 - 1988
June 1985 - The November 1984 interview in Jesus magazine is
published in a book entitled The Ratzinger Report. Key references in
the interview concerning the contents of the Third Secret have been
mysteriously deleted from the book. The book is published in English,
French, German and Italian and reaches over 1,000,000 copies in print.
Although the revelations concerning the Third Secret have been censored,
the book admits that the crisis of Faith which Father Alonso tells us is
predicted in the Third Secret is already upon us, and that it encompasses
the whole world.
September 1985 - In an interview in Sol de Fatima magazine (a
publication of friends of the Spanish Blue Army), Sister Lucy affirms that
the Consecration of Russia still has not been done because, yet again,
We give here, therefore, the interview as it has been approved by His
Eminence Cardinal Ratzinger in the first days of October.
One of the four sections of the Congregation (for the Doctrine of the
Faith) concerns itself with Marian apparitions;
Cardinal Ratzinger, have you read what is called the Third Secret of
Fatima: i.e., the one that Sister Lucia had sent to Pope John XXIII and which
the latter did not wish to make known and consigned to the Vatican
archives? (In reply, Cardinal Ratzinger said:)
Yes, I have read it, (which frank response provoked a further
question:)
Why has it not been revealed? (To this the Cardinal gave the
following most instructive reply:) Because, according to the judgment of
the Popes, it adds nothing (literally: nothing different) to what a Christian
must know concerning what derives from Revelation: i.e., a radical call for
conversion; the absolute importance of history; the dangers threatening the
faith and the life of the Christian, and therefore (the life) of the world. And
then the importance of the novissimi (the last events at the end of time). If it
is not made public at least for the time being it is in order to prevent
religious prophecy from being mistaken for a quest for the sensational
(literally: for sensationalism). But the things contained in this Third
Secret correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and has been
said again and again in many other Marian apparitions, first of all that of
Fatima in what is already known of what its message contains. Conversion
and penitence are the essential conditions for salvation.
354
Russia was not the clear object of the 1984 consecration and the worlds
episcopate did not participate.
1985 - Cardinal Gagnon, in an interview with Father Caillon,
acknowledges the Consecration of Russia has still not been done.
1986 - Maria do Fetal publicly quotes Sister Lucy (her cousin) as saying
that the Consecration of Russia still has not been done. Maria do Fetal
will consistently maintain that Sister Lucy told her this until July 1989.
1986 - 1987 - Father Paul Leonard Kramer writes The Plot to Silence
Our Lady (June 1986) and a sequel entitled The (USA) Blue Army
Leadership Has Followed a Deliberate Policy of Falsifying the Fatima
Message (April 1987). Both articles expose the bogus 1982 Soul
Magazine interview and the USA Blue Armys subsequent disinformation
about the Consecration requested by Our Lady.
July 20, 1987 - Interviewed quickly outside her convent while voting,
Sister Lucy confirms to journalist Enrico Romero that the Consecration of
Russia has not been done.
October 25, 1987 - In an audience with a dozen Catholic leaders,
Cardinal Mayer publicly acknowledges that the Consecration has not
been done according to Our Ladys specific request.
November 26, 1987 - In a private meeting, Cardinal Stickler confirms
that the Consecration has not been done because the Pope lacks the
support of the bishops. They do not obey him, says Cardinal Stickler.
1988 - Cardinal Gagnon attacks Father Gruner for publishing the Caillon
report of his 1985 statement that the Consecration has not yet been done.
Cardinal Gagnon admits speaking to Father Caillon, and does not deny
the truth of his report, but says it was not meant for publication.
1989 - 1990
1989 - More than 350 Roman Catholic bishops respond to a letter from
Father Gruner, confirming their willingness to consecrate Russia with the
Pope as requested by Our Lady at Fatima.
1989 - Since 1980, by conservative estimates, an additional 1,000,000
signatures have been received by the Vatican on petitions calling for the
Pope and the bishops to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary.
July 1989 - In the presence of three witnesses at the Hotel Solar da
Marta in Fatima, Father Messias Coelho reveals that Sister Lucy has
just received an anonymous instruction from unidentified persons in
the Vatican bureaucracy. The instruction states that Sister Lucy and
her fellow religious must now say that the Consecration of Russia was
accomplished in the ceremony of March 25, 1984, even though Russia
was never mentioned and the worlds bishops did not participate.
After this development, various witnessesincluding, it is claimed,
Sister Lucy herselfbegin to repudiate their own prior statements that
the Consecration has not been done. These witnesses previously clearly
stated that Russia could not possibly have been consecrated as requested
355
in the Fatima Message because of the failure to mention Russia and the
failure to obtain the participation of the worlds bishops. Thus begins a
process of revising Our Ladys request from the Consecration of Russia
to the consecration of the world. At the same time, powerful forces
from within the Vatican apparatus begin to target Father Gruner and his
apostolate for suppression.
July 1989 - The Papal Nuncio to Portugal is replaced. In keeping with
the anonymous instruction from within the Vatican bureaucracy, shortly
afterwards Maria do Fetal suddenly reverses herself, contradicting all her
prior statements to the effect that her cousin, Sister Lucy, did not think
the Consecration had been accomplished; Maria do Fetal now claims that
Sister Lucy believes the 1984 consecration of the world satisfied Our
Lady of Fatimas request.
July 10, 1989 - Father Gruner respectfully replies to the new Bishop of
Avellinos letter dated May 29, 1989 and points out that he has written
permission to be in Canada from Bishop Pasquale Venezia, the previous
Bishop of Avellino.
There is no explanation for why the letter has taken a month to
reach Father Gruner. The letter reveals that the Cardinal Secretary of
State has sent worried signals about Father Gruners work in promoting
the Message of Fatima, which work includes especially promoting the
proper Consecration of Russia as requested by Our Lady of Fatima and
requesting the full disclosure of the Third Secret.
The new bishop appears to be unaware that his predecessor gave
Father Gruner permission to live outside the Diocese of Avellino while
engaging in his Fatima Apostolate.
July 24, 1989 - Cardinal Innocenti writes to Father Gruner rebuking him
for refusing an invitation to visit with the Papal Nuncio in Canada. The
Nuncio has never issued any order that Father Gruner see him. Cardinal
Innocenti threatens Father Gruner with possible suspension unless he
is either incardinated in a Canadian diocese or returns to Avellino by
September 30, 1989.
August 9, 1989 - An unsolicited offer of incardination is suddenly issued
to Father Gruner by Bishop Fulton in Canada, but only on condition that
Father Gruner cease his work in promoting the Message of Fatima. This
offer to incardinate is apparently due to pressure applied to the Bishop
of Avellino by the Cardinal Secretary of State, prompting the Bishop of
Avellino to turn the matter over to Bishop Fulton.
August 21, 1989 - Father Gruner replies to Cardinal Innocentis letter
dated July 24, 1989 (which he did not receive until after August 14),
pointing out that the Cardinal has no right to interfere since the Bishop
of Avellino has given no orders of his own in the matter. Father Gruner
points out that he is acting within the law of the Church. Father Gruner
then appeals to the Pope against Cardinal Innocentis abuse of authority.
Thereafter, the Cardinal never replies or writes again to Father Gruner.
The Cardinal orders everyone in his office never to mention Father
356
Gruners name to him again.

September 1, 1989 - The Fatima Crusader points out the right of every
priest to publish the truth about the Message of Fatima. Accordingly,
Father Gruners 10-page reply to Cardinal Innocenti is published in this
issue of The Fatima Crusader.
Late August - Early September 1989 - The so-called coup detat in
Moscow occurs, in which the Communist regime follows a script intended
to deceive the West. This plan was partly written in 1958 and published in
1984 by KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, who was at the planning session
of 1958. His book New Lies for Old makes 148 predictions concerning the
Russian Communists plan for strategic deception of the West. By 1993,
139 of his predictions will have come true.
The plan revealed by Golitsyn would be well served by deceiving
people who believe in Our Lady of Fatima into thinking that the merely
political changes of 1989 are part of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart
predicted by Our Lady. In fact the changes in Russia during the period
1989-2001 will demonstrate only a further perversion of Russian society,
not Russias conversion.
It is no mere coincidence that in 1989, the very year Russias strategic
deception begins, there also begins a coordinated campaign to suppress
or revise the Message of Fatima, including moves to silence Father Gruner
and his apostolate and the sudden appearance of computer-generated
letters from Sister Lucy who does not type, nor does she use a computer,
declaring that the Consecration of Russia has been accomplished by
ceremonies which did not even mention Russia.
August 1989 - November 1989 - Computer-generated and
typewritten notes and letters supposedly signed by Sister Lucy suddenly
appear, flatly contradicting all prior statements she has made for more
than 60 years about the Consecration. These notes contain factual errors
Sister Lucy could not have made (e.g. the false statement that Pope Paul
VI consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart during his 1967 visit
to Fatima) and phraseology she had never used before. Until now, Sister
Lucy has never conducted correspondence with typewriters or word
processors, and she still continues to write everything else, including her
lengthy memoirs, by hand.
January 29, 1990 - At about 8:30 a.m., Maria do Fetal, at Fatima,
states to Father Pierre Caillon that she was inventing when she earlier
reported Sister Lucys statement that the 1984 consecration of the world
was not in conformity with Our Ladys request for the consecration of
Russia.
October 11, 1990 - Sister Lucys own blood sister, Carolina, tells Father
Gruner, in Fatima, that little or no trust can be put in any typewritten
letter from Sister Lucy, as she does not even know how to type.
October 22, 1990 - In a written report, a highly regarded forensic
expert indicates that Sister Lucys purported signature on a November
1989 computer-generated letter is a forgery. Excerpts from this letter,
357
published by an Italian Catholic magazine in March 1990, are being

circulated widely and cited as proof that the Consecration has been
done. Several wire services carry that story from the Italian magazine
and spread the fraudulent claim worldwide.
November 1990 - Father Gruner and The International Fatima Rosary
Crusade launch a worldwide campaign to free Sister Lucy from her 30year ordeal of silence and to encourage the Holy Father to release the
Third Secret of Fatima.
1991 - 2002
May 13, 1991 - Sister Lucy declines to go to Fatima during the Popes
visit but is commanded to do so under holy obedience. Pope John Paul
II visits Fatima for the second time, and has a half-hour meeting with
Sister Lucy. After this meeting neither the Pope nor Sister Lucy make
any announcement concerning the Consecration of Russia having been
donean announcement that would have been forthcoming had the
letters of Sister Lucy from 1989-90 been genuine.
The silence of the Pope and Sister Lucy concerning the Consecration of
Russia is most revealing. There is an obvious disagreement between Sister
Lucy and a certain part of the Vatican apparatus, which has been trying to
suggest that the consecration of Russia is over and done with. Although
Sister Lucy is alleged to agree that the Consecration has been accomplished,
she continues to be bound by the order to be silent, imposed upon her in
1960, and she does not defend herself publicly against this rumor because
her enforced silence continues. Father Alonsos 24 volumes of at least
5,396 original Fatima documents are still banned from publication.
October 8, 1992 - The Fatima Crusaders Peace Conference is held in
Fatima. False and misleading declarations are published in LOsservatore
Romano by Cardinal Sanchez and Archbishop Sepe, suggesting that
ecclesiastical permission is required for the Conference when it is clearly
not necessary under Church law. Similar falsehoods are published in the
Portuguese press on October 7-9. Nevertheless, more than 100 bishops
accept the invitation and payment of expenses for their trip to Fatima
for the Conference. While 65 bishops ultimately attend, 35 others are
persuadedby the anti-Fatima establishment in Fatima itself as well as by
certain officials of the Vatican Secretary of Stateto not attend the Fatima
Crusader conference. Some of the bishops are literally hijacked upon their
arrival at the Lisbon airport. The Fatima Crusader apostolate displays a
large welcoming kiosk in the arrival zone to receive the bishops and escort
them to their hotel paid for by donors of the Fatima Crusader apostolate.
But the anti-Fatima group whisks a number of the bishops, whose travel
arrangements The Fatima Crusader had paid for, off to the shrine, falsely
telling them that the Fatima Crusader conference had been cancelled.
October 10, 1992 - Father Gruner is beaten up by Fatima Shrine
workers, one of whom later admits he was acting under orders of the
Rector of the Shrine, Msgr. Guerra. Bishop Amaral, the Bishop of Fatima,
358
is retired from office four months later, but Msgr. Guerra remains Rector
of the Shrine until his retirement in 2008.
October 11, 1992 - A questionable interview of Sister Lucy is
conducted by Father Pacheco, Cardinal Padiyara, Bishop Michaelappa
and a chauffeur, Carlos Evaristo. Evaristo later publishes a doctored
version of the interview, which he admits was reconstructed. Among
other falsehoods, the interview contains a statement by Sister Lucy
that Mikhail Gorbachev knelt in front of the Holy Father and asked
pardon for his sins. This claim is denounced as a total fabrication by papal
spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. Father Pacheco publishes a repudiation
of the bogus interview within six months. Fatima scholar Frre Franois
concludes that this interview was put together by the Rector of the
Shrine in order to stop petitions for the Consecration of Russia. Today,
Evaristos totally discredited interview is no longer mentioned as proof
of Sister Lucys alleged affirmation that the Consecration has been done.
1992 - The first heavily-edited volume of Father Alonsos critical
documents on Fatima is published, leaving 23 other volumes under lock
and key.
July 31, 1993 - A prominent bishop in India gives written assurances
that he is willing to incardinate Father Gruner, thus apparently ending
any effort by the anti-Fatima establishment officials in the Vatican to
force Father Gruners return to Avellino, Italy.
November 3, 1993 - The Bishop of Avellino, Antonio Forte, admits to
Father Gruner that he is being prevented from approving Father Gruners
transfer out of the Diocese of Avellino because Cardinal Sanchez and
Archbishop Sepe, at the Vaticans Congregation for the Clergy, will not
allow it. Cardinal Sanchez and Archbishop Sepe are working with the
Secretariat of State to silence Father Gruner and his apostolate. Their
actions violate the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Avellino and have no
basis in canon law. No other priest in the entire Catholic Church is being
subjected to such interference in transferring from one diocese to another.
January 13, 1994 - Bishop Forte tells Father Gruner that he has
nothing against him, and when Father Gruner asks him what he should
do, the bishop tells him to return to Canada.
January 14 - 31, 1994 - Cardinal Sanchez, Archbishop Sepe and
Bishop Forte begin making the final moves in the incardination game
they are playing against Father Gruner. They command him to find
another bishop, then obstruct incardination by other bishops, while
refusing him excardination from Avellino. The checkmate is to declare
that since Father Gruner has failed to be incardinated elsewhere, he
must now return to Avellino or else be suspended from the priesthood.
January 31, 1994 - Bishop Forte sends Father Gruner a letter accusing
him of being a vagus (wandering) priest because he has not returned to
Avellino from Canadaeven though Bishop Forte himself had just told
Father Gruner to go back to Canada only 18 days earlier. This incredible
behavior is explained in Fatima Priest. It continues today, and is still being
359
appealed in the Vatican tribunals and before the Pope.

October 1994 - The Secretary of State and the Papal Nuncios write
to bishops around the world, directing them not to attend the second
Fatima Crusader Peace Conference to be held in Mexico. Visas are denied
and other obstacles put in the way of more than 100 Catholic bishops
who accept invitations to the conference.
1995 - In a personal communication to a Professor Baumgartner in
Salzburg, Austria, Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, no less than the personal
theologian of John Paul II (and of his predecessors since 1955), reveals
that: In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great
apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.
July 12, 1995 - The first Open Letter to the Pope is published in a
leading daily Roman newspaper, Il Messaggero. It covers 2 full pages,
publicly protesting the gross abuse of position, prestige and power by
anti-Fatima Vatican bureaucrats during the period 1992-1994. It is signed
by two bishops and thousands of priests and lay people. The Pope does
not act (or is prevented from acting), although privately word is received
that His Holiness did read the Open Letter.
November 1996 - The third Fatima Crusader Peace Conference is
held in Rome. Again, all bishops are invited to attend, with all expenses
paid. Despite the constant repetition of the same falsehoods circulated
by certain members of the anti-Fatima establishment in the Vatican
apparatus in 1992 and 1994combined with pressure not to attend the
conference applied by Cardinal Gantin, various Papal Nuncios and other
Vatican bureaucratsmore than 200 bishops, priests and lay people do
in fact attend.
November 20, 1996 - Father Gruners Canonical Complaint against
Cardinal Sanchez and Archbishop Sepe and their accomplices is placed
in the Popes own hands, as shown in a photograph reproduced in Fatima
Priest and published April 2, 1998 in Il Messaggero.
February 26, 1997 - Coralie Graham, Editor of The Fatima Crusader,
sends Cardinal Gantin a registered letter containing seven pertinent
questions concerning his illegal actions in trying to prevent bishops and
priests from attending the Peace Conference. More than ten years later
her entirely respectful letter still has not been answered.
April 2, 1998 - The second two-page Open Letter is published. This time
the Open Letter garners the signatures of 27 bishops and Archbishops, as
well as 1,900 priests and religious and more than 15,000 lay people. It
is published in Italian in Il Messaggero. Thousands of posters of the Open
Letter are posted around the Vatican during 1998.
Meanwhile, Father Gruners canonical case continues to wend its way
through the Vatican court system. Details of the rigged and absurdly
unjust proceedings are provided in Fatima Priest. During the process,
Archbishop Grochelewski, now chief judge in the case (after Cardinal
Agustoni is forced to recuse himself due to the appearance of prejudice),
admits that the case is not about Father Gruners incardination, but what
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he says (concerning Fatima). This is the real reason for the numerous
unprecedented and illicit actions against Father Gruner, even though it
is nowhere admitted in the written acts of the proceedings. A cardinal
principle of natural justice is that the accused must be informed of the
precise charges against him so that he can defend himself. To put Father
Gruner on trial for an alleged offense concerning his incardination, when
the real issue is what he says about Fatima, flies in the face of this principle.
October 1998 - The various lies, innuendoes and accusations against
Father Gruner are summarized in a lengthy accusatory document
prepared and issued by the Promoter of Justice, appointed by the Vatican
apparatus to prepare a supposedly impartial summary of the canonical
positions of the parties. Father Gruner is told he may not even have a
copy of this impartial document unless he takes an oath to keep it
secret. This bizarre request is issued by the Tribunal itself. (A copy of
the tribunals demand for secrecy is available to any bishop
who requests it.) Father Gruner refuses to take this oath of secrecy.
He is forced to review the Promoters document in the presence of his
canon lawyer, who must travel to Canada from Rome and then take the
document back to Rome without leaving a copy.
October 10, 1998 - The Promoters document reveals, for the first
time, the existence of some 20 letters secretly circulating against Father
Gruner and his apostolate. The letters are replete with misrepresentations
and outright falsehoods by certain members of the Congregation for
the Clergy, the Secretariat of State and even the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, going back to the early 1980s.
December 10, 1998 - Despite the almost impossible obstacles
and very limited time allowed for his reply, Father Gruner submits
an 80-page canonical response to the Promoters document, conclusively
refuting its every allegation. The Promoters document is never again
mentioned by the Tribunal.
December 1998 - Father Gruner, by registered mail, requests copies of
the approximately 20 letters against him from the Congregation for the
Clergy and from the tribunal. The letters are never provided. Falsehoods
continue to circulate behind Father Gruners back, greatly hindering his
efforts to persuade bishops that the Consecration of Russia must be done
in the proper manner in order to avoid the annihilation of nations, of
which Our Lady of Fatima warns.
August 1999 - Father Gruner provides a new document to the Bishop of
Avellino that demonstrates that Father Gruner is incardinated elsewhere.
September 3, 1999 - The Apostolic Signatura issues a decision (not
even noting the new document of August 1999), backdated to July 10,
1999. The manifest groundlessness of the decision is demonstrated in
A Law for One Man (a chapter in Fatima Priest), and by documents
attached to Father Gruners rebuttal, dated October 14, 1999 (also
reproduced in Fatima Priest, 2000 A.D. edition), to which the Apostolic
Signatura offers no reply. Meanwhile, Father Gruners third canon lawyer
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comes under pressure to turn against him. (The misconduct of the first
two canonists is detailed in Fatima Priest.) Only 16 canonists are allowed
to defend 400,000 Catholic priests in the Signatura, making it easy to
pressure these lawyers with threats of the termination of their admission
to the Tribunal.
October 12-18, 1999 - The apostolates Peace Conference in Hamilton,
Ontario is subjected to the same pattern of harassment, abuse of authority
and calculated untruths which have hindered the apostolates
previous Fatima conferences. Bishops and priests attend, but
in reduced numbers. It has become increasingly difficult to reach the
priests and bishops because of the Vaticans campaign of blackening the
reputation of Father Gruner and his apostolate. Over 300 people attend,
most of them lay people.
November 22, 1999 - A second Canonical Complaint by Father Gruner
is sent by registered mail to the Pope from the Vatican post office. This
complaint names Cardinals Agustoni, Innocenti, and Sanchez, Archbishop
Sepe, Archbishop Grochelewski and Bishop Forte.
December 1999 - The second volume of Father Alonsos manuscripts
is finally published, but with extremely heavy editing. The other 22
volumes are still unpublished after 35 years (as of December 2009), even
though they were fully prepared for the press in 1975.
April 20, 2000 - Father Gruner invokes Canon 1506, which requires the
Pope to accept both canonical complaints against the named Cardinals
and bishops. The complaints are deemed accepted under canon law, once
the May 2000 deadline has passed. Pope John Paul II did not respond,
although he was bound to do so by the law he himself promulgated. Even
the Pope is bound by the prevailing law of the Church until such time as
he promulgates a new law.
May 13, 2000 - During the ceremonies for the beatification of Jacinta
and Francisco, Cardinal Sodano announces that the Third Secret of
Fatima will be revealed. (The Secretariat of State had previously tried to
divert the beatification ceremonies from Fatima to a group beatification
ceremony at the Vatican, involving other beati unrelated to Fatima.)
Cardinal Sodano, however, gives a misleading description of the Third
Secret, claiming that it consists of a vision in which the Pope apparently
falls dead. The actual text of the vision (to be revealed in the following
month) states that the Pope is killed. Cardinal Sodano is clearly paving
the way for a bogus interpretation of the Secret which will claim that
the Third Secret culminated with the failed attempt on the Popes life in
1981, and that all the events prophesied in the Secret, to use his words,
now belong to the past.
June 5, 2000 - A letter threatening Father Gruner with a totally
groundless excommunication is signed by Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos.
The letter is delivered to Father Gruners home by a Vatican emissary
on June 21 at 10:00 p.m. The emissary lies his way into Father Gruners
living room by claiming he has good news from the Holy Father.
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June 26, 2000 - At a press conference, the Vatican publishes a text it

claims is the entire Third Secret. The text describes a vision in which the
Pope (a Bishop dressed in white) is killed by a band of soldiers who
shoot him down while he is kneeling at the foot of a large wooden cross
atop a hill, after having traversed a half-ruined city filled with corpses.
The execution of the Pope is followed by the execution of many bishops,
priests and laity.
Questions abound. (See Chapter 13 and the article by Andrew
Cesanek in The Fatima Crusader, Issue No. 64.) Among these questions
is why the published vision contains no words of Our Lady, even though,
when it announced suppression of the Secret in 1960, the Vatican itself
referred to the words which Our Lady confided to the children as a
secret. The vision fails to mention the words which clearly follow In
Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.the
phrase Sister Lucy included in her fourth memoir as part of the integral
text of the Third Secret of Fatima. The phrase concerning the dogma of
the Faith in Portugal is mysteriously demoted to a footnote in the Vatican
commentary on the Secret, where it is ignored by both Cardinal Ratzinger
and Msgr. Bertone, the co-authors of the commentary.
Cardinal Ratzingers portion of the commentary specifically states
that he and Msgr. Bertone are following the interpretation given by
Cardinal Sodano: i.e., that the Message of Fatima, and the Third Secret
in particular, relates entirely to events which now belong to the past.
Accordingly, Cardinal Ratzinger claims that the Popes escape from death
in 1981 is what is depicted in the vision of the Pope being killed. Even the
secular media recognize that this interpretation is obviously wrong.
The published text of the vision contains none of the elements
described by Cardinal Ratzinger in his mysteriously censored 1984
interview in Jesus magazine. The published vision says nothing about
dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore
(the life) of the world, nothing about the importance of the end times,
nothing about what is contained in many other Marian apparitions
approved by the Church and nothing about prophecies announced in
Scripture. Further, while Cardinal Ratzinger said in 1984 that the Third
Secret contains religious prophecya statement he made three years
after the attempt on the Popes lifehe now says there is no prophecy, but
only a description of past events, culminating in the 1981 assassination
attempt.
Further, the TMF commentary disturbs, disorients and divides the
faithful by claiming that the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is
nothing more than love conquering bombs and guns, and that devotion
to the Immaculate Heart means nothing more than each person doing
Gods will and thus acquiring an immaculate heart of his or her own.
The conversion of Russia to Catholicism and the spreading of devotion to
the one unique Immaculate Heart of Mary throughout the world are not
even mentioned in the TMF commentary.
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The only Fatima authority Cardinal Ratzinger cites is Father Edouard

Dhanis, S.J., a modernist Jesuit who spent years casting doubt on the
prophetic elements of the Message of Fatima concerning Russia. Father
Dhanis claimed these elements of the Message were pious inventions of
Sister Lucy. Father Dhanis refused to study the official Fatima archives or
consult other unpublished documents made available to him in order not
to have to withdraw his false thesis. In keeping with Father Dhanis errors,
which reduce Fatima to generic piety with no prophecy of future events,
Cardinal Ratzingers portion of the commentary concludes by asserting
that all that remains of the Message of Fatima is prayer and penance.
The astounding statement by Monsignor Bertone, Cardinal

Ratzingers assistant, in the commentary (photographically reproduced
[in part] in the box immediately above, from the Vaticans booklet The
Message of Fatima [TMF]) shows how deeply into error and revisionism
Msgr. Bertone and the rest of the anti-Fatima establishment have fallen.
Msgr. Bertone says here, in effect, that Our Ladys promise of a period of
peace was dependent on the revelation of the Third Secret, when, in fact,
Our Lady said that a period of peace will be granted to the world only
when Russia has been consecrated to Her Immaculate Heart
and thereby converted. If one had not seen Msgr. Bertones words in
print, one would have doubted that any sensible Catholic theologian or
Church official could have presented such a gross misrepresentation of
the Message of Fatima. In view of the current state of the world, Msgr.
Bertones proclamation of the end of an era marked by tragic human lust
for power and evil is so false, so obviously wrong that who in their right
mind could ever believe it? What does he think we have todayan era
of peace and tranquility?
Msgr. Bertones portion of the commentary also claims that any
further request for the Consecration of Russia is without basis. He cites
as his only evidence for this claim an alleged letter from Sister Lucy in
1989, addressed to an unidentified party. The letter from Sister Lucy
demolishes itself by falsely stating that during his visit to Fatima in 1967
Pope Paul VI consecrated the whole world to the Immaculate Heart
an event which never occurred. Sister Lucy could not have made such
a blunder since she attended the whole of Pope Paul VIs brief visit to
Fatima.
Incredibly, the only person not to participate in the revelation of
the Third Secret on June 26, 2000 was Sister Lucy herself. She was still
not allowed to speak, even though the public was now being told that
the Message of Fatima has been fully revealed and that nothing else
remains hidden. Her crucial testimony concerning the Consecration of
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Russia was not elicited, even though Cardinals Sodano and Ratzinger
and Msgr. Bertone and other members of the Vatican apparatus were in
Fatima only weeks before and could have spoken to her about the matter.
The obviously discredited 1989 letter is the only evidence on which these
Vatican officials expressly rely for their claim that the Consecration has
been done. Curiously, Sister Lucy was not even asked to authenticate this
letter.
At the conclusion of the June 26 press conference, Cardinal Ratzinger
mentions Father Gruner by name, claiming that he must be submissive
to the Magisterium concerning Fatima and the Consecration of Russia.
There is no claim, however, that the Pope himself has proclaimed the
Consecration to be over and done with. Pope John Paul II plays no role
in the June 26 press conference or the Ratzinger/Bertone commentary,
which is not a document of the Churchs Magisterium (the authentic
teaching office of the Pope or the Pope together with all the bishops in
union with him) and therefore binds no one to believe what it claims.
Even Cardinal Ratzinger himself admits that his and Msgr. Bertones
interpretation is not binding.
July 11/12, 2000 - Father Gruner continues to resist the groundless
threat of excommunication from Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos, publishing
his reply to the Cardinal. Father Gruner is the only priest being exposed
to such a direct, public threat from a Vatican official. Yet, at the same
time, the Vatican turns a blind eye toward innumerable priests who are
spreading heresy and engaging in unspeakably scandalous behavior in
every nation.
July 14, 2000 - Father Gruner learns that Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos
is commanding various Nuncios of the world to continue to plague
Father Gruner with false accusations. For example, the Nuncio to
the Philippines circulates the lie that Father Gruner is guilty of forging
Vatican Secretariat of State documents to imply Vatican endorsement
of his apostolatea manifest absurdity. These lies are refuted by the
apostolates published declaration. (See Fatima Priest.) Cardinal Castrilln
Hoyos ignores Father Gruners repeated requests that he retract the false
allegation of forgery. Instead, Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos simply revises
the accusation to alleged inappropriate use of genuine documents,
refusing to admit that his original accusation was a lie. All of Cardinal
Castrilln Hoyos accusations are refuted in the apostolates reply but he
refuses to retract any and all of his false allegations.
July 15, 2000 - Issue 64 of The Fatima Crusader is published by Father
Gruner. This issue demonstrates that the text of the Third Secret released
on June 26 is incomplete. (See, especially, in this magazine the article by
Andrew Cesanek about the existence of two texts. Copies are available in
English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and French on the Fatima website,
www.fatima.org. See also Chapter 13 of this book.)
August 8 - October 16, 2000 - Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos refuses
to withdraw his threat of excommunication. In mid-October he says he
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is referring the matter to higher authority. He refuses to identify this

higher authority, although it is clearly the Vatican Secretary of State.
August 31, 2000 - Father Gruner files with the Holy Father a second
reminder concerning his canonical complaint and recourse to Pope John
Paul II against Cardinals Innocenti, Sanchez and Agustoni, Archbishop
Sepe, Archbishop Grochelewski and Bishop Forte, under Canon 1506.
The grounds for the complaint are abuse of power and violation of
canonical due process. The complaint notes that (unless and until the
Pope promulgates a new law) the Pope is bound by the laws he has
already promulgated to hear the case.
October 8, 2000 - Yet another consecration of the world, but not
Russia, is performed in a Vatican ceremony. This ceremony is called an
entrustment. Although anti-Fatima propagandists say the Consecration
of Russia is impossible, some 1,400 bishops and 76 Cardinals are
gathered in the Vatican on this date and can easily mention Russia during
the entrustment. In fact, a number of bishops think this is exactly
what they are going to do. The text of the entrustment is not made
public until October 7, the day before the ceremony. The text makes
no mention of Russia, but does mention an entrustment of the world,
the unemployed, youth in search of meaning and other objects of
entrustmentanything and anybody but Russia.
November 30, 2000 - Inside the Vatican magazine reveals that a
Cardinal described as one of the Popes closest advisors admits that
His Holiness has been counseled not to make mention of Russia in any
consecration ceremony because this would offend the Russian Orthodox.
That Ostpolitik and Vatican diplomacy have prevented the specific
Consecration of Russia is here confirmed by a Vatican prelate.
December 20, 2000 - Father Gruner finishes writing a canonical
complaint to His Holiness Pope John Paul II against Cardinal Castrilln
Hoyos for crimes against Church law and formally requests, in due
canonical form, the Cardinals removal from office. Canons 1405, 1406
and 1452 1 are invoked, under which the only competent judge in such
cases is the Pope, and that the Pope is bound to decide the complaint.
May 16, 2001 - Reflecting the growing skepticism of millions of
Catholics, Mother Angelica states on her live televison show on this date
that she does not believe the Vatican has revealed the entirety of the
Third Secret:
As for the Secret, well I happen to be one of those individuals
who thinks we didnt get the whole thing. I told ya! I mean, you have
the right to your own opinion, dont you, Father? There, you know,
thats my opinion. Because I think its scary.
August 30, 2001 - The Fatima Center sends a letter to thousands of the
press and world leaders containing the following warning in the light of
the Fatima Message:
There will come a day, sooner than you think, when bombs will
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start exploding even in the peaceful parts of the world.
September 11, 2001 - Terrorists hijack two airliners and crash

them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City,
causing them to collapse. Another hijacked airliner crashes into the
Pentagon. More than 3,000 people are killed in the bloodiest terrorist
episode the world has ever seen. This act of war is definitive proof that
the Consecration of Russia, which Our Lady promised will bring world
peace, has not been done. Yet the anti-Fatima establishment insists that
the Message of Fatima was gloriously fulfilled with the consecration of
the world in 1984 and that the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
is upon us.
September 12, 2001 - Revealing their bizarre obsession with Father
Gruner and his Fatima apostolate, only one day after the worst terrorist
attack in world history, Vatican officials cause the Vatican press office to
publish a Declaration to the world alleging that Father Gruner has been
suspended from the priesthood, and that no one should attend a Fatimarelated peace conference being sponsored by the apostolate in Rome from
October 7-13, 2001. The Declaration states that it has been issued upon
the mandate from a higher authority. The carefully inserted article in
the phrase a higher authority clearly indicates that the authority in
question is not the highest authority in the Churchnamely, the Pope.
The expression a higher authority is Vaticanspeak for the Secretary of
Stateat that time, Cardinal Sodano. In any case, under Church law a
mandate by a nameless person is null and void.
The Declaration gives no grounds for the suspension, there being
no grounds beyond the bogus accusation that Father Gruner failed
to find another bishop to incardinate him and must therefore return
to Avellino after 23 years. This is the same failure which the Vatican
bureaucracy had engineered through its unprecedented interference in
offers of incardination by a series of friendly bishops over the years, all of
whom wished to foster Father Gruners work.
The Vatican announcement claims that the conference in Rome
does not enjoy the approval of ecclesiastical authority. The statement
is evidently calculated to mislead, since these Vatican officials are well
aware that no approval whatsoever is required under Church law
(canons 212, 215, 278, 299), which guarantees the natural right of
clergy and laity to associate and discuss matters of concern in the Church.
Incredibly, Vatican officials have never taken such dramatic measures,
or indeed any measures at all, to prevent innumerable conferences and
other gatherings constantly being held throughout the Church by priests,
nuns and lay people who openly dissent from Catholic doctrine. These
same Vatican officials seem to view the Message of Fatima as the greatest
threat to the Church today.
That the Vatican should step up its persecution of Father Gruner only
hours after thousands of Americans were slaughtered in an unprecedented
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terrorist attack, demonstrates beyond doubt the utter perversity of the

opposition to the Message of Fatima from within certain elements of the
Vatican bureaucracy. Neither the spread of heresy nor innumerable sexual
scandals among the clergy over the past forty years has ever prompted
such action from these same Vatican elements, who are duty-bound to
protect the Church from her real enemies. It is a mystery of iniquity
that the prime imperative of these Vatican officials, even in the midst
of worldwide bloodshed and apostasy, has become suppression of the
Message of Fatimathe very means by which bloodshed and apostasy
can be averted.
September 13, 2001 - The Fatima Center responds to the Declaration
published by the Vatican Press Office, noting, among other things, that
Father Gruner appears to be the only priest in the living memory of the
Church who has been publicly denounced to the world for an offense
that is not even specified, by a higher authority who is not even named.
September 21, 2001 - After receiving what she privately admitted
was an ecclesiastical telephone call from someone in the Vatican
bureaucracy, an agent of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
in Rome sends a letter advising that the apostolates contract for their
facilities for the October 7-13, 2001 Conference on World Peace will
not be keptand that they refuse to keep their written contract. All
this less than three weeks before the Conference begins, and after the
apostolate has expended more than $100,000 on advertising and other
arrangements. When pressed for an explanation for this breach of contract,
the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart claims that it suddenly had to
schedule a structural inspection of its facilitiesduring the very week
the apostolates conference is to be held!
September 28, 2001 - Father Gruner receives a letter directly from
Bishop Dziwisz, the Popes personal secretary, dated August 24, 2001,
which is photographically reproduced along with the English translation
on the following page. In the letter, Bishop Dziwisz warmly wishes
Father Gruner well with his upcoming conference on Fatima and world
peace in Rome and expresses his regrets that he could not attend the
conference due to the Synod of Bishops taking place at the same time.
Bishop Dziwisz has been Pope John Paul IIs personal secretary for some
35 years, and is like a son to the Holy Father. Bishop Dziwiszs expression
of support and good wishes to Father Gruner demonstrates that the
worthless denunciation of Father Gruner published by mandate of a
higher authority on September 12, 2001 could not have emanated from
the papal household, leaving Cardinal Sodano as the only other higher
authority who could have instigated the groundless denunciation.
October 25, 2001 - Cardinal Ratzinger admits to a destabilizing [of]
the internal equilibrium of the Roman Curia due to reports (following the
September 11th terrorist attack on New York) of a letter from Sister Lucy
to the Pope concerning the Third Secret and dangers to the world and the
person of the Pope. Ratzinger does not explicitly deny the existence of
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Castel Gandolfo, 24 August 2001

Reverend Father,
In your letter of last July 10 you have invited me to participate in the fifth
Conference for World Peace which will take place in Rome from the 7th to the
13th of October.
I thank you warmly and up to now I have hopes that this meeting dealing
with such an important topic as World Peace will be crowned with great success.
I will not be able to be present at the event because at that time the Synod
of Bishops will be in progress here in the Vatican.
With cordial greetings and the wish that the Lord, through the intercession
of Our Lady of Fatima, grant to all every desired good.
Signed By
(Bishop) + Stanislaw Dziwisz
this letter. This admission indicates that widespread skepticism over the
Vaticans Fatima disclosures apparently extends even into the Curia itself.
December 2001 - Father Gruner gives an interview with the editor of
The Fatima Crusader in an article entitled Dont Shoot the Messenger.
It is summarized by the following statement: Gods law and the law of
the Catholic Church (Canon Law) itself states clearly (see Canons 221,
1321, 1323) that no priest in the Catholic Church can be penalized with
any ecclesiastical penalty whatsoever, if the priest has not committed a
criminal act or transgression of Church Law or precept. Since no such
crime or transgression has ever been committed by Father Gruner, it is
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absolutely clear and certain that Father Gruner is not suspended a divinis.
Anyone, even a Cardinal, who says Father Gruner is suspended is either
misinformed or malicious.
December 20, 2001 - In response to mounting public skepticism
about the completeness of the Vaticans disclosure of the Third Secret, the
Vatican apparatus suddenly publishes a secret interview of Sister Lucy,
purportedly conducted by Archbishop Bertone more than a month earlier
(November 17) at the convent at Coimbra. The interview consists of
nothing more than Bertones Italian language report of what Sister Lucy
is supposed to have said in Portuguese. According to Bertone, Sister Lucy
said that the consecration of the world in 1984 has been accepted by
heaven (for what purpose she did not say), and that everything has
been published.
The interview, which Bertone claims went on for two hours, contains
only 44 words alleged to be from the mouth of Sister Lucy concerning the
matters in controversy (the consecration of Russia and the Third Secret).
No transcript or other independent record of the interview is provided,
making it impossible to determine what exactly Sister Lucy was asked
during the closeted two-hour interrogation, or the context of the 44
words she is alleged to have uttered during those unrecorded two hours.
[The numerous suspicious circumstances of this secret interview are
analyzed in the article entitled Let Us Hear the Witness, for Heavens
Sake, by Christopher A. Ferrara, Esq. in Issue 70 (Spring 2002) of The
Fatima Crusader. See also Chapter 11 of this book.]
January 2002 - Despite the Vaticans claim that the entire Third Secret
has been released, Sister Lucy remained under orders not to speak in
public about the Message of Fatima without permission from Cardinal
Ratzinger or Pope John Paul II himself. And, as the world spirals
downward into violence and the loss of God, the Consecration of Russia
remains undone. The annihilation of nations hangs in the balance as
the world prepares for war. When this book originally went to press in
December 2002 and the threat of war loomed even greater, Sister Lucy
was still bound to silence.
2005 - 2007
February 13, 2005 - Sister Lucy of Fatima dies at the age of 97.
April 2, 2005 - Pope John Paul II dies.
April 19, 2005 - The former Cardinal Ratzinger is elected to the papacy,
taking the name of Benedict XVI.
June 5, 2005 (First Saturday) - Pope Benedict XVI states that the
heart closest to Christ is the Immaculate Heart of Mary, reversing some of
his remarks published in TMF on June 26, 2000.
June 22, 2006 - Benedict XVI appoints Cardinal (formerly Archbishop)
Tarcisio Bertone to replace Cardinal Sodano as Vatican Secretary of State,
with Bertone assuming the office on September 15, 2006.
July 18, 2006 - Archbishop Capovilla, personal secretary to Pope John
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XXIII, admits to Solideo Paolini that there are two texts of the Third
Secret, one yet to be published. Capovilla also informs Paolini that each
text is contained in its own distinct envelope.
November 2006 - Antonio Socci, a renowned Catholic intellectual
and commentator, acquaintance and collaborator of both the former
Cardinal Ratzinger and Cardinal Bertone, publishes The Fourth Secret of
Fatima. In his book Socci levels the accusation that the Vatican is hiding
a text pertaining to the Third Secret which contains the words of the
Virgin predicting an apocalyptic crisis of faith in the Church and dramatic
events for humanity, and explaining the vision published in 2000. The
Virgins words, Socci further concludes, probably follow Her declaration,
recorded in Sister Lucys Fourth Memoir, that In Portugal the dogma of
faith will always be preserved etc.the etc having been added by Lucy
to reflect a continuing discourse pertaining to the contents of the Third
Secret.
Pope Benedict sends Socci a note thanking him for the book and
the sentiments which motivated it. The book cites the testimony of
Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla in July 2006, to Catholic scholar Solideo
Paolini, that there are two different texts and two different envelopes
pertaining to the Third Secret, that one of the envelopes and its
contentsthe Capovilla envelopewas kept in the papal apartment,
not in the archives of the former Holy Office where the text of the vision
was lodged, and that Paul VI read its contents on June 27, 1963, two
years before the Bertone official account claims the Pope first read the
text of the vision. The Capovilla envelope and text have never been
produced.
May 10, 2007 - Cardinal Bertone publishes and attacks Socci in his own
book, The Last Visionary of Fatima, written in the form of an interview
by a fawning Vatican affairs reporter, Giuseppe De Carli, who poses
no challenging questions but rather avoids all of the issues, including
Capovillas explosive testimony. In response, Socci proclaims publicly
that his own book has been vindicated by the Cardinals complete failure
to answer it, which Socci calls a disturbing development as it means that
there is indeed an ongoing cover-up on the part of the Vatican regarding
the Third Secret.
May 31, 2007 - Cardinal Bertone appears by remote live feed on the
Italian TV talk show Porta a Porta to attack Soccis book again. During
this telecast Bertone displays not only the text of the vision but also two
separate sealed envelopes prepared by Sister Lucy, each bearing the
warning in Sister Lucys own handwriting that By express order of Our
Lady, this envelope can only be opened in 1960 [only] by the Cardinal
Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria.
The two sealed envelopes, and other revelations by Cardinal Bertone
during the telecast, further confirm the existence of two texts comprising
the Third Secret in its entirety. Further, the express order of Our Lady
noted on the envelopes flatly contradicts Cardinal Bertones earlier
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repeated representations that Sister Lucy confessed to him in private,

unrecorded conversations that the Virgin has never given any such order
(see page 254).
Following the telecast, from which Socci has been excluded, Socci
declares that Bertone has not only failed to give even one answer to
Soccis book, but On the contrary, he did more: He offered the proof that
I am right and that it is a matter of fact the explosive part of the Third
Secret of Fatima exists yet is well hidden....
September 21, 2007 - Bertone stages a second television appearance
for himself, this time on the Telepace network, to attack Soccis book for
a third time. The press are invited to attend. Socci, who appears at the
telecast location to question Cardinal Bertone, is forcibly ejected from
the premises by security guards. During the telecast Bertone once again
avoids any discussion of the issues. Instead, he presents a heavily-edited
videotape of an interview of Archbishop Capovilla conducted by Giuseppe
De Carli, a partisan of Cardinal Bertone, in which the Archbishop not
only fails to deny the testimony he gave to Paolini (whose name is never
mentioned) about the Capovilla envelope, but rather fully confirms its
existence and location in the papal apartment, and the reading of its
contents by Paul VI in 1963, not 1965 as the Bertone official account
had claimed.
Contrary to what he said in 1960 (see entry on pages 344-345),
Archbishop Capovilla will appear to suddenly reverse himself, claiming
that since he never knew the Portuguese language he was incorrect for
all these years to say that the Third Secret contained passages written in
difficult Portuguese dialect. Of course his lack of Portuguese was always
known and never stopped him before from telling the world something
he obviously learned from the Portuguese translator of that text.
September 22, 2007 - The Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports
that before the guards threw Socci out on the street at the location of
the telecast of September 21, he was able to play for the assembled
journalists an audiotape of Capovillas statements to Paolini during
a meeting on June 21, 2007. On the tape Capovilla is heard to state:
Besides the four pages [of the vision of the bishop dressed in white]
there was also something else, an attachment, yes. As the reporter from
Il Giornale concludes, Capovillas statement would confirm the thesis of
the existence of a second sheet with the interpretation of the Secret
namely, the words of the Virgin following the etc.
September 2007 to December 2009 - The Holy See continues to
observe an official silence concerning Soccis accusations.
See page xxvi to order extra copies of this

Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up.
Appendix III
Dear Cardinal Bertone:
Cardinal
Bertone
Who Between
<= You and Me =>
is Deliberately
Lying?
Antonio
Socci
by Antonio Socci
On the 90th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions (May 13, 1917), the
time has come to say the whole truth and to lend an ear to Our Lady
What a mistake! Who knows why Cardinal Bertone got himself into
such trouble, getting the Vatican into a mess too! Personally, I should be
more than happy that the Secretary of State (hence number two in the
Churchs hierarchy) published a book, The Last Seer of Fatima, to refute
mine, The Fourth Secret of Fatima. It is something unprecedented. Not
even Dan Brown [Translators Note: author of the blasphemous The Da
Vinci Code] had such an honor!
Evidently, my book must be really hot. The prelate lost complete control
of the situation becausewith many salutations to Christian charityhe
claims my theses are pure fabrications, and states my inquiry would help
the ancient plots of Masonry to discredit the Church. And the Cardinal
menacingly continues It astonishes me that journalists and writers who
claim to be Catholic lend themselves to this game. Eventually, he says that
Im a liar, and someone who consciously lies.
But unfortunately he doesnt show how and when I actually lied. I only
asked him to explainto give just one examplewhy in his commentary
on the Third Secret published by the Vatican he quotes a letter by Sister
Lucy, but (without saying it) he omits a decisive phrase which would
debunk his entire interpretation. By reporting this oddity (one of the
many) in my book, I tried to save the good faith of the prelate by any
possible means. But in his book, Cardinal Bertone not only doesnt give any
explanation for it, but he again quotes that modified letter in the same
way. Were dumbstruck. Its simply not possible to use the documents that
way! You are only scoring points against yourself!
The Core of the Dispute

But what is the core of our dispute? It resides in this question: the
famous Third Secret of Fatimawhich contains the prophecy regarding
what is going to happen to the Church and to the world in the very near
futurewas it entirely published in 2000? When I started to conduct my
inquiry, I was convinced that the Vatican had in fact published it all. But
then I realized that the facts told me the contrary. As a matter of fairness, I
Appendix III: Who is Deliberately Lying?
373
had to take note of these facts, and decided to speak up and point out the
incredible amount of holes and contradictions contained in the official
version. Since the Third Secret is a mystery which for decades has caused
a true psychosis within the mass media (and even within governments
and the secret services), a prophetical text of the greatest importance for
Christians (and for our future), a text which the Church gave credence to,
after recognizing the most important Marian apparition of its [the Catholic
Churchs] history, I pointed out the necessity that the Vatican either clarify
all the enormous mess (pasticci) contained in the official version, or
publish the hidden text (as a recent Petition to the Holy Father written by
Solideo Paolini asks for). During my inquiry, I had asked for a personal
meeting with Cardinal Bertone, who, as an Archbishop, had a leading role
in the publication of the Secret on June 26, 2000. Even though he knows
me well, he denied me an interview and yet [Translators Note: after Socci
published his book on November 22, 2006] he immediately activated
himself to publish a book in reply to mine, which he accomplished during
these past few days, in time for the 90th anniversary of Fatima.
No Straight Answers
The problem is that this book doesnt give even one single answer to the
questions I raised. On the contrary it causes further problems. I felt totally
embarrassed while reading such a messed-up and self-injuring response.
For any author, being personally attacked by the Vatican Secretary of State
without a scrap of evidence would be a notable success. But for me it is
a disaster, because I consider myself first of all a Catholic before being a
journalist. I would have preferred to be terribly wrong and to be confuted.
Or I hoped that the Holy See would finally decide to reveal the entire truth
about the Third Secret of Fatima, by publishingas Our Lady requested
the still concealed part. Otherwise, I would have preferred to be ignored,
snubbed, boycotted. But the only mistake, the only thing to avoid, is
exactly what Bertone did: exposing himself publicly, without answering
anything and, rather, adding new items which are disastrous for himself
and for the Vatican.
What Are They Afraid Of?

First of all, there is the problem of the handling of the Fatima witness,
Sister Lucy: for years, everybody has been able to openly talk about Fatima
except her, who, since 1960, was ordered to keep silent by the Vatican.
What were they afraid of? Before the publication of the text, in 2000, the
Pope sends Bertone to Sister Lucy in Coimbra. He will send him again in
November 2001. Eventually, the prelate will come back to her in December
2003. These three personal meetings were the great opportunity to allow
the last living seer, almost 100 years old, to leave to Christendom and
to the whole human race her complete and most precious testimony
about the most important Marian apparition in history: It was an epochal
opportunity.
Not only to silence the many rumors and legends but also to protect
374
the Vatican from charges of manipulation, Bertone should have recorded

(or even better, to have filmed) these exceptional interviews, so as to
leave them to posterity. Or, at least, he should have arranged a complete
transcription of the questions and answers, which the seer would sign in
order to avoid any future and foreseeable contestations.
But, incredibly enough, these three interviews, which lasted at least 10
hoursas the prelate sayswere not recorded, nor filmed, nor transcribed.
Today the prelate explains that he took notes. So, in the official documents
of Fatima, only a few short phrases attributed to Sister Lucy are reported,
phrases of uncertain credibility and not at all satisfactory, because he didnt
ask her the decisive questions, the ones which could be used for clarifying
any doubtor at least they are not reported by Bertone. In my book, Ive
asked him: why out of 10 hours of interviews, do you report just a few
phrases of the Sister, which at the maximum last 4 minutes? What else
did she say during all those hours? Why didnt you ask Sister Lucy the
fundamental questions, or why didnt you report her answers? In his book,
Bertone does not give any clarification about all this. And the worst thing
is that he attributes to the Sisterwho died in the meantime and cannot
deny anythingsome phrases which were never reported in the official
document of the year 2000.
According to Bertone, regarding the text of the year 2000 the Sister
said that this is the Third Secret, the only text, and I never wrote
anything else. Why did Bertone never report such an important phrase in
his official publication? And why didnt the prelate ask the seer if she ever
wrote the sequel to those mysterious words pronounced by Our Lady and
indicated by that etc. (In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be
preserved, etc.) which has always been considered by the Fatima scholars
as the beginning of the Third Secret? It is really odd. Its like the other
new statement that nowand only now that the seer is already deadthe
prelate attributes to her.
According to this new statement Sister Lucy, when informed of the
attempt on the Popes (John Paul II) life in 1981, immediately thought
that the prophecy of the Third Secret was fulfilled. Why on earth was such
a crucial confirmation never reported in the official document? Why in the
commentary by the Vatican which contained the text of the vision (with
the Bishop dressed in white who is killed), did nobodyneither Sister
Lucy, nor Cardinals Sodano and Ratzinger, not even Bertone himself
explicitly write that the attempt on the Popes (John Paul II) life in 1981
was the fulfilment of the Third Secret?
No Official Interpretation
And why did Ratzinger say that such interpretation was just a mere
hypothesis and there were no official interpretations by the Church,
whereas today Bertone pretends to impose it as the official version? And
in the letter to the Pope which was attached to the Vatican commentary
and was written in 1982, one year after the assassination attempt, why did
Sister Lucy explain that we have not seen yet the final fulfilment of this
Appendix III: Who is Deliberately Lying?
375
prophecy (of the Third Secret), but that we are going there little by little
with big steps? Why, in that letter to the Pope, did not Sister Lucy even
mention the attempt on the Popes life that had just taken place if in fact
that assassination attempt was the fulfilment of the Secret?
Some people had claimed that Bertone neither recorded nor
transcribed the interviews with the seer because this would have shown
the psychological pressures applied against the cloistered Sister, in order
to persuade her to endorse certain theses. These thoughts came back to
my mind while I was reading a passage of Bertones book, in which the
Cardinal remembers that at one point the seer was irritated, and she told
him Im not going to confession!.
What kind of question could Sister Lucy answer to so strongly? Maybe
someone was reminding the old Sister of the ecclesiastical power, and
hinting that she would not get absolution? We dont know, because the
prelatewho knows and remembers the Sisters (quite tough) answer
very wellsays he literally forgot what his question was.
The Fourth Secret Exists

It is evident that the Fourth Secret of Fatima (the hidden part of the
Third Secret) exists and I think Ive proven it in my book. There is not only
the resounding revelation of an exceptional witness, Archbishop Capovilla,
secretary of Pope John XXIII (and who was present with the Pope at the
opening of the Third Secret), whose words were gathered by Solideo Paolini
and about whichincrediblyCardinal Bertone doesnt say anything in his
book. But theres also the rest of my book.508 As regards that censored
part, we know that it is written on a single sheet of paper, and not on four
sheets like the text of the vision disclosed in 2000 (this fact was revealed
by Cardinal Ottaviani, the right-hand man of Pope Pius XII and John XXIII,
and today Bertone copes with it this way: I dont know what Cardinal
Ottavianis words refer to). But we even know the dimensions of that sheet
of paper (9 x 14 cm), we know that it is contained in an envelope measuring
12 x 18 cm, we know that there are 20-25 lines of text, we know the dates
(different from the text regarding the vision) on which the envelope was
received in the Vatican and was read by the various Popes. And we know
thatstarting with Pius XIIit was not stored in the Holy Office (as the
text of the vision revealed in 2000) but in the Popes apartment. There is
the photographic evidence, published on October 18, 1958 in the magazine
Paris-Match by Robert Serrou; there is the testimony of the most confidential
collaborator of Pius XII, Sister Pasqualina (inside there, there is the Third
Secret of Fatima); and there is the testimony of Archbishop Capovilla (I
published the document from the archive), who was sought out by Pope Paul
VI on June 27, 1963, because the Pope wanted to know from him where the
Fatima package was. Msgr. Capovilla answered: It was in the drawer on
the right hand side of the desk, named Barbarigo, in the bedroom. And, in
fact, it was found there.
Much of the facts and reasons given by Soccito demonstrate there is a second text of
the Third Secretin the rest of this paragraph were first published in the first edition of
The Devils Final Battle.
508
376
To all of these testimonies, Bertone gives not one answer in his book,
but in an interview: (he says) The cinematographic reconstructions of
the envelope hidden in the night table of the Pope are pure fantasies.
And why? He doesnt explain it. In his book he adds an attack on me,
because I would have suggested that the Secret foresees the apostasy
of the Church of Rome, and of the upper hierarchy. First of all: Bertone
should carefully read again what Jesus said to Sister Lucy in His apparition
in August 1931. Furthermore, its not me who talked about apostasy,
but Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Ciappi (In the Third Secret, it is
foretold, among the other things, that the great apostasy in the Church
will begin at the top). An analogous concept appears in Sister Lucys
words to Father Fuentes and in two statements by Cardinal Ratzinger. I
only did my part as a journalist, explaining that many people interpret
this apostasy in relationship to the effects of Vatican II.
Numerous Falsehoods
Of course I cant enumerate all the gaffes of this book because there
isnt enough space here. But there is room to report some of them. Bertone
informs us that Sister Lucy never used a computer, for instance. Its
a valuable piece of information, because in an interview to Repubblica
dated February 17, 2005, he had declared that Lucy used, in the end,
even the computer. At the time, it had the purpose to give credence
to certain letters by Sister Lucy dated 1989, which were not written in
her own hand and which contradicted what she had previously declared
about the Consecration of Russia.
Curiously, in his book the Secretary of State gives credence even to
the rumors that, during the historical visit to Pope Wojtyla on December
1, 1989, Gorbachev pronounced a mea culpa in front of the Pope,
whereas this allegation was officially denied by the Vatican Press Office
(Sala Stampa) on March 2, 1998. On the other hand, today Bertone holds
out as absolutely authentic even the explosive statements about the Third
Secret which were attributed to John Paul II in Fulda, in November 1980,
whereas the Vatican Press Office and even Cardinal Ratzinger denied
them (this meeting in Fulda is false, it never happened and the Pope
didnt say those things).
Furthermore, Bertone takes care to say that the interpretation by
Cardinal Ratzinger of the Third Secret was not a dogma of faith. But
he lets his interviewer introduce Bertones thought this way: his words,
after so many interpretations of the Message of Our Lady , are the
imprimatur of a definitive version.
Absolutely superior to Ratzinger. Obviously, the letter of the Pope
to the prelate is used in the book as an introduction, even if the Pope
only writes about things in general. For my part, I keep for myself the
letter regarding my book which Benedict XVI wrote thanking me for the
sentiments that inspired it. These words bring comfort to me, while Im
insulted by crude accusations of doing the game of Masonry.
A Glossary of Ecclesiastical
Terms, Organizations
and Persons
Ecclesiastical Terms, Organizations

Anathema: A condemnation placed on anyone who rejects any
dogma of the Catholic Faith, thereby expelling oneself from the Catholic
Church.
Apostasy: Complete abandonment of the Catholic Faith.
Apostolate: An organized activity, lay or clerical, for promoting some
aspect of the Catholic Faith.
Apostolic Nuncio: An ambassador of the Vatican State, attached to
the Vatican Secretariat of State.
Apostolic See: The Holy See, consisting of the papal office and
various immediate subordinates of the Pope in the Vatican, to whom
certain tasks have been delegated.
Arianism: A Fourth Century heresy in which the dogma that Christ is
consubstantial with God the Father was denied.
Canon: A law of the Catholic Church.
Canonical: Of or pertaining to the canons, or laws, of the Catholic
Church.
Communion of Reparation: The worthy reception of Holy
Communion with the intention of making reparation to God for sacrileges
and offenses against Him and blasphemies against the Virgin Mary, as
prescribed by the Virgin Mary in Her Fatima apparitions.
Conciliar: Of or pertaining to a general council of the Catholic Church,
authorized by the Pope and attended by the bishops of the world, and,
more recently, of or pertaining to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
Congregation for the Clergy: Office within the Roman Curia
which oversees that the activities of diocesan or secular Catholic priests
worldwide adhere to the faith and morals of the Catholic Church.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF): Prior to the
reorganization of the Roman Curia in 1967, this office (which oversaw all
the other congregations within the Roman Curia) was known as the Holy
Office, whose head was the Pope. Since 1967, the head of the CDF is a
Cardinal Prefect and is of lesser rank than the Secretary of State.
Consecrate: In general, to set apart a thing or a person from
a common and profane use to a sacred use, or to dedicate a specific
person(s) or thing(s) to the service of God or of the Blessed Virgin Mary
by prayers, rites and ceremonies.
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_glossary.pdf
378
Doctor of the Church: A Catholic saint considered so preeminent in

his or her knowledge of the Faith as to be considered a worthy teacher for
all Catholics and explicitly named a Doctor by decree of the Pope.
Dogma: Doctrine that has been infallibly defined by the Church; it
is what Catholics must believe in order to be Catholic. The dogmas of
the Faith are what is contained in the solemn, infallible definitions of
the Magisteriumgiven by the Pope alone, or the Pope together with a
Sacred Council.
Ecclesia Dei Commission: A Vatican commission established with
the ostensible purpose of serving the needs of those attached to the
traditional Latin Mass, and which is supposed to help carry out the wishes
of Pope John Paul II, expressed in his letter Ecclesia Dei, that all Catholics
who wish to worship at the traditional Mass be given access to it.
Excardinate: To officially detach a priest or deacon from the
jurisdiction of his ordinary, such as the bishop. The Catholic Church has
always maintained the principle that excardination cannot be denied to
a priest or deacon who seeks incardination in another jurisdiction of the
Church unless there exists a just reason.
Heresy: The denial or obstinate doubt of any one or more dogmas of
the Catholic Faith.
Imprimatur: A seal or statement of approval by a bishop or other
competent Church authority, certifying that a Catholic writing contains
no errors against the faith or morals.
Incardinate: To officially attach a priest or deacon to a specific diocese
of the Catholic Church or to a recognized religious community, making
that priest or deacon subject to the lawful commands of the bishop of
that diocese or the superior of that religious community.
Indult: A privilege or permission granted under Church law, as an
exception from or relaxation of the law, given under specific conditions.
Latae sententiae: The Latin phrase referring to a penalty under
Church law that operates automatically, without need of any further
declaration by Church authority (e.g., the excommunication of any
Catholic who materially assists in procuring an abortion).
Magisterium: From the Latin, magister, meaning teacher. The
teaching office of the Church, and especially the teaching office as
exercised by the Pope alone, speaking in a way that clearly binds the
Universal Church to believe in what he is pronouncing, or by the Pope
together with all the Catholic bishops in an ecumenical council issuing
such binding pronouncements.
Marys fiat: The agreement of the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of
God, which She expressed during the apparition of the Archangel Gabriel
when She said: Let it be done unto Me according to thy word.
Motu proprio: From the Latin, meaning by his own act. Refers to
Glossary
379
papal letters issued over the Popes personal signature and containing
some specific advice or directive. This is to be distinguished from
encyclicals, which have more general teaching purposes.
Ostpolitik: The policy propagated by the Vatican Secretary of State
in 1962, and followed by all his successors, under which the Church has
ceased all condemnation and opposition to Communist regimes in favor
of dialogue and quiet diplomacy.
Prefect: The head of a Vatican congregation.
Roman Curia: The central administration in the Vatican assisting in
the governance of the Church, subject to the authority of the Pope.
Roman Pontiff: The Pope.
Sanctuary: That part of the church near the high altar, which is
reserved to the clergy.
Schismatic: One who is cut off from communion with the Holy
Catholic Churche.g. members of the various Orthodox Churches which
reject the papal primacy of jurisdiction over all bishops (i.e. the authority
to command bishops and their subjects in their own dioceses).
Secretary of State: The Cardinal who presides over the Vatican
Secretariat of State, which oversees the affairs of the Vatican State and
all the congregations within the Roman Curia.
Useful Idiot: A person who promotes the agenda of a second party
while denouncing anyone who questions it, not realizing that this agenda
is also detrimental to himself as well. Lenin coined this term to describe
all non-communists and even anti-communists who, through their being
gullible and/or lacking diligence, actually advance the communist cause.
Persons
Alonso, C.M.F., Father Joaquin Maria: (R.I.P.) Commissioned by
Bishop Joao Venancio in 1966 to establish a complete critical history of
the revelations of Fatima, he spent the next 10 years studying the Fatima
archives. In 1975 his monumental work, consisting of 24 volumes of about
800 pages each and including at least 5,396 original documents, was
ready for publication. 22 volumes have been suppressed from publication
ever since; the first two were published in heavily edited form in the
1990s. Died December 12, 1981.
Bertone, S.D.B., Cardinal Tarcisio: Born on December 2, 1934
in Romano Canavese, Italy; consecrated bishop on August 1, 1991;
appointed as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
by Pope John Paul II in 1995. He was created Cardinal in October 2003,
appointed as Secretary of State by Pope Benedict XVI and took the reins
of this office in September 2006.
Bianchi, Father Luigi: Italian diocesan priest who claims to have
met and interviewed Sister Lucy many times and talked about, among
380
other things, the Third Secret at her cloistered Carmelite convent in

Coimbra, Portugal. He met her as recently as October 2001.
Capovilla, Archbishop Loris Francesco: Born on October 14,
1915 in Pontelongo, Italy; served as personal secretary to Pope John
XXIII; and was consecrated bishop on July 16, 1967.
Castrilln Hoyos, Cardinal Dario: Born on July 4, 1929 in
Medellin, Colombia; consecrated bishop on July 18, 1971; appointed
Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy by authority of Pope John Paul
II on October 1, 1996 (in October 2006 he retired from this position). He
was created Cardinal on February 21, 1998. See entries in Appendix II:
A Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up for June 5, July 11/12, July 14,
August 8, October 16, and December 20, 2000 for further information on
Cardinal Castrilln Hoyos.
Ciappi, O.P., Cardinal Mario Luigi: (R.I.P.) Born on October 6,
1909 in Florence, Italy; consecrated bishop on June 18, 1977; created
Cardinal by Pope Paul VI on June 27, 1977; and died in 1996. Also served
as papal theologian to Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, and John
Paul II.
da Silva, Bishop Jos Alves Correia: (R.I.P.) First Bishop of
Leiria-Fatima; received envelope containing the Third Secret from Sister
Lucy in 1944. Retained possession of the Third Secret until March 1957.
Died in 1957.
do Amaral, Bishop Alberto Cosme: (R.I.P.) Born on October
12, 1916 in Touro, Portugal; consecrated bishop on August 23, 1964;
appointed as the third Bishop of Leiria-Fatima on July 1, 1972; and
retired on February 2, 1993.
Forte, O.F.M., Bishop Antonio: (R.I.P.) Born on July 9, 1928 in
Polla, Italy; consecrated bishop on September 10, 1988; and appointed
Bishop of Avellino on February 20, 1993.
Francisco Marto, Blessed: (R.I.P.) One of the three seers (1909
1919) of the Fatima apparitions, brother of Blessed Jacinta Marto, and
cousin of Lucia dos Santos (Sister Lucy). Francisco was beatified on May
13, 2000.
Franois de Marie des Anges, Frre: Author of Fatima: Intimate
Joy, World Event, a one-book summary of Frre Michel de la Sainte
Trinits 3-volume monumental work The Whole Truth About Fatima. In
English Frre Franois one volume is published as four small books.
Fuentes, Father Agustn: Was in 1957 the Vice Postulator of
the Cause for the Beatification of Jacinta and Francisco. Interviewed
Sister Lucy on December 26, 1957 in which she made many important
statements which touched on the Third Secret. Published this interview
in 1958 with an imprimatur of Archbishop Sanchez of Veracruz, Mexico
and the approbation of the Bishop of Fatima.
Glossary
381
Galamba de Oliviera, Canon Jos: (R.I.P.) Convinced Bishop da

Silva in September 1943 to suggest to Sister Lucy that she write down the
Third Secret. At that time Sister Lucy was stricken with pleurisy, and the
Bishop of Fatima feared that Lucy would die without revealing the Secret.
Jacinta Marto, Blessed: (R.I.P.) The youngest of the three seers
(1910 1920) of the Fatima apparitions, sister of Blessed Francisco
Marto, and cousin of Lucia dos Santos (Sister Lucy). Jacinta was beatified
on May 13, 2000.
Levada, Cardinal William: Born on June 15, 1936 in Long Beach,
California; consecrated bishop on May 12, 1983; appointed as Prefect
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on May 13, 2005; and
created Cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI on March 24, 2006.
Lucia dos Santos, O.C.D., Sister: (R.I.P.) The eldest of the three
child seers of the Fatima apparitions in 1916 and 1917. Born March
28, 1907, Sister Lucy was a Carmelite nun at the cloistered convent in
Coimbra, Portugal. She died at the age of almost 98 years old on February
13, 2005.
Magee, Bishop John: Born on September 24, 1936 in Newry,
Ireland; consecrated bishop on March 17, 1987; and served as Secretary
to Popes Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II.
Michel de la Sainte Trinit, Frre: Fatima expert and author of
the monumental work The Whole Truth About Fatima (3 volumes, about
800 pages each). Volume III, focusing on the Third Secret, contains over
1,150 footnotes, citing numerous documents, witnesses and testimonies.
Oddi, Cardinal Silvio: (R.I.P.) Born on November 14, 1910 in the
Diocese of Piazenza in Italy; consecrated bishop on September 27, 1953;
created Cardinal by Pope Paul VI on April 28, 1969; appointed as Prefect
of the Congregation for the Clergy by Pope John Paul II on September 28,
1979; retired in 1987; and died in 2001.
Ottaviani, Cardinal Alfredo: (R.I.P.) Prefect of the Holy Office
during the pontificates of Popes Pius XII, John XXIII and Paul VI. On
February 11, 1967 he testified during a press conference at the Pontifical
Marian Academy in Rome that he had read the Third Secret and that it
was written on a single sheet of paper. Also encouraged the publication of
the Neues Europa version of the Third Secret and, together with Cardinal
Bacci, wrote a Preface to A Short and Critical Study of the New Order of
Mass, and presented it to Paul VI.
Pasquale, S.D.B., Father Umberto Maria: A well-known Salesian
priest who knew Sister Lucy since 1939 and who received 157 letters from
her, up to 1982. He interviewed Sister Lucy concerning the Consecration
of Russia in 1978 and published the contents of that interview on May
12, 1982 in the LOsservatore Romano in Vatican City.
Pierro, Bishop Gerardo: Born on April 26, 1935 in Mercato, San
382
Severino in Italy; consecrated bishop on August 2, 1981; and served as

Bishop of Avellino from February 28, 1987 until May 25, 1992, when he
was promoted to Archbishop of Salerno.
Ratzinger, Cardinal Joseph; now Pope Benedict XVI: Born
on April 16, 1927 in the Diocese of Passau, the town of Marktl am Inn,
Germany; consecrated bishop on May 28, 1977; created Cardinal by Pope
Paul VI on June 27, 1977; and appointed as Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope John Paul II on November 25, 1981.
He held this position until April 2, 2005 when Pope John Paul II died. He
was elected Pope (Benedict XVI) about two weeks later.
Schweigl, S.J., Father Joseph: Entrusted by Pope Pius XII with a
secret mission in 1952 to interrogate Sister Lucy about the Third Secret.
Sodano, Cardinal Angelo: Born on November 23, 1927 in Isola
dAsti, Italy; consecrated bishop on January 15, 1978; appointed as
Vatican Secretary of State on December 1, 1990; and created Cardinal
by Pope John Paul II on June 28, 1991. Even though he was already
beyond the normal retirement age of 75, he still held this position until
September 2006. Sodano praised the arch-heretic Hans Kng on March
25, 1998; promoted the International Criminal Court (ICC); and hosted
a press conference with Mikhail Gorbachev in the Vatican on June 27,
2000.
Valinho, S.D.B., Father Jose dos Santos: Sister Lucys nephew.
Venancio, Bishop Joao Pereira: (R.I.P.) Born on February 8,
1904 in Monte Redondo, Portugal; consecrated bishop (and appointed
Auxiliary Bishop of Leiria-Fatima) on December 8, 1954; appointed
second Bishop of Leiria-Fatima on September 13, 1958; retired on July 1,
1972; and died in the mid-1980s. In March 1957, he held the envelope
containing the Third Secret up to a strong light and carefully noted that
the Secret is about 25 lines long and is written on a single sheet of paper
with 3/4 centimeter margins on both sides.
Venezia, Bishop: (R.I.P.) Born on June 4, 1911; consecrated bishop
on April 15, 1951; and served as Bishop of Avellino, Italy from June 1967
until February 28, 1987.
Selected Bibliography
Videos/DVDs
Heavens Key to Peace. Fort Erie: The Fatima Center, 2006.

The Secret Still Silenced. Fort Erie: The Fatima Center, 2009.
Books
Alban, Francis (and Christopher Ferrara), Fatima Priest, Editions 1 through 4. Pound
Ridge: Good Counsel Publications, 1997-2000. Italian Edition, Il Sacerdote di
Fatima, Pound Ridge: Good Counsel Publications, 2000.
Alonso, Father Joaquin, La verdad sobre el Secreto de Fatima. Madrid: Centro
Mariano, 1976.
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Articles
A World View Based on Fatima, John Vennari, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 64,
Summer 2000.
Abuse Victims File Petition Seeking Removal of Archbishop, The Wanderer, April
4, 2002.
Activist Says Child Porn Prosecutions Will be Difficult in Indonesia, Russia,
Christine Brummitt, Associated Press, August 9, 2001.
Analysis: Persons Who Have Studied the Apparitions Say That the Third Secret
Could Concern the Destruction of the Faith. A Crisis in the Interior of the
Church Would be the Third Secret, Euronoticias, March 24, 2000.
The Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima, 1917, Father Nicholas Gruner. (Transcript
of speech from Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001).
The Apparitions of Pontevedra/Rianjo/Tuy: The Consecration of Russia and the
Five First Saturdays, Father Nicholas Gruner. (Transcript of speech from
Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001).
Are There Two Original Manuscripts on the Third Secret?, Andrew M. Cesanek,
The Fatima Crusader, Issue 64, Summer 2000.
As Scandal Keeps Growing, Church and Its Faithful Reel, New York Times, March
17, 2002.
Barbarism Then and Now, Thomas Woods, Ph.D. (Transcript of speech from
The Beatification of the Little Shepherds Definitely Will Be at Rome, Voz da
Verdade, October 31, 1999.
The Blessed Mother and the Return to Holiness, Cornelia Ferreira. (Transcript of
Big Brother Goes too far for Staid Russians, Mark Franchetti, Sunday Times
(London), November 25, 2001.
387
Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, March 21 press conference; Euronoticias, March 24, 2000.

Cardinal Ratzingers Third Secret, Rev. Canon Gregorius D. Hesse, S.T.D., J.C.D.
(Cand.), The Fatima Crusader, Issue 66, Winter 2001.
Catholic Church Unveils Third Secret of Fatima; The Vaticans Top Theologian
Gently Debunks a Nuns Account of Her 1917 Vision That Fueled Decades of
Speculation, Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2000.
Catholic Clergy in Siberia Face Growing Difficulties, Catholic World News,
November 19, 1997.
Catholicism Dissolved, the New Evangelization (Four-part series), John Vennari,
Catholic Family News, October 1998 to January 1999.
Chronology of a Cover-up, Father Paul Kramer, Catholic Family News Special
Supplement, April 2002. Also at www.fatima.org.
Chronology of a Cover-up Parts I, III and IV, Father Nicholas Gruner. (Transcripts
of speeches from Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001).
Chronology of a Cover-up Part II: The Vatican Commentary, The Message of
Fatima, Christopher Ferrara. (Transcript of speech from Fatima Conference in
Rome, October 2001).
The Consecration of Russia: Our Lady of Fatima vs. the Culture of Death, Father
Nicholas Gruner. (Transcript of speech from Fatima Conference in Rome,
October 2001).
Crisis: The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima Creates A Mystery Around the Visit of the Pope
Without Telling the Patriarch What It Concerns, Will the Pope Reveal the Third
Secret?, Euronoticias, March 24, 2000.
The Coming Cashless Society (Parts I & II), John Vennari. (Transcript of speech
from Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001).
Defense of Father Gruner: The Right to Hold the Conference, Christopher Ferrara.
(Transcript of speech from Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001).
Divine Intervention, Coralie Graham, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 70, Spring 2002.
Fatima in Twilight, Mark Fellows. Series run in The Remnant, 1995 and Catholic
Family News, 1995.
Fatima Inquest, David Boyce, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 35, Winter 1990-1991.
Fatima Snapshot of Martyrs Past Century, The Irish Times, June 27, 2000.
Fatima: Why Isnt the Mother of God Being Obeyed as She Should Be?, Father
Fabrice Delestre, Angelus, June 2000.
Father Pierre De Smet, SJ: Missionary Hero of the 19th Century, John Vennari.
Final Secret of Vatican Published by Vatican, Boston Herald, June 27, 2000.
Foreign Priests Spark Controversy, Sarah Karush, Associated Press, February 12,
2002.
Fundamentalism and Integralism: Christians Confronting Ecumenism, Pierre
Lathuiliere, Service International de Documentation Judeo-Chretienne (SIDIC),
Vol. XXXII, No. 3 - 1999, English Edition.
Gorbachev Helps Introduce Casaroli Memoirs, Catholic World News, June 27, 2000.
388
The Greatest Conspiracy, Christian Order, November 2000.

Heavens Request for Reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus (Part III), John Vennari,
Catholic Family News, August 2001.
The International Criminal Court, William Jasper. (Transcript of speech from
It Doesnt Add Up, John Vennari, Catholic Family News, February 2002 and The
Fatima Crusader, Issue 70, Spring 2002.
Jeremiah & Jude vs. Juvenile Naivety, Gerry Matatics. (Transcript of speech from
Joint Catholic-Lutheran Vespers at Vatican, CWNews.com, November 13, 1999.
June 26, 2000: Revelation of the Third Secret of Fatima or a Curtailed Revelation?,
Father Fabrice Delestre, SSPX Asia Newsletter, July-August 2000.
Let Us Hear the Witness, For Heavens Sake, Christopher Ferrara, The Fatima
Crusader, Issue 70, Spring 2002.
Lucy and the Pirates, Mark Fellows, Catholic Family News, February 2002 and The
Fatima Crusader, Issue 70, Spring 2002.
The Lying Press Conference of June 26, 2000, Father Paul Kramer. (Transcript of
The Magnificent Promise for the Five First Saturdays, Brother Michael of the Most
Holy Trinity. The Fatima Crusader, Issue 49, Summer 1995.
The Metz Pact, Atila Sinke Guimares, Catholic Family News, September 2001.
The Myth of a Converted Russia, Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D., Catholic Family News,
March 2001.
New Visa System Seen Choking Russias Catholic Parishes, Russia Reform Monitor,
No. 485, July 28, 1998.
Non-Catholics Join Pope in Rite, Los Angeles Times, January 19, 2000.
Now Is the Time: Consecrating Russia Will Help, Not Harm, Catholic-Orthodox
Dialogue, Cathy Pearson, Inside the Vatican, August/September 2008; also in
The Fatima Crusader, Issue 91, February 2009.
Open Letter to the Vatican, Cardinal Kung Foundation, March 28, 2000.
Our Lady, Conqueror of All Heresies: The Consecration of Portugal, 1931, John
Vennari. (Transcript of speech from Fatima Conference in Rome, October
2001).
Our Lady of Fatima vs. the Desire to Destroy our Catholic Heritage, John Vennari.
(Transcript of speech, Fatima Rally Against Terrorism, New York, Nov. 2001).
The Party Line in Relation to Fatima, Father Paul Kramer, The Fatima Crusader,
Issue 69, Winter 2002.
Pope John Paul II Gives us the Key to the Real Third Secret, (Three-part series)
Father Nicholas Gruner, The Fatima Crusader, Issues 67-69. Summer 2001,
Autumn 2001, Winter 2002.
The Pope Will Return to Portugal; Fatima is the Place of the Beatification, Voz da
Verdade, December 5, 1999.
Previous Attempts at the Consecration, Father Nicholas Gruner. (Transcript of
389

The Prophecy of Bella Dodd, Christopher Ferrara, Fatima Perspectives (www.
fatima.org).
Russia Legalizes Homosexuality, United Press International, May 28, 1993.
Satanism on the Rise in Russia!, John Vennari, Fatima News and Views (www.
fatima.org).
Satans War Against Innocents, Michael Matt. (Transcript of speech, Fatima Rally
Against Terrorism, New York, Nov. 2001).
The Secret Red Plan to Take Over the Church, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 19,
February-April 1986.
The Stalinization of the Catholic Church, Christopher Ferrara. (Transcript of
The Suicide of Altering the Faith in the Liturgy, Father Paul Kramer. (Transcript of
The Tail of the Dragon, Gerry Matatics. (Transcript of speech from Fatima
Conference in Rome, October 2001).
There is No Such Thing as the Global Community, Thomas Woods, Ph.D.
The Third Secret, Father Nicholas Gruner (Transcript of speech from Fatima
The Third Secret Handwritten Text Essential: An Interview with Fr. Paul Kramer,
Fatima News and Views (www.fatima.org).
The Third Secret of Fatima: Has it been Revealed?, Father Gerard Mura, Catholic,
March 2002.
Third Secret Spurs More Questions; Fatima Interpretation Departs from Vision,
Bill Broadway and Sarah Delancy, The Washington Post, July 1, 2000.
This Present Darkness (Four-part series), Mark Fellows, Catholic Family News,
August-November 2000.
Thomism and the New Theology, Father David Greenstock, The Thomist, 1950.
The Threat of U.N. Globalization Panel, Cornelia Ferreira, William Jasper, John
Vennari. (Transcript from Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001)
To Whom Shall We Go? Concerning an Appeal to Pope John Paul II, Father
Nicholas Gruner, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 66, Winter 2001.
The United Nations: Chief Instrument of Russias Errors, Cornelia Ferreira.
The United Nations Exposed, William Jasper. (Transcript of speech from Fatima
Update on the Perestroika Deception, Cornelia Ferreira. (Transcript of speech
from Fatima Conference in Rome, October 2001).
Vaticans Ostpolitik and Ecumenism Tried to Block My Conversion to Catholicism,
Father Linus Dragu Popian. (Transcript of speech, Fatima Rally Against
Terrorism, New York, Nov. 2001).
Vatican Praises Purveyor of Heresy While it Hounds Apostle of Fatima, John
390

Vennari, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 57, Spring/Summer 1998.
Vatican Secret is Out, The Express, June 27, 2000.

Vatican II vs. the Unity Willed by Christ, John Vennari, Catholic Family News,
December 2000.
Vatican Unease as it Reveals the Full Third Secret of Fatima, Financial Times
(London), June 27, 2000.
Vatican Says, You Must Not Become Catholic, John Vennari, Catholic Family News,
December 2001 and The Fatima Crusader, Issue 69, Winter 2001.
The Vatican-Moscow Agreement, Jean Madiran, The Fatima Crusader, Issue 16,
September-October 1985.
We are a Sign of Contradiction, interview with Bishop Bernard Fellay, SSPX, Latin
Mass Magazine, Fall 2001.
Where Have They Hidden the Body?, Christopher Ferrara, The Remnant, June 30,
2001.
Where is the New Theology Taking Us?, Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP.
First published in the Angelicum, 1946. English translation, Catholic Family
News, August 1997.
The Woman Clothed with the Sun: Fatima and Sacred Scripture, Gerry Matatics.
Worlds Elite Gather to Talk Depopulation, John Henry Western, The Interim, April
1996.
Index
Book 1: pages viii-xxii, 1-138
Book 2: pages xxix-xxxii, 139-288
A
Abramovich, Roman, 199
Act of Entrustment, 165, 200, 223, 257,
287
Adaptation, the, 75-76, 78-79, 98-105
70
Arianism, 104, 135, 145, 150-51, 153, 155,
157, 206, 208, 211, 229
Aristotle, 27
Assisi prayer meeting: see interfaith peace
meetings
Athanasios, Metropolitan, 70
Agca, Ali, 110

Agustoni, Cardinal, 253-54, 257
Bacci, Cardinal, 138
Alexy II, Patriarch, 193-94
Balamand Declaration, 58, 64, 77, 211
Allegri, Renzo and Roberto, 141
Balducci, Msgr. Corrado, 154
de Almeida, Avelino, 3-4, 7
von Balthasar, Hans Urs, 44, 63, 69, 234
de Almeida Garrett, Jos Maria, 4-5, 7
Bandas, Msgr. Rudolf, 41, 67
Alonso, Father Joaquin Maria, CMF, 17, 1921, 23-24, 38, 95, 117, 119, 123, 136,
140, 159-60, 162, 164, 166, 191, 23536, 244-45, 248-49, 252, 254, 279
Fatima Texts and Critical Studies, 244
Barbarigo desk, 18, 160, 175-76, 181-83,

265, 284
al Qaeda, 190
Alta, Dr., 34
Alta Vendita, 28-30, 34, 38, 45, 49, 69-70,
81
Barbosa Da Silveira, Bishop Francisco

Domingo, 202
Bar-Jona, Simon, 31
Barthas, Canon Casimir, 8, 21, 93
Bartolucci, Msgr. Domenico, 65-66
Baum, Gregory, 42
Alves Correia da Silva, Bishop Jos, 15-21,

137, 159, 166-67, 240, 242, 277
Baumgartner, Professor, 25, 141, 253
do Amaral, Bishop Alberto Cosme, 24, 121,

137, 140-41, 244, 247, 252
Benedict IV, Pope, 112
Angelica, Mother, 119, 121-22, 144, 158,

257
Benedict XV, Pope, 241
anonymous Christianity, 69
Antichrist, 24
Antonelli, Cardinal Ferdinand, 65
Aparicio, Father, SJ, 38, 169, 243
apostasy, x, 22, 24-25, 31, 34, 117-18, 120,
135, 141, 143-44, 157, 179, 203, 210,
212, 223, 227, 241, 248, 253, 258,
265-66, 283 Great, x, xxx, 25, 139,
142, 156, 266, 283
Arafat, Yasser, 110
Arborelius, Bishop Anders (Lutheran), 34,
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/index.htm/dfb2_index
Beauduin, Dom Lambert, 37

Benedict XII, Pope, 149
Benedict XVI, Pope, xv-xvi, xviii-xix, 13,
46-47, 50-51, 57, 60-61, 65, 67, 89-90,
100-101, 104-5, 113-14, 137-38, 173,
179, 185-87, 189, 201-5, 208, 210,
214, 221-24, 230-31, 233, 260, 266
Bertone, Archbishop Tarcisio, xv-xvi, xix,
xxxii, 18-19, 21, 38, 86-87, 89-90, 92,
95-97, 105, 107-10, 115, 118, 122-33,
137, 143, 161-65, 167-69, 171, 17374, 176-90, 205, 212-15, 217, 221,
224-25, 231, 234, 236, 242-44, 247,
255-56, 259-61, 264-66, 283-84, 286
The Last Visionary of Fatima, 17778, 180, 182, 212, 261

Bianchi, Father Luigi, 121-22, 127, 129,
137
Cassidy, Cardinal, 58, 211
Bisig, Father Josef, 99
Castrilln Hoyos, Cardinal Dario, xv, 44,

97, 99, 102-4, 137, 185, 215, 218, 22627, 255-57
Blondel, 43
Catholic Priest Worker movement, 37
Blue Army, 247, 249-50
CCPA see Chinese Catholic Patriotic

Association
Billot, Cardinal, 33
Bnai Brith, 109

Boggiani, Cardinal, 33
Bolshevism, 14, 39
Boniface VIII, Pope, 53, 191
Bonner, Yelena, 198
Bouyer, Father Louis, 37, 44-45
Brother Peter Igneus, Blessed, 226
Brown, Dan, 263
CDF: see Congregation for the Doctrine of

the Faith
Cento, Cardinal Fernando, 162, 168, 242,
284
Cerejeira, Cardinal Don Manuel, 15-16,
180, 277
Cervellera, Father Bernardo, 202
Cesanek, Andrew, 108, 111, 255, 257
de Chardin, Teilhard, 47
Brunelli, Lucio, 25
Bugnini, Archbishop Annibale, 47
Buissont, Ferdinand, 32
Bukovsky, Archbishop, 192
Bush, George, Jr., 190
C
Cahill, Father E., SJ, 29
Caillon, Father Pierre, 20, 38, 78, 118, 168,
247, 249-51
Cantate Domino, 53, 191
da Capelinha, Maria, 5-6
Caponi, Count Neri, 101
Capovilla, Archbishop Loris Francesco, xv,
xxxii, 18-19, 137, 158, 163, 174-76,
181-84, 186-87. 203, 213-14, 223,
235, 242-43, 260-62, 265, 284-85
Carbonari, 29
Cardinal Kung Foundation, 102
Carey, Archbishop (Anglican), 70
charismatics, 45, 103

Chenu, Father Dominique, 42-44, 67, 281
Chepchugov, Dmitry, 195
Chinese Catholic Patriotic
(CCPA), 100-103
Association
Church of Silence, 76
Ciappi, Cardinal Mario Luigi, OP, 25, 137,
141, 144, 156, 253, 266, 283
Coelho, Father Messias, 78, 94, 247, 250
Communion of Reparation, 2, 135, 239
Communism, xiv, xvii, 14-15, 17, 28, 3437, 39-40, 45-48, 58, 67-69, 74, 76,
79, 84-85, 90, 98, 100-102, 105-6,
109-11, 116, 136, 155, 157, 185, 191,
195, 197, 199, 210-11, 218, 221, 243,
251
Communist/Masonic infiltration of the
Church, 28-31, 34-36, 40, 70, 102,
155, 157
Churchill, Winston, 240
Caritas in Veritate, 60
Communist Party of the United States, 3536
do Carmo, Maria, 5-6
Congar, Yves, 42-44, 48, 69, 280
Carreira, John, 5-6
Congregation of Bishops, 58
Casaroli, Cardinal, xix, 81, 98-99, 106,

109, 212, 214
Congregation for the Clergy, xv, 44, 98,

120, 135, 185, 215, 252, 254
Index
Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments, 46, 88
Danilou, Father, 43
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

(CDF), xv, xix, xxxii, 20, 22, 24, 38, 49,
51-52, 80, 85-86, 88, 102, 109, 123,
129, 132, 134-35, 137, 162-65, 171,
174, 188, 244, 249, 254
David, 113
Consecration of France, 113

Consecration of Portugal, 14-16, 28, 105,
218
Consecration of Russia (Collegial), x, xiixiv, xviii-xix, xxi, xxx, 2, 8-9, 13-16, 28,
37-38, 40, 56, 71, 73, 75, 77-80, 82,
89-95, 97, 102-3, 105, 108, 110, 112,
116, 118-20, 123-25, 128-29, 131-32,
134, 138, 152, 165, 178, 185, 189-91,
194-95, 198-200, 204-6, 209-13, 21520, 222, 227, 229, 232-34, 236, 23842, 244-47, 249-52, 254, 256-59, 266,
287-88 Our Ladys request in 1952,
93, 242
Danilov, Alexander, 197

De Carli, Giuseppe, xxxii, 177, 182-83, 261
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 32
Declaration on Religious Liberty, 48
De Lai, Cardinal, 33
DellAcqua, Archbishop Angelo, 174-75,
182-83, 284
Delyagin, Mikhail, 196
Dhanis, Father Edouard, SJ, 7-8, 91-92,
124, 133-34, 185, 213, 220, 244, 25556, 279
Dias Coelho, Father, 8
Dimbleby, Jonathan, 195, 199
Dillon, Msgr. George, 28, 31
Dimitrios I, Patriarch, 110
Consecration of the world, xiii, xxi, 38,

77, 92-94, 123, 128-29, 160, 165,
172, 212, 233-34, 238, 241, 243, 24547, 250-51, 256-59, 287 Pius XIIs
Consecration rejected by Our Lady, 93
Divini Redemptoris, 39, 47
Corboy, Denis, 198
Dulac, Father Raymond, 33
Cordes, Bishop, 77
Dulles, Cardinal Avery, 50-51
Costa, Alfonso, 10
Dzerzhinsky, Felix, 197
Council of Ephesus, 151
Dziwisz, Bishop Stanislaw, 259-60
Dodd, Bella, 35, 45, 69-70

Dllinger, Father, 152
Duarte de Almeida, Msgr. A., 38
Council of Florence, 191
Council of Trent, 41, 45, 67, 146, 154

Tridentine Profession of Faith (Creed),
146-48
Ecclesia Dei, 135
countersyllabus, 46, 48-49, 148
Ecclesia in Europa, 234
Courtney, William, 198
Eckhard, 149
Cozzens, Father Donald, 202
Cur of Ars, 90
ecumenism, xxxii, 34, 37-38, 45-47, 50,

52-53, 57-58, 61, 68-71, 77, 92, 95,
103, 107, 109, 120, 134, 148, 185,
193, 203, 205, 211, 217-18, 220-21,
224, 227, 233-34
Curia: see Roman Curia
Eliseus, xvii
Cretineau-Joly, Cardinal, 28
da Cruz, Marques, 6
D
Dalai Lama, 110
Ecclesia Dei Commission, 99, 135
entrustment of all people: see Act of

Entrustment
E Supremi, 42

Etchegaray, Cardinal Roger, 100-101
Formigao, Father, 7
Eternal Word Television Network, 119

EU, 198
Forte, Bishop Antonio, OFM, 137, 252-54,

257
Eucharistic Congresses, 103
Fourth Lateran Council, 53, 191
Eugene IV, Pope, 53, 141
Fourth Secret of Fatima: see Socci
Euripides, 80
Francisco (Marto), Blessed, xvii, 1-2, 1112, 23, 38, 82-83, 85, 109, 137, 139,
141, 153, 161, 169-71, 207, 241-43,
255, 273
Eusebius, 150
Evaristo, Carlos, 252
Evangeli Praecones, 42, 200
EWTN: see
Network
Eternal
Word
Television
F
Faber, Father Frederick, 70
Fatima Priest, xviii, 78, 97, 120-21
Franois de Marie des Anges, Frre, 78, 94,

137, 162, 252
Fraser, Hamish, 38
Freemasonry/Freemasons, 1, 3, 9-12, 2834, 36, 40, 45-47, 49, 53, 67-70, 81,
103, 105, 109, 144, 157, 177, 205,
210-11, 221, 263, 266, 278
Fatima Texts and Critical Studies: see Alonso
French Revolution, 29, 31-32, 48-50, 68,

71, 148
Fahey, Father Denis, 32
FSB, 197
Felgenhauer, Pavel, 198
FSSP: see Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter
Felici, Cardinal Pericle, 61

Felix III, Pope: see Saint Felix III
Fuentes, Father Agustn, 23, 25, 137, 139,

142, 154, 156, 206, 216, 242-44, 266
Fellay, Bishop, 58
Fulton, Bishop, 250-51
Fellows, Mark, 15
Ferrara, Christopher, 154, 163, 177, 187,

259
Ferreira da Silva, Bishop Manuel Marilla,
19, 159, 161, 163-64, 166-67, 181
do Fetal, Maria, 249-51
Fides et Ratio, xxi
Figes, Orlando, 197
First Council of Constantinople, 151
First Council of Jerusalem, 150
First Council of Nicea, 150-52, 229
First Fridays devotion, 229
First Saturdays devotion, 2-3, 112, 217-19,
223-24, 229, 237, 239
Gabriel, Archangel, 90
Gagnon, Cardinal, 249-50
Galamba de Oliviera, Canon Jos, 17, 21,
137, 163, 166
Galpin, Richard, 197
Gamber, Msgr. Klaus, 206
Gantin, Cardinal, 253
Garabandal, 154
Garrigou-Lagrange, Father Reginald, 43
Gasparri, Cardinal, 33
Gaudium et Spes, 43, 46-48, 148
Geoghan, Father, 226
First Vatican Council, xx-xxi, 41, 45, 55,

67-68, 149, 152, 233
Gherardini, Monsignor Brunero, 46
Flores, Archbishop, 226
Godinho, Mario, 6-7
da Fonseca, Father, 7
Golitsyn, Anatoliy, 35, 40, 251 New Lies
glasnost, 111
Index
for Old, 251
Hyde, Douglas, 35, 40
Gomes, Father John, 6

Gonalves, Father, 14, 240
Goodier, Archbishop Alban, SJ, 115
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 25, 80, 89, 98-99, 103,
106, 109, 111, 121, 138, 141, 178,
212, 221, 252
Graber, Bishop Rudolph, 29, 34, 42, 46, 6970, 81, 278
Graham, Coralie, 253
Graham, General Daniel, 79
Greenstock, Father David, 42-43
Gregory XVI, Pope, 28
Grochelewski, Archbishop, 253-54, 257
Gruner, Father Nicholas, xviii, 44, 78, 8184, 97-98, 102-3, 109, 115, 119-22,
128-30, 154, 202, 204-5, 214-15, 235,
237, 239, 247, 250-60 efforts to
silence him, xviii, 78, 81-82, 97-98,
102-3, 119, 122, 214-15, 250-59
I
ICC: see International Criminal Court
Index of Forbidden Books, 42, 70
Ineffabilis Deus, 147
Innocent III, Pope, 53, 191
Innocenti, Cardinal, 250-51, 254, 257
Inquisition, 149
interfaith peace meetings, 60, 69
International Criminal Court (ICC), 89,
138, 201
International
Jewish-Christian
Documentation Service (SIDIC), 57-58
Iron Curtain, 76, 112
Isaias, 113
Italian Communist Party, 46
Ivan the Terrible, 197
Guerra, Msgr., 252

Guimares, Atila Sinke, 63-64
Jacinta (Marto), Blessed, xvii, 1, 11-12, 23,

38, 82-83, 85, 109, 137, 139, 141, 153,
169-70, 207, 241-43, 255, 273
Haffert, John, 6-7
Jiang, 100
Hammar, Archbishop G.H. (Lutheran), 34,

70
John XXII, Pope, 149-50
Hari Krishna, 192

Harvey, Paul, 126
hermeneutic of continuity, xvi, xx, 57, 106,
203, 208, 233
Hesse, Father Gregory, 107-8
John XXIII, Pope, xv, 18, 25, 37, 39, 41-43,

67, 76, 110, 137-38, 153, 158, 160,
165, 174-76, 183, 186, 203, 213-14,
235, 242-44, 249, 260, 262, 265, 280,
284-85
John Paul I, 25, 112, 137-38, 142
Humanum Genus, 29, 34
John Paul II, Pope, ix, xii-xv, xvii, xix, xxi,

xxix, xxxii, 13, 19, 25, 34, 36, 50, 52,
56, 58, 60, 70, 73, 77, 82-86, 88, 94,
96-97, 99, 104, 107-10, 112, 116,
120-21, 125, 129, 135, 137-38, 14144, 150, 153-54, 156-58, 160, 164-65,
168-69, 171-73, 175-76, 178, 180, 185,
188, 193, 200-201, 203-5, 210, 212,
214, 217, 219-20, 222-23, 226, 23335, 238, 241, 244-47, 251-54, 256-57,
259-60, 264-66, 275, 283, 287-88
Hummes, Cardinal Claudio, xv
Johnson, Manning, 36
Hitler, 240
Holy Office, 18-19, 22, 37, 57-58, 70, 80,
108, 135, 147, 160, 162, 165, 168-69,
172, 174-77, 242, 247, 261, 265, 280,
285
Honorius, Pope, 149
Humani Generis, 37, 41, 50, 52

Jongen, Father, 21, 165-66
Lepanto, Battle of, 190
Joseph, Metropolitan, 76
Levada, Cardinal William, 102, 137
Joseph de Sainte-Marie, Father, OC, 38,

247
Liberius, Pope, 150
Joshua, 1
Linart, Cardinal, 41
Lima, Magalhes, 10
Jubilee of Politicians, 99, 106
de Lima Vidal, Bishop Joo Evangelista, 7

Lopez, Archbishop Pio, 243
Kachalova, Diana, 196
Louis IV, 112
Kasper, Cardinal Walter, 52-53, 57
Louis XVI, ix, xxix
Keen, Sam, 98
Loureno, Father Inacio, 5-7
Kennedy, John F., 110
de Lubac, Father Henri, 42-44, 67, 69, 280
KGB, 35, 39, 76, 193, 197, 251
Lucy, Sister (Lucia dos Santos), x, xvii, xx,

xxxi, 1-3, 8, 11-23, 25-27, 37-38, 64,
67, 72-73, 78, 85-88, 91-97, 102, 1045, 108-10, 115-16, 118-19, 121-34,
137-45, 152-54, 156, 158-59, 162-67,
169-73, 176, 178-81, 185-86, 188-89,
191, 206, 210, 212-14, 216-17, 22023, 230, 232, 234-36, 239-47, 24952, 255-56, 259-61, 263-66, 273, 277,
279, 282, 284, 286 The Appeals of
the Message of Fatima, 132-33
Kondor, Father, 130

Kondrusiewicz, Archbishop Tadeusz, 77,
193
Korean War, 110, 119
Kozon, Bishop Czeslaw (Lutheran), 34, 70
Kramer, Father Herman B., 84
Kramer, Father Paul Leonard, xxxi, 79, 81,
108, 111, 126, 249
Kng, Father Hans, xvi, 42-45, 52, 69, 138,
281
L
Lacerda, Dr., 94, 245, 247
Lamentabili, 32
La Salette, 24, 117, 140, 245
Laurentin, Abb Ren, 95, 244
Law, Cardinal, 202, 226
League of Nations, 59
Lefebvre, Archbishop Marcel, 46, 58, 101,
103-4
Lenin, Vladimir Ilych, 14, 34, 74, 78-79,
98, 106, 190, 197
Lumen Gentium, 50-51, 57-58, 61

Lutheran-Catholic Accord, 44
M
Magee, Bishop John, 138
Malinkovich, Sergei, 197
Mao Tse-tung, 100
de Marchi, Father John, 6-8, 10-11
Marsaudon, Yves, 45
Marsilius of Padova, 149
Martin, Father Malachi, 154
Martnez Somalo, Archbishop Eduardo,
165
Martins, Father Antonio Maria, 94
Leo II, Pope, 149
Marto, Olimpia, 11
Leo XIII, Pope, 28-29, 34, 39, 58, 105, 114,

243
Marto, Ti, 5, 11-12
liberalism/liberals, 15, 29, 31-33, 41-42,

45-46, 48-49, 67, 69-70, 148, 210, 223
Marxism, 79, 95, 102, 191, 279
Mastrocola, Father, 154

Masonry: see Freemasonry
Index
Maurer, Father Daniel, CJD, 194
Newman, Cardinal, 145, 206, 229
Mayer, Cardinal, 250
new world order, 31, 144, 205
Mazur, Bishop Jerzy, 192
Nikodim, Metropolitan, 39, 76
Mediator Dei, 64
Noelker, Walter, 78, 92, 130, 178
Mediatrix of all graces, 114
Nostra Aetate, 58
Medvedev, Dmitry, 78, 192, 195-96, 199
Notre Charge Apostolique, 49
Melinge, Abb, 34, 70
novissimi, 24, 140, 248-49
Merry del Val, Cardinal Rafael, 33

Metz Pact: see Vatican-Moscow Agreement
Miceli, Father Vincent, 32-33
Michaelappa, Bishop, 252
Michel de la Sainte Trinit, Frre, 13, 1718, 20, 137-38, 145, 158-60, 162, 16769, 173, 180
O
October Revolution, 48
Oddi, Cardinal Silvio, 25, 138, 141, 283
de Oliveira Santos, Arturo, 10-11, 274
Oliveri, Bishop Mario, 46
one-world government, x, xxx, 29
Miracle of the Sun, xvi-xvii, 3-8, 13, 38, 41,

55, 92, 112, 115, 132, 134, 227, 241
one-world religion, x, xix, xxx, 31, 144,

205
Mitrokhin, Vassili, 35, 40
Ortanov, Vladislav, 195
Mitterand, Jacques, 45
Orthodox religions, 52, 55, 58, 68, 89,

91, 120, 136, 148, 205, 211, 279
Russian Orthodox, xiv, 39-40, 75-78,
95, 100, 191-94, 199, 211, 218, 22122, 234, 243, 257
modernism/modernists, 32-33, 37, 40, 4246, 49, 52, 54, 57, 63-64, 67-70, 91,
133, 157, 210, 221 Oath Against
Modernism, 33, 37, 42
Monothelite heresy, 149
Montini, Cardinal, 39, 183
Ostpolitik, xxxii, 40, 58, 81, 98, 101, 106,

109, 136, 193, 211-12, 227, 243, 257
Mortalium Animos, 50, 58
Ottaviani, Cardinal Alfredo, 18, 21, 37,

128, 138, 152, 154, 163, 175-76, 18182, 185, 187, 242, 244, 265-66, 280
Moses, 1, 55, 83
Our Lady of Good Success, Quito, 117
Morris, Bishop Thomas, 61
Moynihan, Robert, 122

Murray, John Courtney, 42
Mystici Corporis, 50, 58
N
Namaan, xvii-xviii
naturalism, 31
Navarro-Valls, Joaquin, 97, 164, 193, 24445, 247, 252
Nestorius, 150-51
Neves, Cardinal, 58
new evangelization, the, 103, 215, 218
New Lies for Old see Golitsyn
P
Paarma, Archbishop Jukka (Lutheran), 34,
70
Pacelli, Cardinal Eugenio, 25, 27
Pacem in Terris, 110
Pacheco, Father, 252
Padiyara, Cardinal, 252
pantheism, 31-32
Paolini, Solideo, 174, 182, 184, 243, 26063, 265
Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 32-33, 43, 49, 67,
156

Pasquale, Father Umberto Maria, SDB, 9394, 138, 245
100, 103, 203

Putin, Vladimir, 78, 192-93, 195-99
Pasqualina, Mother, 168, 175, 265

Paul VI, Pope, xx, 18, 22, 25, 39, 45-48, 60,
62, 64-65, 76, 78, 80, 83, 92-93, 102,
117, 137-38, 154, 157, 160, 162, 165,
174-76, 182-83, 206, 210-12, 214,
221, 234-35, 243-44, 251, 256, 261,
265, 275, 280, 282, 284
Q
Quanta Cura, 31, 48, 148
Quas Primas, 42, 59, 228
Quito: see Our Lady of Good Success
Pauline Sisters, 248

Pelletier, Joseph, 6
Rahner, Karl, 42-44, 57, 69, 280-81
Pereira da Silva, Father, 6
Ranjith, Archbishop Malcolm, 46
Pereira Venncio, Bishop Joo, 18, 20-22,

136, 138, 160, 162, 166, 169, 176,
180-81, 242, 244, 283-85
Petition to the Pope, 229, 233-37 to

obtain copy, 288
Ratzinger, Cardinal Joseph, xv, xix, 18, 24,

26, 38, 43, 47-52, 57-58, 62-63, 67, 70,
73, 86-90, 92, 95-98, 104, 106, 1089, 111-17, 122, 124-28, 133-34, 138,
140, 142-45, 147-48, 150, 158, 161,
164-65, 169, 171, 185-86, 188, 203,
206, 208, 212, 214, 217, 223-24, 244,
247-49, 255-56, 259-61, 265-66, 27980, 283 Jesus Magazine interview
on Third Secret, 248-49, 255 The
Ratzinger Report, 249
Pierro, Bishop Gerardo, 81, 138
Richard, Father, 8
Pius IX, Pope, 28, 31-32, 39, 46-49, 56, 67,

69-70, 105, 147-49, 243
Roberts, Paul Craig, 199
Pius X, Pope: see Saint Pius X
Roche, Monsignor, 25, 39
Pius XI, Pope, xvii, 2, 15, 17, 25, 33, 38-39,

42, 47-48, 50, 58-60, 105, 109, 117,
201, 243
Roland, Gilbert, 8
perestroika, 80, 111

periti, 41, 45-46, 51, 57
Permanent Instruction: see Alta Vendita
Pestana, Eugenia, 95
Pius XII, Pope, 15, 22, 25-28, 37, 41-42,

50-52, 57-58, 60, 62, 65, 67-70, 72,
93-94, 105-6, 129, 137-39, 142, 15556, 160, 168, 176, 200, 210, 228, 235,
240, 242-43, 265, 278, 280-81
Politi, Marco, 162, 181
Pontifical Council of the Laity, 77
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity, 53, 58
Roca, Canon, 34, 36, 40, 69-70, 278
Roman Curia, 41, 80-81, 136, 162, 211,

259
Romero, Enrique, 95, 250
Roncalli, Cardinal, 37
Rosicrucianism, 34, 278
Ruffini, Cardinal, 37
Russian Orthodox see Orthodox religions
Russian Revolution, 191
Russo, Mariagrazia, 175
Popian, Father Linus Dragu, 58

Portalupi, Archbishop Sante, 38, 94, 247
Pouilly, Jean, 149
Prelot, Marcel, 46
Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), 99-
S
Sacrorum antistitum, 33
Saint Agnes, 66
Saint Alphonsus, 224
Saint Athanasius, 150-51, 157, 206
Index
Saint Augustine, 79-80, 206, 232
Schmidt, Pastor, 51
Saint Basil, 104, 206

Saint Bernard, 30
Schweigl, Father Joseph, SJ, 22, 138-39,

167, 176, 242
Saint Felix III, Pope, 209, 231
Scott, Sir Walter, 97
Saint Gertrude, 114
Second Council of Lyons, 233
Saint Gregory Barbarigo, 18, 183, 284
Second Vatican Council, xiv, xvi-xvii, xixxx, 27-29, 33-35, 39-53, 57-63, 65-72,
76-77, 80, 100, 103-6, 110, 113, 117,
120, 135, 148-49, 152-53, 157, 180,
185-86, 203, 208, 210-11, 214, 217,
223, 233-34, 237, 243-44. 266, 280-81
a pastoral Council, 61-62, 153
Saint Gregory the Great, Pope, xi, xxxi, 231

Saint Ignatius, 230
Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, 144
Saint Jerome, 56
Saint John, 83, 145, 149
Saint John Bosco, 113
Saint John Gualberto, 225-27
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, 112-14
Saint Mary Magdalene, 28, 54, 155, 235
Saint Maximilian Kolbe, 81
Saint Paul, 54, 79, 104, 113-14, 150, 231
Saint Peter, 28-30, 150
Saint Peter Damian, 225
St. Petersburg Communist Party, 197
Saint Philip Benitius, 114
Saint Pius V, Pope, 88
Saint Pius X, Pope, 32-33, 39, 41-43, 45,
49, 67-68, 70, 105, 148, 156, 243
Saint Robert Bellarmine, 69, 209
Saint Thomas Aquinas, xx-xxi, 69, 79, 191,
206, 208-9, 232
Sakharov, Andrei, 198
Salazar, Antonio, 14-15
Sanchez, Cardinal, 23, 137, 252-54, 257
dos Santos, Antonio, 11
dos Santos, Carolina, 251
dos Santos, Maria Rosa, 11
dos Santos Valinho, Father Jos, 129, 141
Satis Cognitum, 58
Shams, Abdul, 98
Schillebeeckx, Father Edward, 42-43, 51,
57, 69
Secret of Fatima, the Great, 2, 9, 11-12,

22, 24, 26, 39, 91, 105, 108, 115, 121,
134, 143, 152, 157, 161, 163, 165,
171, 181, 241, 274
Secretariat/Secretary of State, Vatican, xv,
xix, xxx, xxxii, 18, 28, 40-41, 44, 58,
80-82, 85, 88-90, 97, 105, 107, 111,
118-22, 134-38, 165, 173, 176-79,
185, 187-89, 194, 201-2, 205, 209-17,
219-20, 223, 225, 231, 233, 235-36,
250-55, 257-58, 260, 263-64, 266, 285
Sepe, Archbishop, 252-54, 257
Seper, Cardinal Franjo, 165
Sergian Adaptation: see Adaptation, the
Sergius, Metropolitan, 75-76, 78, 100
the Appeal of Sergius, 75-76
Serrou, Robert, 167-68
SIDIC: see International Jewish-Christian
Documentation Service
Signum magnum, 83
da Silva Santos, Alfredo, 4-5
Sillon movement, 49
da Silva, Archbishop (Gurza): see Ferreira
da Silva, Bishop (Leiria-Fatima): see Alves
Silvestrini, Cardinal, 98, 212
Singulari Quadem, 56
Slipyj, Cardinal Josyf, 244
Socci, Antonio, xv-xvi, 18-19, 24, 126,
133, 141, 143, 158, 163, 172-79, 18188, 190, 203-4, 209, 212-14, 231-36,
244, 261-63, 265 preventative
interpretation, 212-13 The Fourth

Secret of Fatima, xv, 18-19, 24, 126,
133, 141, 163, 173, 177-79, 203, 209,
233, 244, 261, 263
socialism, 14, 29, 34
Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), 58, 66-67,
101-3, 106, 186, 203, 209, 221-22
Sodano, Cardinal Angelo, xv, xix, xxxii, 44,
81-82, 85-90, 92, 95-99, 102-3, 106,
111, 114, 116, 119-22, 126, 129-30,
138, 142-45, 161, 171, 173, 185, 18890, 201, 205, 211-15, 217, 231, 233,
255-56, 258-60, 265
de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, Bishop Serafim,
82, 86, 121
Soviet Union, 91, 116, 191, 195-97, 243,
279
Spanish Civil War, 15
SSPX: see Society of St. Pius X
Stalin, Josef, 17, 75-76, 78, 89, 98, 100,
107, 186, 192, 196-99
Stalinization of the Catholic Church, 75,
79, 103
The Last Visionary of Fatima see Bertone

The Message of Fatima (TMF), xxxii, 86-92,
96-97, 107-11, 113-16, 118-19, 12227, 129-30, 133-34, 141, 144, 147,
161, 163, 169-71, 174-75, 177-78,
180-81, 185, 188, 212-13, 217, 220,
224, 255-56, 279
Third Council of Constantinople, 149
Third Secret of Fatima, xv, xvii, xx, xxxii, 3,
17-26, 37-39, 73, 82, 84-89, 92, 96-97,
105-12, 116-19, 121-23, 125-26, 12829, 132-33, 137-45, 151-58, 160-69,
171-75, 177-90, 201, 203-5, 208-14,
216-17, 219-21, 223, 225, 227, 23236, 240-48, 250-51, 253, 255-57, 25966, 277, 283-84, 286
Tinsmith, 3, 10
Tisserant, Cardinal Eugene, 39
TMF: see The Message of Fatima
Tomko, Cardinal Jozef, 76-77
Tornielli, Andrea, 39, 88
della Torre, Count, 183
State of the World Forum, 98, 106
Tosatti, Marco, 154
Steiner, Rudolph, 34, 278
Trent: see Council of Trent
Stickler, Cardinal, 250
Tridentine Profession of Faith: see Council

of Trent
Suarez, Francisco, 209

Suenens, Cardinal, 44, 45, 48
Suhard, Cardinal, 43
Summorum Pontificum, xx, 65, 100, 230,
237
Syllabus of Errors, 31-32, 46, 48-49, 67, 69,
148
Syllabus of Modern Errors, 32
synarchy, 29
Trilateral Commission, 109

Trinitarian Theophany, 13
U
Ubi Arcano Dei, 59-60, 201
Unam Sanctam, 53, 191
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR):
see Soviet Union
United Nations, 89, 134, 199
syncretism, 29
Urban II, Pope, 30
T
Talantov, Boris, 75-76
useful idiots, 136, 190

Ut Unum Sint, 58-59
Tara, Vasana, 110

Tavares, Msgr. Paulo Jos, 175-76
The Appeals of the Message of Fatima: see
Lucy
V
Valdrini, Patrick, 101
Valinho, Father Jose dos Santos, SDB, 138
Index
Vatican I: see First Vatican Council
Vatican II: see Second Vatican Council
Vatican-Moscow Agreement (Metz Pact),
39-40, 72, 76, 102, 105, 107, 185
Venncio, Bishop: see Pereira Venncio
Venezia, Bishop Pasquale, 138, 250
Vietnam War, 219, 243
Villot, Cardinal Jean, xix, 58, 80-81, 211
W
Waldensians, 149
Walsh, William Thomas, 10, 241
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 111
world brotherhood, xix, 31, 60, 68-69, 134,
201
Wojtyla see John Paul II
World Day of Prayer for Peace, 200
World Health Organization, 199
World War I, xvii, 38, 117, 241
World War II, xvii, 8, 15, 17, 38-39, 42, 91,
110, 117, 124, 129, 212, 219, 229, 240
World Youth Days, 103
Wycislo, Bishop Aloysius J., 41-42
Y
Yalowitz, Kenneth, 198
Yeltsin, Boris, 192, 195
Z
Zangrando, Alessandro, 88
The three seers of FatimaBlessed Jacinta Marto, Blessed

Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santosphotographed in front of the
Marto house several days before October 13, 1917, the date on which
the Miracle of the Sun occurred.
A photograph of part of the 70,000 witnesses as they are actually

observing the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13, 1917.
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_photo_insert.pdf
II
The first chapel of Our Lady of Fatima built on the exact spot where
Our Lady appeared. It was dynamited by anti-Catholic forces in Portugal
on March 6, 1922. The photograph above shows the hole in the roof
from the explosion. Providentially, the original statue of Our Lady of
Fatima, which was normally housed in this chapel and is pictured on
page IV of this photo section, was not in the chapel at the time.
Arturo de Oliveira Santos, the

Mayor of Ourem, who personally
kidnapped the Fatima seers and
had them imprisoned in August
1917, threatening the children
with execution if they did not
reveal the Secret the Virgin Mary
told them. They refused to give
in to the threat and were finally
released.
The window of the jail where the

Mayor of Ourem imprisoned the three
children.
Millions of pilgrims continue to come to Fatima each year. Pictured above is an aerial
view of the piazza in front of the Fatima Basilica. More than one million people were
present there when Pope Paul VI (seen inside the white circle) visited Fatima on May 13,
1967, the 50th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. Similarly, large
crowds of pilgrims came to Fatima when Pope John Paul II visited there on May 13 of
1982, 1991 and 2000.
III
IV
The statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which was carved according to

the descriptions of the three child seers, is carried in procession on
May 13th to the delight and joy of hundreds of thousands of devoted
pilgrims who fill the plaza. Seen below is another picture of the
procession and, in the background, the Fatima Basilica.
Bishop da Silva was entrusted

with the Third Secret of Fatima which
contained the words of Our Lady. Her
words followed the etc in the phrase
In Portugal the dogma of the faith
will always be preserved etc. Sister
Lucy put in the etc to hold the place
for the rest of Our Ladys words. The
words of Our Lady were written down
by Sister Lucy under obedience to
Bishop da Silva, placed in an envelope
and delivered to the bishop on June
17, 1944. Bishop da Silva took Sister
Lucys envelope containing Our Ladys
words in the Third Secret and placed
that envelope into a larger envelope, on
which he wrote:
Este envelope com o seu
conteudo sera entregue a Sua
Eminencia O Sr. Cardeal D.
Manuel, Patriarca de Lisboa,
depois da minha morte.
Leiria, 8 Dezembro de 1945
Jose, Bispo de Leiria.
This envelope with its
contents shall be entrusted to His
Eminence, his Lordship Cardinal
Don
Manuel
[Cerejeira],
Patriarch of Lisbon, after my
death.
Leiria, December 8, 1945
Jose, Bishop of Leiria.
This photograph appeared in
the January 3, 1949 edition of Life
magazine.
VI
Pope Pius XII revealed

that in the Message of
Fatima Our Lady warned
the Church against the
suicide of altering the
Faith, in Her liturgy, Her
theology and Her soul.
This is further explained
on pages 36-37, 92-100,
104, 195 and 219-220.
In his widely-acclaimed, insightful

book Athanasius and the Church of Our
Time published in 1974, Bishop Rudolph
Graber, of Regensburg, Germany, a
Professor of Theology since 1941 and
consecrated a bishop in 1962, recounts
the avowed aims of the Churchs
enemies to destroy the Church through
the means of an ecumenical Council.
He
quotes
the
excommunicated,
revolutionary priest Canon Roca who
foretold of a Council that would usher
in a new religion, new dogma, new
ritual, new priesthood. Bishop Graber
also quotes the Masonic Rosicrucian
Dr. Rudolph Steiner who declared
in 1910, We need a council and a
Pope to proclaim it. Bishop Graber,
commenting on these predictions,
remarks A few years ago this was still
inconceivable to us, but today...?
VII
Father Joaquin Alonso (above), who held doctorates in theology

and philosophy from the Gregorian University in Rome and who was
professor of theology in Rome, Madrid and Lisbon, was the official
archivist at Fatima for 16 years, having been appointed by the Bishop
of Fatima to prepare the critical and definitive study of Fatima. He
is probably the foremost expert on Fatima of our time. Yet Father
Edouard Dhanis, one of the authors of the infamous, notorious and
scandalous Dutch Catechism, and who made a veritable career out of
trying to debunk the Fatima message, was the only Fatima expert
mentioned by the former Cardinal Ratzinger in the June 26, 2000
document, The Message of Fatima.
Father Alonso ( 1981) had many interviews with Sister Lucy, the
lone surviving seer of Fatima. (She died on February 13, 2005.) He tells
us that according to Sister Lucy, The conversion of Russia is not to be
limited to the return of the Russian Peoples to the Orthodox Christian
religion, rejecting the Marxist atheism of the Soviets, but rather, it
refers purely, plainly and simply to the total, integral conversion of
Russia to the one true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church.
VIII
Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani

was the head of the Vaticans
Holy Office during the reigns
of Popes Pius XII, John XXIII
and Paul VI. He read the Third
Secret, and confirmed that it
was written on one sheet of
paper.
He
also
interviewed
Sister Lucy on behalf of Pope
Pius XII. He confirmed that
the Third Secret of Fatima
is a true prophecy. He also
confirmed that the Neues
Europa
report
contained
some of the substance of the
Third Secret (see pages 216217 and footnote 341). In that
report we read, Cardinal
will oppose Cardinal and
bishop will oppose bishop,
obviously referring to a doctrinal crisis of Faith, causing a clash
between those prelates who remain steadfast in the Faith and those
prelates who do not.
It was Cardinal Ottaviani who, prior to Vatican II, rightly suppressed
modernist theologians such as Father Karl Rahner. Yet Father Rahner,
shown below at the Council with a young Father Joseph Ratzinger, was
among the progressivist theologians who gave the decisive orientation
to Vatican II. Rahner never changed his progressivist views.
IX
Liberal theologians such as Karl Rahner (see previous page), Yves

Congar (left) and Henri de Lubac (right) saw their writings suppressed
during the reign of Pope Pius XII. In the 1960s, however, these same
modernist theologians opinions were given widespread influence
at Vatican Council II.
Two other liberal, modernist theologians: Fathers Dominique

Chenu (left) and Hans Kng (right) at the time of Vatican II.
Sister Maria Lucia of the Immaculate Heart (Sister Lucy),

photographed at Fatima during the pilgrimage of Pope Paul VI on
May 13, 1967. She entered the Carmel of Coimbra on Holy Thursday,
1948, and remained there until her death on February 13, 2005. It is
around the time of this photo that Sister Lucy, in her private letters,
speaks about the diabolical disorientation of certain persons in
the Church who have great responsibility. She also speaks about the
same persons as blind and leaders of the blind and those doing
evil under the guise of good. For more details about Sister Lucys
remarks about misguided members of the hierarchy, see pages 36
and 105.
XI
Silvio Cardinal Oddi
Mario Luigi Cardinal Ciappi
Cardinal Oddi tells us that the Third Secret of Fatima was

alerting us against the apostasy in the Church. Cardinal Ciappi tells
us that in the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the
great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top. In other words,
the apostasy will be spread from the Vatican to various parts of the
Church (see page 198).
Pope John Paul II tells us
that the Fatima Message is a
warning against the Catholic
Faith
being
undermined
from within the Church and
for us to be on our guard
against the apostate stars of
Heaven (Apoc. 12:4) in our
time (see pages 198-200).
John Paul II is also warning
us against the apostasy in the
Church today.
Pope John Paul II

Bishop Joao Venancio, the
second Bishop of Leiria-Fatima,
testifies as an eyewitness that the
text of the Third Secret is on one
sheet of paper with margins of 3/4
of a centimeter on both sides of the
page with approximately 25 lines
of text (see page 29). It is obviously
not what was released by Cardinal
Ratzinger and Archbishop Bertone
on June 26, 2000, since their text
was 62 lines with no margins.
Bishop Joao Venancio
XII
What follows are translations (and true copiessee pages XIII and
XIV of this photo section) of the contemporaneous documentation of
Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla, personal secretary to Pope John XXIII,
confirming the existence of the Capovilla envelope pertaining to the
Third Secret of Fatima, which was kept in the papal apartment. Cardinal
Bertone has never produced this envelope, even though Capovillas
evidence has finally forced him to admit its existence.
FAT I M A
A Reserved Note of L.F. Capovilla

17 May 1967
Thursday the 27th of June 1963, I was on duty in the Anticamera in the
Vatican [the outer office where the Pope meets various persons]. Paul VI in
the early morning received among others, Cardinal Fernando Cento (who had
been Papal Nuncio to Portugal) and shortly afterwards the Bishop of Leiria
Monsignor Joao [John] Pereira Venancio. Upon leaving, the Bishop asked for a
special blessing for Sister Lucia.
It is evident that during the audience, they spoke about Fatima. In fact
in the afternoon the Sostituto [the Substitute Secretary of State] Monsignor
Angelo DellAcqua telephoned me on Via Casilina (I was a temporary guest of
the Sisters of the Poverelle):
I am looking for the package [plico] of Fatima. Do you know where it is
kept?
It was in the drawer on the right hand side of the desk, named Barbarigo1,
in the [papal] bedroom.
One hour later DellAcqua called me back: Everything is okay. The
envelope [plico] has been found.
Friday morning (28 June) between one meeting and another Paul VI asked me:
How come on the envelope there is your (Capovillas) name?
John XXIII asked me to write a note regarding how the envelope arrived in his
hands with the names of all those to whom he felt he should make it known.
Did he make any comment?
No, nothing except what I wrote on the outer file [involucro]: I leave it to
others to comment or decide.2
Did he later ever return to the subject?
No, never. However the devotion of Fatima remained alive in him.
1. It is called thus because it belonged to St. Gregory Barbarigo.
The Pope received it as a gift from Co. Gius. Dalla Torre (1960).
2. See the attached diary entry of John XXIII, 10 November 1959.
[See page XIII in this photo section.]
XIII
From John XXIIIs 1959 diary,
Entry for 10 November,
Feast of St. Andrew Avellino
[handwritten entry of John XXIII]
[Photographic reproduction of Archbishop Capovillas typed

transcription of Pope John XXIIIs handwritten entry noted above.
The text below is a translation of Capovillas typewritten copy of
John XXIIIs handwritten original document shown above.]
Interesting conversations with C.S.S. (Cardinal Secretary of State)

in preparation for the consistory1 and with young Bishop of Leiria the
Bishop of Fatima Monsignor J. Pereira Venancio.2 We have spoken at
length of the seer of Fatima, who is now a good religious at Coimbra. The
Holy Office will take care of everything to a good end.
1. Consistory 14-17 December with the creation of eight Cardinals.
2. Joao Pereira Venancio, born 1904, titular Bishop of Eurea
di Epireo 1954 | Bishop of Leiria 1958.
Portion of Certified Confidential Note
of Archbishop Capovilla, 17 May 1969
Also in this photo section, see the rest of this certified note in Italian on
page XIV; see translation of that portion on page XII.
XIV
For the translation of this very important testimony of Archbishop

Loris F. Capovilla, the still-living (as of December 2009) personal
secretary to Pope John XXIII, see page XII of this photo section.
XV
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
The two Third Secret envelopes.

Top and middle: The front and back (showing wax seals) of the Third Secret
envelope #1, bearing Sister Lucys handwritten notation of the express
order of Our Lady that this envelope can only be opened in 1960.
Bottom: Third Secret envelope #2, also bearing Sister Lucys handwritten
warning by express order of Our Lady that also this envelope can
only be opened in 1960.
Cardinal Bertone failed to mention the existence of these two
envelopes, and the express order of Our Lady written on each, at any
time from June 26, 2000 until he showed them on camera during the
telecast of May 31, 2007. Bertone had always represented before May
31, 2007 that there was only one envelope and that Lucy had never
received an order from the Blessed Virgin regarding 1960.
Note the differing lineation of the Portuguese words Nossa Senhora
(Our Lady) in the first two lines of each envelope (see Figures 2 and 3).
XVI
This is the complete text of the prayer of thanksgiving addressed

to Our Lady of Fatima spoken by Pope John Paul II at 4:00 p.m. on
Sunday, March 25, 1984. The text reported here is a photographic
reproduction of the article published in the LOsservatore Romano on
March 26-27, 1984. In the translated section, one can clearly read
that Pope John Paul II knew that he had not fulfilled the request of
Our Lady of Fatima for the Consecration of Russia.
The Most Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin Mary appear
to Sister Lucy in her convent chapel at Tuy on June 13, 1929.
Sister Lucy describes the vision as follows:
Suddenly a supernatural light illumined the whole chapel and on the
altar appeared a cross of light which reached to the ceiling. In a brighter
part could be seen, on the upper part of the Cross, the face of a Man and His
body to the waist. On His breast was an equally luminous Dove, and nailed
to the Cross, the body of another Man.
A little below the waist, suspended in mid-air, was to be seen a Chalice
and a large Host onto which fell some drops of Blood from the face of the
Crucified and from a wound on His breast. These drops ran down over the
Host and fell into the Chalice. Under the right arm of the Cross was Our
Lady [Our Lady of Fatima with Her Immaculate Heart in Her hand] Under
the left arm (of the Cross), some big letters, as if it were crystal-clear water
running down over the altar, formed these words: Grace and Mercy.
Then Our Lady spoke:
The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father to
make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the Consecration of
Russia to My Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_inside_front_back_cover.pdf
In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the Great Apostasy
in the Church will begin at the top.
...Cardinal Luigi Ciappi
The authors of the articles revised and compiled here contend that we are in
the midst of the Great Apostasy: that final conflict for our souls. The evidence in
this book shows that this is taking place now and that it is the substance of the Third
Secret of Fatima. This book is required reading, especially for those who fail to see
the direct connection of the Third Secret with the spiritual impoverishment of the
millennial Church, with current cataclysmic human events, and with the darkened
intellects and moral indifference of clergy, politicians and numerous faithful in the
face of the superhuman evil unleashed among us by Gods adversary, the killer of
souls.
... Father Charles Fiore
Professor Invitatis of the Pontifical University
of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (The Angelicum)
Every Catholic who loves Holy Mother Church and who has suffered with
Her in recent decades must read this book, which offers a clear but alarming vision of where we are, how we got there, and where we are going.
... David Allen White, Ph.D.
Professor emeritus of Literature,
Annapolis Naval Academy
$14.95 in USA
$15.95 in Canada
http://www.devilsfinalbattle.com/book/BookChaptPDF/dfb_front_back_cover.pdf

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Rev

Devils Final Battle

Compiled and Edited by

In the Third Secret (of Fatima) it is foretold, among

The Missionary Association

Copyright 2002 Good Counsel Publications (First Edition)

Please direct any correspondence expressing your concerns, questions

This book is respectfully dedicated to

Kramer, Father Paul, et al.,

Bertone, Cardinal Tarcisio,

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and

Michel de la Sainte Trinit (Frre),

Michel de la Sainte Trinit (Frre),

WTAF, Vol. III

Michel de la Sainte Trinit (Frre),

Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of the errors of

It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed

We must admit realistically and with feelings of deep pain, that

Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to

The Message of Fatima is addressed to every human being.

The Message and the Miracle ............................................................1

The Long Opposition Begins ............................................................12

Heavens Peace Plan in Microcosm ...................................................18

The Third Secret ..............................................................................24

A Motive Emerges ...........................................................................38

The Motive Takes Hold ....................................................................53

The Demolition of Bastions ............................................................91

The Message of Fatima versus the Party Line ................................107

A New Fatima for the New Orientation ....................................119

10 The New Third Secret .................................................................154

The Heart of the Matter

The Devils Final Battle

them, to help save them, that this book continues to be published.

The Heart of the Matter

Foreword to the Second Edition

Foreword to the Second Edition

Angeles Times described as an attempt at gently debunking the cult of

The Devils Final Battle

formal consecrations have been performed, including one that named

Foreword to the Second Edition

central to the Catholic Faith are now being abandonednot by the

The Devils Final Battle

radical transformation behind it.

Foreword to the Second Edition

Hoyos, who no longer serves as Prefect of the Congregation for the

The Devils Final Battle

initiatives by Cardinal Bertone, but with no official Vatican response to

Foreword to the Second Edition

and prophecies is at the heart of the Fatima story. Abandonment of

The Devils Final Battle

and others might well look to the still-unrevealed Third Secret.

Foreword to the Second Edition

to perform some arduous feat to be cured, Naaman would have done

The Devils Final Battle

Editors Note: Among the principal sources of this book are:

The Devils Final Battle

of the Catholic Church. This change of orientation would convert (if it

secret interviews and other forms of pressure in an effort to alter her

The Devils Final Battle