c. 1993
THE THIRD SECRET OF FATIMA
SOURCE: Excerpts from The Message of Fatima as published by
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on
THE
“SECRET” OF Fatima
FIRST
AND SECOND PART OF THE “SECRET”
ACCORDING
TO THE VERSION PRESENTED BY SISTER LUCIA
IN THE “THIRD MEMOIR” OF 31 AUGUST 1941 FOR THE BISHOP OF LEIRIA FATIMA
This will
entail my speaking about the secret, and thus answering the first
question.
What is
the secret? It seems to me that I can reveal it, since I already have
permission from Heaven to do so. God's representatives on earth have
authorized me to do this several times and in various letters, one of
which, I believe, is in your keeping. This letter is from Father José
Bernardo Gonçalves, and in it he advises me to write to the Holy Father,
suggesting, among other things, that I should reveal the secret. I did
say something about it. But in order not to make my letter too long,
since I was told to keep it short, I confined myself to the essentials,
leaving it to God to provide another more favourable opportunity.
In my
second account I have already described in detail the doubt which
tormented me from 13 June until 13 July, and how it disappeared
completely during the Apparition on that day.
Well, the
secret is made up of three distinct parts, two of which I am now going
to reveal.
The first
part is the vision of hell.
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.
(Following
is the Second Part)
We then
looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly:
“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 Pontificate 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
crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of
the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the
consecration of
“J.M.J.
The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on
13 July 1917.
I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through
his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother
and mine.
After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of
Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his
left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would
set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour
that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the
earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance,
Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is
God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass
in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it
was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious
going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of
rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there
the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half
trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed
for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top
of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed
by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the
same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men
and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and
positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each
with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the
blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making
their way to God.
Tuy-3-1-1944”.
INTERPRETATION OF THE “SECRET”
LETTER OF
HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO SISTER LUCIA
To the
Reverend Sister Maria Lucia of the Convent of
In the
great joy of Easter, I greet you with the words the Risen Jesus spoke to
the disciples: “Peace be with you”!
I will
be happy to be able to meet you on the long-awaited day of the
Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, which, please God, I will
celebrate on 13 May of this year.
Since
on that day there will be time only for a brief greeting and not a
conversation, I am sending His Excellency Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone,
Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to speak
with you. This is the Congregation which works most closely with the
Pope in defending the true Catholic faith, and which since 1957, as you
know, has kept your hand-written letter containing the third part of the
“secret” revealed on
Archbishop Bertone, accompanied by the Bishop of Leiria, His Excellency
Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, will come in my name to ask
certain questions about the interpretation of “the third part of the
secret”.
Sister
Maria Lucia, you may speak openly and candidly to Archbishop Bertone,
who will report your answers directly to me.
I pray
fervently to the Mother of the Risen Lord for you, Reverend Sister, for
the Community of Coimbra and for the whole Church. May Mary, Mother of
pilgrim humanity, keep us always united to Jesus, her beloved Son and
our brother, the Lord of life and glory.
With my
special Apostolic Blessing.
IOANNES
PAULUS PP. II
From
the
CONVERSATION
WITH SISTER MARIA LUCIA OF JESUS
AND THE IMMACULATE HEART
The
meeting between Sister Lucia, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent by the Holy Father,
and Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima,
took place on
Sister
Lucia was lucid and at ease; she was very happy that the Holy Father was
going to
The
Bishop of Leiria-Fatima read the autograph letter of the Holy Father,
which explained the reasons for the visit. Sister Lucia felt honoured by
this and reread the letter herself, contemplating it in own her hands.
She said that she was prepared to answer all questions frankly.
At this
point, Archbishop Bertone presented two envelopes to her: the first
containing the second, which held the third part of the “secret” of
The
original text, in Portuguese, was read and interpreted with the help of
the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima. Sister Lucia agreed with the interpretation
that the third part of the “secret” was a prophetic vision, similar to
those in sacred history. She repeated her conviction that the vision of
When
asked: “Is the principal figure in the vision the Pope?”, Sister Lucia
replied at once that it was. She recalled that the three children were
very sad about the suffering of the Pope, and that Jacinta kept saying:
“Coitadinho do Santo Padre, tenho muita pena dos pecadores!”
(“Poor Holy Father, I am very sad for sinners!”). Sister Lucia
continued: “We did not know the name of the Pope; Our Lady did not tell
us the name of the Pope; we did not know whether it was Benedict XV or
Pius XII or Paul VI or John Paul II; but it was the Pope who was
suffering and that made us suffer too”.
As
regards the passage about the Bishop dressed in white, that is, the Holy
Father—as the children immediately realized during the “vision”—who is
struck dead and falls to the ground, Sister Lucia was in full agreement
with the Pope's claim that “it was a mother's hand that guided the
bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of
death” (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to
the Italian Bishops, 13 May 1994).
Before
giving the sealed envelope containing the third part of the “secret” to
the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Sister Lucia wrote on the outside
envelope that it could be opened only after 1960, either by the
Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria. Archbishop Bertone
therefore asked: “Why only after 1960? Was it Our Lady who fixed that
date?” Sister Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date
because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood,
but that only later would it be understood. Now it can be better
understood. I wrote down what I saw; however it was not for me to
interpret it, but for the Pope.
Finally, mention was made of the unpublished manuscript which Sister
Lucia has prepared as a reply to the many letters that come from Marian
devotees and from pilgrims. The work is called Os apelos da Mensagem
de Fatima, and it gathers together in the style of catechesis and
exhortation thoughts and reflections which express Sister Lucia's
feelings and her clear and unaffected spirituality. She was asked if she
would be happy to have it published, and she replied: “If the Holy
Father agrees, then I am happy, otherwise I obey whatever the Holy
Father decides”. Sister Lucia wants to present the text for
ecclesiastical approval, and she hopes that what she has written will
help to guide men and women of good will along the path that leads to
God, the final goal of every human longing. The conversation ends with
an exchange of rosaries. Sister Lucia is given a rosary sent by the Holy
Father, and she in turn offers a number of rosaries made by herself.
The
meeting concludes with the blessing imparted in the name of the Holy
Father.
ANNOUNCEMENT MADE BY CARDINAL ANGELO SODANO
SECRETARY OF STATE
At
the end of the Mass presided over by the Holy Father at Fatima, Cardinal
Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State, made this announcement in
Portuguese, which is given here in English translation:
Brothers and Sisters in the Lord!
At the
conclusion of this solemn celebration, I feel bound to offer our beloved
Holy Father Pope John Paul II, on behalf of all present, heartfelt good
wishes for his approaching 80th Birthday and to thank him for his vital
pastoral ministry for the good of all God's Holy Church; we present the
heartfelt wishes of the whole Church.
On this
solemn occasion of his visit to
That
text contains a prophetic vision similar to those found in Sacred
Scripture, which do not describe photographically the details of future
events, but synthesize and compress against a single background facts
which extend through time in an unspecified succession and duration. As
a result, the text must be interpreted in a symbolic key.
The
vision of
According to the interpretation of the “little shepherds”, which was
also confirmed recently by Sister Lucia, “the Bishop clothed in white”
who prays for all the faithful is the Pope. As he makes his way with
great difficulty towards the Cross amid the corpses of those who were
martyred (Bishops, priests, men and women Religious and many lay
people), he too falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a hail of
gunfire.
After
the assassination attempt of
The
successive events of 1989 led, both in the
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.
Brothers and sisters, let us thank Our Lady of Fatima for her
protection. To her maternal intercession let us entrust the Church of
the Third Millennium.
Sub
tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix! Intercede pro Ecclesia.
Intercede pro Papa nostro Ioanne Paulo II. Amen.
THEOLOGICAL COMMENTARY
by
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith
A
careful reading of the text of the so-called third “secret” of Fatima,
published here in its entirety long after the fact and by decision of
the Holy Father, will probably prove disappointing or surprising after
all the speculation it has stirred. 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. Is this what the Mother of
the Lord wished to communicate to Christianity and to humanity at a time
of great difficulty and distress? Is it of any help to us at the
beginning of the new millennium? Or are these only projections of the
inner world of children, brought up in a climate of profound piety but
shaken at the same time by the tempests which threatened their own time?
How should we understand the vision? What are we to make of it?
Public Revelation and private revelations – their theological status
Before
attempting an interpretation, the main lines of which can be found in
the statement read by Cardinal Sodano on 13 May of this year at the end
of the Mass celebrated by the Holy Father in Fatima, there is a need for
some basic clarification of the way in which, according to Church
teaching, phenomena such as Fatima are to be understood within the life
of faith. The teaching of the Church distinguishes between “public
Revelation” and “private revelations”. The two realities differ not only
in degree but also in essence. The term “public Revelation” refers to
the revealing action of God directed to humanity as a whole and which
finds its literary expression in the two parts of the Bible: the Old and
New Testaments. It is called “Revelation” because in it God gradually
made himself known to men, to the point of becoming man himself, in
order to draw to himself the whole world and unite it with himself
through his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. It is not a matter therefore of
intellectual communication, but of a life-giving process in which God
comes to meet man. At the same time this process naturally produces data
pertaining to the mind and to the understanding of the mystery of God.
It is a process which involves man in his entirety and therefore reason
as well, but not reason alone. Because God is one, history, which he
shares with humanity, is also one. It is valid for all time, and it has
reached its fulfilment in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. In Christ, God has said everything, that is, he has revealed
himself completely, and therefore Revelation came to an end with the
fulfilment of the mystery of Christ as enunciated in the New Testament.
To explain the finality and completeness of Revelation, the Catechism
of the Catholic Church quotes a text of Saint John of the Cross: “In
giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke
everything to us at once in this sole Word—and he has no more to say...
because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken
all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son. Any person questioning
God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of
foolish behaviour but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes
entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other
novelty” (No. 65; Saint John of the Cross,The Ascent of Mount Carmel,
II, 22).
Because
the single Revelation of God addressed to all peoples comes to
completion with Christ and the witness borne to him in the books of the
New Testament, the Church is tied to this unique event of sacred history
and to the word of the Bible, which guarantees and interprets it. But
this does not mean that the Church can now look only to the past and
that she is condemned to sterile repetition. The Catechism of the
Catholic Church says in this regard: “...even if Revelation is
already complete, it has not been made fully explicit; it remains for
Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course
of the centuries” (No. 66). The way in which the Church is bound to both
the uniqueness of the event and progress in understanding it is very
well illustrated in the farewell discourse of the Lord when, taking
leave of his disciples, he says: “I have yet many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will
guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own
authority... He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and
declare it to you” (Jn
In this
context, it now becomes possible to understand rightly the concept of
“private revelation”, which refers to all the visions and revelations
which have taken place since the completion of the New Testament. This
is the category to which we must assign the message of
1. The
authority of private revelations is essentially different from that of
the definitive public Revelation. The latter demands faith; in it in
fact God himself speaks to us through human words and the mediation of
the living community of the Church. Faith in God and in his word is
different from any other human faith, trust or opinion. The certainty
that it is God who is speaking gives me the assurance that I am in touch
with truth itself. It gives me a certitude which is beyond verification
by any human way of knowing. It is the certitude upon which I build my
life and to which I entrust myself in dying.
2.
Private revelation is a help to this faith, and shows its credibility
precisely by leading me back to the definitive public Revelation. In
this regard, Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, the future Pope Benedict XIV,
says in his classic treatise, which later became normative for
beatifications and canonizations: “An assent of Catholic faith is not
due to revelations approved in this way; it is not even possible. These
revelations seek rather an assent of human faith in keeping with the
requirements of prudence, which puts them before us as probable and
credible to piety”. The Flemish theologian E. Dhanis, an eminent scholar
in this field, states succinctly that ecclesiastical approval of a
private revelation has three elements: the message contains nothing
contrary to faith or morals; it is lawful to make it public; and the
faithful are authorized to accept it with prudence (E. Dhanis,Sguardo
su Fatima e bilancio di una discussione, in La Civiltà Cattolica
104 [1953], II, 392-406, in particular 397). Such a message 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.
The
criterion for the truth and value of a private revelation is therefore
its orientation to Christ himself. When it leads us away from him, when
it becomes independent of him or even presents itself as another and
better plan of salvation, more important than the Gospel, then it
certainly does not come from the Holy Spirit, who guides us more deeply
into the Gospel and not away from it. This does not mean that a private
revelation will not offer new emphases or give rise to new devotional
forms, or deepen and spread older forms. But in all of this there must
be a nurturing of faith, hope and love, which are the unchanging path to
salvation for everyone. We might add that private revelations often
spring from popular piety and leave their stamp on it, giving it a new
impulse and opening the way for new forms of it. Nor does this exclude
that they will have an effect even on the liturgy, as we see for
instance in the feasts of
We have
thus moved from the somewhat negative clarifications, initially needed,
to a positive definition of private revelations. How can they be
classified correctly in relation to Scripture? To which theological
category do they belong? The oldest letter of
The
anthropological structure of private revelations
In
these reflections we have sought so far to identify the theological
status of private revelations. Before undertaking an interpretation of
the message of
Interior vision does not mean fantasy, which would be no more than an
expression of the subjective imagination. It means rather that the soul
is touched by something real, even if beyond the senses. It is rendered
capable of seeing that which is beyond the senses, that which cannot be
seen—seeing by means of the “interior senses”. It involves true
“objects”, which touch the soul, even if these “objects” do not belong
to our habitual sensory world. This is why there is a need for an
interior vigilance of the heart, which is usually precluded by the
intense pressure of external reality and of the images and thoughts
which fill the soul. The person is led beyond pure exteriority and is
touched by deeper dimensions of reality, which become visible to him.
Perhaps this explains why children tend to be the ones to receive these
apparitions: their souls are as yet little disturbed, their interior
powers of perception are still not impaired. “On the lips of children
and of babes you have found praise”, replies Jesus with a phrase of
Psalm 8 (v. 3) to the criticism of the High Priests and elders, who had
judged the children's cries of “hosanna” inappropriate (cf. Mt
21:16).
“Interior vision” is not fantasy but, as we have said, a true and valid
means of verification. But it also has its limitations. Even in exterior
vision the subjective element is always present. We do not see the pure
object, but it comes to us through the filter of our senses, which carry
out a work of translation. This is still more evident in the case of
interior vision, especially when it involves realities which in
themselves transcend our horizon. The subject, the visionary, is still
more powerfully involved. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of
representation and consciousness available to him. In the case of
interior vision, the process of translation is even more extensive than
in exterior vision, for the subject shares in an essential way in the
formation of the image of what appears. He can arrive at the image only
within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions
therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are
influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving
subject.
This
can be demonstrated in all the great visions of the saints; and
naturally it is also true of the visions of the children at
An
attempt to interpret the “secret” of
The
first and second parts of the “secret” of
Thus we
come finally to the third part of the “secret” of
“To
save souls” has emerged as the key word of the first and second parts of
the “secret”, and the key word of this third part is the threefold cry:
“Penance, Penance, Penance!” The beginning of the Gospel comes to mind:
“Repent and believe the Good News” (Mk
Let us
now examine more closely the single images. The angel with the flaming
sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the
Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgement which looms
over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to
ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with
his inventions, has forged the flaming sword. The vision then shows the
power which stands opposed to the force of destruction—the splendour of
the Mother of God and, stemming from this in a certain way, the summons
to penance. In this way, the importance of human freedom is underlined:
the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the
children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing
can be changed. Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring
freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. The
purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed
future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the
forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally
discount fatalistic explanations of the “secret”, such as, for example,
the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an
instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not
therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation.
Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from
them.
The
next phrases of the text show very clearly once again the symbolic
character of the vision: God remains immeasurable, and is the light
which surpasses every vision of ours. Human persons appear as in a
mirror. We must always keep in mind the limits in the vision itself,
which here are indicated visually. The future appears only “in a mirror
dimly” (1 Cor
At this
point human persons appear: the Bishop dressed in white (“we had the
impression that it was the Holy Father”), other Bishops, priests, men
and women Religious, and men and women of different ranks and social
positions. The Pope seems to precede the others, trembling and suffering
because of all the horrors around him. Not only do the houses of the
city lie half in ruins, but he makes his way among the corpses of the
dead. The Church's path is thus described as a Via Crucis, as a
journey through a time of violence, destruction and persecution. The
history of an entire century can be seen represented in this image. Just
as the places of the earth are synthetically described in the two images
of the mountain and the city, and are directed towards the cross, so too
time is presented in a compressed way. In the vision we can recognize
the last century as a century of martyrs, a century of suffering and
persecution for the Church, a century of World Wars and the many local
wars which filled the last fifty years and have inflicted unprecedented
forms of cruelty. In the “mirror” of this vision we see passing before
us the witnesses of the faith decade by decade. Here it would be
appropriate to mention a phrase from the letter which Sister Lucia wrote
to the Holy Father on 12 May 1982: “The third part of the ‘secret'
refers to Our Lady's words: ‘If not, [Russia] 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'”.
No
Immutable Destiny
In the
Via Crucis of an entire century, the figure of the Pope has a
special role. In his arduous ascent of the mountain we can undoubtedly
see a convergence of different Popes. Beginning from Pius X up to the
present Pope, they all shared the sufferings of the century and strove
to go forward through all the anguish along the path which leads to the
Cross. In the vision, the Pope too is killed along with the martyrs.
When, after the attempted assassination on 13 May 1981, the Holy Father
had the text of the third part of the “secret” brought to him, was it
not inevitable that he should see in it his own fate? He had been very
close to death, and he himself explained his survival in the following
words: “... it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in
his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (
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. It is a consoling vision, which seeks to open a
history of blood and tears to the healing power of God. Beneath the arms
of the cross angels gather up the blood of the martyrs, and with it they
give life to the souls making their way to God. Here, the blood of
Christ and the blood of the martyrs are considered as one: the blood of
the martyrs runs down from the arms of the cross. The martyrs die in
communion with the Passion of Christ, and their death becomes one with
his. For the sake of the body of Christ, they complete what is still
lacking in his afflictions (cf.
And so
we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the “secret” of
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 world—because, thanks to her Yes,
God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The Evil
One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he
has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from
God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human
freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has
the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In
the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the
world” (Jn
+JosephCard.
Ratzinger
Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith
Excerpts from The Message of Fatima as published by
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on