Fatima debate: Some say 'third secret' is still secret

cns ^ | May 10, 2010 | John Thavis

[NYer]

Fatima debate: Some say 'third secret' is still secret

A woman places a candle in an area where pilgrims leave candles and wax figures at the Marian shrine in Fatima, Portugal, in this 2005 file photo. (CNS/Paul Haring)

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Ten years after the Vatican divulged one of the church's best-kept secrets -- the third part of the message of Fatima -- a small band of skeptics and critics are still questioning the official explanation.

More than 100 of them gathered at a hotel not far from the Vatican in early May for a weeklong conference on such topics as "Fatima and the Global Economic Crisis," "The Present Need for the Consecration of Russia" and "Is There a Missing Text of the Third Secret?"

For those in attendance, the answer to that last question is a no-brainer.

"The evidence points to only one conclusion: that something has to be missing," said Christopher A. Ferrara, a U.S. attorney and Catholic commentator who spoke at the conference.

Ferrara pointed to what he described as a series of incongruities and inconsistencies in the Vatican's version. Among people truly familiar with the events at Fatima, he said, only a minority "cling steadfastly to the notion that an ambiguous vision of a bishop dressed in white outside a half-ruined city is all there is to the third secret."

That's the heart of the question for people in the "Fatima Challenge" movement. They argue that the third secret of Fatima was a prophecy so traumatic and dire that several popes decided not to make it known to the faithful, and yet the text published in 2000 contained little more than an allegory about the church's past struggles with 20th-century ideologies.

They say there's good reason to believe the third secret wasn't just about the church battling outside forces, but about Satan working in the church -- at the highest levels. Some have deduced that the secret foresaw the changes of the Second Vatican Council, especially in liturgy and ecumenical dialogue, as part of the "great apostasy" which church leaders refuse to acknowledge.

Most recently, several of these "diehard Fatimists" -- as a Vatican official once described them -- have suggested that the priestly sex abuse crisis in the church is a clear sign of the crisis of faith and pastoral negligence prophesied, they say, by Mary at Fatima.

The conference took place a few days before Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Fatima, and organizers went out of their way to invite the pope and Vatican officials. None showed up. The pope's Vatican aides consider the "Fatimists" a fringe element that is best ignored.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, has said one of the reasons the third secret was made public in 2000 was that people were spreading "absurd theses" about catastrophic events or heresy at the top levels of the church.

Cardinal Bertone, who was personally involved in the publication of the third secret, said he was puzzled that some still think the Vatican is hiding something. In 2006, an Italian journalist wrote a book titled "The Fourth Secret of Fatima" that laid out a Vatican conspiracy theory, prompting a new round of publicity.

In 2007, Cardinal Bertone wrote his own book, "The Last Visionary of Fatima," which reiterated the official version of the Fatima messages and secrets and was based, he said, on long conversations with Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, the last of the visionaries to die. In TV appearances, the cardinal strongly denied theories of a Vatican cover-up.

Pope Benedict was also personally involved in publishing the third secret. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's top doctrinal official, he presented the text of the secret to the press and wrote a lengthy commentary about it.

That news conference on June 26, 2000, is still memorable for Vatican journalists. The stage was set for disclosure of a text that for decades was thought to be too disturbing to reveal. But instead, Cardinal Ratzinger began by deflating expectations and announcing that there was nothing apocalyptic.

"No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled," he said. He went on to give a theological framework to the apparitions and messages of Fatima, insisting that in the church's tradition, "prophecy" is not like a "film preview," but more like offering signs that can be useful for Christians.

Cardinal Ratzinger said that was how to understand the third secret's vision of a "bishop in white" who struggles up a hill amid corpses of slain martyrs, and then falls dead after being shot by soldiers. Whether this bishop symbolized Pope John Paul II, who was shot and wounded on May 13, 1981, or a "convergence" of several 20th-century pontiffs who helped the church ward off the dangers, it doesn't mean someone must be killed, the cardinal said.

That explanation still sticks in the craw of "Fatimists," who say it deliberately removes the vision's apocalyptic scenario and lulls the faithful into a false sense of security. The Vatican's version, they say, suggests these problems are behind the church, when in their view the worst is yet to come.

Father Nicholas Gruner, a Canadian priest who founded "The Fatima Crusader" magazine, has long maintained that Russia has yet to be consecrated to Mary in accordance with the instructions of Our Lady of Fatima.

"We haven't had the conversion of Russia by any stretch of the imagination -- not militarily, not morally. It's the largest abortion capital of the world.... There's just no sign of conversion in any sense," Father Gruner said in Rome May 6.

That's another issue the Vatican is tired of dealing with. Church officials say Pope John Paul II in 1984 led the world's bishops in the consecration of Russia and the world. The late Sister Lucia, one of the three Portuguese children who saw Mary in 1917 and the one who received the instructions for the consecration, had said that it was properly performed.

The Fatima messages are not dogma, and the church does not impose belief or any single interpretation. That seems to ensure that the "Fatimists" will continue to broadcast their theories to whoever will listen.

[Pyro7480]

Fr Gruner in the habitually tardy fashion of the Vatican and the Bishops has since been removed from the priesthood and excommunicated

From what I understand (I could be wrong), a bishop in India reinstated Father Gruner.

[steve86]

I still haven’t located any even purported statement of fact that Father Gruner was excommunicated or reinstated, for that matter. I do know of the incardination by the bishop in Hyderabad. I know also of the threat of excommunication from Cardinal Hoyos in 2000. That this threat came about in 2000 means that he could not have been excommunicated earlier. He has never been excommunicated, but relations with the Vatican have been perpetually strained.

[Sporaticus]

I still haven’t located any even purported statement of fact that Father Gruner was excommunicated or reinstated, for that matter. I do know of the incardination by the bishop in Hyderabad. I know also of the threat of excommunication from Cardinal Hoyos in 2000. That this threat came about in 2000 means that he could not have been excommunicated earlier. He has never been excommunicated, but relations with the Vatican have been perpetually strained.


Why didnt you state this before instead of off the bat being confrontational and hateful. I am always open to correction , but not in your purposefully rude style!

I suggest you read 'The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America' by David Carlin instead of clinging to , in my opinion, false but good sounding arguments for the collapse of the Church that revolve around changes in the Mass and Vat II. The traditionalist view of the collapse provides only partial or half-truths in this area. David Carlin , a Catholic, former Democrat Poliitcian(decades ago; renounces it now), Professor of Sociology, really nails it in describing what happened. I've read many books describing Vat II and the aftermath, most books name the personalities involved and their agendas. Carlins book describes it from a sociological perspective which really nails it towards the reasons, the causes and the currents. It has gravitas and is more than simply waving the hands and stating that it was changes to the liturgy or guitar masses,et al. which are incomplete but sound good
http://www.amazon.com/Decline-Fall-Catholic-Church-America/dp/1928832792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273609573&sr=8-1

I also suggest changing your life to receive the Eucharist and to be a part of Catholic life instead of just an intellectual involvement. Somehow your involvement with Catholicism seems charged with enough energy(as evidenced by your hostility to me), but its less than half.

Good Day!

[steve86]

I will look up the book and its reviews, if any, on Amazon. Thanks for the reference. It sounds as though you are capable of authoring an interesting review — have you written one? Good day.

[steve86]

I do have to respond to the second part of your reply. My life doesn’t need to be “changed”; I just need to attend confession (probably at an FSSP parish in the next state). This is not necessarily an easily facilitated thing after all that time and considering my disagreements with the modern church. I am involved with the church with respect to getting our two girls (we are guardians) baptized and through First Communion and taken to religious education all those years in-between (while holding my nose at the Novus parish). We do attend a Tridentine Mass when offered nearby.

[Sporaticus]

I will look up the book and its reviews, if any, on Amazon. Thanks for the reference. It sounds as though you are capable of authoring an interesting review — have you written one?


I have well over a hundred Catholic titles from Amazon in my library,a large part of it unread, seems my collecting habit is currently larger than my reading habit. Only recently have I attempted to do some reviews, more as a marker to what I already own and/or read. I've been tempted to do a review of The Decline and Fall... but really to do a good review in competition with the others, I either have to take notes, up my outlining or read the book twice. Consequently most of my reviews are quite lightweight, unless I'm among the first to review a book. The reviews for the David Carlin book are excellent on Amazon. Let me know in the future if you have read this and what you thought. It certainly has the ability to twist around some of your thinking a bit. An excellent overlay of structured thinking & truth!

http://www.amazon.com/Decline-Fall-Catholic-Church-America/dp/1928832792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273618545&sr=8-1

[steve86]

Far be it from me to disagree with the premise that the decline in certain areas of the church is part of a broader sociological phenomenon. I think that definitely is the case...i.e. modernism; liberalism. But clearly what smacks some of us in the face is the changes in Liturgy, etc.

[steve86]

Are you really in Ireland? How cool! Hope that ash leaves you alone!