Pope Reopens File on Third Secret of Fatima

(Posted May 17, 2010, www.RemnantNewspaper.com) I have just returned from Rome where I delivered a talk at the “Fatima Challenge” conference on

“33 Reasons” for the existence of a missing text of the Third Secret of Fatima—a text that would explain the ambiguous vision, published June 26, 2000, of a “bishop dressed in white” who is executed atop a hill outside a half-ruined city filled with dead bodies.

My own contribution aside, Father Nicholas Gruner’s Fatima apostolate must be given credit for one of the most professionally mounted and substantively important conferences the Church has witnessed in recent years. Part of my talk addressed a development at the conference: some major slip-ups by the Vaticanist Giuseppe De Carli, who appeared to defend the “official version” of events maintained by the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

According to Bertone, what the former Cardinal Ratzinger called the “difficult to decipher” vision is all there is to the Third Secret, Our Lady had nothing to say by way of explanation, and the vision—as Bertone “interprets” it—represents merely 20^th century events culminating in the failed attempt on the life of John Paul II in 1981.

But, in response to my questions following his presentation, De Carli conceded that Bertone’s version is not at all the “official” version of the Church—of which there is none—but only the Cardinal’s opinion on the matter in the privately published book on which De Carli collaborated with the Cardinal, The Last Visionary of Fatima (L’Ultima Veggente di Fatima).

Further, I confronted De Carli concerning Bertone’s failure to produce the now famous “Capovilla envelope”—the envelope on which Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla, personal secretary to John XXIII, had written many historic notations concerning the text of the Secret inside, including the dictation of Pope John. After I pressed him repeatedly, De Carli suggested that Bertone had produced the envelope during his television appearance on the Italian talk show Porta a Porta on May 31, 2007, but had simply failed to turn it around so that we could see Capovilla’s notations on the back.

But, during his appearance on Porta a Porta, Bertone did turn the envelope around, and we have the still shots and video to prove it. On the back of that envelope there is no writing of any kind, but only a lone wax seal placed there by the Bishop of Fatima more than 60 years ago. Confronted with this fact, De Carli retreated to the position that it was his “distinct impression” (“la mia impressione netta”) that the “Capovilla envelope” and the “Bertone envelope” are the same. Yet they are manifestly not the same, and the Capovilla envelope has manifestly never been shown to the world. And neither, therefore, has the text it contains—the very text we seek.

And now none other than Pope Benedict XVI—only days after the Fatima Challenge conference in Rome—has clearly and deliberately reopened the entire Third Secret controversy! During the Pope’s flight to Portugal for his just completed papal visit to the Fatima Shrine, papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi read to His Holiness three questions that represented a “synthesis” of the questions to which the press pool sought answers. In answering these questions, as John Allen notes, the Pope “was hardly caught off-guard. The Vatican asks reporters travelling with the pope to submit questions for the plane several days in advance, so Benedict has plenty of time to ponder what he wants to say. If he takes a question on the plane, it’s because he wants to talk about it, and he’s chosen his words carefully.”

In other words, the Pope wanted to talk about the Third Secret of Fatima, ten years after the subject was supposedly laid to rest. Here is the pre-selected question and the pertinent portions of the Pope’s explosive answer:

Now, it is obvious that the vision of “the bishop dressed white” does not depict an attack on the Pope and the Church from enemies within, but rather the execution of (apparently) a future Pope by a band of soldiers outside the half-ruined city, followed by the execution of bishops, priests and members of the laity in a train of martyrs, not sinners, whose blood is gathered up by the angel who appears in the vision. Only one thing could harmonize the vision with the internal subversion of the Church to which Benedict refers: a text in which the Virgin explains how a crisis within the Church leads to a chastisement of the Pope and the Church as seen in the vision, probably accompanied by a chastisement of the whole world, as the half-ruined city filled with bodies would indicate. (Tellingly, at the Fatima Challenge conference De Carli referred to the bodies as carbonizzati—charred! Where did he acquire that detail?)

It would seem, then, that we are dealing with a missing text that would predict a great chastisement having to do with the telltale phrase that both Sodano and Bertone have avoided like the plague for the past ten years: “In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, etc”—the “etc” having been added by Sister Lucia to indicate a precious message-warning from the Virgin in the words that follow. This is the phrase the Vatican commentary on the vision suspiciously evades by drawing the text of the Message of Fatima from Sister Lucia’s Third Memoir rather than the Fourth Memoir in which she added to the integral text of the Message the momentous reference to Portugal and the dogma of the Faith. Even more suspiciously, the Vatican commentary consigns that reference to a footnote, describing it as “some annotations” by Lucia, when it clearly contains a direct quotation of the Mother of God.

In that same commentary, the former Cardinal Ratzinger hewed to the “party line” dictated by the Secretary of State—then Cardinal Sodano, now Bertone. In his own contribution to the commentary Cardinal Ratzinger said quite the opposite of what he now says as Pope Benedict: “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.” The future Pope explicitly conformed himself to the Secretary of State’s party line: “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.’ Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past.”

But what authority has the Vatican Secretary of State to interpret the Message of Fatima? None, of course. The Sodano/Bertone “interpretation” of the Third Secret has no weight whatsoever and now joins so many other pseudo-authoritative pronouncements in the post-conciliar discard bin.

Antonio Socci, whose book Fourth Secret of Fatima (which I was privileged to translate from the Italian) essentially accuses the Vatican Secretary of State of a cover-up of the very words of the Mother of God, was quick to comment on the Pope’s explosive remarks.

For those who do not know, Antonio Socci is one of Italy’s foremost Catholic intellectuals, an Italian celebrity of the first rank who hosted his own television show on one of the major Italian TV stations. He is not a traditionalist, but on the contrary first entered the Fatima controversy utterly convinced that the traditionalists were wrong about the Third Secret, only to conclude upon examination of the evidence “that there is a part of the Secret not revealed and considered unspeakable is certain.”

“The Pope,” he writes, “is engaged in a great Operation Truth on Fatima, at the cost of contradicting the version of the Secretaries of State.” Socci ties the Pope’s remarks to a letter from Lucia presented by the Vatican itself back in 2000, in which the seer states that we “have not yet seen the final consummation of this prophesy” and that “we are walking toward it, little by little, with large steps.” Noting that the Secretary of State has simply ignored the import of that warning while pretending that the Secret “belongs to the past,” Socci calls it “only one of so many anomalies in this fifty-year-old story that, unfortunately, is filled with

lies and silences, twisted interpretations and omissions (as I have shown in my book).”

NBC/Universal recently interviewed me at length for an upcoming feature on the Third Secret. The producer was stunned to learn of this development, which means, as Socci puts it, that the Pope himself has “reopened the file in a way so precise and dramatic that those who in recent years have paid homage to the Curial version find themselves in a panic…” Moreover, writes Socci, “the Pope knows more than us and holds that this [pedophilia] scandal is only the tip of the iceberg in the Church… and he is thinking of the great sin of apostasy in the Church.” The Pope, he concludes, “perhaps cannot say it explicitly, but is trying to prepare the Church for this immense trial… entrusting everyone to the hands of the Madonna of Fatima. These are extraordinary hours.”

Indeed they are. And in these extraordinary hours it is long past time for Catholics to concern themselves with matters a bit weightier than an audit of the Federal Reserve System or a return to the gold standard. Our entire civilization is hurtling toward an abyss opened up by its own apostasy. The Founding Fathers cannot save us. Our only hope is with the Virgin of Fatima, Mother of God and Patroness of the Americas.

Here's a Google translation of Socci's blog entry:

Quote:

Italian to English translation
Why the Pope denies Bertone (and Messori)
May 13, 2010 / In the News

It 's amazing that newspapers have "wash" the two sensational news coming from Portugal. A (dramatic) is implicit in the words of Pope: Pope killed on prophecy and the slaughter of cardinals and bishops addressed not to the past, but our near future (I will talk about later).

Instead one is black and white and this is the "fourth secret" (that part has not yet published the Third Secret) exists and the Pope's words on the scandal of pedophilia are proof.

The Pope is committed to making a great truth even Fatima-operation, at the cost of contradicting the version of the Vatican secretary of state. Here is the comparison between their words and those of the pope.

The then Secretary of State Cardinal Sodano, May 13, 2000, in announcing to the world the solemn publication of the third secret, explaining that the attack coincided with the pope in 1981 and persecutions of the twentieth century, said: "The events to which refers to the third part of 'secret' of Fatima now seem part of before. "

His successor, Bertone, eliminated even the conservative "look" and to reiterate that the secret concerned the attack on the pope in 1981 and had already achieved everything, literally wrote (on page 79 of his book): "The 'aggressive media is to not wanting to capacitive prophecy is not open to the future, is made in the past, indicated event (the attack on the pope, nda). Never want to face facts. "

Now Pope Benedict XVI tells us the opposite, namely that the third secret concerns events following the bombing of 1981, as the current scandal of pedophilia and even events that are still in our future.

Ratzinger has declared:

"Besides this great vision of the suffering of the Pope, we can in the first instance report to Pope John Paul II, are shown reality of the future of the Church which gradually develop and show ... and then the Church is suffering ... As for being prepared news that we now discover in this message there is also the fact that not only are attacks from outside the Pope and the Church, but the sufferings of the Church is just inside the church, the sin that exists in the Church. "

The bombing of 1981 is not in the words of Benedict XVI and hence is not indicated as "the" completion of the third secret.

It speaks only of "the suffering of John Paul II that is merged with those of other popes (mentioned in the second part of the Secret). Benedict XVI placed the fulfillment of the Third Secret in the years following the bombing of 1981 and our own future "is the reality of the future as they develop and show themselves," said "the sufferings of the Church that are announced."

As anyone can see is the opposite of what is proclaimed by Sodano, and more dogmatically, by Bertone ("prophecy is not open to the future, is made in the past, in the event indicated).

The rest was the same Sister Lucia to deny that the prophecy was delivered to the past and had made the attack in 1981. She wrote in a letter critical of the May 12, 1982.

After showing that he had already achieved the first part of the prophecy concerning the Communist revolution, World War II and the persecution of the Church, Sister Lucia, speaking of the third part of the secret, wrote quote:

"If not yet seen the complete end of this prophecy, we see that there are going towards it little by little with great strides."

So, at this crucial point that was made known by the same Vatican, Sister Lucia, one year after the assassination of Ali Agca in 1981, not only does not say that this attack is the realization of the third secret (he never said or here or elsewhere), but not even mention him, nor will mention vaguely. In fact explains "in words" that the third secret has yet to be realized. And he wrote in 1982!

We would add that on this very letter of the seer, Bertone - at that time lord - has inexplicably "erased" a phrase explosive, which contradicted his version, without giving any explanation.

But it is only one of the many anomalies of this fifty-year history that unfortunately is full of lies, of reticence, of forcing and omissions (as I showed in my book).

But back to today. The Pope then reopened the file so blatant and clear that all those who in recent years, had run to honor the release of the Curia were found in panic in the face of his statements that put the scandal of pedophilia in the third secret.

Here Father Stefano De Fiores that approached by the Tg2 of 20:30, 11 May, clearly embarrassed, stammered: "To tell the truth explicitly do not find ...."

Well done De Fiores! In fact the "third secret" of the clergy not. But the full Madonna, which the Pope, yes. We must understand that Father De Fiores. He had written an apologetic saggetto Cardinal Bertone swearing that had never been a part not published the "third secret" and is now the Pope himself who denies.

Vittorio Messori, a Catholic intellectual who was another course to honor the curial secretary of state, yesterday's Corriere della Sera expressed the embarrassment of being denied by the Pope: "Now the vast array of 'Fatima' will ferment to show that Pope Benedict XVI ... betrayed. "

In fact Pope Benedict has never identified with the Third Secret assassinated in 1981. Also - a cardinal - pointed out that there are no "official definitions or interpretations mandatory" Third Secret.

Unlike the Church of the Curia, who have transformed their ideas into dogma (and nonsense) Ratzinger explained that those were the 2000 case of interpretation. Mere assumptions (to be completed today).

Third place - with the humility that characterizes it - back in 2000, shortly after the unveiling of the Secret, responding to a letter respectful but critical of Bishop Pavel Hnilica its theological commentary, Ratzinger did not hesitate to say that she could not "entirely due to past the contents of the secret, in a simplistic way."

In fact, Benedict XVI, like pedophilia scandal, would have us understand that we must never fear truth, even when painful or embarrassing.

Why do not you serve God for a lie. When you pretend to lie to God in reality we do it for themselves: God has no need of our lies to defend and build its church. Better to do mea culpa, because God is bigger and more powerful than all our sins.

Of course, this attitude is not included in the Curia. Neither the "Ratzingerian" and rightly so, with affection, Giuliano Ferrara wrote that pedophilia on the issue, "said with great self-irony, for us Feuillants the Pope is a little out of line."

It 's true. Why the Pope knows more than us and believes this scandal just the tip of the iceberg "terrifying" of sin in the Church (think of the verminai he denounced in the Way of the Cross in 2005) and think about the great sin of apostasy in the Church.

And if this is "the city half in ruins" full of corpses, described in the vision of the Third Secret and if the pope can not be killed wounded the pope in 1981, means that the great persecution of the world and the great martyrdom of the Pope and What is the Church of the future.

The Pope may not say it explicitly, but tries to prepare his Church to this terrible trial ("the sufferings of the Church that are now") by giving everything in the hands of Our Lady of Fatima. Are overtime. But the newspapers have been noticed.

Antonio Socci

From "Free", May 13, 2010

P.S. About Bertone and Messori ....

Three years ago, Bruno Vespa created an entire episode of "Door to door" to launch the book of Cardinal Bertone against me (of course without giving me the word). Title of episode: "The fourth secret does not exist" (it was an explicit reference to my controversial book "The Fourth Secret of Fatima").

Last night was broadcast another confusing episode of "Porta a Porta" on new statements by the Pope at Fatima, and - to my great amusement - while talking about the same topic, no one dared to say "there is no fourth secret."

Indeed, Vittorio Messori, who three years ago had run the utility version of Bertone, without batting an eyelid, said the opposite of what has so far had said.

He said that Benedict XVI sees the completion of the Third Secret in the attack of 1981 and not be treated as concluded in the past, but sees it projected into the future, considering a new fact, like pedophilia scandal, the secret (and it is clear that the Pope may not have invented: while it is derived from the full text of the Secret ...).

After all this Messori has entirely failed to acknowledge their mistake so far, neither has drawn the consequences of what he said. Just as casual Bertone.

Now, it seems to me that we can not say everything and its opposite. Or right Bertone (and the prophecy was fulfilled with the assassination attempt of 1981 and ended in the past) or right Benedict XVI and then the text of the Secret is wider, the prophecy is still open and the martyrdom of a Pope and the Church are in our future.

You can not pretend that the two opposing versions can coexist. Out of respect for logic. It would be desirable for the love of truth prevailed and a fair recognition of their mistakes ... The Pope's invitation to repentance, penance and self-critical examination should be taken seriously.

That S.S. Mother of God protect the Pope and all of us!

I read it in Italian, and it’s much more than we were given in the sketchy English translations filtered to the media.

Can you share any of it that we might have missed?

I think Pope Benedict XVI is gently trying to prepare his flock for some harsh realities that are almost upon us.

His continuing efforts with the Russian Orthodox figures heavily into this equation too.

Vatican Publishes Book by Patriarch Kirill

Marks Growth in Catholic, Russian Orthodox Relations

ROME, MAY 14, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican Publishing House is publishing a book by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and of All Russia.

This gesture follows a similar move of the Moscow Patriarchate, which last December published a book with texts from Benedict XVI regarding European culture.

Now, the Italian-language book with addresses by the Russian Orthodox patriarch, titled "Liberta e Responsabilita alla Ricerca dell'Armonia" (Liberty and Responsibility in the Search of Harmony) will be officially presented on Monday at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan

The work brings together the most important addresses on human rights given by Patriarch Kirill. In it, he wrote, "We have a common vision with the Pope on the protection of the dignity of man in Europe."

For this reason, he said, "today the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are the only ones naturally allied in the hard struggle against the liberalist and secularist ideology."

"In the West there is the desire to relegate the faith to the private realm in a way that is almost worse than the Soviet regime did in our country," the patriarch wrote.

To overcome it, he added, the Church will have to enter "into a serious dialogue, devoid of prejudices, with lay and liberal humanism," but without falling into the temptation of "unilateralism."

Hopeful

"It is a harsh analysis but full of hope," stressed Pierluca Azzaro, professor of politics at the university and the book's editor. "Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Kirill exhort Christians of East and West not to be conformed to the mentality of this century."

"They invite all of us to profess our creed in the Church founded by Christ the Savior, to defend liberty as an indisputable but not unlimited value: by its most profound nature, liberty is, and always will be, linked to truth," Azzaro said.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, who signed the volume's introduction, stated, Patriarch Kirill "puts one on guard in an incisive and passionate way against a 'new generation of rights' that shelter in their interior true and genuine degenerations of the authentic dignity of the person."

The volume will be presented by Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Milan and president of the Giuseppe Toniolo Institute of Higher Studies, and Adriano Roccucci of the Roma Tre University.

Addresses will be given by Lorenzo Ornaghi, rector of the Sacred Heart university; Anatoly Torkunov, rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry; Edmondo Caruana, publishing director of the Vatican Publishing House; Giuseppina Cardillo Azzaro, president of the international association "Sophia: Russian Idea, Idea of Europe."

The presentation will end with a speech by the chairman of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk.

The publication of the book also leads up to the May 20 inauguration in Rome of the Italian-Russian Academy "Sapientia et Scientia."

The project has received the blessing of the Holy See and of the Moscow Patriarchate, and the official approval of the Italian and Russian States.

The Academy -- which aims to be a stable meeting place for representatives of the Church and of the civil societies of Italy and Russia -- will carry out its activities at the Villa Sciarra in Rome.
Moscow Patriarchate Publishes Book of Pope's Words

Called Proof of Possible Catholic-Orthodox Cooperation

ROME, DEC. 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Russian Orthodox Church has published a book in Italian and Russian with texts from Benedict XVI on the culture of Europe.

This is the first time the Moscow Patriarchate is publishing a compilation of texts from a Pope. It is titled "Europe, Spiritual Homeland," and includes addresses by Joseph Ratzinger during the course of more than a decade.

The presentation of the book will take place Wednesday in Rome during a round table on "The Role of the Churches in the Cultural Integration of Europe."

The volume will be introduced by the chairman of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev.

"This book is an event of unprecedented historic scope in the millennial history of Catholics and Russian Orthodox," explained the editor of the book, Pierluca Azzaro. "But before and above all, it is a great testimony of love of Christ and between Christians. From this love springs -- should spring -- European culture in all its manifold expressions: a living culture, imbued with an authentically creative moral energy, all together geared to the building of a good future for all."

The editor reflected on the way the volume presents the continent.

"Europe -- the Pope, and Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk in the beautiful introduction, tell us -- is a cultural continent that with its two wings, the Church of the East and of the West, rises above the narrow duality Russia-Western Europe," he said. "Europe is thus presented to our eyes as the common 'spiritual homeland,' according to the beautiful expression used by the Pope in his last journey to the Czech Republic."

Azzaro contended that only by jointly rediscovering and reaffirming this "vital dimension of Europe" will a "downward decline" be warded off.

A vice-chairman of the patriarchate's department of external affairs, Hieromonk Philip (Riabykh), said the book is a "testimony of the absolute identity of views and positions between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church in regard to modern social processes."

He added that it is "at the same time proof of the enormous possibility of Catholic-Orthodox cooperation."

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