The secret of Fatima

It was 13 May 2000 when Cardinal Angelo Sodano made known that the Holy Father had decided to reveal the third secret of Fatima. The occasion was offered by the beatification, in Portugal, of Francesco and Jacinta Marto, two of the pastorinhos to whom in long ago 1917 the Madonna had appeared. The announcement rapidly made the round of the world: that secret, guarded jealously by the Vatican, had been for decades at the center of indiscretions, polemics and international intrigues.
On the occasion, Cardinal Sodano mentioned the content of the secret but to learn it in its entirety approximately a month was to pass before it was published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The text was accompanied by a short introduction written by the then Secretary of the Congregation, Monsignor Tarcisio Bertone, and by a short theological comment from the Prefect of the same ministry, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. It was followed by attachments and notes. The secret, in extreme summary, consists of the desolating vision of a city in ruin strewn with corpses of martyrs, through which walks in affliction «a bishop dressed in white» (of whom Sister Lucia writes: «we had the premonition that he was the Holy Father») followed by bishops and religious. The procession climbs to the top of a hill where stands a cross, at the feet of which the Pope is killed.
From the announcement of Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican has identified the «bishop dressed in white» with Pope John Paul II and his killing with the attempt on his life by Ali Agca in 1981. But, immediately this revelation and the related official interpretation aroused perplexity. Among other things many pointed out an anomaly between what Cardinal Sodano had said the month previously in Fatima, when he spoke about a Pope who «falls to earth like a dead man», and the one written, in which one reads of a Pope unequivocally «killed».
To complicate things, for the Vatican, are the many aggregations of the faithful sprung up around Fatima, lay people, priests and scholars who know the life, death and, it is the case to say it, miracles connected with that prodigious apparition. And it was from those very groups that the sharpest criticisms came.
Between 2006 and 2007, those criticisms have condensed in two books: Il quarto segreto di Fatima [The Fourth Secret of Fatima], by Antonio Socci, and La profezia di Fatima [The Prophecy of Fatima], by Marco Tosatti. Now let us have a look at what the volumes contain.

Did Our Lady predict Ali Agca?
One of the most heated controversies concerns the identification of the bishop dressed in white with Karol Wojtyla. In other words: did Our Lady indeed prophesy the attempt on John Paul II? In his book, Socci points out that the Vatican interpretation of the secret is, in truth, not so straightforward. And that from the very announcement by Cardinal Sodano, whose words are quoted in the document devoted to the secret of Fatima: the prelate explained that the events described in the vision «by now seem to belong to the past». «The Lady of the message seems to read with a singular perspicacity the “signs of the times” [the italics are not in the text, ed]». So, according to Socci, it seems that the prelate had a certain fear of using expressions that were too assertive.
He was not the only one. In the theological note, Cardinal Ratzinger explains the coincidence between the Pope of the message and Wojtyla through an «elegant» interrogative expression: «Should the Holy Father, when after the attack of 13 May 1981 he had the text of the third part of the “secret” brought to him, not have recognized his own destiny there?».
Beyond these annotations, which may appear to be simple subtleties, it is obvious that, it being a matter of private revelations, it is not a matter of contents of the faith. It was Cardinal Ratzinger himself who specified, in an interview given on 19 May of 2000 to la Repubblica, that «obligatory interpretations» did not exist. On the other hand it is enough to look at the official Vatican document (that can be downloaded from Internet) to see every doubt in this regard dispelled. In fact, a chapter of the theological comment is significantly entitled: «An attempt at interpretation of the “secret” of Fatima». The italics are ours.
In any case, and setting other considerations aside, the detractors of the official version find it easy to ask themselves: if the secret made reference only to the persecutions endured by the Christians in this century and to the attempt on the Pope’s life in 1981, why wait so long to make it public?

Public secrets and secret doubts
If the interpretation of the secret has provoked many controversies, this is very little compared to the controversies that have arisen around the text itself. For greater clarity, it is better to start from the beginning, when Sister Lucia, in the cloister of the Carmel of Coimbra, received the request from her bishop to write about the revelation.
The nun wrote up several records of what she had seen and felt in that long ago 1917 in the Cueva de Iría: the first dates from 1935, the second from 1937, the third from August 1941. In the third, Socci explains, the nun «reveals the first two parts of the secret [...] she makes known that there is also a “third part” that for now she is not revealing. Some months later she wrote the fourth memoir (dated 8 December 1941), in which she copied the previous one exactly, but when she arrived at the end of the second secret [...] she added a new phrase, which was not in the summer text: “Em Portugal se conservará sempre o dogma da fé etc., [In Portugal the dogma of the faith etc. will always be conserved, ed]”». Finally, in January of 1944, she wrote down the so-called third secret.
The first two secrets, in which the Russian Revolution and the Second World War were predicted, were made public in the ’forties, whereas the third secret, Lucia makes known, must not be revealed till 1960. In 1957, however, the Holy See ordered that the text be sent to Rome and asks the nun to be silent. That was to be maintained until 2000, that is until the publication of the document The message of Fatima by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
A publication in truth a little unfortunate. The critics of the official version, in fact, had no trouble in pointing out a glaring anomaly. In fact, in publishing the secret in its entirety, the Vatican did not publish the fourth memoir, the one of 8 December 1941, the last one in order of time, but the third, the one of August 1941, adding to it then the one written in January of 1944, where the third secret is written down. The third and fourth memoirs are similar, as mentioned above, but in the fourth there is that one phrase: «In Portugal the dogma of the faith etc. will always be conserved», that is not present in the third. Of course, the phrase is not completely omitted, but is reported in a note in the margin, without any explanation. Were it not that that very line was at the center of great controversies...
«Is it possible that the words of Our Lady, given in person by the Mother of God, can end with an “etc.”?». Socci quotes this certainly not trivial question of Paul Kramer, author of The devil’s final battle. What might that etc. hide? The critics point out that there is no logical connection between this phrase and the secret revealed in 2000. And that the cut off phrase reports words of Our Lady, part of a direct speech, whereas the secret consists in a vision, without any words from her.
Father José dos Santos Valinho, a Salesian, is the nephew of Sister Lucia with whom he had a special relationship. In an interview, given a little before the disclosure of the secret, he confided: «I maintain that that part of the secret concerns the Church, in its internal life. Perhaps doctrinal difficulties, crisis of unity, splits, rebellions, divisions. The last phrase from my aunt, that precedes the still unknown part of the secret says: “In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be conserved”. After that, the part that we do not know begins. But however it makes it understood that the subject of the part lacking could be linked to the last known assertion. Therefore in other parts of the Church this dogma might waver».
He is not the only one to have advanced similar hypotheses.

The great apostasy
On the secret of Fatima, over the years, the most disparate voices circulated, the most recurrent of which concerned the loss of the faith by a multitude of Christians. In other words, Our Lady had foretold a great apostasy. Only legends?
So it would seem, in the light of the Vatican disclosure. The problem, however, is that these legends, over the years, were corroborated by declarations from people who, because of their function, had come to know the secret. Tosatti dedicates an entire chapter to this in Cinquant’anni di indiscrezioni eccellenti [Fifty years of prominent indiscretions]. Let me cite some.
Monsignor Alberto do Amaral, Bishop Emeritus of Fatima, at a conference in 1984, said: «The secret of Fatima does not speak either about the atomic bomb, nor about nuclear warheads [...] The loss of the faith of a continent is worse than the destruction of a nation; and it is true that the faith declines continuously in Europe. The loss of the Catholic faith in the Church is very much more serious than a nuclear war» (a declaration denied in 1986, but then reconfirmed in March 1995).
Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, at a conference in 1967 said: «I have had the grace and the gift of reading the text of the third secret. [...] I can only say this to you: that very difficult times will come for the Church and that there is need of many prayers so that the apostasy may not be too great».
Prominent indiscretions are also documented in Socci’s book. Monsignor Capovilla, John XXIII’s secretary, he too assuredly knowing the secret, in 1978 responded in writing to an interviewer’s questions. To the question about whether the secret makes reference expressly to the ecclesiastical hierarchies, to Russia or to a «religious crisis in the world», he replied by denying the first two hypotheses, but said nothing of the third. Still more explicit is the content of a letter from Cardinal Luigi Ciappi, longtime Theologian of the Papal Household, addressed to Professor Baumgartner. In the letter, written in 2000 but published in March 2002, the cardinal discloses: «In the third secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin from its summit».
All liars? And if it is not so, does it mean to say that the Vatican has published a falsehood? Things are a little more complex. Based on a series of indications and concordant testimonies, many of the critics of the official version are convinced that the secret consists in truth of two distinct parts. And that the one revealed in 2000, written on four pages, would be only one of the two parts and would always have been kept in the archives of the Holy Office. The other part, that is still secret, written on a single sheet, would always have remained in the apartment of the popes.
In confirmation of this hypothesis there is also an indication of a logical type. Tosatti cites the thesis of Andrew M. Cesanek, another scholar who has devoted himself to the secret of Fatima. This, comparing the first two revelations and the one made public in 2000, records how the first two revelations are characterized by a structure of the vision-explanation type, while the last one is lacking in explanation. Tosatti points out: «Certainly, it is curious that of the three parts the one in truth most in need of a “key to reading” is the one that lacks it».

Sister Lucia’s reports
The Vatican, obviously, also consulted Sister Lucia, the last one of the pastorinhos still alive at the time (she died in February 2005). For this purpose, the present Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, went to Coimbra twice: the first time on 27 April 2000 and the second on 17 November 2001 (the prelate in fact disclosed that he met the nun also on 9 December 2003, but to go into events regarding Albino Luciani). Of these two meetings we have reports, something similar to oral reports, one of which, the second, is signed by Sister Lucia herself. In both, in effect, the Vatican line is confirmed: for the nun also the secret had been revealed in its entirety and the scene of the murdered Pope represented the attempt of 1981. But these “reports”, fruit of hours of conversation, according to the critics, are over compressed, on the verge of being laconic and indeed much too generic.
For the sake of brevity we quote only the observation of Father Paul Kramer, contained in Socci’s book, who calculated that from the second talk, which lasted approximately two hours, Cardinal Bertone «only succeeded in obtaining forty-two important words (forty-two) to attribute in quotation marks to the nun». And, still in relation to this second report, Socci, stating straight away that the nun speaks only Portuguese, asks the question: «Why therefore is there no text in Portuguese? And if it exists and – as seems obvious – Sister Lucia only signed that one, why has the text in Portuguese not been published? And why does the version in English not have the nun’s signature?». Nor did the book that the nun published shortly before dying, The Appeals of the Message of Fatima, manage to dispel the doubts, a book in which the author avoids going into into issues regarding the secret.
Of this book, however, Tosatti notes a particularly significant phrase: «I leave entirely to the Holy Church the freedom to interpret the sense of the message because it belongs to it and is within its jurisdiction; therefore humbly and gladly I submit myself to all that it will say or want to correct, to modify or to declare».
In effect, it is striking that the nun used verbs like «modify» and «correct».

Cardinal Bertone and Pope Luciani
A little after the issue of Tosatti’s book, Rizzoli published another volume on Fatima, this time a book-interview with Cardinal Bertone, edited by the Vatican expert Giuseppe De Carli. In the volume, the cardinal reaffirms the official version, enhancing it with fresh details, but avoids answering the questions raised by the critics.
For our part, we limit ourselves to indicating a passage in De Carli’s book that, for an ordinary reader, might stir further questions.
Cardinal Bertone is asked about the relationship between Fatima and Albino Luciani. The issue is well known: the then Patriarch of Venice, shortly before being elected Pope, paid a visit to Sister Lucia. She, it was assumed by some, predicted his pontificate and his death shortly after. Cardinal Bertone answers by denying that the nun ever made a similar prophecy. And, in this regard, he produced an account written by Luciani himself, dated January 1978, in which the content of the conversation is summarized.
Sister Lucia, the Patriarch of Venice notes, spoke about the need of having «Christians and especially seminarians, novices, male and female, seriously determined to belong to God without reservations» and so on. Then Luciani, after reporting that he asked about the dance of the sun (the spectacular miracle of Fatima), asks himself: « […] some will ask: does a cardinal interest himself in private revelations?». Yes, he answers, explaining that the «Gospel contains everything», but that for Christians it is also necessary «to scrutinize the signs of the times». «And, behind the sign, it behoves paying attention to the things emphasized by that sign. Which?», he asks again in that simple and linear style of his. And he lists the four things that, according to him, were indicated by Our Lady in that long gone 1917, explaining them one by one: to repent, to pray, to recite the Rosary and, lastly, to keep in mind that Hell exists.
In the lines that the Patriarch dedicates to prayer, however, there is a point that strikes one. Luciani notes the difficulty that the practice meets with in his contemporaries. And he concludes: «It is not I, but Karl Rahner who wrote: “There is underway even within the Church an exclusive commitment of man to temporal truths, that is no longer a legitimate choice, but apostasy and a total falling away from faith”». Apostasy?
In conclusion, despite the 2000 disclosure, an aura of mystery continues to hover over the secret of Fatima. Words freighted with threatening enigmas, for many. Not so for the simple faithful, to whom instead it appears full of comfort and hope, there where the word mystery punctuates and accompanies the recital of the Rosary. A prayer that, in that very place, was enriched by that invocation of sweet mercy that Our Lady wanted to deliver to the three children and, through them, to the whole Church. And it is precisely because of this, we believe, that the apparition of Fatima, over the years, has become dear to the Christian people. At the conclusion of this article, it is heartening to remember it.