Cardinal Ratzinger's Third Secret

Cardinal Ratzinger's Third Secret 

by Rev. Canon Gregorius D. Hesse, S.T.D., J.C.D.(Cand.)

In the “Spirit of the Millennium” and the “Spirit of the Holy Year,” both which Father Nicholas Gruner has recently experienced in an unprecedentedly unjust letter by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy (cf. Crusader 64, p. 59), the Vatican has again published a document that should be called “dishonest by omission,” to say the least. This article will prove that I really “say the least.”

The reader may bear with me, if confronted with an occasional polemical comment in this theological exegesis of the Vatican’s publication, but I need not apologize for being polemical because polemics are a good thing when necessary. Today’s 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 Polemics” is the ancient Greek word 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 it because they give too much faith to the so-called “exact sciences.”

1. The “Introduction”

Already the second paragraph of the introduction of the Bertone/Ratzinger statement on the Third Secret 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 the Pope’s life, is definitely out of proportion and in grave disregard of Stalin’s sixty million victims, plus the victims of all wars of the outgoing 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 Peter’s Square1 as it 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 Ratzinger’s comments.

The Introduction 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 to mean that only one of the manuscripts has been photographically reproduced, but in the light of Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement, that the Secret has been published in its “entirety” (pp. 32, 39), it has to be considered a lie. Andrew M. Cesanek sufficiently proves in his article (Crusader 64, pp.3ff.) that there are indeed TWO parts of the Third Secret, the published one in the archives of the former Holy Office, and the second one in the Pope’s apartment. As Mr. Cesanek points out (Crusader 64, p.5), the published text contains no words of Our Lady. This is wholly lacking credibility.

Without any illicit accusation of a deliberate sin against the Eighth Commandment, we are nevertheless facing the fact of a printed lie. As there has been no public statement to the contrary so far, it is virtually impossible to talk about error as to the number of manuscripts. Who and how many people are involved in this lie is of no importance, but the published lie as such is of a theological importance: even if it only were an error, it would affect the entire theological interpretation presented in the document. If it is a lie, which is what I firmly believe, then it means that the theological and historical interpretations presented are deliberately leading towards a wrong conclusion or message. Commonly this is called fraudulent. 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 blasphemy2, I will put “Our Lady” in quotation marks, as I know the “apparition” to be someone else, most probably a demon, but to use the quotation marks on 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 jig-saw of truths, half-truths, and lies, this is of great significance.

The following pages reiterate the lie that the Consecration has been done, especially p.8 which cites an unsigned letter by “Sister Lucy” which has been proven a fake by Father Paul Kramer (Cf. Crusader 64, p.115). The Fatima Crusader has sufficiently dealt with this lie in the past and there is no need for repetitions here. In the present document the old quotations, however, present an explanatory context for the new lies.

Finally, we notice the incredible statement by Archbishop Bertone on p.9 of the Introduction:

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.

 

Father Nicholas Gruner has sufficiently explained the absurdity of this statement (Crusader 64, pp.54ff.) in the historical sense. Indeed, historically seen, this is an idiotic statement, bordering on lunacy. Maybe I am naïve, but I refuse to believe that His Excellency, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is either an idiot or a lunatic. This statement must be of a theological nature, therefore, and Father Gruner rightly suggests 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” (Crusader 64, p. 55). This is not only a political interpretation concerning the continuation of Casaroli’s Ostpolitik and the Pope’s strangely close relationship to the propagator of genocide, Gorbachev, but it is a clear analysis of a changed 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 Cardinal Ratzinger’s theology.

 

2. The “Secret”

As far as the authenticity of the published text is concerned, I am not as sure as Father Gruner seemed to be (Crusader 64, p. 18): Why does Sister Lucy — who by 1944 had surely read Holy Scripture and many “devotional books,” as Cardinal Ratzinger calls them — say that the Holy Father “prayed for 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 you can find in the Creed (... resurrection of the dead ...). Only in the Old Testament can you find the term “corpse” and you will find it 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 the terms “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 pope — as the sedevacantists claim. I cannot and shall not give the answer to the above choice, but it is strangely vague in the historical context of all the events since 1917.

There will be more to be said about this aspect in the conclusion. For the moment I will continue as if the published text was authentic.

 

3. The Interpretation of the “Secret”

A. The Pope’s Letter to Sister Lucy

In this letter, dated April 19, 2000, the Pope says:

Since on that day [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 to ask certain questions about the interpretation of “the third part of the secret.”

We conclude that His Holiness has no time for a conversation with Sister Lucy. The ever-vigilant defender of Pope John Paul II might object to my conclusion by reminding me that it is not in my 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 (DS3060).

True. But I am allowed to ask an obvious question:

His Holiness had the time to receive the Masons of the Trilateral Commission (110)3, the Jewish High Masons of the B’nai B’rith (112), to preach from the pulpit of Rome’s Lutheran Church (137), to visit Rome’s Synagogue (155), to meet with the Buddhist “patriarch” Vasana Tara (172), the Dalai Lama (177), Yassir Arafat (236), and allowed the schismatic and heretical Patriarch Dimitrios I, of Constantinople (144) to stand next to him on the Papal Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome (!), but he does not find the time to talk to Our Lady’s personal and perhaps most important of all messengers in this century???

I do not know the answer and I venture not to give it, but the theological connection to the Vatican’s downplaying the Third Secret is obvious.

 

B. “The Conversation with Sister Lucy ...”

This unsigned account of the conversation, p. 28, is a remarkable piece of deception, probably written by Archbishop Bertone himself. As Father Paul Kramer rightly pointed out, he not only failed to ask Sister Lucy if the Consecration had been done, but he also juxtaposes two logically separate statements, namely Sister Lucy’s affirmation that the figure in white was a pope, she does not know the name (!), and her agreement with the Pope’s claim that it was “a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path” on May 13, 1981 (Cfr. Crusader 64, pp.31f.).

There were a lot of rather strange coincidences — or shall we call it Providence? — in Ali Agca’s assassination attempt, if I am allowed the non-theological digression: 1. Why did the gun jam after the third shot? It is not unusual for a semi-automatic pistol to jam, but it is almost impossible that Italy’s best police force, the Carabinieri, would not find the cause after weeks of microscopic examination in their laboratories. Was it the Guardian Angel’s interference? That would be theologically highly probable. 2. Why did Ali Agca not use hollowpoint bullets or the readily available Federal Hydra-Shok ammunition which would have ripped the poor Pope’s abdomen to pieces? Most sources claim that some organization or secret service was behind the attack. Were they all amateurs? 3. Why did he choose St. Peter’s Square and a small handgun, with no chances to escape, why not a rifle (easily available back then) and one of the many elevated positions around St. Peter’s 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 has cost the Pope in his full activities less than one year — out of twenty-two. 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, I have to ask the question: Why would the 1981 incident be better understood after 1960? Anyone in the 20th Century would have understood it as we do. Maybe the generation that had fought in World War II and in Korea would have better understood the role of soldiers in this vision after 1960? Sister Lucy’s intuition must have meant something that happened around 1960 or shortly after. I do not think it had a connection with the assassination of President Kennedy, but what about John XXIII’s 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 State’s statement that the text of the Third Secret must be interpreted “in a symbolic key.” This is another blasphemy against Divine Wisdom. Was there anything to be interpreted “in a symbolic Key” in the vision of hell, the prediction of the Second World War to start under Pius XI, the vision of Russia spreading her errors, the chastisement to come, and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart? In my recollection there has been no apparition and message less symbolic than Fatima.

The purpose of this absurd suggestion becomes evident when Cardinal Sodano distorts the actual vision by saying: “He [the Pope] too falls to the ground, apparently dead.” The words “apparently dead” are the exact contrary to Sister Lucy’s word “killed” (Cf. Crusader 64, p.30).

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. Gorbachev’s “glasnost” and “perestroika” have been sufficiently dealt with in past issues of The Fatima Crusader and there is no need to repeat these analyses here. It is sad to see, however, that the Secretary of State does not shrink from using a decade-old lie to debunk a message from Our Lady.

 

D. Cardinal Ratzinger’s “Theological Commentary”

D. 1. Introductory Downplay

The very second line of this Commentary (p.32) already contains the lie that the “so-called third ‘Secret’ of Fatima” has been “published here in its entirety.” This lie is repeated later on (p.39). The quoted article by Andrew Cesanek produces sufficient proof to the contrary. We will have to deal with this deception in the conclusion.

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.

 

If no great mystery is revealed, then why did Our Lady bother to make it a secret in the first place? Possibly — as we shall see later — the future is not revealed in the other part of the Third Secret which has been withheld from us, but to put the clear picture of soldiers shooting the Pope as a symbol in the past, especially in the connection with the unusually clear messages of Fatima, is preposterous. In comparison to most prophecies — think of the difficulties in interpreting the Apocalypse — the 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 absurd. Probably Cardinal Ratzinger’s theology is as dependent on authority instead of the Truth as are his mathematics ... This statement is by no means “cheap polemics” in the light of a rather remarkable change of mind between 1984 and 2000. In 1984 Ratzinger talked about “the last times” and “religious prophecy” and said:

... but the things contained in this third secret correspond to what is announced in Sacred Scripture and are confirmed by many other Marian apparitions themselves in their known contents (Crusader 64, pp. 34f.).

Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement of 1984 is in direct contradiction to his downplaying the Third Secret recently. Father Paul Kramer in his article (Crusader 64, pp.115ff.) quotes the most important Marian messages to this point, and they are quite frightening and certainly — at least in a part of the prophecy — still to come.

We are — again — faced with the same basic tenor of the entire publication which is profoundly dishonest by trying to trivialize the Third Secret into an insignificant prediction of a failed attempt on the Holy Father’s life. May I call the failed attempt on the Pope’s life an “insignificant” prediction? Yes! I mentioned it 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: “Morrto un Papa, se ne fa un’artro”: with the death of a pope, one makes another. Nobody has ever bothered to suggest that the Third Secret may deal with the untimely death of Pope John Paul I. Why? Was he a completely insignificant figure? No Pope is, but God never knew the future. HE KNOWS. The failed attempt on a Pope’s life is indeed “no great mystery” as Ratzinger cleverly formulates it, if the actual — and mysterious — death of a Pope has 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 and — as we shall see — much worse, it borders on idolatry to enhance one Pope’s importance to the point of making a few months in the hospital THE Third Secret. What the Pope had to suffer in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital is something that I do not even want to contemplate. However, with today’s medicine, it does not even compare to the average priest’s fate in the Nazi Concentration Camp — not to mention the fate of many more priests and bishops behind the Iron Curtain. IF this is what Ratzinger meant, then why was it still a “religious prophecy” in 1984?

 

D. 2. On Public and Private Revelations

In the context of “public revelation” and Tradition, Cardinal Ratzinger quotes Dei Verbum 8, which states that “the word grows through the meditation and the studies of the faithful, through the deep understanding which comes from religious experience.” John Vennari rightly wishes to be freed from “Pop-slogans” (Crusader 64, p.17) among which I count the concept of the growth of Tradition to be found in Dei Verbum which is contrary to Dei Filius of Vatican I. Tradition grows in depth “eodem sensu, eadem sententia” as St. Vincent of Lerins says (DS 3020): in the same sense, in the same judgement. The Church is essentially priestly and a Pope may pronounce a Dogma, which is never anything but a deepening of Tradition, never “the meditation and the studies of the faithful.” The Church’s 1900-year-old battle against the exaggerations and errors of the faithful is ample proof for the error in Dei Verbum.

Cardinal Ratzinger significantly sets the entire phenomenon of “private revelations” — I prefer to call them either “fake” or “extraordinary,” depending on their authenticity — in this erroneous context, which is thus reduced to “religious experience” or “meditation and studies.” One of the most erudite popes in history, Benedict XIV, rightly says that these revelations cannot be held in 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.” Ratzinger’s quotation is rather shrewd as it blatantly ignores the astounding Miracle of the Sun that proves Fatima to be a little more than just “credible to piety.” Ratzinger even goes to the point of reducing the extraordinary revelations about the Corpus Christi Feast and the Sacred Heart as having an “effect even on the liturgy,” which borders on blasphemy when we consider the fate of France after Louis XIV’s impertinent and disastrous refusal to obey the requests of Christ revealed to him by St. Margaret Mary (Cf. Crusader 64, p.117).

Cardinal Ratzinger’s erroneous understanding of prophecy is scandalously 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.

This is tantamount to a denial of ALL prophecy, which is commonly called 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 Isaiah, 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 Ratzinger is wrong again. May I leave the answer to you?

Cardinal Ratzinger reduces prophecy to “the signs of the time,” perhaps because he fails 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 the 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.

Cardinal Ratzinger (His Master’s voice) has to pretend that 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 from the fruits seen coming from the Second Vatican Council.

Forgive my repeated “polemics,” but in the light of the Church’s teaching on prophecy and the importance that St. Paul (following Christ’s example!!!) and the Church Fathers attributed to this Divine gift, Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement borders on heresy and blasphemy, to say the least. To reduce everything between the Psalms and Don 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 as a sort of clerical Rainbow Press on the level of the lowest publication at the local supermarket’s cash register. To apply the understanding of some of man’s lowest instincts (e.g. curiosity) to a Divine Message cannot be taken lightly, ever.

On p.38 Cardinal Ratzinger again refers to Cardinal Sodano’s 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.

D. 3. Ratzinger’s “Attempt to Interpret...”

The first question that may occur is to Cardinal Ratzinger’s surprise: Why would the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary be surprising to “the Anglo-Saxon and German cultural world” (p.39)? Are the English and the Germans too ignorant to have heard about the Sacred Heart, 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 be in the lines that follow this incomprehensible surprise.

Cardinal Ratzinger’s “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 succeeds in debunking none less than the Immaculate Conception Herself. This eminent prince of the Church needs to be reminded that Our Lady — when She appeared at Lourdes — did not introduce Herself as the “Immaculately Conceived,” but She 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 Heart — referring to the third faculty of the soul, not the internal organ — therefore, is the Immaculate Heart. Ratzinger does not shrink from inflating this term, reserved to the Mother of God to “a heart, which, with God’s grace, has come to perfect interior unity and therefore ‘sees God.’” He is not even ashamed to abuse the Gospel for 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 Father Gruner, Father Kramer, and I have sacred hearts, as we are each consecrated an alter Christus (another Christ), which might account for our Latin title of Reverendus (to be revered). This would be blasphemous, which is exactly what I think of Cardinal Ratzinger’s trivializing the Immaculate Heart.

Even the ‘typically Protestant’ objection “that we should not place a human being between ourselves and Christ” is answered by Ratzinger in apparent ignorance of Our Lady: he quotes St. Paul’s 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!

In his examination of the single images, Cardinal Ratzinger says:

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 image of a future in which nothing can be changed ... The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future (p.40).

This is, again, the denial of prophecy: The children did not have an entirely conditional vision. Our Lady clearly distinguished the unchangeable future from the consequences, IF Her wishes were not heeded. To declare the real future as such, whatever will actually take place as changeable is against the Church’s teaching on Divine Providence and Predestination. The eternal plan of Divine Providence is unchangeable, because God is unchangeable, and nothing can happen independently from Providence.4 In His Divine Wisdom God knows the entire future, which is, therefore, unchangeable as Vatican I authoritatively taught. (DS 3003). — If Ratzinger’s statement is to mean what it says, he is a heretic; if it is to mean that we can change the future, by following Our Lady’s requests, then his concept of future is warped. When I decided in 1976 to become a priest instead of a father of children, I did not change my future, which was set before I was born, but I changed my mind. Cardinal Ratzinger’s statement is an expression of either a subjectivist or heretical mind. The latter seems to be the case, when we consider the statement: “There is no immutable destiny” (p.42).

His subjective certitude in denying any kind of “film image” (seen by the three Fatima children) shows whom he believes to be the real prophet of Fatima … himself, and certainly not Our Lady of Fatima.

Sister Lucy finally is discredited as a seer, when Cardinal Ratzinger says that she uses images which she “may have seen in devotional books” (p.42). This is tantamount to declaring the whole vision a product of fantasy and fits snugly into the picture 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 (Crusader 64, p.51).

The last page of the document again declares everything to be part of the past, including Our Lady’s words: “My Immaculate Heart will triumph.” He explains it as “the fiat of Mary, the word of Her heart, [that] has changed the history of the world” (p.43).

 

Conclusion

In one of the stranger kind of events in an already very strange post-conciliar Church, we are faced with quite a few questions which arise from the unorthodox comments on Sister Lucy’s actual vision:

1. Why are the actual Words of Our Lady, the real Third Secret, written down on a single sheet and — most probably — still in the Papal safe — withheld from the public and even denied?
2. Why is the published vision, which obviously deals with the murder of a Pope in the future, associated with the 1981 attempt at the Pope’s life which failed?
3. Why is the lie that the Consecration of Russia has been done repeated?
4. Why the absurd statement that “a period of history marked by tragic human lust for power and evil” has ended?
5. Why does the Pope have time for hundreds of political meetings, but not for Sister Lucy?
6. Why is the lie about the fall of Communism in 1989 repeated?
7. Why is the Secret, long kept secret, belittled as “no great mystery,” and reduced to symbolism?
8. Why is prophecy denied to predict the future?
9. Why is the Immaculate Heart belittled as if to mean all the “clean of heart”?
10. Why is the unchangeable future — and with it God’s Providence — denied, at least implicitly?
11. Why is Sister Lucy’s vision belittled by mentioning “devotional books” as the possible source?
12. Why do the prelates fail to explain the line “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc. ...”?
13. What is the purpose of publishing the Third Secret in the first place, when the words of Our Lady are withheld and the vision reduced to nothingness?

I am firmly convinced that all these questions have but one answer:

Whenever we are faced with any kind of sin, such as a lie, we have to ask the question: Cui bono? (to what good?)

The Vatican’s 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 fabrication of lies 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, but — on the contrary — is 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 or — as the Intelligence Communities like to call it — perception management.

This answer is far from being a mere speculation. Issue no. 64 of The Fatima Crusader and whatever else we know about the Third Secret and other — approved — apparitions, are a definite proof that the real Third Secret must be the words of Our Lady withheld from the public, and, possibly, the authentic text of the supposedly published vision.

Apart from my above mentioned objections against the authenticity of the published vision, I still have some more doubts:

Why has the International press — mainly without comment or objection — published the “vision”? Usually they are quite efficient in ridiculing, doubting, denying, and slandering the Sacred. Just consider the international reaction to the Vatican’s announcement to beatify Pope Pius IX. I admit that this is not a strictly theological argument. The consideration of probability, however, has been accepted by St. Thomas Aquinas whose common sense is — as G.K. Chesterton points out — “the sense for the probable.”

Why would we be so sure about the authenticity of the published text or “Sister Lucy’s personal” affirmations as to their authentic interpretations? Three of the highest prelates of the Vatican do not hesitate to declare whatever has been published as “no great mystery,” and their statements border — at least — on heresy and blasphemy. Why are we that sure “Sister Lucy’s” lines are not the product of a software, capable of writing letters in apparent handwriting and available for less than one hundred dollars? Who would be allowed to ask Sister Lucy about the publication?

This is not paranoia, but only doubting the honesty of liars. We are not paranoid if we have doubts about inconsistencies, such as the proven fact that the Secret was not published fully, if at all.

There cannot be many reasons for withholding a message from Our Lady, if ever: it would be conceivable that the message is sufficiently terrifying to cause panic, such as the prophecy of a locally limited catastrophe, a flood or a nuclear attack; a message might be too symbolic to comprehend, as might be the case with a few lines in the Apocalypse; or it could be a very explicit and clear message, but highly embarrassing for the ones who hold power over its publication.

It seems clear that the first two possibilities are out of character with Fatima and most Marian apparitions, which leads us to the third solution: The Vatican has something to hide that would be extremely embarrassing.

Father Paul Kramer indicates this answer in his comparison between Fatima and other — approved — apparitions, visions, and messages: he quotes Father Joaquin Alonso, who for sixteen years was the official archivist of Fatima:

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 of the upper hierarchy (Crusader 64, p.121).

This is entirely congruent with La Salette, the apparition of 1634 of Our Lady of Good Success, Quito, and a few others.

Possibly we might know the actual text of the Third Secret: There is the story of a supposedly reliable French priest who heard a supernatural message, while listening to a CD with 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 Son’s 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.

There is absolutely no confirmation, let alone proof, for the authenticity of this text or message. We must not claim this to be the real Third Secret. However, it makes a lot more sense than anything the Vatican commented on, on 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 to 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 Vatican II, an event that spiritually pales all wars into insignificance?

None less than 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, perhaps the main culprit for the crisis, perceived the disaster to a point. Is it conceivable that Our Lady knew nothing about it?

I think that this is impossible!

There is no proof — I say it again — for the authenticity of the above quoted message the French priest claims to have received, but there is no logical alternative to the Third Secret being something along these lines.

Fatima your last chance: The Third Secret Regarding the Church - Fr Gruner 

 Related:

 http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2010/05/prophetic-mission-of-fatima-is-not.html 

http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2012/05/pope-benedict-xvi-we-would-be-mistaken.html

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1002007.htm 

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/fatimas-prophetic-mission-not-complete-pope-declares-on-solemnity/