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From the very first months of his pontificate, John Paul II was solicited to fulfil the requests of Our Lady of Fatima by several petitions, including that of 25 November 1978, addressed to him from the great hall of the Mutualité to the unanimous applause of the audience who filled the hall as they do today:
We received not the slightest acknowledgement. But we soon learned that this silence was not one of indifference. The Pope was “furious” at such appeals. To a high-ranking Roman prelate who, in 1979, informed him of the request for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as he handed him the book Fatima ante la esfinge by Father Alonso, John Paul II replied: «I do not wish to hear about that. I am well-informed on the matter. I know what I have to do.» The direction he intended to give his pontificate did not correspond with the act of consecration and the reparation requested by Our Lady. This Polish Pope, who presented himself, according to his motto TOTUS TUUS, as a devotee of the Virgin Mary and as firmly anticommunist, saw himself as a disciple of Paul VI and a supporter of his Ostpolitik. On 24 January 1979, he received in private audience at the Vatican the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko. The Rome-Moscow agreement was renewed, after having being ruptured by the very evident direction taken by John Paul I when he chose Cardinal Benelli as Secretary of State in preference to Mgr Casaroli. It is sufficient to recall that in the autumn of 1977, Cardinal Luciani had opposed the “historical compromise” advocated by the Italian Communists. He had understood, exposed and denounced the manoeuvre of the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Berlinguer. And after the latter had publicly replied to a letter from the very progressive Bishop of Ivrea, Mgr Bettazzi, Cardinal Luciani had set the record straight in the review Prospettive nel Mondo: «I would like to remind my readers that Berlinguer forgot to say that article 5 of the statutes of his party obliges its members to profess nothing other than Marxism-Leninism.» Moreover, Pope John Paul II resumed ecumenical dialogue with the leaders of the schismatic communities of the East, showing no concern about betraying local Churches in union with Rome. On 22 September 1979, Cardinal Willebrands wrote to the Patriarchate of Moscow: «The Pope has no hesitation in recognising your Russian Orthodox Church as the heir to the glorious tradition of Saint Vladimir and the ancient Church of Kiev, a tradition which is at the root of the faith and perseverance of your Christian people.» As for the Eastern rite Churches which had remained Roman Catholic, they were coldly considered to be «inspired by a theology which is no longer that of today». One could not conceive of a repudiation more total and more opposed to the «conversion of Russia», a conversion so dear to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and magnificently prefigured on 5 September 1978 when Metropolitan Nikodim, having been absolved by John Paul I, died in his arms, shortly after making a pilgrimage to Turin where he had venerated the Holy Shroud. Was he not the symbol of the dissident abjuring his schism to enter the bosom of the Church of Rome (cf. our editorial photo)? The thoughts of John Paul II were therefore on a completely different plane from those of Our Lady of Fatima. For the solemnities of 12 and 13 May 1979, this Pope sent the pilgrims at Fatima a message that was so insignificant that it could have been applied to any sanctuary in the world. In 1980 he did not even bother to send a message.
During his Sunday public audience in Saint Peter’s Square on 13 May 1981, the Pope was grievously wounded by two gunshots fired by Ali Agca at around 5 pm. This is what John Paul II admitted to Vittorio Messori: «At the time I was almost completely ignorant of Fatima. When I was wounded by my assailant’s bullet in Saint Peter’s Square, I did not immediately realise that we were in fact celebrating the anniversary of the day when Mary (sic) had appeared to the three children of Fatima, in Portugal, to pass on to them the messages that, now at the end of this century, seem so close to their final fulfilment.» Our Father comments: «Well now! We would like to know what messages he is referring to! If they designate John Paul II as the Saviour, the Chosen One saved from death for the peace of the world, let him reveal to us this Secret of 13 July 1917 which he holds in his possession… and we will believe in his word!» (English CRC no 271, November 1994) The fact is that, from the day of the assassination attempt, Fatima entered into the world of John Paul II’s imagination. When he resumed his Wednesday audiences after his recovery, the Pope publicly stated that he owed his preservation to a miracle worked by the Virgin of Fatima. On 7 October 1981, at Saint Peter’s, he declared: «Truly, in all that happened on that day [the preceding 13 May], I had a sense of that extraordinary maternal protection which proved stronger than the deadly bullet.» To André Frossard he would say: «One handed fired; another guided the bullet.» No one dared to doubt it, but no one believed it either. In open contradiction with this interpretation, and in keeping with general opinion, the Abbé de Nantes did not hesitate to interpret the event as a heavenly «warning», «a formal demand» that the Pope should sit up and take notice of the message of Fatima, setting the bearings of his pontificate by it. «Might it be one last means of grace to lead this ideologue, sexologist, ecumenical and pacifist Pope back to a realistic and traditional view of his responsibilities as teacher, pastor and head of the Roman Catholic Church? Perhaps in the same way that Pius IX received an exact understanding of the malice of men and the Will of God when his minister Rossi was assassinated right in front of him in 1848?» (The attack on the Pope: Why? Supplement to French CRC no 165, 13 May 1981) A few weeks later, in July 1981, John Paul II read the Third Secret for the first time. His reaction and thoughts can be gauged by reading his speech of 14 October 1981, which is devoted to the attack on 13 May, «a great divine trial». John Paul II understood that he himself was not the Bishop dressed in White of the vision: «How many of Peter’s successors on this throne have sealed the witness of their pastoral and teaching ministry by the witness of their lives? The sacred liturgy manifests this truth when, over the year, it recalls the numerous Sovereign Pontiffs who have followed Peter by the witness of their blood. «It is difficult to speak of this without a deep veneration, without an inner feeling of disquiet. It is, indeed, through the sacrifice of those who witnessed to Christ crucified and resurrected, particularly during the first centuries, that the Mystical Body of Christ grew, that the Church was born, that she deepened her influence over souls, that she consolidated her position in that ancient world which so often responded to the Good News of the Gospel with bloody persecutions. «Those who come to Rome to “commemorate the Apostles”, those who trace the footsteps of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, should have all this before their eyes. I am a stranger who had to remain alive and assume succession of the Roman see after so many great Popes, bishops of Rome.» As he is still alive, John Paul II is clearly not the Pope whom the little shepherds contemplated on 13 July 1917, «half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow». View the assassination attempt on film: the Pope passes through a jubilant crowd who acclaim him. He is not the one, because he was not «killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him». On the other hand, his predecessor John Paul I experienced in both his heart and his flesh just such a tragedy: «Loved at Belluno, happy at Vittorio Veneto and hounded by the progressivist pack in Venice, Don Albino Luciani underwent at Rome the death of the Innocent.» (French CRC no 135, November 1978) «What a tableau of the Church!» added our Father. It is the tableau that the little shepherds contemplated on 13 July 1917. John Paul II was so conscious of this fact that he clearly decided not to publish the Secret. It was then that there began a veritable combat between the Blessed Virgin and Her “miraculé” [person cured by a miracle]. This Pope would go to Fatima on three occasions: each time he would meet Lucy and each time he would make a pretence of obeying Our Lady, as his predecessors had: «Certainly not so well as Pius XII, writes the Abbé de Nantes, but evidently better than Paul VI. The worst of it was that he wanted to delude good people into thinking that he was doing everything necessary, everything humanly possible, everything that supernatural prudence was inspiring him to do. And all the while he was demonstrating to the wicked that he had not been taken in by the legends and story tales and fatimist hysteria. He was not forcing anyone to believe in it; he was not insisting that anyone should put themselves out.» (The supreme deception, English CRC no 147, June 1982, p. 2) For, contrary to the expectation of the Portuguese and of all good Catholics who resemble them, he did not go to Fatima to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, nor to recommend the devotion of the Five First Saturdays. Nor to beatify Francisco and Jacinta…, still less to reveal the Secret, at least on the first two occasions. But what enthusiasm there was each time the Pope arrived at the Cova da Iria on 12 May: Viva o Papa! As promised, “In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved”, and this was demonstrated by the reception given to the Pope and to the Immaculate, a truly Catholic reception.
The Pope decided to make a pilgrimage to Fatima on 13 May 1982, to «thank the Blessed Virgin for saving his life». But when he arrived at the Cova da Iria on the evening of 12 May, he publicly betrayed his deliberate refusal to reveal the Third Secret. In his first speech he exclaimed: «Do you want me to teach you a Secret…? It is simple, and it is no longer a secret: “Pray much, pray the rosary every day.”» Our Father was sadly forced to take note of the evident impiety of the Pilgrim: «John Paul II has buried the Secret by mocking it.» Moreover, John Paul II refused to make any “consecration of Russia” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, substituting in its place an offering to God through Mary: «While we wait in jubilant hope to give concrete expression to all this tomorrow at Holy Mass, declared the Pope as he stopped at the Capelinha, let us from now on live our pilgrimage to the full, in a eucharistic spirit, by offering ourselves to God through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in thanksgiving and ready service; let us offer our sacrifices in union with Christ the Redeemer and let us repeat in our souls this prayer of expiation and propitiation: “Lord Jesus, it for love of You, in reparation for sins and for the conversion of sinners”.» Observe the correction imposed on the prayer that Our Lady taught the children on 13 July 1917 before She showed them hell. «O My Jesus, it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, AND IN REPARATION FOR THE SINS COMMITTED AGAINST THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY.» The Pope correctly says «in reparation for sins», but he trifles with the words and omits the principal part, «committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary». Questioned on Fatima the very next day, 14 May 1982, in the parlour of her Carmel, Sister Lucy replied that the “consecration of the world” accomplished the day before by John Paul II was not the “consecration of Russia” requested by Our Lady: «God wants the consecration of Russia and that of Russia alone, without any additions.» Game, set and match to God, for «God is not mocked» (Gal 6.7). That day, the Pope was at Coimbra. To the “intellectuals and men of Portuguese culture” he declared: «The situation may seem desperate, as though portending a new “apocalypse”. But in reality, it is nothing of the kind. For mankind in the year 2000, there certainly exists an outcome of hope and many reasons for such. All it needs is for all men of good will, especially those who profess faith in Christ, to commit themselves to a profound renewal of culture, in the light of a sound anthropology and the principles of the Gospel.» On several occasions, John Paul II will renew his act of “consecration of the world”. As for example on 25 March 1984 in Saint Peter’s, before the statue of Our Lady of Fatima brought over from the Capelinha. He did not name Russia expressly because, as he would tell Mgr Paul-Joseph Cordes, he did not wish to provoke the ire of the Soviet leaders. From then on, to anyone who insisted, John Paul II would reply, not without annoyance: «The consecration is done. It is repeated every morning.» His heart and his thoughts lay elsewhere, taken up with the preaching of his pacifist, internationalist and interreligious utopia, symbolised by the meeting at Assisi in 1986 and ostensibly given body by Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and the liberalisation of the countries of the East, following the 1989 revolutions and the fall of the Berlin Wall. All of which events John Paul II celebrated as the fulfilment of Our Lady’s promises. The reality was quite different. Russia was not “converted”, but rather enslaved to the powers of money! As for Communism, it dominated and continued to dominate China, Cuba, several countries in Africa… and even France, dangerously!
John Paul II’s second journey to Fatima, on 12 and 13 May 1991, was described as «autobiographical» in the official report (Acta diurna, 19 May 1991). For this pilgrimage commemorated the tenth anniversary of the pseudo-miracle of 13 May 1981! Moreover, the Pope explicitly linked the so-called “conversion of Russia” to his acts of “consecration of the world”, thereby hoping to win over even the most scrupulous “fatimists”: «How could We not recall the solemn act of the consecration of the world to Mary, which took place during the Holy Year of Redemption in Saint Peter’s, before the statue of Our Lady, brought over from Fatima expressly for this occasion? The events that marked the year 1989 and the first months of 1990 have created a veritable historical turning point in this truly difficult twentieth century. A wholly new prospect now lies open on the road of nations, with the disappearance of the division between two social blocs based on conflicting ideological and socio-economic principles.» Such were the illusory terms of this pious talk intended for the consumption of the Portuguese crowds. But as he was taking his leave for Lisbon airport late in the afternoon of 13 May, the Pope announced that the «prophetic warnings of the Mother of God» related to a bygone era, a dream of happiness: «Fatima is always new for him who reascends the Serra da Aire and seeks to enter ever more profoundly into the mysteries of the Message of Our Lady, “she who is always dressed in white”, a message revealed during the Apparitions of 1917 to three young shepherds, the objects and spokesmen of her maternal benevolence. We proclaim our eternal gratitude for this gift of Jesus Christ, which the men of this century have now rediscovered on the brink of the third millennium! We believe that it is the powerful solicitude of Mary that has permitted us to attain it, and that it was for this intention that she manifested herself. As your late lamented Cardinal Cerejeira said: “It is not the Church that has imposed Fatima, it is Fatima that has imposed itself on the Church”. She has imposed herself on the Church and on all men of good will who, looking beyond the marvellous progress of modern science, adhere to the great values of the Spirit outside of which there is no answer to the supreme problems of life», blah-blah-blah. So are we to believe that the Virgin reveal Herself at Fatima in 1917 in order that all men of good will should adhere to “the great values of the Spirit”? Are we to believe that the Movement for the Spiritual Animation of Universal Democracy (MASDU) is the realisation of Our Lady’s promises? Again in 1997, John Paul II addressed a message to the pilgrims on 13 October for the eightieth anniversary of the apparitions: «The secret is that we must not lose sight of the first Crucified One, him to whom the Father responded through the glory of the Resurrection, and who inaugurated this pilgrimage of the blessed…» on their way towards the new world of the year 2000... Today, we can see a clear allusion to the procession spoken of in the Third Secret: «Several other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious were climbing a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks.» But here, far from being «blessed», these people seem rather to be destined to disappear: «… and in the same way there died one after another the Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people, men and women of different ranks and positions». Such are the indisputable contents of the message of Heaven, of which the three manifestation of Jesus-Host at Moure on 18-19 May 1996, 1997 and 1998, had already given us a premonition: «like the church bell ringing three times in our villages to warn us that Mass was about to begin… or like the wooden mallet knocking three times before the curtain rises on a classical tragedy» (English CRC no 314, Nov-Dec 1998, p. 5).
Finally, the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, celebrated at Fatima on 13 May 2000, marked a great victory for the Blessed Virgin in this combat waged between Her and the Vicar of Her Son. The death of Cardinal Alberto Bovone, Prefect of the Congregation for the Cause of Saints, on 17 April 1998 was opportune. The Portuguese Claretian who replaced him, Don José Saraiva Martins, swept all obstacles aside. The heroic nature of the virtues of Francisco and Jacinta had been recognised since 13 May 1989. The theories of Father Dhanis, which had cast doubt upon the validity of Lucy’s statements, stood refuted once and for all, for the seer’s testimony had been decisive in concluding the beatification process. All it needed now was the recognition of a miracle. On 28 January, the medical bureau of the dicastery recognised a miracle obtained by Francisco and Jacinta, one among a hundred others. On 22 June, the cardinals and bishops of the Congregation certified that this cure could be ascribed to divine intervention. The decree on the miracle having been duly signed on 28 June 1999, it only remained to determine the place and the date of the beatification ceremony. Our Lady now won a new triumph: under pressure from the Portuguese bishops, John Paul II was obliged to fix the ceremony for 13 May 2000, and at Fatima! To welcome John Paul II to the Cova da Iria on the evening of 12 May, the enthusiasm displayed by the pilgrims could not have been greater. Once more the Portuguese people manifested their Catholic faith and their devotion towards the Immaculate and the Holy Father. Old Portuguese women, their faces lined by the sun, thumbed their rosaries, and the children dressed in white waved their little flags bearing the papal colours. A journalist questioned a little girl: «Why have you come to Fatima? – For the beatification of Francisco and Jacinta who saw the Blessed Virgin. – Why are they saints? – Because they made lots of sacrifices.» That evening, John Paul II claimed for himself all the tribute, all the honour due to the revelations of Fatima, both by his gestures as well as by his words. At the Capelinha, in an attitude of silent and abnormally prolonged prayer, he mimicked the vision seen by Jacinta of the Holy Father suffering and praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But he did not say the Rosary, retiring to his apartments before the prayer vigil.
The next day, in the course of his homily, he expressed his happiness, according to his own words, at «the goodness of the Lord towards me when, having been grievously struck down on 13 May 1981, I was saved from death. I also express my gratitude to Blessed Jacinta for the sacrifices and prayers offered for the Holy Father whom she saw suffering so greatly.» Was it about himself that he was talking? At the end of the ceremony, Cardinal Sodano, the Secretary of State, was charged to announce, there and then, that the Secret would be published in the near future and he took it upon himself to become the official reporter of the interpretation the Pope intended to give it: «On this solemn occasion of his visit to Fatima, His Holiness has directed me to make an announcement to you. As you know, the purpose of his visit to Fatima has been to beatify the two little shepherds. But he also wishes his pilgrimage to be a renewed gesture of gratitude to Our Lady for her protection during these years of his papacy. The protection seems also to be linked to the so-called “third part” of the secret of Fatima.» But what did this mean? The formula is cautious, anticipating the objections that would inevitably arise when the text was published and compared to the interpretation that the cardinal has been charged to give it: «This text contains a prophetic vision similar to those found in Sacred Scripture, which do not describe photographically the details of future events, but synthesise 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.» And now comes the «key» which is forced upon us, in the name of the Pope, even before the «reading» of the text: «The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war waged by atheistic systems against the Church and Christians.» Already the deception is apparent: for Our Lady did not speak of “atheistic systems”, but of the “errors of Russia”. «It describes the immense suffering endured by the witnesses of the faith in the last century of the second millennium. It is an interminable via crucis led by the Popes of the twentieth century.» We have already heard how Our Lord, through the mouth of Sister Lucy, deplores the apathy that «the Popes of the twentieth century» have shown towards the message of Our Lady, from Pius XI to John Paul II, with the sole exception of Pope John Paul I. We therefore strongly deny this assertion. «An interminable via Crucis» of the people of God, yes, but caused by the failure of the pastors charged to guide them: «Make known to My ministers that, given that they are following the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My request, they will also follow him into misfortune.» However, there is still time: «Never will it be too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary.» But the first condition of such a recourse is not to lie: «I have given all my texts to Holy Church, Sister Lucy said to Madam Pestana on 15 August 1982. I will die in peace. But, if they want my advice, this is it: “THE CONSECRATION OF RUSSIA, SUCH AS OUR LADY REQUESTED, HAS NOT BEEN DONE. They will do it, but it will be late.”» Lucy would repeat the same warning after the act of 25 March 1984. The cardinal continues: «According to the interpretation of the little shepherds, an interpretation recently confirmed by Sister Lucy, “the Bishop dressed in White” who prays for all the faithful is the Pope.» The cardinal labours an obvious point, for this «interpretation» forms part of the very text of the Third Secret: «We had the impression that it was the Holy Father.» Furthermore, the cardinal omits to mention that this «Bishop dressed in White» appeared «in an immense light which is God», and by doing so he deprives him of his aureole of sanctity and his status as a son of Mary's predilection. «He as well 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…» It is hopelessly inexact! The cardinal mixes everything up and makes the Secret unintelligible. At the very outset, the cardinal should not have referred to the Holy Father by saying «he as well» but «he, in the first place», at the head of the procession and leading it, but of course such a person, in the vision of 1917, could not have been John Paul II! For the text specifies that the Holy Father, before arriving at the summit of the mountain «passed through a large city half in ruins and, half trembling, with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way». These corpses were therefore already dead before he arrived. It is essential not to confuse them with the souls very much alive who follow him and who are going to die as martyrs after him, inspired by his example, once they have reached the foot of the great Cross. Moreover, if the “corpses” encountered by the Pope on his journey belonged to “those who were martyred”, their “souls” would have no need of the Pope’s prayers. Rather, it would be he who would have need of their intercession! No! The “corpses” are those of whom Saint John writes to the Church of Sardis: «I know all about you; how you are reputed to be alive and yet are dead.» (Ap 3.1) They are the corpses left by «the cancer of the Church», denounced by the Abbé de Nantes for the last forty years, «all this leukaemia of disorder, apostasy and widespread immorality, officially installed and encouraged by the hierarchy, from top to bottom» (English CRC no 103, p. 4). Cardinal Sodano continues: «… he falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a hail of gunfire.» Not according to the text of the Secret he doesn’t: he is not «apparently dead», but «killed» and «killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him». By censuring these details, the cardinal clearly demonstrates that any identification with John Paul II is unwarranted. The cardinal goes on, quite unperturbed: «After the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981, it appeared evident to His Holiness that it was “a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path”, enabling the “Pope in his throes” to halt “at the threshold of death” (John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, INSEGNAMENTI, vol. XVII/1, 1994, p. 1061).» But this is ridiculous! The version given by the Secretary of State wanders far from the literal contents of the text, and even further from the symbolic reading which he had nevertheless recommended to us. It ends in a “cinematographic” interpretation of the very kind that he has just rejected as a matter of principle, reducing the Third Secret to a “prophetic vision” of Pope John Paul II falling in his jeep “under a hail of gunfire” on 13 May 1981, as seen in the long-running archive film constantly played back to us at every opportunity. It is true that the cardinal was expressing the Pope’s thinking, and he was keen to make this clear, with references to hand, as though to indicate that he obviously did not subscribe to it himself. But the damage had been done. The cardinal’s diplomatic nuances would mean nothing to public opinion. The Secret of Fatima? It was the assassination attempt on 13 May 1981 against John Paul II, nothing more, nothing less… In any event, it belonged to the past. Cardinal Sodano’s communication on 13 May created a great stir. Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman, summarised it as follows: «The Third Secret is the announcement of the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981 and the fall of Communism.» That same evening, the media broadcast the news throughout the entire world, displacing the undeniable truth of the first two parts of the Secret already known to the pilgrims.
On 14 May, our Father left on pilgrimage for Portugal. A week of agony. Even before we had learned the authentic text of the Third Secret, we had experienced its overpowering and mysteriously crushing weight. It reminded us of Lucy in 1917 when she was tempted not to keep her appointment with “the beautiful lady” on 13 July, or again, in October-December 1943, when she was prevented by a mysterious obstacle from writing down the Secret. Nor did we forget Cardinal Luciani, in July 1977, when he learned of the crushing destiny that was in store for him… We found Fatima deserted… … as foreseen in the Secret, where a large city half in ruins can be seen, a city strewn with “corpses”. We had a sense of living the Secret: a wasting away of the Church, Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, the laity both rich and poor, men and women, all disappearing one after another, following the death of this mysterious «Bishop dressed in White». Yes, this was what the heavy Secret disclosed: the prophetic vision of a Church entirely disorientated by an enormous mystification, and distracted, positively diverted by her pastors from paying attention to the urgent requests of Our Lady to consecrate Russia to Her Immaculate Heart and to recommend the reparatory devotion of the First Saturdays of the month. Had not Lucy herself been the instrument and figure of the unconcern of the whole Church? On 13 May 2000 we saw her serene and happy. During her brief interview with John Paul II in the sacristy of the basilica, she handed him an envelope which, according to Aura Miguel, contained a «photograph of a painting of the Pope». During the ceremonies, she was flanked by a lady doctor and two bodyguards. At no moment did she seem put out. However, on two occasions, she stood up and made some large gestures, something surprising and a little disturbing. Might she have been drugged, as was the case with Blessed Aloysius Stepinac, the Archbishop of Zagreb, during his trial before Tito’s court in 1946? She heard Cardinal Sodano’s communication and applauded. Her public demonstrations of devotion to the Holy Father appeared to constitute her, before the eyes of the whole world, the guarantor of this imposture. According to several witnesses, both at Coimbra before 13 May as well as at Fatima after the beatification, she appeared to be happy. When, on 16 May, she was taken on pilgrimage to Aljustrel, escorted by three police cars (!), she appeared very cheerful. Yet, on 27 April, during the visit of Mgr Bertone, the Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the Carmel at Coimbra, she was informed of the interpretation that John Paul II wished to give the Third Secret. According to the account of her discussion with Mgr Bertone, published in the Roman dossier of 26 June, she is even supposed to have explicitly approved it. But can one trust an official report? Ten times a day, perhaps, during our pilgrimage week, I heard our Father murmur: «Poor Lucy, poor Lucy!» I was reminded of the promise of Our Lady when, on 13 June 1917, She responded to Lucy’s anguish at «remaining here all alone»: «No, my daughter. Do you suffer very much? Do not be discouraged. I will never abandon you! My Immaculate heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.» What a promise of indefectibility!
The Third Secret was finally published in an official dossier entitled The Message of Fatima. Thrown like scraps of food before journalists at a press conference, the heavenly message, «emanating from the Spirit and Heart of Mary», as the Abbé de Nantes describes it, was greeted with general indifference. The central section of the dossier is designed to impose the idea of a perfect harmony between the seer and the Pope: Lucy is presented as endorsing the official interpretation of the Secret. She is even supposed to have provided John Paul II with the inspiration for it, as Mgr Severino Poletto, Archbishop of Turin, explains: «Let us be careful. The Pope never said, “The bishop dressed in white is me.” This interpretation belongs to Sister Lucy (sic!). Admittedly, the Pope accepts that the attack on him could have been integrated into the vision of the little shepherds. But, that said, the vision is a subjective reality [a typically modernist affirmation]; and it is the seer who applied it to this Pope, and not the Pope who applied it to himself.» (La Repubblica, 27 June 2000) An obvious falsehood! And yet the whole world believed this assertion, despite the fact that all it takes to refute it is a single statement of Lucy’s taken from her meeting with Mgr Bertone on 27 April 2000 and published in the dossier of 26 June: «I wrote down what I saw; however, it is not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope.» And Cardinal Ratzinger, for his part, emphasised that «Sister Lucy first observed that she had received the vision but not its interpretation. The interpretation, she said, belongs not to the visionary but to the Church.» The point is worth stressing even though it leads us to conclude that Sister Lucy has acquiesced in the official interpretation. In vain does the Archbishop of Turin seek to exempt the Pope from responsibility for an untenable lie, a lie that has visibly been a source of great embarrassment for his whole entourage. For the prophecy has nothing to do with the assassination attempt on 13 May 1981: «There exists a wide discrepancy, remarks Mgr Corrado Balducci, not only between the prophecy and the interpretation given to it, but also between the text read at Fatima by Cardinal Secretary of State Sodano, and that published by Cardinal Ratzinger. What relationship is there between the description given by Sister Lucy – i.e. the soldiers, the arrows, the pontiff who is killed – and the Pope wounded in Saint Peter’s Square?» (La Stampa, 27 June 2000) No relationship at all! The fact is that there is only one correspondence possible, and it is with the only Pope in the 20th century to have been killed. In its own way the Roman dossier published on 26 June proves this by an astonishing lacuna. For in its flattering honours list one finds the names of all the popes from «Pius X» to John Paul II, that is, all the Popes of the 20th century with the exception of one: John Paul I! An oversight? No, that is impossible. Has he been snuffed out in the night, then, as though by assassins?
The message of the Immaculate written by Sister Lucy on 3 January 1944 draws its marvellous light from biblical revelation, from both the Old and New Testaments, whence it projects this light onto the events of our own day, traversing the years between 1917 and 2000 and unveiling the future that lies before us. In just a few lines, it comprises not only the richest biblical symbolism but also a marvellous dogmatic development bearing on the ultimate articles of our Credo. For the Book of Genesis teaches us that, having chased Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, Yahweh-God «posted, to the east of the garden of Eden, the cherubim and the flame of a flashing sword to guard the way to the tree of life» (Gn 3.24). «The cherubim and the flame of a flashing sword» are therefore situated in relation to the garden of Eden, «to the east of the garden». Whereas in the vision of Fatima, the Angel carrying the sword is situated in relation to the Blessed Virgin: «to the left of Our Lady». The Blessed Virgin has therefore taken Her place in the garden of Eden. More specifically, She opens up to us «the way to the tree of life», the way of the «large Cross» which we are soon going to see rising from the summit of a «high mountain». For this reason, it would have been fitting for this heavenly message to have been made public during a liturgical ceremony in Rome, then addressed to all the bishops of the world, that they might read it and explain it to the faithful in a solemn manner. By disclosing it at a press conference, Cardinal Ratzinger profaned it. And his commentary has succeeded in extinguishing its light: «No great mystery is revealed, he writes. The veil of the future has not been torn back.» In what must be an ultimate revelation of hearts, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith even confesses that devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary seems strange to him! He does not believe therefore in the Holy Spirit, who takes infinitely more delight in the Immaculate Conception than in a prevaricating hierarchy, and who gives Himself through this Immaculate Heart to the Holy Catholic Church and to «souls making their way to God» in the communion of saints and remission of sins, in view of the resurrection of the flesh, for life eternal…! Thus, rather than enlightening and converting the sceptics, Our Lady’s ultimate message, by remaining «impenetrable to the adversary» (English CRC no 332, p. 7), operates a veritable «judgement of God».
On 21 May, the spokesman of the Holy See, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, declared to Corriere della Sera, in answer to a question about the Secret of Fatima and the possible “rehabilitations” to which it might give rise: «The publication of the prophecy will provide no papal support for the anti-ecumenical traditionalism which has improperly seized hold of certain aspects of the message of Fatima, speculating in a millenary key on the presumed but not actual contents of this unpublished text. «On the contrary, the decision to publish it arose from the conviction that one could not allow Fatima to become hostage to a partisan position (positione di parte). When it is published, each aspect of the message of Fatima will recover its just proportions, and taken as a whole it will be more intelligible for everyone.» A frightening example of the brainwashing formulas employed by the “press room” of Vatican Enterprise! One month later, the publication of the Secret will sharply contradict him by revealing a close convergence between the Secret of the Immaculate and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Anyone may convince himself of this by listening to our conference Fatima and the CRC in the service of the Immaculate (PC61, in French). But let us immerse ourselves once again in these torrents of light. In 1957, Lucy declared to Father Fuentes: «Father, the devil is currently engaged in a decisive battle against the Virgin.» In the following year, 1958, the Abbé de Nantes founded our community and set about denouncing «an agonising form of diabolical domination, operating at the very heart of the Church, as Saint Pius X had predicted, and acting insidiously in her name, through her ministers and her organs, often covered by her authority, but always in harmony and favour with her enemies without.» (Lettre à mes amis no 58, October 1959) Proof of this infernal hold was provided almost immediately: the country parish priest and the Carmelite nun both experienced a similar type of exclusion. But, whereas Sister Lucy was reduced to silence in her Carmel, as we mentioned earlier, our Father wrote: «He who has seen this can no longer keep quiet!» And he would refuse to hold his peace. In his Letter of 1 October 1964, he analyses the third session of the Council in which the assembled Fathers had refused to proclaim “Mary Mediatrix of all graces”: «It is quite certain that there is an incompatibility between the reformist party and the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes and Fatima! Each may provide his own reasons for this. But for us it is a sign of victory, for he who is against the Virgin is against the Church and is on the road to ruin.» (Lettre à mes amis no 185, p. 2) On 1 January 1965, the Abbé de Nantes wrote some lines that one might have thought inspired by the Third Secret if we did not know that it was still sealed at the time: «The Christian world is in the same situation as Lazarus. It has distanced itself from God and is very sick; it appears that it will die shortly.» (Lettre à mes amis no 193, p. 2) This simple observation marked the fulfilment of the prophecy that Pope John XXIII had refused to divulge and which we know today: «… and in the same way there died one after another Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people, men and women of different ranks and positions…» In an interview published by Le Monde et la Vie in October 1965, the journalist André Giovanni asked the Abbé de Nantes: «Give us an absolute and indubitable sign of the truth of your convictions, of the charity of your combat. A sign of hope! – This sign is something we all have and it belongs to everyone; it is the Secret of Fatima. When the Blessed Virgin has decided to enlighten Her children, there is nothing else to do than fall on one’s knees and listen to Her…» Again in 1973, at the end of the programme Radioscopy presented by Jacques Chancel on the airwaves of France-Inter, the latter asked: «And finally, if there were a test of fidelity, what would you ask for from the Pope and the bishops? – Quite simply, the sign of Fatima. Let them reveal the Secret of Fatima, and this will decide between us in a sovereign manner, because Fatima is true and no one contests the truth of these apparitions and this message. Let them tell us the words of the Blessed Virgin; She will judge sovereignly between us.» Today, we have before our eyes these “words of the Blessed Virgin”. She does judge sovereignly between us, compensating for the silence of the tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. Maria locuta est, causa finita! Mary has spoken, the case is heard! In January 1969, the Abbé de Nantes wrote: «“Jam fœtet”, as was the case with Lazarus after three days. After three years of Reform, the Church of Vatican II already smells. It is the smell of decomposition, of the auto-destruction of religion wrought by its own ministers. The odour of putrefaction can be traced back to Rome: “It is like an interior upheaval, acute and complex, which nobody could have foreseen after the Council… The Church, little by little, has begun to turn on herself”, Paul VI himself admitted on 8 December 1968.» (French CRC no 16, p. 6) Our Father added: «Yes! it was foreseeable, it was even inevitable.» He in any case had foreseen it… And the indubitable proof that he was right is today provided to us by the Secret of Fatima: «The Holy Father passed through a large city half in ruins and prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way.» The Abbé de Nantes was unaware just how far his own views coincided with those of the Blessed Virgin when he wrote regarding the year just ended: «1968 presents the symptoms of cadaveric decomposition. A declining birth rate, a fall in the number of vocations and conversions, a reduction in attendance at Mass and the practice of the Sacraments. The brutal acceleration of immorality, abortion and divorce. The contagion of apostasy and the abandonment of vows, “marriages” of priests, whether authorised or not…» And he added: «In the gigantic confrontation between the Reform and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, that is to say between treason and Tradition, the Church will finally belong to whichever of the two camps over which the apostolic hierarchy, and in the final analysis the Holy Father, takes the lead.» That is exactly what we read in the Third Secret, what the little shepherds saw with their own eyes on 13 July 1917: «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”.» He is at the head of a procession, the very same that our Father was longing to see: «Several other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious were climbing a steep mountain.» «This illness is not unto death, it is for the glory of God, in order that the Son of God may be glorified by it.» (Jn 11.4). Jesus said this of Lazarus. And thus it will fare with the Church made sick by the Council, the Church which the Abbé de Nantes compares to Lazarus dead and buried: «Jam fœtet». He has never tired of saying this in every possible manner, polemical and mystical, throughout forty years of “Counter-Reformation”, in opposition to those who would «abandon the bedside of their mother who, not knowing what she was doing, called out to her imaginary lovers and tore at the caressing hands of her sons, refusing to recognise them any longer as her children».
The Abbé de Nantes has constantly stood close to Her, «defending her against her enemies, showing the door to charlatans, pleading for true doctors, and giving encouragement to the last of her faithful children. Sometimes a ray of light passed over her face, like a gentle smile, reminding me of the immense tenderness she had shown in former times. For a moment I thought I had got Her back, and then the darkness returned and there was nothing but ugliness and horror, groans and curses. I was afraid of being swallowed up in all this myself. But I knew that I would remain with Her, venerating, loving and serving this Church in a state of disgusting rottenness and decomposition, because, today as well as yesterday and for all eternity, She is the Unique and Beloved Spouse of my Lord.» (French CRC no 21, June 1969, p. 12) The vision of the Third Secret does not present an illness but a destruction, the destruction of «a large city half in ruins» after a war or an earthquake, and this city is strewn with corpses. On 13 July 1917, three innocent children beheld the Holy City devastated by the work of Paul VI. Immediately after this Pontiff had died, moved, wrote the Abbé de Nantes, by «an immense pity for this poor soul for the salvation of whom, as you know, I had gone so far as to offer in exchange my earthly life, which is not so much, and even my eternal life (Liber accusationis in Paulum Sextum, 1973, p. 96, French edition)», he continued: «I shudder at the thought: to have shaken the Church to her very foundations, to have made a pact with the devil’s own children and to have given up Christian lands to barbarians, to have almost irreparably destroyed the ramparts of Christendom, to have profaned and devastated the Sanctuary, and without doubt to have caused the loss of thousands upon thousands of souls, for fifteen years of apparent glory… What does it all amount to? What does it mean in the perspective of the eternity where he has now entered?» (English CRC no 101, August 1978) Barely three weeks latter, the news rang out urbi et orbi: «ANNUNTIO VOBIS GAUDIUM MAGNUM... and it was true: Cardinal Felici, the first cardinal deacon, brimming with joy on that glorious summer evening of 26 August 1978, announced to the Church of Rome a great joy for the City and for the whole world, the election to the sovereign pontificate of the Patriarch of Venice.» (English CRC no 102, September 1978) One month later, there was a new funeral oration, but this time what a difference from the previous one! «The whole of this short pontificate was bathed in a mystery of divine grace and holiness which more than abundantly repays us for our twenty years of distress. It seems that Christ has decided to take His Church in hand Himself and in the first place by sending Her saints.» Then, playing on the name of the new Pope, the Abbé de Nantes added: «Albino Luciani means white light, the lunar splendour which shines in the night sky and illuminates it with a beauty that it owes entirely to the sun whose reflection it is. Such was the humility of him who confessed that he was not the light but wished nothing more than to be among us as its mirror.» (English CRC no 103, October 1978) One would almost believe that our Father knew the Third Secret in speaking like this of a “mirror”! «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.» He who «passes» is «dressed in White» because he is the Pope: «We had the impression that it was the Holy Father.» However, «White» is not merely the colour of his soutane. In this «immense light which is God», the Holy Father appears transfigured, like Jesus on the mountain: «His clothes became dazzlingly white» (Lk 9.29), «white like the light» (Mt 17.2). Furthermore, in the vision of 13 July 1917 he «passes» in front of the mirror like a glorious body, like One Living, like a Saint. And it was indeed thus that we in our turn saw him «pass», sixty years later, during the thirty-three days of his pontificate, in those luminous months of August and September 1978. The rest of the vision relates the «Passover» of the Bishop dressed in White: his martyrdom at the foot of the large Cross. And what results from this? The consumption of the whole hierarchical Church: «… and in the same way there died one after another the Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people, men and women of different ranks and positions.» These lines summarise the history of the twenty-two years of John Paul II’s papacy, verifying to the letter what our Father announced in 1995, like a prophetic vision of the Third Secret: «The appalling picture of the world’s apostasy and misfortune soberly depicted, yet exactly described, and recognisable! on a little exercise-book page of the child of Fatima.» «They have long been pretending to have gained in quality what they have lost in numbers, he explained. They then went on to disguise the losses, the decline and the desertions, by reorganising, rationalising, restructuring and by promoting the laity. These lies diverted the attention of the princes of the Church away from the implacable expansion of the desert and the total death of regions that were previously flourishing. Now, we are faced with the impossible, the inexorable. Monasteries are closing, priests are dying, parishes are merging, and the people are abandoned. There is worse: less nourished, less assisted, souls are being drained of their spiritual substance.» (English CRC no 274, February-March 1998, p. 30) However, the Abbé de Nantes confidently declared that in this Secret, «as in the reality of our lives, alongside this ocean of evil, floating like the Ark on the waters of the Flood, the work of God will be seen to continue, open to every soul, every family and every ancient religious house of good will and avid for devotion», in short: open to «souls making their way to God». Brother Bruno of Jesus |
