In Spite of the Efforts to Bury it:
Pope John Paul II Gives Us the Key to the Real Third Secret
Part II
Our Lady of Fatima said, “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.” What is dogma? And what does this have to do with the Third Secret? Father Gruner masterfully shows us how we can protect our souls; how we can know, without a shadow of a doubt, what our Catholic Faith asks of us; and how this helps us to understand the innermost contents of the Third Secret.
by Father Nicholas Gruner, S.T.L., S.T.D. (Cand.)
In Part I of this article (Issue 67), I examined what Pope John Paul II has told us concerning the Third Secret in his sermons of May 13, 1982 and May 13, 2000 and what this means to us. I discussed how the Pope has revealed to us the essence of the Third Secret — that the Catholic Faith is being undermined in our time by (among others) one-third of the clergy. Which now leads us to ask who are these persons in the Church who are undermining the Faith.
Q: Why is it important to know the identity of those persons in the Church who are undermining the Catholic Faith?
Pope St. Pius X answers this question for us in his 1907 encyclical Pascendi, wherein he writes: “The partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; but … in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open.” These enemies are lay people and priests “thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church”, and who put themselves forward “as reformers of the Church“.5
St. Pius X insists:
“The Church has no greater enemies. For they put into operation their designs for Her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of Her is more intimate.”6 “They seize upon professorships in the seminaries and universities, and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence.”7 “It is time to tear away the mask from these people and to show them to the Church such as they are.”8
Q: How can we tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?
Now, someone might say “well now, you talked about one-third of the clergy being bad; why can we not say that perhaps you, Father Gruner, and priests like you are part of that one-third of the clergy and that the liberals, the progressivists and the neo-Catholics — whatever titles you want to give them — they’re the ones that are good?” Well, the answer again is in what has been infallibly defined. That’s what tells you who are the good clergy and laity, and who are not.
The good guys are those who uphold the Faith, who hold fast to the doctrine of Jesus. That is in Sacred Scripture. It is Our Lord who says, “By their fruits you shall know them.” [Mt. 7:16] So you can tell who to trust by seeing if they are upholding the Catholic Faith as defined by the solemn definitions. If they are doing this, then they are upholding the proper doctrine. Another sign to look for is to see if they are living their Catholic Faith as well. Furthermore, it is not what people say about the priests, but what the individual priest actually does himself and what he actually says. For example, despite what is said about Father Gruner, he is an obedient priest— the reasons are explained in the article “The Question of Obedience” by Father Paul Kramer, which was published in Issue 67 of The Fatima Crusader.
So when you find clergy — priests, bishops, Cardinals — who are upholding the solemn, infallible definitions of the Catholic Faith, those are the clergy that you should follow. The priests, bishops or Cardinals who are not upholding the solemn, infallible definitions, either by directly contradicting them or by calling them into question or by telling us that there are better ways to formulate them which contradict or deviate from the definitions (and there are some Cardinals today who are calling for the revision of definitions — that the definitions were wrong, that they were badly done, and so forth), those are the clergy that you should not follow. Period. End of discussion. And that is one way you can know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
The definitions of the Catholic Church are infallible. Priests, bishops, Cardinals or even a Pope (should there be one) who tell you not to follow the infallible definitions, they’re the ones to avoid because it’s the definitions that are infallible. We must realize that the Catholic Church is infallible and that as long as any Catholic teaches and believes what the Catholic Church has always infallibly taught and believed, then that faithful Catholic is also infallibly correct.
We must also realize that all of us are human and can make mistakes so that by ourselves, we — without the help of God — are in practice not infallible about many things.
Father Gruner and every priest, bishop and Cardinal are not infallible in their personal opinions or even in some of their theological views. We must recall that even the Pope is not always infallible. This is clearly defined in the First Vatican Council. The Pope is not infallible when he is not exercising his infallible Magisterium. The Pope is infallible when he, by himself or together with his bishops, solemnly defines something to be revealed by God and therefore to be believed with Catholic Faith.
The Pope is also infallible when he, together with all the Catholic bishops of the world, exercises the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Not everything that the Pope does and says is part of this Universal and Ordinary Magisterium.
And when the Pope is not speaking or teaching according to the norms set down by God for the Pope to engage in his infallible Magisterium, then the Pope can err and in fact Popes have erred in the past. We see this in the lives of Pope Liberius, Pope Honorius, Pope Paschal II, Pope John XXII (in 1333) and the first Pope, St. Peter. (These examples were discussed in Part I of this article, in Issue 67 of The Fatima Crusader.)
But the distinction as to whether a member of the clergy (or the laity) is good or bad is not determined solely by whether he verbally upholds or doesn’t uphold the Faith. Besides comparing the teaching (i.e. the words) of a priest, a bishop, a Cardinal or the Pope to the infallible teaching of Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church, there is one more important way to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
You need to see if the person is also upholding the orthodox practices of the Catholic Church by his words (written and spoken), by his actions and by the Christian conduct of his life.
You need to see if the person (priest, bishop, Cardinal or Pope) is also following fervently the orthodox Catholic practices and is not following hetero practices. The solemn definitions define what is of the Faith and what is not of the Faith — i.e. what is heresy. But there is more than one way to attack the Catholic Faith.
Attacking the words of doctrine is not the only means of attacking the Faith, it can also be attacked by our actions that go against the Faith — done in either an obvious or a subtle manner. Our actions must support our words. We uphold the Faith by upholding the doctrines in our thoughts, words, and writings and also by upholding the pious practices within the Church which uphold the Faith.
By introducing practices into the local parish (or the local diocese or the local ecclesiastical province, or even into the Universal Church as Catholic Doctors have written it is possible to happen) which give the impression that the defined Faith is not to be believed, you scandalize the little ones and even some learned souls by hetero-praxis.
Hetero-praxis is any practice that a person or a group does or could do which implies that one or more Catholic doctrines are not true. For example, we know by the solemn definitions of the Council of Trent that God guarantees to us that the consecrated Host is indeed His Real Presence — that is, the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, together with His Soul and Divinity. Now, the Protestant revolters wanted to deny this article of the Faith and they wanted to influence others to do the same. So they reintroduced the practice of Communion in the hand (it had been originally introduced as a widespread practice by the Arian heretics of the Fourth Century to deny that Jesus is God). So that by this symbolic action, their denial would be clear to all.
This hetero-praxis has been effectively used in our day by the enemies of the Church to scandalize many poor Catholics into losing their Faith in the Real Presence. That is why this practice of Communion in the hand was forbidden by the universal law of the Church for many centuries and it is still forbidden by the law of the Church to this day. (The recent indult [i.e. permission] to go against the letter of the law is only allowed if this practice does not lead to the lessening of the Faith in the Real Presence and does not lead to less respect for the Real Presence. Most people do not know this in our day. In fact, most people do not know that Communion in the hand is never allowed even with the indult if its 2 principles and 7 rules are not followed. But if anyone doubts what I say, they can read it in the appendix to Memoriale Domini [May 1969] found in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis of 1969, on pages 546-547. See also Appendix V in the first and second editions of Fatima Priest.)
The practices which uphold orthodox doctrine are referred to as ortho-praxis (i.e. orthodox Catholic practices). These include such practices as: genuflecting in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, distributing/receiving Communion on the tongue, maintaining the tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament as the primary focus of attention (and worship) in the center of the sanctuary, and the solemn behavior of the clergy within the sanctuary showing due reverence to the Presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament. These examples of ortho-praxis (orthodox actions upholding the Faith) testify to the truth of the dogma that the Blessed Sacrament is the Real Presence of God — the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread — as well as the proper respect of man to God.
On the other hand, practices which promote or uphold heresy or give the impression that one or more given heresies are true are referred to as hetero-praxis (i.e. heterodox practices which give the impression that heresy is true). Another example of hetero-praxis — I already mentioned Communion in the hand as one example — is the permanent removal of the tabernacle with the Blessed Sacrament from the sanctuary to a side room or broom closet so that the primary focus of attention (and worship) in the sanctuary becomes the chair of the Celebrant — the “President of the Assembly”. The message is subtly given and received that the person who sits in that chair is more important than the Blessed Sacrament. And since the “President of the Assembly” represents the people, then subtly the message is given that God is unimportant and that man is more important. To put it briefly, in the minds and hearts of the people at these religious gatherings, God has been de facto replaced by man. This example of hetero-praxis conveys the erroneous message to the lay people that the Blessed Sacrament is just not that important, that It is just bread, and promotes the heresy that It is not the Real Presence of God — the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearance of the host.
These examples remind us of the words of Pope Pius XII:
“Suppose, dear friend, that Communism (Russia and Russia’s errors, in Fatima terms) was only the most visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation … I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy … A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God … In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them, like Mary Magdalene weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, ‘where have they taken Him?’”9
From Pope Pius XII’s words, it seems then that these above-mentioned hetero practices against the Blessed Sacrament have been explicitly mentioned in the Third Secret of Fatima because we find them nowhere else mentioned in the Fatima message. Yet Pius XII clearly says it is Our Lady of Fatima who warns us against “the suicide of altering the Faith in Her liturgy.”
Heresy is brought about in two different ways: by words or by practices which promote the impression that the heresy is “officially” promoted to be believed. Therefore, the good guys are those who uphold the Faith by upholding the solemn, infallible definitions of the Catholic Faith in thoughts, words, and writings and by ortho-praxis and good morals; while the bad guys attack the Faith with their words, do not adhere to the solemn, infallible definitions of the Catholic Faith, or promote hetero-praxis and heresy.
Much more can be said about ortho-praxis and hetero-praxis (both words are a part of common Catholic teaching for the centuries), but I’ll save it for a later issue of The Fatima Crusader. It is sufficient to note here that by observing if a priest is edifying in his personal words and actions as well as in his public words and actions, then it is a way to guide you into knowing who are the good shepherds. And if a priest gives a bad example by his words or actions or hetero-praxis, then you are to avoid him as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. As Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” [Mt. 7:16]
Q: What does this mean (knowing the good guys vs. the bad guys) to the average layman?
Now what we need to know is, first of all, what does this mean for us — is this important? Yes, it’s very important — because to save your soul, you have to hold on to the Catholic Faith whole and inviolate. How do you hold on to the Catholic Faith whole and inviolate? By doing two things. First, you arm yourself spiritually by praying the Rosary daily. Our Lady promises that if you pray the Rosary every day, you will not fall into heresy. Praying the daily Rosary will also overcome vice and decrease sin. The second thing is to be informed of the Catholic Faith. If you received your Catholic education anytime since 1965, then you should buy a good Catholic catechism, such as the old Baltimore Catechism of 1885 or the Catechism of the Council of Trent or the Catechism of St. Pius X. Study those catechisms, and anything you previously learned which contradicts the doctrines of either of these three catechisms, reject it and hold on to what the Catholic Church has taught in these three catechisms.
The Catechism of the Council of Trent was written by a saint (St. Charles Borromeo), was promulgated by a second saint (St. Pius V), and was authorized by the Council of Trent, which was dogmatic — which gives you dogma, which gives you solemn definitions. That’s why I recommend that catechism the highest. Secondly, even the Baltimore Catechism volumes I, II and III have over 100 years of authority behind them. In addition, these volumes were promulgated by the whole episcopal conference of the United States; before they could become promulgated they had to be approved by the Holy Office, at a time when the Church was not infiltrated by one-third of the clergy working for the dragon; and you can’t find anything in the old Baltimore Catechism which contradicts definitions of any council or any teaching of the Catholic Faith. Whereas, some more recent catechisms after the Second Vatican Council — some were even called Baltimore Catechisms — have some things in them which may be questionable. That’s why I suggest that you go back to the old edition, which TAN publishes.
After you get that foundation from the Baltimore Catechism or the Catechism of the Council of Trent or the Catechism of St. Pius X (which was, obviously, also written by a Saint), then by all means read the definitions yourself in the Council of Trent, in the First Vatican Council, in the Council of Florence and so forth. There you’re on solid ground. You cannot fail by following those definitions. By following the teachings of the saints and especially the Doctors of the Church, you’re on solid ground in the Faith. And so those are the things that will prepare your mind and your heart and soul. Secondly, you should try to help all those who are on your path — that God puts in your path — by teaching them to pray the Rosary, encouraging them to pray the Rosary daily, and giving them solid Catholic doctrine to read. And when you come against something which contradicts or appears to contradict the perennial teaching of the Church for all time or the teaching of the saints of all ages, then stay with what the Church has always taught. Until the next Church council meets to settle the question, hold suspect those things which appear to contradict the definitions. To save your faith and your soul, you also need to follow good shepherds — good priests — and avoid the teaching and example of bad priests.
Q: How can we be so certain in matters of Faith?
First of all, we can be certain of the Faith because the definitions are infallible. Why are we certain about anything in the Faith? We are certain about what God reveals. God — Who is All Holy — cannot deceive anyone simply because He cannot lie. Since He is Holiness Itself, and since to lie is a sin, a defect against holiness, God cannot lie. Therefore, God would not deliberately deceive us. Secondly, God — Who is All-Knowing — cannot be mistaken. So, when God — Who cannot lie and cannot be mistaken — tells us something is true, then we know that it is true. So we know for certain, even with greater certitude than mathematical certitude. We do know that two plus two equals four. How do we know that? Because, we can count and we can see two plus two and we count all together and that’s four. We can have mathematical certitude. But with the certitude of the Faith, we have the greatest certitude.
Well, how do we know what it is that God revealed? We know that what is in the Bible is God’s word. We know that what is in Sacred Tradition is revealed by God. But there are passages in Sacred Scripture and sometimes different aspects of Sacred Tradition that, to the uninstructed, seem to be self-contradictory or unclear. Therefore, God has appointed an authority to define what He means in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition — that is, Papal and Conciliar definitions which are the solemn and infallible Magisterium of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by God Himself. God also teaches infallibly through the Universal and Ordinary Magisterium.
But for a teaching to belong to the infallible Universal and Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church, it cannot be, in any way, in contradiction to what the Catholic Church has always taught. This is because the Magisterium is not given by God to give new doctrines but only to explain what is in the Deposit of the Faith — that is, what is in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
Therefore, it is clear that not everything that a Catholic priest, a Catholic bishop, a Catholic Cardinal or even a Catholic Pope teaches belongs to the infallible Magisterium. As mentioned above, we have given examples from Church history in which even Popes have taught things contrary to Catholic dogma and dogmatic definitions. So to repeat myself once more, it is the Catholic Faith as taught and defined by the infallible Magisterium that we must adhere to in order to save our souls and not the dubious or false non-infallible pronouncements of any priest, bishop, Cardinal or Pope.
How do we know then what we must believe? We know what is of the Faith by the infallible definitions. So we have a definition which tells us that there are three Persons in one God. We can be more certain of that than of anything we can know by our unaided senses or intellect alone. We can be more certain of that than we can that two plus two equals four. So if somebody comes by — whether it be a Pope, a Cardinal, a bishop, a priest or a lay person — and tells us that there’s not three Persons in one God, then we are certain that he is wrong. It’s as simple as that. And so we can be certain that we don’t have to question whether he is wrong — we knowthat he is wrong. It’s not because we are right — it is because God is right and all we’re doing is believing what God reveals, and that is an act of the supernatural virtue of Faith. By doing so, we are only obeying the First Vatican Council, which explicitly teaches:
“Moreover, by divine and Catholic faith everything must be believed that is contained in the written word of God or in tradition, and that is proposed by the Church as a divinely revealed object of belief either in a solemn decree or in her ordinary, universal teaching.” [Denzinger 1792]
We also know that the Church’s infallible teachings cannot fail because God guarantees it. God has indicated His guarantee by the great miracles which Christ Himself worked as well as what His saints have worked in His Name and as testimony to the truth of the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings. These miracles, which continue to this present day, are sufficient motive to believe all that the Roman Catholic Church teaches, including the solemn definition of the First Vatican Council that all solemn definitions are infallible — that is, they cannot fail, they can never be changed and that God guarantees the truth of all these infallible definitions.
The First Vatican Council solemnly teaches that two external motives for believing in the Catholic Faith are the realizations of God-given miracles and prophecies in the Catholic Church. As the First Vatican Council solemnly taught:
“Nevertheless, in order that the submission of our faith might be consonant with reason (see Rom. 12:1), God has willed that external proofs of his revelation, namely divine acts and especially miracles and prophecies, should be added to the internal aids given by the Holy Spirit. Since these proofs so excellently display God’s omnipotence and limitless knowledge, they constitute the surest signs of divine revelation, signs that are suitable to everyone’s understanding. Therefore, not only Moses and the prophets but also and pre-eminently Christ our Lord performed many evident miracles and made clear-cut prophecies. Moreover, we read of the apostles: “But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the preaching by the signs that followed” (Mark 16:20). [Denzinger 1790]
The First Vatican Council solemnly condemned those who reject God-given miracles and prophecies in the Catholic Church:
“If anyone says that it is impossible for external signs to render divine revelation credible and that, therefore, men ought to be impelled towards faith only by each one’s internal experience or private inspiration: let him be anathema.” [Denzinger 1812]
“If anyone says that all miracles are impossible and, hence, that all accounts of them, even though contained in Sacred Scripture, should be classed with fables and myths; or that miracles can never be recognized with certainty and that the divine origin of the Christian religion cannot be successfully proved by them: let him be anathema.” [Denzinger 1813]
Q: Can the hierarchy — the Cardinals, the bishops, the priests or even the Pope — be confused?
Yes. We do not have guarantees that the Cardinals, the bishops, the priests or even a Pope will never make an error against the Faith. As St. Thomas Aquinas (Doctor of the Church) teaches us, “against a fact there is no argument”. The fact is Church history tells us that St. Peter made an error against the Faith (we dealt with this earlier, in Part I). Pope John XXII in the year 1333 taught a heresy in public; he was wrong. Pope Pascal II in the year 1111 gave an order which was contrary to the common good of the Church. Pope Liberius in 357 excommunicated — in reality, only giving the appearance of excommunicating — St. Athanasius. Pope Liberius is the first Pope not to be proclaimed a saint; whereas, St. Athanasius was, and is, a great saint precisely because he was upholding the Catholic Faith. Pope Honorius, for not properly defending the Catholic Faith, was condemned by a later Pope, and Pope Honorius’ body was exhumed and given a dishonorable burial by a Church Council some years after Honorius died.
Thus, we do know that the Popes can make errors. Not many of them have made errors against the Faith, but some of them have done so. So, it is not just because he is a Pope, that whatever he says is true; but we have to go to the rock-solid bottom of certitude, and that is infallible definitions. That is the crucial point we must remember. It is the teaching of the Doctors of the Church — St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Alphonsus Liguori and other Doctors — that the Popes can make errors against the Faith. And therefore, in case of doubt, or of contradiction of defined Catholic dogma, we have to go with the solid definitions and even avoid the teaching of priests, bishops, Cardinals and even a Pope in these circumstances.
Q: Who is undermining the Catholic Faith and how are they doing it?
We now have the evidence of how the Catholic Faith is being undermined and by whom — it’s about infiltration of the enemy within the Church. In the 1920’s, Lenin (the founder of Russian Communism) said that he would infiltrate the Catholic Church; he said that he would destroy the Church by infiltration. In the 1930’s and the 1940’s we have the testimony of Bella Dodd, who was the Attorney General Designate of the Communist Party USA. She ultimately converted back to the Catholic Faith and then gave public speeches. I have talked to a person who heard her say that she personally sent into the Catholic seminaries in the 1930’s and the 1940’s over 1,000 young men in order to subvert the Catholic Church in the United States from within. And before she died, she reported that some of them had already become bishops. And of course, bishops beget bishops. Then, of course, there is the book AA-1025, which tells the story of one such Communist agent who entered the seminary with the intent to destroy the Church by subversion in accordance with the Communist plan. The testimony of this book has the ring of truth about it.
We not only have Bella Dodd, we not only have Lenin, we also have the secret document of the Chinese Communists, which was published in Cuba (and we published in The Fatima Crusader Issue 19, on page 6), pointing out the plot to destroy the Church from within by infiltrating the clergy. I myself have met a Catholic priest who was working for the Communists. I spent 6 hours “downloading” him, so-to-speak, in the early 1970’s. I met him face-to-face in Rome, where he was living in the Casa Generalizia, the headquarters of a religious order and of its Superior General; and when he opened himself up and let me know what he was doing and thinking, I allowed him to believe that I agreed with him — although I told him no lies. So I have seen one myself, with my own eyes — I know they exist. It is not a question of somebody else’s testimony; it’s my own testimony — my own eyes and ears.
But it’s not just resting on my testimony and the testimony of Lenin and also of Bella Dodd — it’s only logical that these people, like Lenin who said “the lie is sacred”, should use infiltration. And Sacred Scripture (Jude 1:4 and Acts 20:29-30) tells us that the enemy would use infiltration to try to destroy the Church. They understand that the Catholic Church is the primary enemy of the Communists, Communism and the whole militant atheist agenda. Therefore, it is only logical that they would do such a thing in order to destroy the Church from within. But there’s also a lot of other evidence on this subject as well.
The various Catholic religious orders have been targeted for infiltration, and the whole Catholic Priest Worker movement in the 1950’s was overcome or, at the least, was badly infiltrated by the Communists, when Pope Pius XII called an end to it in the 1950’s. So this is nothing new. In fact, when I was in the seminary in the early 1970’s, we had to close ranks against four Communist seminarians who were infiltrating our seminary. They came with the intent of destroying this orthodox seminary we had founded outside Rome, and the infiltrators almost had their way — to the extent that these infiltrators had the superiors doing what they wanted. A number of the seminarians who helped me at that time to expel these Communist infiltrators — who are now priests today — know what I am talking about and can attest to the truth of what I report here.
Our Lady said in Her Secret that the Faith would be undermined. Well, more precisely, the Pope tells us that Our Lady of Fatima cannot remain silent when She sees the Faith undermined. But where does Our Lady say this? There is nowhere that I know of, except in the Third Secret. This is what the Pope was alluding to in his May 13, 1982 speech.
Q: Why is this important to us now?
Our Lady came to Fatima to warn us about serious error being spread among us in our time. The infiltrators have schemed for over 200 years to destroy the Catholic Church through secret societies; their plans are written down. You can read about these plans, independent of what I say. Pope Leo XIII exposed some of these plots in his two encyclicals on Freemasonry, and John Vennari has written a little booklet on the subject (The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita: A Masonic Blueprint for the Subversion of the Catholic Church, which is available from The Fatima Center). We have seen the results of these schemes over the past 40 years within the Church. Also, many saints over the centuries have predicted these things for our times. And the Third Secret predicts for our time the great apostasy of clergy and laity alike, the result of the undermining of the Faith by one-third of the Catholic clergy. Our Lord said: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing anymore but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men.” [Mt. 5:13]
As a result of the loss of Faith by both the clergy and the laity, as a result of the salt losing its flavor, the temporal welfare of the people becomes threatened. As I mentioned in Part I, the November 11, 1984 issue of Jesus magazine carried the interview conducted by Vittorio Messori with Cardinal Ratzinger, which the Cardinal approved himself before it was published, where Cardinal Ratzinger said that the Third Secret concerns “the dangers threatening the Faith and life of the Christian, and therefore the life of the world”.10 The dangers to the life of the world could only mean temporal chastisement.
We read in the monumental three-volume work The Whole Truth About Fatima by Frère Michel that Sister Lucy clearly stated:
“Many times, the Most Holy Virgin told my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that Russia will be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to punish the whole world if we do not beforehand obtain the conversion of that poor nation.”11
The military takeover and subsequent dictatorship of Russia over the whole world will result because of our failures in the spiritual realm. Our Lady said, “If My requests are not granted … Russia will spread her errors throughout the world.” The first priority of Russia’s diabolical plan — to infiltrate the Catholic Church — has been accomplished in many places, thus allowing Russia’s errors to be spread within the Church by Communist clergy, by masonic clergy, and by heretical clergy into the minds and hearts of the faithful.
Here, then, are essential elements of the Third Secret. The dangers to the Faith that we were warned about in the Third Secret are being carried out, in part at least, in the name of the Second Vatican Council.
Q: So, can you please summarize for us what we know about the Third Secret?
To recap, we know that the Third Secret involves the undermining of the Catholic Faith by one-third of the clergy in our time. We know this because:
- Our Lady of Fatima, in 1917, said in Her Secret that the Faith would be undermined.
- Pope John Paul II, in 1982, said that the Faith will be undermined and indirectly told us that the Third Secret is about this undermining of the Faith.
- Cardinal Ratzinger, in 1984, told us that the Third Secret speaks of “dangers to the Faith and to the life of the Christian and, therefore, to the life of the world.”
- John Paul II, in May 2000, referred to the biblical prophecy of the Apocalypse Chapter 12 verses 3 and 4, wherein it says that “one-third of the stars of heaven” are dragged down to the earth by the dragon. The Pope indicated that this prophecy is for our time, thereby implying (when taken together with other facts that we know about the Third Secret) that the prophecy of the Third Secret refers to the Faith being undermined by one-third of the Catholic clergy today.
- One-third of the Catholic clergy are undermining the Catholic Faith today by gradually sweeping aside dogmas. Although this is unnoticed by many in the short-term, we can see now that it has been done through the promotion of anti-Catholic practices (i.e. hetero-praxis). Today the Faith is also being undermined openly (as some of the Cardinals now are doing), saying that some dogmas — some solemn definitions — of the Catholic Faith “need to be revised”.
By the Pope’s remark that it is “one-third of the stars of heaven” being dragged down by the dragon, he is telling us that it’s one-third of the Catholic clergy in our day — today! And we know, of course, from the work of Frère Michel and Father Alonso that we are living in the time of the Third Secret. So, the Third Secret talks about our time — the year 2001. We know the time period of the Third Secret, the prophecy which was given in 1917. It started in 1960 and it is still continuing to this day. We know when the period of the Third Secret ends — it continues until the Pope does the Consecration of Russia. That has not been done. (We have explained this elsewhere many times.)
We also know that the Third Secret concerns the dogma of the Faith because we have the third part of the Secret starting with the words Our Lady said, “In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.”
In summary, we’re living in the period of the Third Secret; the Third Secret tells us that the dogma of the Faith will not be preserved in certain parts of the world which, in 1960, were still Catholic; we know how to preserve the dogma of the Faith, by holding on to the infallible definitions; we know that the Faith is being undermined from within the Church; we know that the Faith is being undermined by, among others, one-third of the Catholic clergy; and we know which clergy to watch out for — they are the ones who do not uphold the Catholic Faith’s solemn definitions and those who promote hetero-praxis. Both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II have indicated to us that the appearance of Our Lady of Fatima is the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of chapter 12 verse 1 of the Apocalypse. We read that in Signum magnum, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical of 1967. We also have that in Pope John Paul II’s homily that he gave at the Beatification of the two children on May 13, 2000.
We do know that the Third Secret concerns the dangers to the Faith — Cardinal Ratzinger said that in 1984: it concerns the dangers to the Faith and to the life of the Christian; it concerns the importance of the last things (i novissimi); and it is found in Sacred Scripture.12 In 1982, Pope John Paul II said, as I have quoted previously, “Can the Mother with all the force of the love that She fosters in the Holy Spirit and desires everyone’s salvation, can She remain silent when She sees the very basis of Her children’s salvation undermined?” This is obviously a reference to the Faith being endangered. And then, on May 13, 2000, Pope John Paul II said that the Third Secret is in Chapter 12, verses 1, 3 and 4 of the Apocalypse (verses 3 and 4 talk about the apocalyptic battle between the dragon and the Woman, and that the dragon succeeds in dragging down one-third of the clergy from heaven to follow him).
We also know that the Third Secret concerns the dangers to the Faith (from within the Church structures) because Cardinal Ottaviani privately endorsed the release of the Third Secret version that was published in Neues Europa in 1963, in which report we are told that “Cardinal will oppose Cardinal and bishop will oppose bishop”. We have the speech of Bishop Amaral — the third bishop of Fatima — in Vienna on September 10, 1984, telling us it concerns the apostasy of nations. Apostasy takes place with, of course, the loss of faith — not just the loss of one dogma or article of the Faith, but with the loss of all or much of Catholic dogmas and morals. We can easily see the evident presence of apostasy throughout the world today.
Thus, the Third Secret concerns the infallible definitions of the Faith. Definitions, by their very nature, have to say what the truth is and, therefore, by strict logical implication, what the error is and that the error is condemned. If a person stubbornly holds on to a condemned error after he has been informed of the infallible truth then he cannot be saved (unless he repents before he dies), so it’s only charitable to warn him. And it is our duty to witness to the truths of our Faith and to protect the little ones from errors against the Faith by defending the Faith in public. That’s why the Church anathematizes those errors and those clergy and laity who stubbornly hold on to them. St. Paul says in all charity that “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” [Gal. 1:8]
Continued in next issue.
FOOTNOTES:
- Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, para. no. 2.
- Ibid., no. 3.
- Ibid., no. 61.
- Ibid., no. 3.
- Pope Pius XII, quoted in the book Pius XII Devant L’Histoire, pp. 52-53.
- Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth About Fatima, Volume III – The Third Secret, Immaculate Heart Publications, Buffalo, New York, 1990, reprinted 2001, pp. 822-823. See also Jesus magazine, November 11, 1984, p. 79. See also The Fatima Crusader, Issue 37, Summer 1991, p. 7.
- Frère Michel, The Third Secret, p. 505.
- See Footnote 10.
