We now know there are two texts!
Editor’s Note: We recently mailed a new flyer to all our donors, entitled The Third Secret of Fatima in Brief, which we encourage you to share with others. For those interested in the topic of the Third Secret, we encourage you to read The Fatima Crusader, Issue 130, Spring 2023.
This article by John Vennari (R.I.P.) was originally published in The Fatima Crusader, Issue #85 (2007), pp. 32-44 and has been slightly edited.
The Experts Speak
Of Fatima’s Third Secret, Cardinal Oddi remarked:
“It has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against the apostasy in the Church.”
The late Father Joaquin Alonso (†1981), who for sixteen years was the official archivist at Fatima, and who had many interviews with Sister Lucia, testified as follows:
“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 …
“In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,’ … it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether. …
“Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances? It is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of the faith in the Church during this in-between period, but like the secret of La Salette, for example, there are more concrete references to the internal struggles of Catholics or to the fall of priests and religious. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church. For that matter, none of this is foreign to other communications Sister Lucia has had on this subject.”
Bishop Amaral, the third Bishop of Fatima, said the following about the Secret in a speech in Vienna, Austria on September 10, 1984:
“Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the [Third] Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.”
Then there is the famous quote from Luigi Cardinal Ciappi, personal theologian to four Popes up to and including Pope John Paul II:
“In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top.”
Catholics had good reason to believe that there was still part of the Secret – a second text yet to be revealed – that contained “explosive content” regarding massive apostasy in the Church.
He Held It up to the Light
Catholics also had good reason to suspect the existence of a second text because of evidence from Bishop Venancio at Fatima.
In 1957, when Cardinal Ottaviani’s Holy Office requested the Bishop of Fatima to send the Secret to the Vatican, Fatima’s Bishop da Silva entrusted the task to auxiliary Bishop Venancio. At one point when Bishop Venancio was alone with the Secret, he held the envelope up to the light. He could discern that in the bishop’s large envelope was Sister Lucia’s smaller envelope. And inside this envelope was an ordinary sheet of paper with margins on each side of three quarters of a centimeter. Frère Michel points out that Bishop Venancio “took the trouble to note the size of everything.” It is from Bishop Venancio that we learn the final Secret was written on one small sheet of paper containing about 25 to 30 lines.
Yet the Vatican’s June 26 Third Secret was written by Sister Lucia on four sheets of paper and contained 62 lines. Here again, we encounter evidence of two texts of the Secret.
This evidence was confirmed in a remarkable manner this past summer.
“Even If I Would Know More About It”
Mr. Socci had been in contact with Mr. Solideo Paolini, the young journalist who had originally challenged Socci about the Secret. Paolini generously turned over to Mr. Socci his findings about the Third Secret that came from the former secretary of Pope John XXIII, Archbishop Loris Francesco Capovilla.
I will adhere strictly to the chronology of events as it appears in Mr. Socci’s book.
Solideo Paolini visited Capovilla on July 5, 2006 in the Archbishop’s house in Sotto il Monte. After some preliminary conversation, Paolini told Capovilla that the reason for his visit derives from his journalistic research on Fatima. “Since you are a first-degree source of information”, said Paolini, “I’d like to ask you some questions”, particularly on the Third Secret.
Archbishop Capovilla initially responded: “No, really, to avoid misunderstanding, because it has been revealed officially, I adhere to what has been said. Even if I would know more about it, we must stick to what is said in the official documents.”
This is a fascinating admission that gives a glimpse of how the Vatican operates. The Vatican presented its “official revelation” on the subject, and a retired Vatican prelate insists that he must adhere to the official documents, “even if I would know more about it.” It tells Mr. Paolini how policy is normally pursued in such matters, and it also lifts a curtain. It is a hint from the Archbishop, “Yes, I do know more about it!”
The Archbishop smiled at this point and said, “Please write to me your questions and I will answer them.” He said he would check through his papers, if he still had them, since he had already donated practically everything to a museum. He then told Paolini, “I’ll send something, maybe a phrase … just write and wait.”
A phrase?, thought Paolini, what could he mean by “I’ll send you a phrase”?
Three days later, Paolini mailed Archbishop Capovilla a list of questions. On July 18, Paolini received a package from Capovilla containing his answers and some papers from his archives.
Paolini writes, “Alongside of my questions regarding the existence of an unpublished text of the Third Secret which would have yet to be revealed, whose existence is highly probable due to a massive amount of clues, Msgr. Capovilla (who, as it is known, read the Third Secret), wrote literally, “I know nothing.”
Paolini was stunned. Archbishop Capovilla had read the Secret, he knew its contents, he was in a position to state unequivocally that the entire Third Secret was released in the year 2000 and there was nothing else to be revealed. Yet he had said, “I know nothing!”
This expression, opined Paolini, was “ironically hinting to a certain ‘omertà siciliani’” … a kind of mafia law of silence.
This was not the end of the surprises.
The package sent by Capovilla contained some official papers and a small, autographed card which read as follows:
“July 14, 2006
“Dear Solideo Paolini,
“I am sending you some papers from my archive. I suggest that you purchase the Message of Fatima booklet, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, year 2000.”
“Many blessings,
“Loris Capovilla”
What a strange suggestion! Surely Archbishop Capovilla was aware that Mr. Paolini had researched the subject of the Third Secret extensively and already owned the June 26 document. It was clear to Paolini that this was yet another hint from the Archbishop. It was as if Capovilla said, “Read the June 26 document again, but this time, in light of the documents I am sending now!”
Archbishop Capovilla, former secretary of Pope John XXIII, admitted there are two texts.
Sure enough, Paolini found the ticking bomb inside the documents.
“By comparing that booklet published by the Vatican with the archive documents that the secretary of John XXIII sent me,” said Paolini, “a very telling contradiction comes immediately to the eyes of the author in ‘the reserved notes’, with a stamp of approval on it [official seals]. It is certified that Pope Paul VI read the Secret on the afternoon of Thursday, June 27, 1963, while the official June 26, 2000 Vatican document affirms, ‘Paul VI read the content on March 27, 1965, and sent the envelope to the Sant’Uffizio’s archives, deciding not to publish the text’.”
So we have a discrepancy of dates. Capovilla’s official Vatican documents said Paul VI read the Secret on June 27, 1963, while the official June 26 Vatican document claimed the same Pope read the Secret on March 27, 1965.
Paolini immediately telephoned Archbishop Capovilla to seek an explanation on the contradiction of dates. Capovilla was a bit evasive in his answer, with statements such as “we’re not talking about Scripture”. Paolini immediately responded, “Yes, Excellency, but my reference is to an official written text (the official Vatican document), which is clear and is based on other archive documents!” Msgr. Capovilla responded, “Well, maybe the package Bertone [June 26 document] is not the same as the package Capovilla …”
At this point, a light shone in Paolini’s mind, and he ventured the $64,000 question: “So both the dates are correct because there are two texts of the Third Secret?”
After a brief pause, Archbishop Capovilla answered, “precisely so!”
This red hot piece of evidence, published for the first time in Mr. Socci’s book, is the first time a Vatican official, albeit a retired one, admitted that yes, there exists in Socci’s words: “a Fourth Secret, or better [yet] a second part of the Third Secret (evidently the continuation of the words of Our Lady interrupted by that ‘etc.’), which has not yet been revealed, and which took a different path inside Vatican walls.”
Those Catholics who for the past six years have endured ridicule and contempt for insisting that the Vatican had not released the entire Secret, who insisted there are two texts, are vindicated by the findings published in Socci’s Fourth Secret of Fatima.