Published Testimony:
Sister Lucy spoke of the Third Secret in a letter purported to be addressed to Pope John Paul II1, dated May 12, 1982. She wrote:
The third part of the secret refers to Our Ladys words: If not [Russia] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.
The third part of the secret, that you are so anxious to know, is a symbolic revelation, referring to this part of the Message, conditioned by whether we accept or not what the Message itself asks of us: If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, etc.
Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see that it has been fulfilled, Russia has invaded the world with her errors. And if we have not yet seen the complete fulfillment of the final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it with great strides.2 If we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality and violence, etc.
And let us not say that it is God who is punishing us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are preparing their own punishment. In his kindness God warns us and calls us to the right path, while respecting the freedom he has given us; hence people are responsible.3
This 1982 letter makes absolutely no reference to the 1981 assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II; much less does it characterize the attempt as any sort of fulfillment of the Third Secret. Sister Lucys warning that “we are going towards [the fulfillment of the final part of the Fatima Secret] with great strides” demonstrates that rather than the Third Secret predicting the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II, which had taken place the previous year, she is pointing to the yet unfulfilled part of the prophecy of the great worldwide punishment in the not distant future. Clearly, a year after the attempt, Sister Lucy remained concerned about a global chastisement in consequence of the Churchs failure to heed the imperatives of the Fatima Message. She certainly was not writing, on the eve of the consecration of the world (not specifically Russia), about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, but rather the annihilation of nations.
Notes:
1. This letter was reproduced in The Message of Fatima, the commentary the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published on the vision the Vatican released on June 26, 2000. A close comparison of Sister Lucy’s handwritten Portuguese text with versions provided by the Vatican (English, Italian and Portuguese reveals that a crucial phrase, which proves that this letter could not have been written to the Pope, has been omitted from all three versions. For a more detailed analysis of the evidence that this letter was not written to Pope John Paul II, see the second entry for May 12, 1982 in “Appendix: A Chronology of the Fatima Cover-up“, in The Devil’s Final Battle.
2. The Vatican translation “we are going towards it little by little with great strides” is clearly defective. The words “little by little” do not appear in the photographically-reproduced copy of Sister Lucy’s original handwritten letter (in Portuguese) published on p. 9 of The Message of Fatima, provided by the Vatican itself (this booklet was published by Cardinal Ratzinger and Msgr. Bertone on June 26, 2000). We have thus provided our own accurate translation.
3. The Message of Fatima (English edition, June 26, 2000). Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, pp. 8-9.