“The Third Secret Handwritten Text Essential”

An Interview with Fr. Paul Kramer

The Fatima Crusader Editor: After Cardinal Sodano announced on May 13 that the Third Secret of Fatima would be made public by order of Pope John Paul II, The Fatima Center called for publication of an authentic copy of the original text of the Secret in Sister Lucia’s own handwriting. Some have claimed that you at the Fatima Center do not “trust the Pope.” What is your response?

Father Kramer: First of all, it is remarkable how the anti-Fatima forces manage to turn every prudent request concerning the Message of Fatima into an attack on the person of the Pope. This sort of tactic is usually employed by shyster lawyers to distract people from the real issue in the case.

You’ll remember that the anti-Fatimists claimed it was an “attack on the Pope” even to request disclosure of the Third Secret in the first place, because this was supposedly to question the Pope’s judgment. Now that the Holy Father has granted the petitions of the faithful and ordered its disclosure, they say it is “attacking the Pope” to request that his subordinates give us the authentic text. Please!

Let me be perfectly clear about this: We should have nothing but praise and gratitude for the Holy Father’s decision to end 40 years of silence and suppression and give the Third Secret to the faithful at last. This is a great thing the Holy Father has done.

But the Holy Father’s welcome decision is not the real issue. The real issue now is not whether one trusts the Pope, but whether the Pope’s subordinates can be trusted to completely and faithfully carry out his order.

CR: If the Pope has given an order, why wouldn’t it be carried out?

Father Kramer: Consider the fact that the announcement that the Third Secret would finally be revealed was made at Fatima, not by the Holy Father, but by Cardinal Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State. The Pope was reduced to lifting his arms in affirmation when Sodano announced that the Secret would be revealed — but only after Cardinal Sodano had stated that an appropriate “commentary” had to be prepared first.

This is the same Cardinal Sodano who, in June of 1998, lavishly praised the writings of Hans Küng in a heavily publicized address at the Lateran, attended by the world press. Küng is an arch-heretic who has openly condemned John Paul II as a “despot” who “rules in the spirit of the Spanish Inquisition”. Küng has denied or questioned just about every Catholic doctrine and dogma, including the perpetual virginity of Mary, the divine institution of the Church by the Our Lord and the Real Presence. He has also called for married priests.

Now, in 1980 the Holy Father ordered Küng stripped of his theological credentials, and forbade Küng to hold himself out as a Catholic theologian any longer. Yet in praising Küng in his very public address in 1998, Sodano brazenly referred to him as “the Swiss theologian” — as if the Pope had never disciplined Küng and stripped him of his credentials. The press had a field day with this obvious insult to the Pope, suggesting that Sodano was staking out a claim to the papal throne.

Let us just say that I am less than confident that a man who disregards the Pope’s disciplining of Küng, who publicly praises one of the Pope’s worst enemies, can be counted on to carry out without reservation, obfuscation, impediment or ‘spin’ the Pope’s order concerning publication of the Third Secret.

But I have even more important reasons for concern in this regard.

CR: What reasons are those?

Father Kramer: For the past 35 years the Vatican Secretariat of State, now under Sodano, has been pursuing an agenda totally opposed in principle to the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary predicted by Our Lady of Fatima. This agenda began with the Vatican-Moscow Agreement just before Vatican II. By this agreement the Catholic Church promised not to condemn communist Russia or communism at the Council, even though millions of Catholics had been martyred by communist tyrants.

That same agenda continues today; to not denounce Communism by name.

CR: Give us some other examples of what you mean.

Father Kramer: For example, in 1993 the Secretary of State, acting through Cardinal Cassidy, negotiated the disgraceful Balamand Declaration, which states that the Catholic Church no longer seeks return of the schismatic Russian Orthodox to Rome because that is “outdated ecclesiology”. The same document makes the claim that the Catholic Church and the schismatic Russian Orthodox Church — which adamantly rejects papal authority — are “Sister Churches jointly responsible for maintaining the Church of God.” I am sorry, but the Bride of Christ does not have any “sisters.”

Also, Sodano has been instrumental in advancing the globalist agenda of the United Nations. He played a crucial role in the creation of the UN’s new International Criminal Court (ICC) during a meeting of the various nations in Rome in 1998.

This super-court would have the power to prosecute the citizens of any nation for not-yet-specified “crimes against humanity”, which ICC proponents wish to define to include denial of the “right” to abortion. If these ICC proponents had their way then a pro-life person in the USA could be hauled before the ICC court just for his beliefs or for expressing his opposition to abortion.

One of the first proposals for the ICC statutes was a rule which would compel Catholic priests hauled before the ICC as witnesses to reveal secrets of the confessional to ICC investigators.

Cardinal Sodano claims that the ICC is a great step forward for “human rights”. This is a complete delusion. The head of the ICC is the UN’s “High Commissioner of Human Rights”, Mary Robinson, the pro-abortion former president of Ireland. The ICC will be nothing but an international version of the same judicial systems which preside over the abortion holocaust in each nation. And there will be no appeal from the super-court and no escape from its jurisdiction!

In keeping with this very dangerous globalist agenda, Sodano is clearly trying to minimize the Third Secret in an effort to consign it to the past, as something we no longer need to worry about in this new age of growing global solidarity.

CR: Please explain what you mean.

Father Kramer: In his announcement about the Third Secret at Fatima, Cardinal Sodano suggested that the Secret relates entirely to the 1981 attempt on the Pope’s life and to other events which, as he put it, “now seem part of the past”. He suggested that the supposed “fall of communism” in 1989 is what the Third Secret speaks of.

If the events predicted in the Third Secret are now “part of the past”, then the Fatima Message has been fulfilled, because Our Lady said that “In the end My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.”

In other words, the ‘spin’ Sodano is applying to the Secret is that we are now in the midst or at least on the verge of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.

Now, just look at the state of the world and Russia in particular today. Russia is falling apart, morally, spiritually and materially. There is absolutely no sign that Russia is converting to the true Faith. On the contrary, the rights of the Catholic Church in Russia have been severely restricted by the new Russian law on “freedom of conscience”, under which the Catholic Church is forbidden to proselytize among the Orthodox — that is, forbidden to convert Russia.

Meanwhile, the abortion holocaust rages on without the slightest abatement in Russia and throughout the world.

Within the Church, not even most Catholics heed the Pope’s infallible teaching on marriage and procreation — Catholics contracept, abort, divorce and remarry at the same rate as non-Catholics. Is this the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart? No, the Third Secret obviously involves much more than some past historical events. The Message of Fatima is a long way from being fulfilled.

CR: Well, why not just wait to see what the Vatican does? Perhaps the actual handwritten text will be provided.

Father Kramer: The Pope’s courageous decision to reveal the Secret has placed the Church at a critical juncture in Satan’s war against Her. The Evil One will do everything in his power to confuse, alter and otherwise impede the carrying out of the Pope’s order to reveal the Secret. The last thing the Devil wants is for all the faithful to see with their own eyes the actual text of the Secret as written down by Sister Lucia in 1944.

All indications are that the Pope’s decision to disclose the Third Secret took the Vatican apparatus by surprise. There was no “commentary” already prepared for release along with the Secret, even though the Pope’s intention to beatify Jacinta and Francisco was announced as early as June of 1999.

Then there was the curious on-again, off-again, nature of the beatification ceremony, which is most unusual for the Vatican. First we were told by Bishop Serafim of Fatima in October 1999 that the beatification of Jacinta and Francisco would take place on April 9, 2000 in St. Peter’s Square, along with four other beatifications. The Patriarch of Lisbon is quoted in the Portuguese press as having been informed by the Vatican that it was quite impossible for the Pope to come to Fatima for the children’s beatification and that the question was “closed”. The Patriarch told Portuguese journalists that he was convinced this “impossibility” of the Pope coming to Fatima was exclusively due to the Vatican Secretary of State’s decision.

But the Pope had other ideas. In November of 1999 His Holiness — bypassing the Secretary of State — informed Bishop Serafim directly that he should announce that the Pope would come to Fatima on May 13, 2000 to perform the beatifications. Bishop Serafim did not make the announcement until March of 2000, at which time he not only informed the world of the Pope’s coming visit to Portugal, but also revealed that “the Pope has something very important to say to the world concerning Fatima.” This prompted furious speculation in the press that the Pope was going to reveal the Third Secret.

Bishop Serafim was immediately rebuked in public by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, possibly under orders from somebody in the employ of the Secretary of State, who did not want anyone to know that the Pope was contemplating revelation of the Secret.

Finally, as I have already noted, it was Sodano, not the Pope, who ended up making the May 13 announcement in Fatima that the Secret would be revealed, adding that publication of the Secret would be delayed for preparation of “an appropriate commentary”. The Pope was reduced to sitting there and lifting his arms to show agreement.

Obviously a struggle was going on over this event. Why was no “commentary” on the Third Secret prepared during the past year, or even over the two months between March and May of 2000, when everyone knew the Pope was coming to Fatima and had something very important to say about Fatima?

The obvious answer is that the Vatican apparatus did not expect the Pope to order disclosure of the Secret, or at least it was hoped that His Holiness could be talked out of it before the trip to Fatima on May 13. This “commentary” on the Secret appears to be a last-minute compromise to delay and put “spin” on disclosure of the Secret, and perhaps to substitute the “commentary” for actual text of the Secret itself.

Then it could be announced that the Pope has been persuaded that the commentary — along with, perhaps, some paraphrase of the Secret — will suffice. Then it could be declared that the matter of the Third Secret is ended, and anyone who disagrees will be accused of “attacking the Pope”.

And it appears that the struggle over disclosure of the unvarnished Secret is still going on.

CR: What do you mean by that?

Father Kramer: Consider a few facts:

First, in his announcement at Fatima, Sodano himself admits that the actual text of the Secret “contains a prophetic vision similar to those found in Sacred Scripture”, involving “events spread out over time in a succession and duration which are not specified.” Yet in the same statement he said that events mentioned in the Third Secret now “seem part of the past.” Which is it — events of a duration not specified, or events in the past?

And, if the events in the Third Secret “now seem part of the past”, why do we need this commentary in the first place? Does our Lady speak in riddles, so that we need commentators to translate Her words describing things which have supposedly already happened? The first two parts of the Secret are crystal clear and need no commentary. Why should the Third Secret be any different?

Consider that in the May 19 issue of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Cardinal Ratzinger revealed that this “commentary” is now being prepared by a whole team of theological, historical and linguistic commentators — obviously assembled in a great hurry over the past few days. Why do we need a team of commentators to explain 24 lines of Portuguese text written on a single piece of paper, as the Auxiliary Bishop of Fatima saw when he held the envelope containing the Secret up to the light in 1957?

Consider that for reasons of this “commentary”, the date for the promised release of the Secret is already being put off. First we were told by Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls that the Secret would be published “within days” of the May 13 announcement by Sodano. Then the Vatican said it would be the end of May. Now we are told by Cardinal Ratzinger in the May 19 La Repubblica article that the Secret will be published “at the latest” by mid-June.

In the same La Repubblica article, Cardinal Ratzinger says that nobody has to believe in the Message of Fatima, and that the Third Secret contains “no new surprises”. If nobody has to believe in the Fatima message, and if the Third Secret contains no surprises, then why do we need a team of commentators and a one-month delay before the Pope’s order can be obeyed?

All of these things give cause for grave concern about whether we will actually be receiving every single word of the undiluted, uncensored Third Secret of Fatima when it is finally published. And I am very concerned about what might happen if the Pope suddenly became incapacitated or died before this “commentary” is ready. Would the whole thing be called off?

CR: What is your conclusion, then, Father Kramer?

Father Kramer: It is really very simple: Sister Lucy’s handwritten text of the first two parts of the Great Secret of Fatima has long since been copied and published to the world in her memoirs, so that everyone can see the authentic and historic text for himself in Sister Lucy’s own handwriting. The Vatican had no objection to this.

There is no legitimate reason to withhold from the world the authentic handwritten text of the third and final part of the Secret. The actual handwritten text of the Third Secret is our objective assurance of accuracy and completeness.

After forty years of secrecy and suppression, one would think that the very first thing the Vatican would wish to produce to carry out the Pope’s order is the actual text of the Secret in Sister Lucy’s own handwriting. Surely, the faithful are entitled to this.

A refusal to produce the handwritten text would be very telling indeed. Let us pray that the Pope’s order is carried out definitively and without further secrecy, so that all further speculation about the Third Secret may be brought to an end.

Finally, do not listen to those who say that anyone who asks to see the authentic text of Heaven’s message is “attacking the Pope”. They know that is a lie and a deliberate distraction.

END

 

Footnote:

The details of the Vatican maneuverings concerning the date and place of the beatification and the Pope’s decision to reveal the Secret can be gleaned from Portuguese press accounts.

Sources:

The Daily Newspaper “Correio da Manhã” of 14 October 1999, the article on page 12; The Weekly Newspaper “Jornal de Leiria” of 14 October 1999, page 24; The Weekly Newspaper “A Ordem” on 21 October 1999, page 1; The Official Weekly of the Patriarchate of Lisbon “Voz da Verdade” on 31 October 1999, on page 6, the article entitled “The Beatification of the Little Shepherds Definitely Will Be At Rome”; The Official Weekly of the Patriarchate of Lisbon “Voz da Verdade” on 5 December 1999, entitled “The Pope Will Return to Portugal; Fatima is the Place of the Beatification”; Article in “Euro-Noticias” on 24 March 2000, page 8, entitled “Bishop of Leiria-Fatima” March 21 press conference. Weekly “Euro-Noticias” of 24 March 2000, on page 8; “Crisis: The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima Creates A Mystery Around the Visit of the Pope Without Telling the Patriarch What It Concerns, Will the Pope Reveal the Third Secret”?; “Euro-Noticias” of 24 March, an article on page 9 entitled “Analysis: Persons Who Have Studied the Apparitions Say That the Third Secret Could Concern the Sinking of the Faith. A Crisis in the Interior of the Church Would be the Third Premonition”.