In my last post, we discussed some of the evidence that strongly supports the “conspiracy theory” (so-called) that the Third Secret of Fatima has been committed to writing in two distinct texts – one describing the vision, the other Our Lady’s explanation of its meaning; the latter of the two as yet still unpublished.
There are good reasons to believe that this is a fact, among the most noteworthy of which is the testimony of Cardinal Loris Capovilla, who served as private secretary to Pope John XXIII, and who confirmed to an Italian journalist that there are indeed two separate texts.
Even so, there are some who still deny it; effectively calling Cardinal Capovilla a liar, and this even as they celebrate among their ranks a Cardinal who has proven himself, beyond any shadow of doubt, to be a deceiver of the first order.
Here I refer to the likes of the World Apostolate of Fatima, author Kevin Symonds (whose recent book is treated in my last post), and Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, one of the key players in the Vatican’s handling of the Third Secret.
Concerning the latter, I wish to focus on a most bizarre episode in the ongoing Fatima cover-up; namely, Cardinal Bertone’s appearance on the Italian television program Porta a Porta in the year 2010, where he displayed two previously sealed envelopes, with the outside of each bearing the handwriting of Sr. Lucia.
Following, is the relevant video clip taken from that program:
At this, I will let Christopher Ferrara explain, in part, what you just saw:
So we have one [unsealed] envelope from Sister Lucy. He opens that envelope, from which he then takes out a third envelope. That one is sealed and the seal had been broken. Now on the outside of that envelope — he holds it up to the camera and what do we see? She wrote on the envelope, “By express order of Our Lady, this envelope can be opened only in 1960 by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or by the Bishop of Leiria” …
And then the Cardinal pulled out a second envelope from inside this one. Another sealed envelope which has exactly the same thing on the outside — “By express order of Our Lady, this envelope can be opened only in 1960 by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or by the Bishop of Leiria.”
Yes, I know… so many envelopes, it can be confusing, but the bottom line is that Sr. Lucia had created two separate envelopes, both of which were sealed, and both of which bore the same instruction: “By express order of Our Lady…”
As Mr. Ferrara points out in the article linked above, in so doing, Cardinal Bertone exposed his, and the Vatican’s, dishonesty.
In the year 2000, as recorded in the Vatican’s official publication of what it claimed to be the entire Third Secret, we were told:
Archbishop Bertone therefore asked: “Why only after 1960? Was it Our Lady who fixed that date?” Sister Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood, but that only later would it be understood. Now it can be better understood. I wrote down what I saw; however it was not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope.”
That all concerned – meaning, Pope John Paul II, the future Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, and Cardinal Bertone – knowingly misquoted Sr. Lucia, either directly or by association, is beyond any dispute whatsoever.
Each of these men were certainly aware of the instructions written on the outside of those envelopes, and furthermore that they were attributed by Sr. Lucia to Our Lady, and yet they conspired to spin a magnificent tale to the contrary.
Often overlooked in light of Cardinal Bertone’s Porta a Porta display is their sly attempt to justify placing responsibility for explaining the vision in the hands of the pope.
Well, if not the pope, then who?
As noted in the previous post, in a 2015 biography based upon the memoirs of Sr. Lucia, published by the Convent in Coimbra, we are told that when Our Lady gave permission directly to the seer to commit the Third Secret to writing in 1944, she added, “but not, however, that which has been given to you to understand its meaning.”
Clearly, by claiming that Sr. Lucia said “it was not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope,” Bertone & Company were usurping Our Lady’s right to provide the meaning of the vision that she herself had shown to the seers – an explanation that we now know for certain she had given to Sr. Lucia.
Secondly, and infrequently commented upon, is the fact that no one other than the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria had any right whatsoever to open those envelopes to read the Third Secret, and this “By express order of Our Lady”!
If the WAF and Kevin Symonds wish to insist that Sr. Lucia never committed the explanation of the vision to writing, so be it. One may perhaps in good faith cling to a shred of doubt on this point, unreasonable though it may be, in spite of common sense and so much evidence to the contrary.
The same cannot be said, however, of the fact – based not on some “conspiracy theory” but rather on what Cardinal Bertone entered into the public record in 2010 – that not even the popes had a right to break the seals on those envelopes, no matter what may have been inside.
So why did they do so?
It seems rather evident to me that the whole lot of them, beginning with John XXIII, simply did not believe in the authenticity of the Secret as conveyed in writing by Sr. Lucia.
Be that as it may, this does not justify their violation of the wishes expressed on the outside of those envelopes.
Even if they genuinely doubted that the “express order” had actually come from Our Lady, it is enough that Sr. Lucia, who had penned the contents inside of those envelopes, had provided the instruction.
In other words, it was immoral, and frankly sinful, for any of them to avail themselves of a text that was clearly intended for either the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria alone.
In his interview with CWR (treated in my last post), Kevin Symonds seemed to suggest that he, and not Christopher Ferrara (who he debated at the recent Angelus Press Conference) occupies the reasonable, if not the moral, high ground:
I opted for a simple “just the facts” approach. Several people came up to me afterwards to express their gratitude for my approach!
How sincere is Mr. Symonds in his determination to address the facts concerning the Third Secret of Fatima?
Hopefully, we will soon find out.
I am hereby calling on Kevin Symonds to join me in stating unequivocally that the “ecclesiastical authority” – the same that he suggested in his interview are above “suspicion and mistrust in matters pertaining to Fatima” – stand guilty of violating the very clear wishes of Our Lady concerning who was authorized by her to break the seals on those envelopes to partake of the “Secret” inside.
I am likewise calling on the leadership of the World Apostolate of Fatima to do the same.
Whatever their responses may be, I will publish them in this space as received.
Dear friends, aka Catholic still stands in dire need of support. Thank you in advance!
I urgently recommend Christopher Ferrara’s investigative masterpiece on Fatima “The Secret Still Hidden” which can be ordered through Amazon. I have read it over and over and it addresses all of the issues (envelopes, et. al) which you have addressed here, Louie.
Absolutely must reading.
In the 1957 Fuentes interview, Lucy said “According to the will of the Most Holy Virgin, only the Holy Father and the Bishop of Fatima are permitted to know the Secret, but they have chosen not to know it so that they would not be influenced. This is the third part of the Message of Our Lady which will remain secret until 1960.”
So at some point the pope was given permission to open it, but this doesn’t seem to have been Our Lady’s original plan. The Bishop of Leiria wanted nothing to do with the secret, and Rome took a sudden inexplicable interest in possessing it in 1957. Frère Michel tells the story in The Whole Truth About Fatima Vol 3 (forgive me for quoting it at length, but everyone should read it):
What is certain is that in his desire to be relieved of a document whose extraordinary importance he had guessed in 1944, Bishop da Silva had the idea of sending it on to Rome. Father Alonso writes: “Cardinal Ottaviani has told us that in 1944, when the Secret of Fatima was committed to writing, there was some suggestion that it be taken to Rome, but that Vatican officials judged it more opportune to keep it in the episcopal chancery of Leiria.”
Bishop da Silva, who was forced to remain the caretaker of the Secret himself, on December 8, 1945, placed the envelope sealed by Sister Lucy in a larger envelope, also sealed with wax, on which he wrote in his own hand:
“This envelope with its contents is to be given to His Eminence Don Manuel, Patriarch of Lisbon, after my death. Leiria, December 8, 1945. José, Bishop of Leiria.”
…
Father Alonso states, “Undoubtedly, the Bishop of Leiria could have opened the letter immediately.” When in 1947 someone asked him if he knew the Secret, Bishop da Silva answered: “No. I did not want to read it. Fatima is entirely God’s work, and I did not wish to interfere with it.” … Why? The bishop gave this reason to Canon Galamba, who in turn told Father Alonso:
“I asked him many times why he would not open it. He always answered, ‘It’s not my duty to interfere in this matter. Heaven’s secrets are not for me, nor do I need to burden myself with this responsibility.'” … The testimony of Canon Galamba, an advisor and long-time friend of his bishop, leaves no doubt on this question too:
“Lucy said only that it could be made known immediately, if the bishop so commanded. But she did not say that it had to be opened immediately. The dates for making it known were determined in a dialogue between the bishop and Lucy.”
…
Let us quote first of all the decisive words of Canon Galamba, which alone would be sufficient for our demonstration:
“When the bishop refused to open the letter, Lucy made him promise that it would definitely be opened and read to the world either at her death or in 1960, whichever would come first.” Thus the date 1960 was indicated by Lucy to Bishop da Silva, perhaps in 1944. In any case, we have written testimonies to this effect in 1946. On February 3-4, Father Jongen interrogated Lucy:
“You have already made known two parts of the Secret. When will the time arrive for the third part?” “I communicated the third part in a letter to the Bishop of Leiria”, she answered. “But it cannot be made known before 1960.”
…
“It is a well known fact (Father Alonso writes) that, at the beginning of the year 1957, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the Holy Office, as it was called then) asked the chancery of Leiria to send photocopies of all Lucy’s writings to Rome. The rather important photocopies kept in the archives of Leiria date from this period.”
It was on this occasion, then, that the final Secret left Portugal for Rome. We even know with certainty the moment when this transfer took place. Father Alonso states:
“We ourselves can state with certainty that the document was still in the chancery of Leiria until the end of February 1957, and that by the latter half of March it had already been handed over to the Nuncio in Lisbon.”
The interesting thing for us would be to learn the reasons which suddenly moved the Holy Office to request, in 1957, a document no longer offered to it, although it had refused to accept it in 1944. While waiting to learn the whole truth from an official source, we must be content with hypotheses. However, thanks to the disclosures of Bishop Venancio, at the time Auxiliary Bishop of Leiria and intimately involved with these events, we now have many reliable facts which we will take care not to neglect. I myself received them from the mouth of Bishop Venancio on February 13, 1984, at Fatima. The former Bishop of Fatima repeated to me on this subject, almost word for word, what he had already said previously to Father Caillon, who gave a very detailed account of it in his conferences.
In the beginning of 1957, or according to Geraldes Freire, at the end of 1956, the nuncio at Lisbon, Msgr. Cento, sent an order from the Holy Office to Bishop da Silva, to prepare for Rome a copy of all Sister Lucy’s writings. The diocese arranged it with a firm in Lisbon, and Bishop Venancio was entrusted with the operation. When the work on the photocopying was completed, Bishop da Silva also asked the nuncio if he had to send the third Secret too. The nuncio inquired of Rome, and the answer was: “Naturally! the Secret too! Especially the Secret!”
Then Bishop Venancio went to his aging bishop, who was now eighty-five years old.
“He was very weak, riddled with rheumatism and almost blind. His auxiliary told him: ‘Listen, Your Grace, you have the Secret here; you can read it; Lucy told you that you can open it. Open it! We will make a photocopy. This is the last opportunity we have.’ He answered no: ‘No, that doesn’t interest me. It’s a secret, I don’t want to read it.’ The next morning the auxiliary proposed the same thing. He refused again.”
Bishop da Silva ordered his auxiliary (Bishop Venancio) to bring everything – the photocopies of Lucy’s writings and the original of the Secret – to the Nunciature at Lisbon.
Bishop Venancio related that once he was by himself, he took the great envelope of the Secret and tried to look through it and see the contents. In the bishop’s large envelope he discerned a smaller envelope, that of Lucy, and inside this envelope an ordinary sheet of paper with margins on each side of three quarters of a centimetre. He took the trouble to note the size of everything. Thus the final Secret of Fatima was written on a small sheet of paper.
Around the middle of March 1957, Bishop Venancio went to the Nunciature in Lisbon. The Nuncio, Msgr. Cento, was informed and he looked very pleased. Bishop Venancio, on the contrary , could not hide his immense regret. “You look sad!” the Nuncio told him. Then he added: “Oh! It will be much safer at Rome than with you!” What a slap in the face for the Bishop of Leiria and for Cardinal Cerejeira, chosen by Sister Lucy as future custodian of the precious document!
We know that the envelope arrived at Rome on April 16, 1957. Now the question arises: who decided on this transfer of the third Secret from Leiria to Rome?
(read the rest here: http://fatima.machado-family.com/vol3/ or here: https://archive.org/details/TheWholeTruthAboutFatimaVol3)
Thank you so much for this article and the one prior!! The problem with WAF and Mr. Symonds is that they start out with the agenda of being intent on supporting the “party line” on Fatima — and, as a consequence, back up this agenda by backing into so-called facts, manufactured or otherwise. They do not approach the reality of Fatima with an open heart and mind, intent on loving and seeking the real Truth about Fatima, as Our Lady has been offering it over the course of this last century! Chris Ferrara has coined the perfect term for such folks: “false friends of Fatima.” In addition to meeting your challenge, my hope is that Mr. Symonds and WAF will let go of clinging to the “benefits” they receive as a consequence of supporting ecclesiastical authorities and become true servants of Our Lady and the Truth – and thus of the many souls whose eternal salvation is at stake in the wake of this ongoing cover-up, obfuscation and disobedience of Our Lady by Church authorities in regard to Fatima.
Thank you, Frieza, for your detailed explanation. God reward you for your effort.
I would like to know if the video of Cardinal Bertone on Porta a Porta can be translated into English.