The Third Part of the “Secret” of Fatima

Continuation of the revelation to the children on July 13, 1917.

Our Lady of Fatima:
…In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved ["etc."] Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.

Logically, the 3rd part of the “Secret” of Fatima is contained where Sr. Lucia wrote “etc.” In 1944, she wrote down this “Third Secret” and instructed that the Blessed Virgin wished it to be revealed to the world in 1960. It never was. In 2000, Vatican churchmen published part of the Third Secret, although the words of Our Lady to the children (indicated by “etc.”) were not revealed. What was revealed was a vision Our Lady gave to Lucia and Jacinta:

Sr. Lucia:
After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’ And we saw in an immense light that is God: (something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it) a Bishop dressed in White (we had the impression that it was the Holy Father).

Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

The general lines of the rest of the secret (the words of Our Lady) can be deduced from various sources:

J. Cardinal Ratzinger:
Yes, I have read [the Third Secret]. [It refers to] a radical call to conversion; the absolute seriousness of history; the dangers which threaten the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore (the life) of the world (Jesus, November 11, 1984).

Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict the XVI in 2005.

On Audio:

Fatima and the Withdrawal of Grace.

The Destruction of the Mass.

“Catholicism Overturned.” Fr. M. Martin. Interview by Bernard Janzen, 1992.

Fr. J. Schweigl:
I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would have to be the continuation of the words: “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved” (The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. III, p. 74).

Pope Pius XII personally sent Fr. Schweigle to interrogate Sr. Lucia about the Third Secret in 1952.

Fr. J. Alonso:
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…. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church.

Fr. Alonso was the official archivist of Fatima, 1965—1981.

S. Cardinal Ottaviani:
The message was not to be opened before 1960. I asked Sister Lucia, “Why this date?” She answered, “Because then it will be clearer.”

Cardinal Ottaviani was the head of the Holy Office. He interrogated Sister Lucia in 1955.

S. Cardinal Oddi:
What happened in 1960 that might have been seen in connection with the Secret of Fatima? The most important event is without a doubt the launching of the preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council. Therefore I would not be surprised if the Secret had something to do with the convocation of Vatican II… I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church; grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself…

L. Cardinal Ciappi:
In the Third Secret, it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.

Personal communication to a Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg, Austria. Card. Ciappi was the Papal Theologian of Pope John Paul II.

Sr. Lucia to Fr. A. Fuentes:
Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that most offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus, the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way, the devil will succeed in leaving souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.

That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to hell… The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of laypeople and thereby lead them to final impenitence….

Father, let us not wait for an appeal to come from Rome, on behalf of the Holy Father, calling on the whole world to do penance; nor let us wait for it to come from our bishops in their dioceses, nor from the religious congregations. No. Our Lord has already made frequent use of these means and the world took no notice. That is why each of us must now begin his own spiritual reform. Each person must not only save his own soul, but also every soul that God has placed on his path.

Fr. Augustine Fuentes interviewed Sr. Lucia on December 26, 1957.

Pope Paul VI:
The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church.

Address on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions, October 13, 1977. Pope Paul was dead 10 months later.

E. Cardinal Pacelli:
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, Her theology and Her soul…. I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past.

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?”

E. Cardinal Pacelli said this in 1931. He became Pope Pius XII in 1939.