Dear TIA,

Even though I am not sure whether the document you published - "the third secret" - is true, I am following with interest what has been discussed on your website. I think what Mr. Guimaraes said about "the evil eyes" of the Pope is quite reasonable. But I didn't see where he made any explanation about another part, on "the Pope who goes into an ugly church."

If he did make some comments, could you please show me where they are? If he didn't, would it be possible to have his interpretation of that passage, which is difficult to understand for me? Thank you.

     In Christo Jesu,

     E.J.



The Editor responds:

Dear E.J.,

Let me reafirm that I do not unconditionally defend that document. I am giving it the benefit of the doubt. Therefore, in my comments I am trying to see how it could be interpreted if it were true.

The passage you asked about is this:

"Then, after some moments we saw the same Pope entering a Church, but this Church was the Church of hell; there is no way to describe the ugliness of that place. It looked like a gray cement fortress with broken angles and windows similar to eyes; it had a beak in the roof of the building."

Architectural styles are normally used to define historical eras. When one speaks of the Gothic, he refers to the late Middle Ages; when he mentions the Neo-Classical era he is referring to the Renaissance; when he says the Baroque period he is referring to time of the Counter-Reformation.

Why is this? It is because when a person mentions an architectural style, he includes not just the building, but also all the other art works, songs, forms and actions that take place inside that building. Thus, when one says that the Gothic Cathedral is a symbol of an era, he includes the Gregorian chant, traditional Mass, the liturgy said in solemn vestments, a style of chanting the Divine Office, the gothic statues in the niches, the colorful stained glass windows, etc.

Given that this principle is universally accepted for the study of history, I believe it should also be applied to interpret that paragraph.

If we apply it, we see that when Our Lady supposedly showed Lucy the scene of a Pope entering an ugly church, she was referring not just to a single building, but to a whole different style of building, chant, liturgy, Mass, statue, etc. that would be made in the future.

We see that this was indeed what John XXIII did. It was during his short pontificate and with his open support that the conciliar document Sacrosanctum Concilium was proposed in 1962. It would be approved in 1963 by Vatican II when the whole liturgical reform started. Before the Council, from 1958 to 1962, he had already taken all the necessary steps either to prepare or promote the schema that would be approved. Hence, one could say that "the Pope was entering that ugly Church."

I believe that if Our Lady had wanted to warn the Catholic faithful not to accept those changes, she could very well have used that symbol.

Further, not only the liturgy and architecture are symbolized in that scene, but an entire new conception of the Catholic Church with everything it encompasses: Dogmatics, Morals, Exegesis, Canon Law, etc. all started to be changed with John XXIII's adhesion to the goals of the New Theology.

This would be my interpretation of the "Pope entering that ugly Church," which was possibly shown to the children of Fatima.

     Cordially,

     A.S. Guimarães

Dear TIA,

One argument against what you have posted as being the Third Secret is that the letter is not folded. I thought of this but discounted it because the Third Secret you have posted could be another letter made by Sister Lucia and the original Third Secret sent to Rome in the sealed envelope would be folded.

The handwriting does look like Sister Lucia's, but that could be faked. The fingerprint, if hers, would not completely prove the text was valid.

The biggest problem that I see with the text of the message is that it says 'the authority would be transferred from the Vatican to Fatima.' But it does not say to whom the authority would be transferred. If the text is valid then I assume it is implied that the authority would be transferred to the Virgin Mary. That would fit with Apocalypse 12 about the woman clothed in the sun who battles the beast with 7 heads (Rome the city of 7 hills), the "seat of the antichrist," as our Lady of La Salette said. And we know that Sister Lucia did say Apocalypse chapters 8-13 relate to the Third Secret.

So, if the Third Secret you have posted is true, then it suggests that the authority of the Catholic Church is going to be taken from the Vatican and given to "Our Lady of Fatima." That would put a whole new perspective on the "Triumph of the Immaculate Heart."

     M.B.

TIA,

Regarding the information you had in an article by Guido del Rose that told about Our Lady returning to Fatima a 7th time:

One of the things that Our Lady told the seers on May 13th was: "I have come to ask you to come for six months in succession on the 13th day at this same hour. Later on I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards, I will return here yet a seventh time." This is a prophecy to be fulfilled: Our Lady will return to Fatima for a seventh time.

I had never heard this before! It is never mentioned anywhere. At first I thought he was mistaken. Then, after some research on the topic, I found other references to it. I concluded that the key term in Our Lady's announcement is the word "here."

Many have interpreted Our Lady's seventh visit as being the one that took place on December 10th of 1925, when Our Lady appeared to Sister Lucia and asked for the sacramental reparation of Confession and Holy Communion on First Saturdays. That, however, took place in the convent of Pontevedra, Spain - not in Fatima.

Others hold that it was Our Lady's apparition of June 13th, 1929 to Sister Lucia in which she asked the Pope and Bishops of the world for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. Again, this took place in the Dorothean Convent of Tuy, a Spanish town on the border with Portugal. Neither of these apparitions seem to fulfill Our Lady's statement, "I shall still return here," which implies a return to the Cove in Fatima.

A footnote added to "Sister Lucia's Memoirs" suggests that this predicted seventh time might have taken place on the morning of June 16th, 1921, when Sister Lucia went back to the Cove to bid farewell to Fatima on her way to the convent. This would have been another of the many personal visits of Our Lady to Sister Lucia. However, this theory seems contradicted by Sister's Lucia's words in her manuscripts from her Spanish convent. "After six years of real trial (since 1917) it was on this day, August 26, 1923, that the Virgin Mary first visited me again." According to this, Our Lady did not appear to her at the Cove in 1921.

As to whether the seventh apparition at the Cove foretold by Our Lady took place during Sister Lucia's lifetime or not, she never announced it. One can only wonder, why did Our Lady prophesy this seventh apparition so solemnly? ...

Although the faithful have always assumed that Our Lady meant a seventh apparition to Sister Lucia, Our Lady's actual words, "I shall return here," never specified that such a visit would be a personal apparition to Sister Lucia. This prophesied "Seventh visit" continues to remain a part of the amazing mystery of Fatima."

Taken from John Paul II, the Pope Who Understood Fatima I found it here.

     B.R.

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