The “Secret” of Fatima:
First and Second Part
of the “Secret”
According to the version presented by Sister Lucia in the “Third Memoir” of 31 August 1941
for the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima
(original text:)
(translation:) (6)
11. …This will entail my speaking about the secret, and thus answering the first question.
What is the secret? It seems to me that I can reveal it, since I already have permission from Heaven to do
so. God’s representatives on earth have authorized me to do this several times and in various letters, one of
which, I believe, is in your keeping. This letter is from Father José Bernardo Gonçalves, and in it he advises me
to write to the Holy Father, suggesting, among other things, that I should reveal the secret. I did say something
about it. But in order not to make my letter too long, since I was told to keep it short, I confined myself to the
essentials, leaving it to God to provide another more favorable opportunity.
In my second account I have already described in detail the doubt which tormented me from 13 June until
13 July, and how it disappeared completely during the Apparition on that day.
12. Well, the secret is made up of three distinct parts, two of which I am now going to reveal.
The first part is the vision of hell. Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the
earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened
or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued
from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a
huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us
and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness
to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we
ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first
Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.
13. We then looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so kindly and so sadly:
“You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world
devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be
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peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the
Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign
given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions
of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my
Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays [see page 90]. If my requests are
heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the
world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have
much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy
Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the
world.” (7)
Third Part of the “Secret”
(original text:)
9
(translation:) (8)
“J.M.J.
14. The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917.
I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of
Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.
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 splendor 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.
Tuy-3-1-1944.”
Interpretation of the “Secret”
Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Sister Lucia
(original text:)
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(translation:)
15. To the Reverend Sister
Maria Lucia
of the Convent of Coimbra
In the great joy of Easter, I greet you with the words the Risen Jesus spoke to the disciples: “Peace be with
you”!
I will be happy to be able to meet you on the long-awaited day of the Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta,
which, please God, I will celebrate on 13 May of this year.
Since on that day there will be time only for a brief greeting and not a conversation, I am sending His
Excellency Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to speak
with you. This is the Congregation which works most closely with the Pope in defending the true Catholic
faith, and which since 1957, as you know, has kept your hand-written letter containing the third part of the
“secret” revealed on 13 July 1917 at Cova da Iria, Fatima.
Archbishop Bertone, accompanied by the Bishop of Leiria, His Excellency Bishop Serafim de Sousa
Ferreira e Silva, will come in my name to ask certain questions about the interpretation of “the third part of
the secret.”
Sister Maria Lucia, you may speak openly and candidly to Archbishop Bertone, who will report your
answers directly to me.
I pray fervently to the Mother of the Risen Lord for you, Reverend Sister, for the Community of Coimbra
and for the whole Church. May Mary, Mother of pilgrim humanity, keep us always united to Jesus, her beloved
Son and our brother, the Lord of life and glory.
With my special Apostolic Blessing.
Ioannes Paulus PP.II
From the Vatican, 19 April 2000.
Conversation with Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart
16. The meeting between Sister Lucia, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, sent by the Holy Father, and Bishop Serafim de Sousa Ferreira e Silva, Bishop of Leiria-
Fatima, took place on Thursday, 27 April 2000, in the Carmel of Saint Teresa in Coimbra.
Sister Lucia was lucid and at ease; she was very happy that the Holy Father was going to Fatima for the
Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta, something she had looked forward to for a long time.
The Bishop of Leiria-Fatima read the autograph letter of the Holy Father, which explained the reasons for
the visit. Sister Lucia felt honored by this and reread the letter herself, contemplating it in own her hands. She
said that she was prepared to answer all questions frankly.
At this point, Archbishop Bertone presented two envelopes to her: the first containing the second, which
held the third part of the “secret” of Fatima. Immediately, touching it with her fingers, she said: “This is my
letter”, and then while reading it: “This is my writing.”
17. The original text, in Portuguese, was read and interpreted with the help of the Bishop of Leiria-Fatima.
Sister Lucia agreed with the interpretation that the third part of the “secret” was a prophetic vision, similar to
those in sacred history. She repeated her conviction that the vision of Fatima concerns above all the struggle of
atheistic Communism against the Church and against Christians, and describes the terrible sufferings of the
victims of the faith in the twentieth century.
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When asked: “Is the principal figure in the vision the Pope?”, Sister Lucia replied at once that it was. She
recalled that the three children were very sad about the suffering of the Pope, and that Jacinta kept saying:
“Coitadinho do Santo Padre, tenho muita pena dos pecadores!” (“Poor Holy Father, I am very sad for sinners!” ).
Sister Lucia continued:“We did not know the name of the Pope; Our Lady did not tell us the name of the Pope;
we did not know whether it was Benedict XV or Pius XII or Paul VI or John Paul II; but it was the Pope who
was suffering and that made us suffer too.”
As regards the passage about the Bishop dressed in white, that is, the Holy Father—as the children immediately
realized during the “vision”—who is struck dead and falls to the ground, Sister Lucia was in full
agreement with the Pope’s claim that “it was a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path and in his throes
the Pope halted at the threshold of death” (Pope John Paul II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the
Italian Bishops, 13 May 1994).
18. Before giving the sealed envelope containing the third part of the “secret” to the then Bishop of Leiria-
Fatima, Sister Lucia wrote on the outside envelope that it could be opened only after 1960, either by the
Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria. 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.”
Finally, mention was made of the unpublished manuscript which Sister Lucia has prepared as a reply to
the many letters that come from Marian devotees and from pilgrims. The work is called Os apelos da
Mensagem de Fatima, and it gathers together in the style of catechesis and exhortation thoughts and reflections
which express Sister Lucia’s feelings and her clear and unaffected spirituality. She was asked if she
would be happy to have it published, and she replied: “If the Holy Father agrees, then I am happy, otherwise I
obey whatever the Holy Father decides. Sister Lucia wants to present the text for ecclesiastical approval, and
she hopes that what she has written will help to guide men and women of good will along the path that leads
to God, the final goal of every human longing. The conversation ends with an exchange of rosaries. Sister Lucia
is given a rosary sent by the Holy Father, and she in turn offers a number of rosaries made by herself.
The meeting concludes with the blessing imparted in the name of the Holy Father.
Announcement Made by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State
19. At the end of the Mass presided over by the Holy Father at Fatima, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of
State, made this announcement in Portuguese, which is given here in English translation:
Brothers and Sisters in the Lord!
At the conclusion of this solemn celebration, I feel bound to offer our beloved Holy Father Pope John Paul
II, on behalf of all present, heartfelt good wishes for his approaching 80th Birthday and to thank him for his
vital pastoral ministry for the good of all God’s Holy Church; we present the heartfelt wishes of the whole
Church.
20. On this solemn occasion of his visit to Fatima, His Holiness has directed me to make an announcement to
you. As you know, the purpose of his visit to Fatima has been to beatify the two “little shepherds.” Nevertheless
he also wishes his pilgrimage to be a renewed gesture of gratitude to Our Lady for her protection during these
years of his papacy. This protection seems also to be linked to the so-called third part of the “secret” of Fatima.
That text contains a prophetic vision similar to those found in Sacred Scripture, which do not describe photographically
the details of future events, but synthesize and compress against a single background facts
which extend through time in an unspecified succession and duration. As a result, the text must be interpreted
in a symbolic key.
The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war waged by atheistic systems against the Church and
Christians, and it describes the immense suffering endured by the witnesses of the faith in the last century of
the second millennium. It is an interminable Way of the Cross led by the Popes of the twentieth century.
21. According to the interpretation of the “little shepherds”, which was also confirmed recently by Sister Lucia,
“the Bishop clothed in white” who prays for all the faithful is the Pope. As he makes his way with great diffi-
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culty towards the Cross amid the corpses of those who were martyred (Bishops, priests, men and women
Religious and many lay people), he too falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a hail of gunfire.
After the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981, it appeared evident that it was “a mother’s hand that
guided the bullet’s path”, enabling “the Pope in his throes” to halt “at the threshold of death” (Pope John Paul
II, Meditation from the Policlinico Gemelli to the Italian Bishops, Insegnamenti, XVII, 1 [1994], 1061). On the
occasion of a visit to Rome by the then Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the Pope decided to give him the bullet which
had remained in the jeep after the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in the shrine. By the
Bishop’s decision, the bullet was later set in the crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
22. The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union and in a number of countries of Eastern
Europe, to the fall of the Communist regimes which promoted atheism. For this too His Holiness offers heartfelt
thanks to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world, however, attacks against the Church and
against Christians, with the burden of suffering they bring, tragically continue. Even if the events to which the
third part of the “secret” of Fatima refers now seem part of the past, Our Lady’s call to conversion and penance,
issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today. “The Lady of the message seems
to read the signs of the times—the signs of our time—with special insight… The insistent invitation of Mary
Most Holy to penance is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the human
family, in need of conversion and forgiveness” (Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1997 World Day of the Sick,
No. 1, Insegnamenti, XIX, 2 [1996], 561).
In order that the faithful may better receive the message of Our Lady of Fatima, the Pope has charged the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with making public the third part of the “secret”, after the preparation
of an appropriate commentary.
Brothers and sisters, let us thank Our Lady of Fatima for her protection. To her maternal intercession let
us entrust the Church of the Third Millennium.
Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix! Intercede pro Ecclesia. Intercede pro Papa nostro
Ioanne Paulo II.Amen. Fatima, 13 May 2000
Theological Commentary
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
23. A careful reading of the text of the so-called third “secret” of Fatima, published here in its entirety long
after the fact and by decision of the Holy Father, will probably prove disappointing or surprising after all the
speculation it has stirred. No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled.We see the Church of the
martyrs of the century which has just passed represented in a scene described in a language which is symbolic
and not easy to decipher. Is this what the Mother of the Lord wished to communicate to Christianity and to
humanity at a time of great difficulty and distress? Is it of any help to us at the beginning of the new millennium?
Or are these only projections of the inner world of children, brought up in a climate of profound piety
but shaken at the same time by the tempests which threatened their own time? How should we understand
the vision? What are we to make of it?
Public Revelation and private revelations—their theological status
24. Before attempting an interpretation, the main lines of which can be found in the statement read by
Cardinal Sodano on 13 May of this year at the end of the Mass celebrated by the Holy Father in Fatima, there
is a need for some basic clarification of the way in which, according to Church teaching, phenomena such as
Fatima are to be understood within the life of faith. The teaching of the Church distinguishes between “public
Revelation” and “private revelations.” The two realities differ not only in degree but also in essence. The term
“public Revelation” refers to the revealing action of God directed to humanity as a whole and which finds its
literary expression in the two parts of the Bible: the Old and New Testaments. It is called “Revelation” because
in it God gradually made himself known to men, to the point of becoming man himself, in order to draw to himself
the whole world and unite it with himself through his Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. It is not a matter
therefore of intellectual communication, but of a life-giving process in which God comes to meet man. At the
same time this process naturally produces data pertaining to the mind and to the understanding of the mystery
of God. It is a process which involves man in his entirety and therefore reason as well, but not reason
alone. Because God is one, history, which he shares with humanity, is also one. It is valid for all time, and it has
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reached its fulfillment in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has said everything,
that is, he has revealed himself completely, and therefore Revelation came to an end with the fulfillment of the
mystery of Christ as enunciated in the New Testament.To explain the finality and completeness of Revelation,
the Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes a text of Saint John of the Cross: “In giving us his Son, his only
Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word—and he has no more to
say…because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All
Who is His Son. Any person questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only of
foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the
desire for some other novelty” (No. 65; Saint John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, II, 22).
Because the single Revelation of God addressed to all peoples comes to completion with Christ and the witness
borne to him in the books of the New Testament, the Church is tied to this unique event of sacred history
and to the word of the Bible, which guarantees and interprets it. But this does not mean that the Church can
now look only to the past and that she is condemned to sterile repetition. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church says in this regard: “…even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made fully explicit; it
remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries” (No. 66).
The way in which the Church is bound to both the uniqueness of the event and progress in understanding it is
very well illustrated in the farewell discourse of the Lord when, taking leave of his disciples, he says: “I have
yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you
into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority.…He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine
and declare it to you” (Jn 16:12-14). On the one hand, the Spirit acts as a guide who discloses a knowledge previously
unreachable because the premise was missing—this is the boundless breadth and depth of Christian
faith. On the other hand, to be guided by the Spirit is also “to draw from” the riches of Jesus Christ himself, the
inexhaustible depths of which appear in the way the Spirit leads. In this regard, the Catechism cites profound
words of Pope Gregory the Great: “The sacred Scriptures grow with the one who reads them” (No. 94; Gregory
the Great, Homilia in Ezechielem I, 7, 8). The Second Vatican Council notes three essential ways in which the
Spirit guides in the Church, and therefore three ways in which “the word grows”: through the meditation and
study of the faithful, through the deep understanding which comes from spiritual experience, and through the
preaching of “those who, in the succession of the episcopate, have received the sure charism of truth” (Dei
Verbum, 8).
25. In this context, it now becomes possible to understand rightly the concept of “private revelation”, which
refers to all the visions and revelations which have taken place since the completions of the New Testament.
This is the category to which we must assign the message of Fatima. In this respect, let us listen once again to
the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Throughout the ages, there have been so-called ‘private’ revelations,
some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church.…It is not their role to complete Christ’s
definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history” (No. 67). This clarifies two
things:
(1) The authority of private revelations is essentially different from that of the definitive public Revelation.
The latter demands faith; in it in fact God himself speaks to us through human words and the mediation of the
living community of the Church. Faith in God and in his word is different from any other human faith, trust or
opinion. The certainty that it is God who is speaking gives me the assurance that I am in touch with truth
itself. It gives me a certitude which is beyond verification by any human way of knowing. It is the certitude
upon which I build my life and to which I entrust myself in dying.
(2) Private revelation is a help to this faith, and shows its credibility precisely by leading me back to the
definitive public Revelation. In this regard, Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, the future Pope Benedict XIV, says
in his classic treatise, which later became normative for beatifications and canonizations: “An assent of
Catholic faith is not due to revelations approved in this way; it is not even possible. These revelations seek
rather an assent of human faith in keeping with the requirements of prudence, which puts them before us as
probable and credible to piety.” The Flemish theologian E. Dhanis, an eminent scholar in this field, states succinctly
that ecclesiastical approval of a private revelation has three elements: the message contains nothing
contrary to faith or morals; it is lawful to make it public; and the faithful are authorized to accept it with prudence
(E. Dhanis, Sguardo su Fatima e bilancio di una discussione, in La Civilà Cattolicà 104 [1953], II,
392-406, in particular 397). Such a message can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it
better at a particular moment in time; therefore it should not be disregarded. It is a help which is offered, but
which one is not obliged to use.
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26. The criterion for the truth and value of a private revelation is therefore its orientation to Christ himself.
When it leads us away from him, when it becomes independent of him or even presents itself as another and
better plan of salvation, more important than the Gospel, then it certainly does not come from the Holy Spirit,
who guides us more deeply into the Gospel and not away from it. This does not mean that a private revelation
will not offer new emphases or give rise to new devotional forms, or deepen and spread older forms. But in all
of this there must be a nurturing of faith, hope and love, which are the unchanging path to salvation for
everyone.We might add that private revelations often spring from popular piety and leave their stamp on it,
giving it a new impulse and opening the way for new forms of it. Nor does this exclude that they will have an
effect even on the liturgy, as we see for instance in the feasts of Corpus Christi and of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. From one point of view, the relationship between Revelation and private revelations appears in the relationship
between the liturgy and popular piety: the liturgy is the criterion, it is the living form of the Church
as a whole, fed directly by the Gospel. Popular piety is a sign that the faith is spreading its roots into the heart
of a people in such a way that it reaches into daily life. Popular religiosity is the first and fundamental mode of
“inculturation” of the faith. While it must always take its lead and direction from the liturgy, it in turn enriches
the faith by involving the heart.
We have thus moved from the somewhat negative clarifications, initially needed, to a positive definition of
private revelations. How can they be classified correctly in relation to Scripture? To which theological category
do they belong? The oldest letter of Saint Paul which has been preserved, perhaps the oldest of the New
Testament texts, the First Letter to the Thessalonians, seems to me to point the way. The Apostle says: “Do not
quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything, holding fast to what is good” (5:19-21). In
every age the Church has received the charism of prophecy, which must be scrutinized but not scorned. On this
point, it should be kept in mind that prophecy in the biblical sense does not mean to predict the future but to
explain the will of God for the present, and therefore show the right path to take for the future. A person who
foretells what is going to happen responds to the curiosity of the mind, which wants to draw back the veil on
the future. The prophet speaks to the blindness of will and of reason, and declares the will of God as an indication
and demand for the present time. In this case, prediction of the future is of secondary importance. What is
essential is the actualization of the definitive Revelation, which concerns me at the deepest level. The
prophetic word is a warning or a consolation, or both together. In this sense there is a link between the
charism of prophecy and the category of “the signs of the times”, which Vatican II brought to light anew: “You
know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; why then do you not know how to interpret the
present time?” (Lk 12:56). In this saying of Jesus, the “signs of the times” must be understood as the path he
was taking, indeed it must be understood as Jesus himself. To interpret the signs of the times in the light of
faith means to recognize the presence of Christ in every age. In the private revelations approved by the
Church—and therefore also in Fatima—this is the point: they help us to understand the signs of the times and
to respond to them rightly in faith.
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