Chapter 7

Warning After Warning Ignored

At Rianjo, Spain in 1931 Our Lord Himself told Sister Lucy: “Make it known to My ministers, given that they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, they will follow him into misfortune.”

What was the example of the King of France? He failed to consecrate France to the Sacred Heart as Our Lord had commanded in His apparition to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque on June 17, 1689—another apparition approved by the Church as worthy of belief. A succession of subsequent French kings also failed to follow this command. One hundred years to the day after that apparition—on the 17th of June 1789—King Louis XVI of France was stripped of his power by the Third Estate and four years later he was guillotined. His attempt to consecrate France in his jail cell while he awaited execution was too little, too late; it was not the solemn public act that Our Lord had commanded so that the whole world would know that His power had saved France.

At Rianjo, Our Lord Himself warned us that if we fail to follow His command at Fatima, that another consecration be performed—the solemn and public Consecration of Russia—many of the ministers of His Church will follow the decapitated King of France into misfortune, along with all the nations that will be annihilated in what may well be a chastisement worse than the deluge.

These events are yet to occur. The Message of Fatima is not merely a prophecy of two world wars and the rise of Communism, as some would have us believe today. In her interview with Father Fuentes on December 26, 1957, long after World War II had ended and Stalin had subjugated half of Europe, Sister Lucy spoke of even worse calamities to come:

“Father, the Most Holy Virgin is very sad because no one has paid any attention to Her Message, neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on their way but without giving any importance to Her Message. The bad, not seeing the punishment of God actually falling upon them, continue their life of sin without even caring about the message. But believe me, Father, God will chastise the world and this will be in a terrible manner. The punishment from Heaven is imminent.

“Father, how much time is there before 1960 arrives? It will be very sad for everyone, not one person will rejoice at all if beforehand the world does not pray and do penance. I am not able to give any other details, because it is still a secret. 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 to not 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.

“Tell them, Father, that many times the Most Holy Virgin told my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that Russia will be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to punish the whole world if we do not beforehand obtain the conversion of that poor nation.”

Sister Lucy also told me: “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 the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.”

Sister Lucy reported with particular alarm the warning of Our Lady that the devil will attack consecrated souls—especially priests and bishops—and “overcome” them, leaving the faithful abandoned by the very shepherds God has ordained to save the flock from eternal damnation. Recall Pope John Paul II’s sermon at Fatima in 2000, in which His Holiness declared that “The Message of Fátima is a call to conversion, alerting humanity to have nothing to do with the ‘dragon’ whose ‘tail swept down a third of the stars of Heaven, and cast them to the earth’ (Apoc. 12: 4)”—a reference, as traditionally understood, to the fall of priests and other consecrated souls from their exalted state because of the influence of the devil.

Sister Lucy warned that along with the fall of consecrated souls, entire nations will disappear from the earth, and that this disastrous chain of events will begin in the years following 1960.

Sister Lucy also specifically revealed that these terrible events are predicted in “the third part of the Message of Our Lady, which will remain secret until 1960.” This is an unmistakable reference to the Third Secret of Fatima. The Third Secret evidently predicts a double chastisement, material and spiritual, in which a crisis of faith and discipline in the Church will be accompanied by a global catastrophe that will cause “many nations [to] disappear from the face of the earth.”

This view of the Third Secret was dramatically confirmed in a crucial interview of then Cardinal Ratzinger by Vittorio Messori in the Italian magazine entitled Jesus, published on November 11, 1984. In the interview, Cardinal Ratzinger revealed that he had read the Third Secret and that it speaks of “the dangers threatening the Faith and the life of the Christian and therefore [the life] of the world.” Again we see the theme of a crisis in the Church and the consequent danger to the whole world.

This interview together with many other pieces of evidence, a discussion of which is beyond the scope of this booklet, has led the renowned Catholic author Antonio Socci to conclude in his recent book The Fourth Secret of Fatima that the Third Secret undoubtedly contains words of Our Lady warning of a crisis in the Church and catastrophic events in the world.¹ As Vittorio Messori himself notes in a review of Socci’s book, Socci concludes that “the part of the secret revealed [by the Vatican] (that of the ‘bishop in white’ who is killed by ‘gunshots and arrows’) is authentic, but constitutes only a fragment. In its entirety, the message would contain terrible words on the crisis of the faith, on betrayal by part of the hierarchy, on catastrophic events in store for the Church and, with it, the whole of humanity.”²

It is very telling that the Vatican has not denied any aspect of Socci’s conclusions, not even his claim that there exists a suppressed text of the Third Secret. Socci is not someone who can simply be ignored. He is a national celebrity in Italy, and has personally conducted press conferences for Cardinal Ratzinger. The Vatican’s silence in the face of Socci’s book speaks volumes.

The subsequent book by Cardinal Bertone, published May 10, 2007, and his television interview of May 31, 2007, reinforce the conviction that Antonio Socci’s conclusion is right—that there remains a part of the Third Secret that has not yet been officially revealed.

The publication of Socci’s book brings into bold relief the absolute urgency of the Fatima Message, the implications of which reach beyond the Catholic Church to the entire world. The whole world is in danger, and the warning of that danger is contained in the Third Secret. In his 1984 interview with Messori, Cardinal Ratzinger further revealed that “the things contained in this ‘Third Secret’ correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and has been said again and again in many other Marian apparitions, first of all that of Fatima ...”

The Cardinal’s reference to “what has been announced in many other Marian apparitions,” is quite revealing. On October 13, 1973—the very anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima—Our Lady appeared at Akita, Japan to warn of a double chastisement—of the Church and of the whole world. The apparition at Akita was approved as authentic after a lengthy investigation by the local bishop. The former Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has described the Message of Akita as “essentially the same” as the Fatima Message. Here is what Our Lady said to Sister Agnes Sassagawa at Akita:

“As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful.

“The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day, recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and the priests.

“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops.³ The priests who venerate Me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres (other priests). Churches and altars will be sacked. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.

“The demon will rage especially against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of My sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer pardon for them.”

The parallel between the Message of Akita and the Message of Fatima, including the Third Secret as described by Sister Lucy, could not be more exact: both Messages predict a crisis in the Church and the destruction of a great part of humanity if the apostasy of many priests and bishops and lay people against God continues. We have already noted the massive defection of consecrated souls from the priesthood, the religious orders, and the convents that Our Lady warned us about at both Fatima and Akita. Can the consequent divine chastisement of the whole world be far behind?

The parallel between Fatima and Akita is made even clearer by the vision from the Third Secret which the Vatican published in June of 2000. In the published vision of the “bishop dressed in white,” we see a hobbling figure, evidently the Pope, trudging through a half-ruined city past the dead bodies of many bishops, priests and laity. The Pope struggles to reach the top of a hill on which a large wooden cross is located. As he kneels before the cross he is executed by a band of soldiers. We also see flames emanating toward the earth from the hands of an avenging angel, who is demanding penance from mankind. Is this not the tableau of a suffering and persecuted remnant of the Church in a devastated world, perhaps devastated by a world war involving atomic weapons? Is the half-ruined city not Rome itself, and, by analogy, the Church as a whole?

The first two parts of the Message of Fatima, however, provide no explanation of the bishop dressed in white, the half-ruined city filled with dead bodies of bishops, priests and laity, the execution of the Pope by soldiers and the flames issuing from the hands of the avenging angel. Nor do the first two parts mention a crisis in the Church arising from the fall of many consecrated souls—an event that is mentioned in both the Message of Akita and in Sister Lucy’s interview with Father Fuentes concerning the Third Secret. The part of the Third Secret not yet released by the Vatican, namely, the words of Our Lady that follow Her statement “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved…”, almost certainly contains an explanation of the vision released by the Vatican in 2000.

The first two parts of the Message of Fatima, the warning of Our Lord to Sister Lucy in 1931, Sister’s Lucy’s 1957 interview with Father Fuentes, the Message of Akita in 1973, Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1984 interview concerning the Third Secret, and the vision from the Third Secret published by the Vatican in 2000 all point to the same conclusion: Heaven has warned us of a crisis in the Church and a divine chastisement of the whole world the likes of which has never occurred before.

Who can deny that this prophecy of a dual chastisement of the Church and the world is playing out before our very eyes? The Second Vatican Council urged us to read “the signs of the times.” With Heaven’s assistance we can indeed read those signs, and they all point to disaster—unless the world changes its course very soon. The Message of Fatima gives us the means to change that course before it is too late.