pope visit fatima

Pope Francis to visit Fatima to implore peace for Ukraine, entire world

By Andrea Tornielli

Pope Francis is set to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima for the second time of his pontificate, where three shepherd children received a message in May 1917 from the Blessed Virgin Mary about the future of humanity.

The brief visit to Fatima, which will take place on Saturday, 5 August, via helicopter, was added to the papal pilgrimage to Portugal, which originally included only events in Lisbon for World Youth Day.

In May 2017, Pope Francis had already traveled to the renowned Marian shrine to canonize Francisco and Jacinta Marto, the two young visionaries, on the occasion of the apparitions' centenary.

The fact that he has decided to return to the feet of Our Lady of Fatima holds significance and reflects the Pope’s intention to address the tragic war afflicting “martyred Ukraine”, attacked by the Russian army, as well as the numerous forgotten conflicts around the world.

This gesture by the Bishop of Rome can be directly linked to another significant act he made just over a month after the outbreak of war: the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica on 25 March 2022.

The apparition at Fatima had specifically requested the Consecration of Russia in its message to the shepherd children.

Sixteen months ago, Pope Francis fervently prayed, “We have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young… Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in the tempest of war… Free us from war, protect our world from the menace of nuclear weapons.”

Fatima and 20 th century Popes

The apparitions at Fatima are closely linked to the Popes of the 20 th century, intertwining with their personal biographies.

Pope Benedict XV, amidst the horrors of World War I, decided on 5 May 1917, to add the invocation "Queen of Peace, pray for us" to the traditional Litany of Loreto recited after the Rosary.

A few days later, on 13 May, the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima occurred.

This event coincided with the day Pope Benedict XV consecrated Bishop Eugenio Pacelli in the Sistine Chapel, who would later become his second successor, Pius XII. On 31 October 1942, Pius XII consecrated "the peoples separated by error or discord" to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

In May 1967, Paul VI became the first Pope to make a pilgrimage to Fatima, when he visited Portugal as it was still under the regime of the dictator Salazar, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the apparitions.

Just before his departure, Pope Paul VI explained, "The spiritual motive, which seeks to give this journey depth of meaning, is to once again, with greater humility and intensity, pray for peace."

In his homily at Fatima, he urged, “Do not entertain thoughts of destruction, death, or revolution... Reflect on projects that promote common comfort and solidarity. Recognize the gravity and magnitude of this hour, which may prove decisive for the present and future generations."

Paul VI vividly described the gravity of the historical situation, highlighting the "great arsenal of terribly deadly weapons" misaligned with moral and technical progress, juxtaposed with the state of poverty and destitution faced by “the majority of humanity”.

“It is for this reason that we say that the world is in danger,” he said. “It is for this reason that we have come to the feet of the Queen to implore peace, a gift which only God can bestow… Observe how the outlook of the world and its destinies are presented here in immense and dramatic form.”

The blood of Pope John Paul II and the message of Pope Benedict XVI

However, it was Pope John Paul II with whom the story of Fatima and the message to the shepherd children, kept secret until the year 2000, became inseparably intertwined with the life of a Successor of Peter.

On 13 May 1981, at 5:17 p.m., John Paul II was severely wounded in an assassination attempt in St. Peter's Square, perpetrated by Turkish terrorist Ali Agca.

The Polish Pope was brought to the Gemelli Hospital covered in blood and on the brink of death, and he came to regard his survival as miraculous.

Nineteen years later, he revealed the third secret of Fatima, which described a "bishop dressed in white" walking through a ruined city and ultimately being killed—an image he attributed to himself.

John Paul II, during his lengthy pontificate, visited the Portuguese shrine three times: in 1982, 1991, and finally during the Great Jubilee Year of 2000.

His successor, Benedict XVI, also embarked on a pilgrimage to Fatima during his 2010 visit to Portugal.

He declared, “The person who thinks the prophetic mission of Fatima is concluded would be deluding themselves.”

During the outbound flight, responding to a journalist's question, Pope Benedict also addressed the abuse crisis, acknowledging, “As for the new things which we can find in this message today, there is also the fact that attacks on the Pope and the Church come not only from without, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin existing within the Church. This too is something that we have always known, but today we are seeing it in a really terrifying way: that the greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without, but arises from sin within the Church, and that the Church thus has a deep need to relearn penance.”

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Pope Francis adds Fátima visit to World Youth Day trip

The Vatican announced Pope Francis will travel to Portugal August 2-6 to participate in World Youth Day, and will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima August 5.

Pope Francis uses incense as he venerates a statue of Our Lady of Fatima during the canonization Mass of Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the three Fatima seers, at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal, May 13, 2017. The Vatican announced the pope will return to Fatima Aug. 5 while in Portugal for World Youth Day. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima during his trip to Portugal for World Youth Day 2023, the Vatican said.

In a statement May 22, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, confirmed that the pope will travel to Lisbon Aug. 2-6 and will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima Aug. 5.

The Marian shrine at Fátima is connected to Pope Francis' public prayer appeals for an end the war in Ukraine. In March 2022, just over one month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the pope consecrated both countries to Mary's immaculate heart, praying before a statue of Our Lady of Fátima in St. Peter's Basilica. Before her death, Sister Lúcia dos Santos, one of the three Portuguese children who claimed to see apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima in 1917, had said Mary requested that Russia be consecrated to her immaculate heart by a reigning pope to bring peace to the world.

Previous popes had consecrated Russia to Mary's immaculate heart in various forms but had never mentioned the country by name as Pope Francis did in 2022.

In 2017, Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the shrine to mark 100 years since the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima as part of a quick trip to Portugal that lasted just over 24 hours. He canonized Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto, the cousins of Sister dos Santos, who also saw Mary at Fátima. Francisco in 1919 at the age of 10, while Jacinta succumbed to her illness in 1920 at the age of 9. Sister dos Santos died in 2005 at the age of 97.

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Pope Francis adds Fátima visit to World Youth Day trip

By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima during his trip to Portugal for World Youth Day 2023, the Vatican said.

In a statement May 22, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, confirmed that the pope will travel to Lisbon Aug. 2-6 and will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima Aug. 5.

Pope Francis, who repeatedly has said he intended to be in Lisbon for World Youth Day, had not spoken publicly about also going to Fátima in August. In October 2022, he publicly registered to attend World Youth Day as a pilgrim with the help of two Portuguese university students after praying the Angelus from the window of the papal apartments overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

The Marian shrine at Fátima is connected to Pope Francis’ public prayer appeals for an end the war in Ukraine. In March 2022, just over one month after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the pope consecrated both countries to Mary’s immaculate heart, praying before a statue of Our Lady of Fátima in St. Peter’s Basilica. Before her death, Sister Lúcia dos Santos, one of the three Portuguese children who claimed to see apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima in 1917, had said Mary requested that Russia be consecrated to her immaculate heart by a reigning pope to bring peace to the world.

Previous popes had consecrated Russia to Mary’s immaculate heart in various forms but had never mentioned the country by name as Pope Francis did in 2022.

In 2017, Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the shrine to mark 100 years since the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima as part of a quick trip to Portugal that lasted just over 24 hours. He canonized Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto, the cousins of Sister dos Santos, who also saw Mary at Fátima. Francisco in 1919 at the age of 10, while Jacinta succumbed to her illness in 1920 at the age of 9. Sister dos Santos died in 2005 at the age of 97.

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Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima May 13, 1967

• Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima (May 13, 1967) [ Italian , Portuguese ]
• To the President of Portugal (May 13, 1967) [ Portuguese ]
• To the Diplomatic Corps accredited to Portugal (May 13, 1967) [ French , Italian , Spanish ]
• To the representatives of non-Catholic Christian communities (May 13, 1967) [ French ]
• To the members of the Portuguese Episcopate (May 13, 1967) [ Portuguese ]
• To the representatives of the Portuguese Catholic laity (May 13, 1967) [ Portuguese ]
• Farewell ceremony (May 13, 1967) [ Portuguese ]

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Pope will make two-day visit to Fatima marking apparition anniversary

By Elise Harris

Vatican City, Dec 17, 2016 / 05:59 am

Though rumors have been floating around for some time, the Vatican confirmed Saturday that Pope Francis will travel to Fatima, Portugal May 12-13 in honor of the centenary of the apparitions.

"On the occasion of the centenary of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria, and welcoming the invitation of the Republic and of the Portuguese bishops, His Holiness Pope Francis will go on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima May 12-13, 2017."

The announcement was made in a Dec. 17 communique from the Vatican. Official statements confirming the dates had already been made over the past few days by both the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, as well as the Fatima Shrine itself.

Of all Marian apparitions, those relating to Our Lady of Fatima are among the most famous. On May 13, 1917, siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto – 9 and 7 – and their cousin, 10-year-old Lucia dos Santos, took their sheep to graze near the Portuguese town of Fatima when they saw a figure of a woman dressed in white and holding a rosary.

After this first appearance, the Virgin Mary then appeared to the children on the 13th of every month from May until October. The message of the Fatima apparitions can be summarized primarily as a call to repentance and prayer.

In 1930, the Catholic Church proclaimed the supernatural character of the apparitions and a shrine was erected at Fatima. It was visited by Pope Paul VI May 13, 1967, and later by Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

St. John Paul II had a particularly strong devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. After a harrowing assassination attempt in 1981, he credited his survival to her miraculous intervention. As a sign of his gratitude, he placed the bullet from the failed assassination in her crown.

"Pray for the brother who shot me, whom I have sincerely forgiven. United to Christ, as a priest and victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church and the world," Pope John Paul II said on that occasion.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin traveled to Fatima Oct. 11-13, six months before the Pope's own visit, largely as a precursor to the papal trip.

His visit, which could indicate what the Pope's schedule might look like, included a stop in Lisbon, where he gave a talk on "The Identity of Europe" at a conference at the Catholic University of Portugal marking the 50th anniversary of its founding in 2017.

He also visited several churches and had dinner with Cardinal Manuel José Macário do Nascimento Clemente, the Roman Catholic Patriarch of Lisbon.

At Fatima, Parolin participated in an Oct. 12 blessing of the candles and praying the holy rosary at the Little Chapel of Apparitions before processing to the altar to celebrate a candlelit Mass in front of the Basilica of the Holy Rosary. On Oct. 13, there was a special procession to the Basilica with Mass and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

It is likely that the Pope's visit will look similar that of Parolin, however, Francis has previously said he would only go to Fatima.

In 2013 Pope Francis received the statue of Our Lady of Fatima in St. Peter's Square, inviting those present to meditate on the gaze of Mary.

"Oh Mary, let us feel your gaze as a Mother," he said. "Lead us to your Son, as we are not Christians 'for show', but who can 'get their hands dirty' to build with your Son, Jesus, his Kingdom of love, joy and peace."

"How important it is," he said of Mary's gaze. "How many things can be said with a look! Affection, encouragement, compassion, love, but also reproach, envy, pride, even hatred."

"Often the look says more than words, or says what words cannot or dare not say. Who looks at the Virgin Mary? She looks at all of us, each of us…She looks at us like a Mother, with tenderness, with mercy, with love. The same way she looked at the child Jesus, in every moment of his life…When we are tired, discouraged, overwhelmed by the problems, look to Mary."

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Francis' trip to Fatima to be taken as pilgrimage for peace

A statue of Our Lady of Fatima is carried through a crowd in 2016 at the shrine of Fatima in Portugal. (CNS/EPA/Paulo Chunho)

by Joshua J. McElwee

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Pope Francis is undertaking a very different kind of papal trip at the end of this week. Unlike many of the other visits of his pontificate, he is not expected to focus on interreligious dialogue or to bring some grand geopolitical message.

Instead, the pope will be making a little Marian devotion. He will be visiting Fatima, the site in Portugal where three shepherd children reported seeing Mary in a field in 1917, sparking a century of reverence tinged with controversy.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke told journalists in a briefing May 5 that more than a usual apostolic visit, the pope's May 12-13 trip would resemble "an apostolic pilgrimage."

Although the Portugal visit may not carry the drama of some of the pope's earlier sojourns — think of the security concerns surrounding his recent April trip to Muslim-majority Egypt , for example — several theologians told NCR it fits well into the arc of his papacy, particularly his focus on nonviolence and peace.

That's because when 9-year-old Lúcia Dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto first reported seeing Mary on May 13, 1917 — three years into the gruesome World War I then destroying Europe — they said she had told them to pray the rosary every day for an end to the fighting.

Mary was "breaking into a time of great social upheaval," said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a theologian who has focused her research on the interplay of Mariology and ecclesiology. "There's a lot that's parallel to our current situation."

"A lot of people who are suffering; a lot of migration; a lot of death and famine," Imperatori-Lee, an associate professor at Manhattan College, ticked off the list of similarities.

"It's pretty timely that he's doing this now," she said.

Aurelie Hagstrom, an associate professor at Providence College who specializes in Mariology, asked rhetorically: "What might attract [Francis] to the Fatima message?"

"Because he speaks about war a lot," she answered. "And the message of Fatima includes the admonition to pray for peace."

In the past two years, Francis has said many times that the powers around the globe appear to be fighting what he calls a "piecemeal world war." He also focused his message for 2017's World Day of Peace on nonviolence as a political strategy.

Emphasizing the pope's desire to act as if on pilgrimage in Portugal, the Vatican has given the visit the slogan: "With Mary, pilgrim of hope and peace."

In an additional sign of pilgrimage, Francis will also not even stop on his way to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima to visit Lisbon, the Portuguese capital and only about 75 miles southwest of the shrine.

Upon landing at an air base near the devotional site May 12, the pope will head straight to the chapel built over the spot where the three children reportedly saw Mary.

Francis will spend the first evening in prayer at the sanctuary, reciting the rosary along with crowds expected in the millions. On the next day, he will celebrate an outdoor Mass where he will also canonize the Marto siblings, who both died only a few years after seeing Mary.

Dos Santos became a nun and died in 2005 at the age of 97. The controversy surrounding Our Lady of Fatima stems from Dos Santos' memoirs, in which she said she and the other children were told three secrets by Mary.

The first two secrets were revealed by Dos Santos in the memoirs. They concerned a vision of hell, taken by many as a prediction of World War II, and a need for the world to pray.

The third secret, originally not revealed by the nun, inspired decades of conspiracy theories about what it revealed. In 2000, the Vatican said the secret was a prediction of the May 13, 1981, assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square.

John Paul credited Our Lady of Fatima with saving his life that day, saying it was evident "a mother's hand" had deflected would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Agca's four bullets so they did not kill him.

Imperatori-Lee, who has written about practices of Catholic popular devotion across Latin America, also said Francis' visit to Fatima may indicate his comfort with different local expressions of faith as a native Argentine.

"One thing that's great about popular devotion is that it differs from place to place," she said. "Latin America has a lot of tolerance for that sort of unity in diversity."

"That seems to carry over for him," she said. "He doesn't really feel a need for uniformity of worship or uniformity of too much [that is] outside of the uniformity that the church should have in its concern for the poor and the outcast and the other."

Local organizers in Fatima are preparing for large-scale crowds ahead of Francis' visit. Carmo Rodeia, communications director for the sanctuary, told journalists at the May 5 briefing that they are expecting 2,000 members of the press to come for the visit, alongside 2,000 priests, 71 bishops, and eight cardinals.

Rodeia also said they are organizing 400 Communion stations for the Mass May 13.

The Vatican said the visit will be Francis' first to Portugal, not counting layovers in the Lisbon airport.

He will give four public addresses during the trip: a homily at the Mass, a prayer May 12, and two short greetings to people in the area. The Vatican said each of the public speeches will be made in Portuguese, another first for the pontificate.

Francis will be the fourth pope to visit Fatima, following Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. John Paul visited the shrine three times: in 1982, 1991 and 2000.

Francis' trip to Portugal will be the 19th international visit of his pontificate and will mark the 28th country he has visited so far. His next scheduled visit is to Colombia in September, although additional visits to South Sudan, India and Bangladesh are also said to be in consideration for late 2017.

[Joshua J. McElwee is  NCR  Vatican correspondent. His email address is  [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter:  @joshjmac .]

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The bond between Our Lady of Fatima and the past three popes

Recent popes have had a special affection for Our Lady of Fatima, but no pope's connection can match that of St. John Paul II.

"We cannot forget that he was saved by Our Lady of Fatima from the assassination attempt here in St. Peter's. This is fundamental and central. It is never forgotten," Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, former prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes, told Catholic News Service on March 29.

Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turk, shot Pope John Paul at close range as the pope was greeting a crowd in St. Peter's Square on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, on May 13, 1981.

Two bullets pierced the pope's abdomen, but no major organs were struck; a bullet had missed his heart and aorta by a few inches.

St. John Paul would later say, "It was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path."

That miracle, the cardinal said, is key in "understanding well Pope John Paul's devotion to Our Lady of Fatima."

Given the date of the assassination attempt, the pope specifically credited Our Lady of Fatima with his miraculous survival and recovery. Several months later, he visited the site of the apparitions, the first of three visits he would make as pope to Fatima.

For St. John Paul, Cardinal Saraiva Martins said, "Our Lady of Fatima was everything," and his three visits to the Portuguese town were those of a grateful son to the mother who saved his life.

"I still remember—I'll never forget it—when he arrived at the little chapel of the apparitions where (the statue of) Our Lady of Fatima was," Cardinal Saraiva Martins recalled.

St. John Paul was holding one of the bullets that had struck him and slowly approached the statue, finally placing the bullet in her crown, he said. "It is still in the crown today. I witnessed these gestures, how he expressed his devotion to Our Lady. He would just walk closer and closer to Our Lady and would repeat: 'You saved me, you saved me.'"

As the prefect of the Congregation for Saints' Causes from 1998 to 2008, Cardinal Saraiva Martins also oversaw the process leading to the beatification by St. John Paul of Jacinta and Francisco Marto, two of the three young shepherd children, who saw Mary at Fatima.

The cardinal also shared a personal friendship with the third seer, Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, who died in 2005.

It was Cardinal Saraiva Martins who, two years after Sister Lucia's death, urged Pope Benedict XVI to waive the five-year waiting period before her sainthood cause could be opened.

"The pope was very kind. He said, 'Yes, you know more about this than I do. We will do as you say,'" the cardinal recalled.

Pope Benedict, the cardinal added, was a "great devotee" of Our Lady of Fatima, even before his election to the papacy.

Interviewed in his apartment near St. Peter's Square, Cardinal Saraiva Martins grabbed a copy of part of the interview then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did in 1985 with Vittorio Messori, an Italian journalist.

The special papal bond with Our Lady of Fatima continues today with Pope Francis, who as archbishop of Buenos Aires, was a frequent visitor to a shrine in the Argentine city devoted to her.

"Before becoming pope, he said: 'A stern warning has been launched from that place ... a summons to the seriousness of life, of history, to the perils that threaten humanity,'" the cardinal read.

The special papal bond with Our Lady of Fatima continues today with Pope Francis, who as archbishop of Buenos Aires, was a frequent visitor to a shrine in the Argentine city devoted to her, Cardinal Saraiva Martins said. Pope Francis will visit Fatima on May 12-13 to mark the 100th anniversary of the apparitions.

The cardinal recalled Pope Francis' "beautiful" words to Portuguese-speaking pilgrims on May 13, 2015, the 98th anniversary of the apparition: "Entrust to her all that you are, all that you have, and in that way you will be able to become an instrument of the mercy and tenderness of God to your family, neighbors and friends."

"This an example of the words of Pope Francis, so he is a great devotee of Fatima," the cardinal said. "And for this reason, he will go to Fatima. For him, it will be an extraordinary day in which he will fulfill this great desire that has been expressed in so many ways."

Devotion to Our Lady of Fatima is emblematic of the popes of the last century who have "always recognized" the relevance of Mary's message, particularly its emphasis on faith, conversion, hope and peace, the cardinal said

"Today we need faith, to be closer to God and our brothers and sisters—not hate each other—we need hope and we need peace," Cardinal Saraiva Martins said. "In short, the message of Fatima given 100 years ago is of extreme relevance."

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POPE VISITS FATIMA TO OFFER THANKS

By Alan Riding

• May 14, 1991

Ten years after he was shot and seriously wounded by a Turkish gunman in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II visited the shrine of the Virgin of Fatima today to thank her for saving his life and for interceding to free Eastern Europe from Communism.

Addressing a crowd of more than 300,000 people, the Pope also called for a new evangelization of Europe and warned of the danger that Marxism may now be replaced "by another form of atheism" that is no less a threat to Christianity.

The 70-year-old Pope's visit to Fatima, 75 miles north of Lisbon, capped a four-day trip to Portugal and was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the assassination attempt, which took place on the Day of Our Lady of Fatima.

The Pope has often credited the Virgin for his escape from death, and today, on the 74th anniversary of the day three shepherd children said they saw the Virgin here, he again recalled that on May 13, 1981, "I felt your saving presence beside me." Bullet Among Diamonds

A bullet extracted from his body was placed alongside diamonds in a golden crown worn by a statue of the Virgin today. On the first anniversary of the shooting, the Pope also visited Fatima and narrowly escaped injury when a dissident Spanish priest was found close to him with a large knife.

The Pope's visit today also had a political dimension because the Virgin of Fatima has always been identified with anti-Communism. And he thanked her "for the unexpected changes that restored confidence to nations that had long been oppressed and humiliated."

He said her help was still needed because "precarious and unstable" situations existed in these countries. "There is the danger of substituting Marxism with another form of atheism which, by worshiping liberty, tends to destroy the roots of Christian and human morals," he said.

On Sunday night, on his arrival in Fatima from a daylong visit to the island of Madeira, the Pope spelled out his fears, saying Europe seems "tempted by a vast, theoretical and practical, atheistic movement that appears to seek a new materialistic civilization." Christian Identity Stressed

He said the end of the division of Europe had created an opportunity for East and West to engage in "reciprocal spiritual enrichment." But he also warned that without "a new and necessary evangelization," it can never rediscover its true Christian identity.

His message assumed new relevance here because while Portugal is still a strongly Catholic country, rapid economic and social change since it joined the European Community in 1986 has begun weakening traditional public opposition to family planning, divorce and abortion.

Elsewhere in Western Europe, including Spain, the process of secularization is much further advanced. The Pope has made no secret of his fear that with the restoration of both religious and political freedom in Eastern Europe, its peoples may also turn away from the church.

Fatima's political significance is that when the Virgin was reported to have appeared before the three children on May 13, 1917, and on five later occasions, she is said to have made three prophecies, including one that Russia would spread "errors" throughout the world but would eventually be reconverted.

The Pope reportedly believes that this prophecy came true, first with the establishment of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and now with the process of perestroika initiated by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The Soviet Ambassador to Lisbon, Gennadi I. Gerasimov, a former Foreign Ministry spokesman, joined the diplomatic corps in Fatima today.

Another prophecy attributed to the Virgin was that two of the three shepherd children would die young but would be assured eternal glory. Francisco Marto died in 1919, while his sister, Jacinta, died a year later. The third visionary, Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, now an 84-year-old Carmelite nun, stood close to the Pope at today's open-air Mass.

The final prophecy, which has been kept a secret by successive Popes, remains the subject of endless speculation, above all that it announces some dreadful cataclysm. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, a senior Vatican official, recently said that if the secret is not made public, "it is to avoid confusing religious prophecy with sensationalism."

In the days leading up to the Pope's visit to Fatima, Portuguese newspapers nonetheless suggested that he might either disclose the third prophecy or announce the beatification of the Francisco and Jacinta Marto. In the end, he did neither. Winding up his 50th trip abroad since becaming Pope in 1978, he returned to Rome tonight.

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Pope Francis will offer a third Golden Rose to Fátima

11 may, 2017

Offer will be made in Capelinha das Aparições

God is the subject of the fourth and last video produced by Rome Reports especially for the Pope's Pilgrimage to Fatima

10 may, 2017

The Message of Fatima, the Rosary and the Peace are the remaining subjects already announced

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Pope Francis to Meet Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Other Top Comedians at Vatican

Jim Gaffigan, Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock, Tig Notaro, and Whoopi Goldberg are the other U.S. comedians expected to take part.

It’s no joke: Pope Francis will take the mic in front of over 100 comics, stand-up comedians, and humorists, including Americans Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon, at the Vatican next Friday.

The June 14 meeting was organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and Dicastery for Communication and “aims to establish a link between the Catholic Church and comic artists,” according to a June 8 press release.

As of June 8, a list of 105 comics and humorists from 15 countries had confirmed their participation in the papal audience. 

The Vatican said the encounter intends “to celebrate the beauty of human diversity and promote a message of peace, love and solidarity, and promises to be a meaningful moment of intercultural dialogue and sharing of joy and hope.”

Most of the comedians and humorists slated to participate — 67 — are from Italy, while six are from the South American countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, and 22 from European countries other than Italy. Two comedians from Mexico — Florinda Meza García and Chumel Torres — will also take part. The only Asian country represented is East Timor.

Jesuit Father James Martin is also slated to attend. Father Martin is the former chaplain of The Colbert Report and appears to be the only clergy member listed among participants in the June 14 encounter.

The audience, which will take place in the Apostolic Palace, occurs almost exactly one year after Pope Francis addressed a group of around 200 prominent artists in the Sistine Chapel — an event also organized by the Dicastery for Culture and Education.

The 2023 meeting notably included figures such as U.S. film director Abel Ferrara and U.S. photographer Andres Serrano, creator of the controversial 1987 “Piss Christ” image, a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in urine.

The pope greets Italian actor Roberto Benigni after the closing procession for World Children‘s Day in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sunday, May 26, 2024. The actor took the stage for a lively and inspirational monologue that combined good humor with a call for children to read and to dream. Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Pope Francis previously met actress and daytime talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg in October 2023 .

Another notable attendee is the Roman street artist Mauro Pallotta, who goes by the name “Maupal,” and is known for his 2014 depiction of Pope Francis as superman, “Super Pope.”

In its announcement of the papal meeting with comedians, the Vatican highlighted the words of Pope Francis in a 2016 interview with the Italian Catholic television channel TV2000.

On that occasion, the pontiff said : “A sense of humor is a grace that I ask for every day, and I pray that beautiful prayer of St. Thomas More: ‘Give me, Lord, a sense of humor;’ that I know how to laugh at a joke … it’s beautiful, that prayer, isn’t it? Because a sense of humor lifts you up, makes you see the temporariness of life and take things with a spirit of a redeemed soul. It is a human attitude, but it is the closest to God’s grace.”

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The Complete Fatima Timeline

Click on the Year or + to reveal the dates.

The three shepherd children of Fatima — Lucia dos Santos and her two cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto — were visited three times by the Angel of Peace.

May 13: Our Lady appears to the three children at the Cova da Iria and asks that they return for five more months in succession, on the 13th day, at the same hour.

June 13: Our Lady tells the children that God wants to establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. About 50 people come to the Cova da Iria to witness the apparition.

July 13: Our Lady shows the children a vision of hell and tells them that She will come back at a later date to ask for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. She tells the children the Secret (in three parts) and promises to prove Her appearances with a miracle on October13, 1917. About 5,000 people come to the Cova on July 13.

August 13: The children are kidnapped by the Mayor of Ourém and miss their appointed meeting with Our Lady. About 15,000 people come to the Cova and many witness supernatural phenomena indicating that Our Lady came nonetheless. – August 19: Our Lady visits the children in nearby Valinhos and again prophesizes the working of a miracle in October while telling the children to pray and make sacrifices for sinners.

September 13 : Our Lady tells the children that in October, Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Sorrows and Our Lady of Carmel. Also, Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus in order to bless the world. About 30,000 people come to the Cova and again, many witness supernatural phenomena indicating Our Lady’s presence.

October 13: Our Lady announces: “ People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord any more for He is already too much offended .” She tells us to continue to pray the Rosary every day. Then the 70,000 people present witness the Miracle of the Sun at the Cova da Iria.

December 10: Our Lady appears to Sister Lucy at Pontevedra in Spain to relate the specific requirements for the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

June 13: In fulfillment of Her promise at Fatima on July 13, 1917, Our Lady of Fatima appears to Sister Lucy at Tuy, Spain in the visible presence of the Most Holy Trinity and asks for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.

August: Jesus says to 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.” Our Lord gives to Sister Lucy in Rianjo, Spain this warning addressed to the Pope and bishops.

March 19: Pope Pius XI promulgates his encyclical against atheistic Communism. He first explains that he has already condemned Communism in 1924, 1928, 1931, 1932 (twice) and 1933. But it is his solemn duty once more to raise his voice and remind the faithful yet again against the dangers of Communism. Among many other things, the Pope solemnly says: “Communism is intrinsically evil, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever.”

Sister Lucy reveals the first two parts of the Secret in her Memoirs, first on August 31st in her Third Memoir and then again on December 8 in her Fourth Memoir.

October 31 and December 8: Pope Pius XII, acting alone, consecrates the world, but not Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lord tells Sister Lucy that as a result World War II will be shortened but that world peace will not result from this consecration

October: After one month of prayer and reflection, the Bishop of Fatima, His Excellency José da Silva, gives Sister Lucy a formal, written order to write down the Third Secret. Sister Lucy tries to obey immediately, but for over two months is mysteriously unable to commit the Third Secret to paper.

January 2: Our Lady appears to Sister Lucy and bids her to write down the Third Secret. Our Lady asks it to be revealed to the world not later than 1960. When later asked why the people had to wait for the Third Secret to be revealed in 1960, Sister Lucy states: “Because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so,” and “It [the Third Secret] will be clearer then.”

January 9: Sister Lucy commits both texts of the Third Secret to paper by this date.

June 17: The Third Secret is given by Sister Lucy herself to her confessor, Bishop da Silva, since she would not let anyone but a bishop bring it to the Bishop of Fatima. Sister Lucy

January 3: A photograph of Bishop da Silva posing in front of the 25-line text of the Third Secret, which is enclosed in the bishop’s own outer envelope, appears in Life magazine.

May: Our Lady appears to Sister Lucy saying: “Make it known to the Holy Father that I am always awaiting the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart. Without that Consecration, Russia will not be able to convert. Without that Consecration, the world cannot have peace.”

July 7: Pope Pius XII consecrates Russia specifically, but he does not ask for the bishops to join him and thus he is not joined by the Catholic bishops of the world.

September 2: Austrian Jesuit Father Joseph Schweigl is sent by Pope Pius XII to Coimbra, Portugal to interrogate Sister Lucy about the Third Secret. Father Schweigl later confides to one of his colleagues: “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”.

March: Bishop John Venancio holds up to a strong light the outer envelope of Bishop da Silva (photographed for Life magazine in 1949) containing an inner envelope of Sister Lucy, inside of which he sees the paper upon which is written the Third Secret. He carefully notes that the Secret is about 25 lines long and is written on a single sheet of paper with 3/4 centimeter margins on both sides.

April 16: The 25-line text of the Third Secret, sealed with wax in the original envelope and the Bishop of Fatima’s outer envelope, is received in the Vatican. The text is placed in a safe in the papal apartments (not in the Holy Office).

December 26: Father Fuentes, Postulator of the Cause for Beatification of Jacinta and Francisco Marto, interviews Sister Lucy. In an allusion to the contents of the Third Secret, she tells him of many nations disappearing from the face of the earth, she speaks about the crisis in the priesthood, and of many souls going to hell as a result of ignoring Our Lady’s Fatima Message.

Father Fuentes publishes the interview with Sister Lucy with the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Fatima. It is read widely and no one questions its authenticity.

October: The well-known magazine Paris-Match publishes a photo of the wooden safe in Pope Pius XII’s apartment in which was kept the Third Secret of Fatima.

July 2: Father Fuentes’ interview with Sister Lucy is suddenly denounced as fraudulent in an anonymous report from the bishop’s chancery office in Coimbra, Portugal. To this day, more than fifty years later, no official will take responsibility for this report.

August 17: Pope John XXIII reads the 25-line text of the Third Secret which was taken from the papal apartment and then has his personal secretary, Msgr. Loris Capovilla, write on the envelope: “I leave it to others to comment or decide.”

February 8: As the world anxiously awaits the full revelation of the Third Secret, an unnamed person, who is close to the Pope, authorizes the Press to quote him anonymously that the Third Secret will not be revealed in 1960 and “would probably remain, forever, under absolute seal.”

Sister Lucy is officially forbidden to speak about the Third Secret and not allowed to receive any visitors except close relatives and people she has known for a long time. Her own confessor of many years returns from Brazil and is not allowed to see her.

Pope John XXIII reads the 62-line text of the Third Secret, contained in another sealed envelope. Unlike the first text, which he opened in 1959 but could not read without the aid of a translator because of its difficult Portuguese dialect, this text posed no difficulty for the Pope and he was able to comprehend it completely on his own reading.

October: Just prior to Vatican Council II, the Vatican Secretariat of State agrees with Moscow that the Council will not condemn Soviet Russia or communism, in exchange for which two Russian Orthodox observers would attend the Council. This agreement launches the policy of Ostpolitik. This Vatican-Moscow Agreement, which is not allowed by traditional Catholic moral theology (see entry for 1937), nevertheless is followed and thus the Vatican Secretariat of State silences those bishops and priests in the Church who are anti-Communist at the Second Vatican Council and afterward.

June 27: Less than a week after becoming pope, Paul VI reads the text of the Third Secret kept in the papal apartment after the Substitute Secretary of State telephones Msgr. Capovilla, personal secretary to Pope John XXIII, to inquire as to where to find it. Capovilla testifies to this fact in his certified note of May 17, 1967. It is this text — the one which contains Our Lady’s words — that is later identified by Cardinal Ottaviani as being 25-lines long.

November 21: At the last day of the third session of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary with no mention of Russia, and the bishops look on but do not join in.

March 27: Pope Paul VI reads the other text of the Third Secret — the one that is 62- lines long. Cardinal Bertone claims that Paul VI read the Third Secret for the first time on this date. However, Archbishop Capovilla testified in his certified note of May 1967 that Paul VI read the Third Secret for the first time on June 27, 1963.

The Bishop of Fatima commissions a learned Claretian priest, Father Joaquin Alonso, to establish a complete critical history of the revelations of Fatima. Ten years later, Father Alonso will complete his work, entitled Fatima Texts and Critical Studies.

Sister Lucy’s memoirs are published, in which she reveals Our Lady’s 1929 request for the Consecration of Russia.

May 13: Sister Lucy meets Pope Paul VI in Fatima and asks him to release the Third Secret, but he refuses.

After 10 years of studying the Fatima archives, Father Alonso declares, in public, that Father Fuentes’ published 1957 interview of Sister Lucy was a true and accurate report of her statements concerning the content of the Message of Fatima.

Father Alonso’s 24 volumes of 800 pages each are ready for publication. This monumental work on the Message of Fatima includes at least 5,396 documents. The presses are literally stopped by the new Bishop of Fatima, Monsignor do Amaral, preventing Father Alonso’s ten years of research from reaching the public. At least 20 of these 24 volumes are still under lock and key to this day.

October 16: Pope John Paul II is elected Pope and reads a text of the Third Secret — the 25-line text that is kept in the papal apartment — within days of his election, according to a statement to Associated Press in May 2000 by his spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. The statement by Navarro-Valls is contradicted by Msgr. Bertone when he claimed in June 2000 that the Pope first read the Third Secret on July 18, 1981.

May 13: Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded by an assassin.

June 7: The Pope consecrates the world, but not Russia, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

July 18: According to Cardinal Bertone, Pope John Paul II reads the Third Secret for the first time. The text he reads is the 62-line text that is kept in the Holy Office archives.

March 21: Sister Lucy informs the Papal Nuncio of the requirements for a valid Consecration of Russia according to the request of Our Lady of Fatima. Sister Lucy’s full message is not transmitted to the Pope by the Nuncio. Following the suggestion of Bishop Amaral of Fatima, the Nuncio fails to mention the requirement that the world’s bishops participate in the Consecration.

May 12: L’Osservatore Romano publishes an article by Father Umberto Maria Pasquale, S.D.B. (a well-known Salesian priest who has known Sister Lucy since 1939 and had received over 150 letters from her) reveals that Sister Lucy clearly and emphatically told him that Our Lady of Fatima never asked for the consecration of the world but only the consecration of Russia. Father Pasquale also publishes a photographically-reproduced copy of a handwritten note by Sister Lucy attesting to their conversation on this point.

May 13: Pope John Paul II consecrates the world, but not Russia, at Fatima. The bishops of the world do not participate.

March 19: Sister Lucy meets with the Papal Nuncio and confirms that the Consecration of Russia was not done because Russia was not clearly the object of the consecration and the Catholic bishops of the world did not join in.

March 25: Pope John Paul II, before 250,000 people in Rome, consecrates the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Immediately after he pronounced the words of consecration, he departs from his prepared text and prays “Enlighten especially the peoples of which You Yourself are awaiting our consecration and confiding.” The Pope thus publicly acknowledges that Our Lady of Fatima is still awaiting the Consecration of Russia.

March 26: The Pope’s own newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, reports the exact words spoken by the Holy Father on the 25th.

March 27: The Italian Catholic bishops’ newspaper Avvenire reports that the Holy Father, on March 25 at 4:00 in the afternoon, three hours after he consecrated the world, prays at St. Peter’s, asking Our Lady to bless “those peoples for whom You Yourself are awaiting our act of consecration and entrusting,” and thus again the Pope acknowledges that he did not fulfill Our Lady’s request for the Consecration of Russia. The same remarks were reported in L’Osservatore Romano on March 26-27, on page 6 (Italian edition).

September 10: Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral, the Bishop of Fatima, declares during a question and answer session in the aula magna of the Technical University of Vienna, Austria: “Its [the Third Secret’s] content concerns only our faith. To identify the Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe”.

November 11: Jesus magazine publishes an interview with Cardinal Ratzinger. The interview is entitled “Here is Why the Faith is in Crisis,” and is published with the Cardinal’s explicit permission. Cardinal Ratzinger reveals that he has read the Third Secret and that the Secret refers to “dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore (the life) of the world.” Cardinal Ratzinger says in the same interview that the Secret also refers to “the importance of the Novissimi [the Last Times]”, “the absolute importance of history”, and 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 …”

September : In an interview in Sol de Fatima magazine, Sister Lucy affirms that the Consecration of Russia still has not been done because Russia was not the clear object of the 1984 consecration and the world’s episcopate did not participate.

July 20: Interviewed quickly outside her convent while voting, Sister Lucy confirms to journalist Enrico Romero that the Consecration of Russia has not been done.

July: Father Messias Coelho reveals that Sister Lucy and others have received an anonymous “instruction” from unidentified persons in the Vatican stating that she (and they) must now say that the Consecration of Russia was accomplished on March 25, 1984.

August through November: Five computer-generated and typewritten notes and letters supposedly signed by Sister Lucy suddenly appear, contradicting her previous statements that the Consecration of Russia has not been done. These texts are quickly proven to be fakes and this fact is published worldwide.

October 11: Sister Lucy’s blood-sister, Carolina, reveals that Sister Lucy does not know how to type.

May 13: Pope John Paul II visits Fatima and meets with Sister Lucy for thirty minutes. After the meeting, neither the Pope nor Sister Lucy make any announcement concerning the Consecration of Russia.

October: The Fatima Center holds its Bishops Conference in Fatima and 65 bishops attend. The Rector of the Fatima Shrine, Msgr. Guerra, holds his own conference and there Frère Francois denounces the five fake letters produced in 1989 and accuses in public, before many witnesses, to their faces — namely Father Fox, Father Kondor, and Msgr. Guerra — that they are the authors of these fake, forged letters attributed to Sister Lucy. Not one of them denies his accusation.

In a personal communication to Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg, Austria, Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi — the personal theologian of John Paul II (and of the four popes before him) — reveals that: “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”

Howard Dee, former Philippine ambassador to the Vatican, said in an interview with Inside the Vatican magazine that “Bishop Ito [the local bishop of Akita, now deceased] was certain Akita was an extension of Fatima, and Cardinal Ratzinger personally confirmed to me that these two messages, of Fatima and Akita, are essentially the same. ”

At Akita on October 13, 1973, Our Lady said there would be a worldwide chastisement for sins in which a great part of humanity would be killed and that those who survive would envy the dead.

May 13: At the beatification ceremony of Jacinta and Francisco Marto at Fatima, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano, announces that the Third Secret of Fatima will be revealed.

June 26: At a press conference, Archbishop Bertone publishes the 62-line text which he claims is the entire Third Secret and claims it refers to the 1981 assassination attempt of John Paul II. The 62-line text describes a vision in which the Pope (a “Bishop dressed in White”) is killed by a band of soldiers. This text, containing none of the elements described by Cardinal Ratzinger in his 1984 interview in Jesus magazine, is obviously incomplete. Also, Cardinal Bertone claims the Consecration of Russia is done and, as proof, offers a quote from one of the five fake letters of 1989.

October 8: Pope John Paul II consecrates the world, but not Russia, in an “entrustment” ceremony.

November 30: A Cardinal described as “one of the Pope’s closest advisors” (Cardinal Tomko) admits to a Vatican magazine editor that he advised Pope John Paul II to not make mention of Russia in any consecration ceremony because it would offend the Russian Orthodox.

May 16: Reflecting the growing skepticism of millions of Catholics, Mother Angelica states on her live television show on this date that she does not believe the Vatican has revealed the entirety of the Third Secret. “Mother Angelica Live” as a live program is taken off the air forever by December.

October 25: Cardinal Ratzinger admits to a “destabilizing [of] the internal equilibrium of the Roman Curia” due to reports (following the September 11th terrorist attack on New York and the invasion of Afghanistan) of a recent letter from Sister Lucy to the Pope concerning the Third Secret and dangers to the world and the person of the Pope.

November 17: Archbishop Bertone (later to become Cardinal Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State) travels from Rome to Coimbra to interview Sister Lucy about the Third Secret and claims the interview went on for two hours, but the communiqué later published by Bertone contains only 44 words alleged to be from the mouth of Sister Lucy concerning the matters of the Third Secret and the Consecration of Russia controversies.

December 20: L’Osservatore Romano publishes the secret “interview” of Sister Lucy, conducted by Archbishop Bertone on November 17, 2001 at the convent in Coimbra. According to Bertone, Sister Lucy said that the consecration of the world in 1984 has been “accepted by heaven”, but yet never even asks Sister Lucy if she wrote and signed the contested fake letters that Bertone relies upon to tell us that Sister Lucy said it was done. No transcript or other independent record of the “interview” is provided.

February 13: Sister Lucy of Fatima dies less than two months short of her 98th birthday.

November 22: Renowned Italian Catholic commentator and journalist Antonio Socci publishes his book, The Fourth Secret of Fatima, which accuses Cardinal Bertone of covering up the complete Third Secret. The book cites the testimony of Archbishop Loris F. Capovilla in July 2006, to Catholic researcher Solideo Paolini, that there are two different texts and two different envelopes pertaining to the Third Secret, that one of the envelopes and its contents — the “Capovilla envelope” — was kept in the papal apartment, not in the archives of the former Holy Office where the text of the vision was lodged, and that Paul VI read its contents on June 27, 1963, two years before the Bertone “official account”, which claims that Pope Paul VI first read the text of the Third Secret on March 27, 1965. The “Capovilla envelope” and text have never been produced.

May 10: Attempting to discredit Socci, Cardinal Bertone publishes his own book, The Last Visionary of Fatima, written in the form of an interview by a Vatican affairs reporter, Giuseppe De Carli, who poses no challenging questions but rather de facto avoids all of the issues, including Msgr. Capovilla’s explosive testimony. In response, on May 12 Socci proclaims and explains publicly (in his weekly column in the Italian journal Libero) that his own book has been vindicated by the Cardinal’s complete failure to answer it, which Socci calls a disturbing development as it means that there is indeed an ongoing cover-up on the part of the Vatican regarding the Third Secret.

May 31: Cardinal Bertone appears by remote live feed on the very popular Italian TV talk show Porta a Porta to again respond to Socci’s book. During this telecast Bertone displays not only the text of the vision but also two separate sealed envelopes prepared by Sister Lucy, each bearing the explicit statement in Sister Lucy’s own handwriting that “By express order of Our Lady, this envelope can be opened in 1960 only by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or the Bishop of Leiria.”

The two sealed envelopes, and other revelations by Cardinal Bertone during the telecast, further confirm the existence of two texts comprising the Third Secret in its entirety. Further, the “express order of Our Lady” noted on the envelopes flatly contradicts Cardinal Bertone’s earlier repeated representations (only said after Sr. Lucy’s death in 2005) that Sister Lucy “confessed” to him in private, unrecorded conversations that the Virgin has never given any such order.

June 2: Following the telecast, from which Socci has been excluded, Socci publishes his response in Libero. He declares that Bertone has not only failed to “give even one answer” to Socci’s book, but “On the contrary, he did more: He offered the proof that I am right” and “that as a matter of fact the explosive part of the ‘Third Secret of Fatima’ exists yet is well hidden….”

September 21: Bertone stages a second television appearance for himself, this time on the Telepace network, to officially launch his own book which had been published in May and also to try yet again to discredit Socci’s book for a third time. The press are invited to attend. Socci, as a journalist, appears at the telecast location to question Cardinal Bertone. He acts in a proper way but is forcibly removed from the premises by security guards. During the telecast Bertone once again avoids any discussion of the issues. Instead, he presents a heavily-edited videotape of an interview of Archbishop Capovilla conducted by Giuseppe De Carli, a partisan of Cardinal Bertone, in which the Archbishop not only fails to deny the testimony he gave to Paolini (whose name is never mentioned) about the “Capovilla envelope,” but rather fully confirms its existence and location in the papal apartment, and the reading of its contents by Paul VI in 1963, not 1965 as the Bertone “official account” had claimed.

September 22: The Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports that before the guards removed Socci from the location of the telecast of September 21, he was able to play for the assembled journalists an audiotape of Capovilla’s statements to Paolini during a meeting on June 21, 2007. On the tape Capovilla is heard to state: “Besides the four pages [of the vision of the bishop dressed in white] there was also something else, an attachment, yes.” As the reporter from Il Giornale concludes, Capovilla’s statement “would confirm the thesis of the existence of a second sheet with the interpretation of the Secret” — namely, the words of the Virgin following the “etc.”

September 23: Socci again responds to Cardinal Bertone in his column in Libero. Socci again calmly demonstrates that Cardinal Bertone is hiding a major part of the Third Secret.

January 25: Christopher A. Ferrara’s book, The Secret Still Hidden, goes to press; 100,000 copies are printed. In this book, the author gives the history of the Third Secret up to that time. He proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is a second text, still hidden by the Vatican bureaucrats, which contains the words of Our Lady which follow “In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” He demonstrates his proof using the facts and details provided by both Socci and Bertone. The Italian version of his book is sent to 12,000 Italian priests in June 2008. Cardinal Bertone is sent a copy of Ferrara’s book by August 2008 and Bertone acknowledges receipt of the book but refuses to answer the substance of any of Ferrara’s arguments.

May 4: Vatican journalist Giuseppe De Carli, co-author with Cardinal Bertone of The Last Visionary of Fatima (re-issued in 2010 under the new title, The Last Secret of Fatima), and an apologist for Cardinal Bertone’s now discredited explanations of the Third Secret, admits to the Fatima Challenge Conference before the TV cameras that “…they could have tricked me.”

May 11: Pope Benedict XVI, on his pilgrimage to Portugal in May, stunned the press and the Catholic world by saying that the Third Secret of Fatima tells us that “not only from the outside come the attacks against the Pope and the Church, but the sufferings of the Church come from right inside the Church, from the sin that resides inside the Church… we see this today really in a terrifying way: the greatest persecution against the Church doesn’t come from its enemies outside, but starts from the sins within the Church.”

May 13: Before 500,000 pilgrims, the Pope proclaimed (in reference to the Third Secret): “Whoever thinks that the prophetic mission of Fatima is concluded deceives himself.”

July 13: Giuseppe De Carli dies on the 93rd anniversary of the imparting of the Third Secret by Our Lady of Fatima to the three shepherd children.

An American lawyer’s book-length investigation of the Third Secret cover-up is republished in Italian, receiving the endorsement of a Papal Nuncio.

May 11: A second edition of Christopher Ferrara’s The Secret Still Hidden is published in Italian (bringing the number of copies in print in Italian to well over 20,000), citing Giuseppe De Carli’s statements from the year before and addressing the second edition of De Carli’s/Bertone’s book. The evidence presented in this exhaustive study demonstrates conclusively that Bertone is concealing the companion text of vision published eleven years earlier.

August – September: Inside the Vatican magazine reveals recently deceased Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who was Papal Nuncio to the United States and thus a key attaché of the Vatican Secretariat of State under Cardinal Bertone, had read and praised Ferrara’s book. The endorsement came during a conversation reported by the editor, Robert Moynihan, a personal friend of Sambi’s:

We [Sambi and Moynihan] were discussing the Third Secret of Fatima, the allegations that the Vatican has not published the entire text of the Third Secret as revealed to Sister Lucia, and the response of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, in a book where Bertone states that there is nothing more to be revealed. Archbishop Sambi said, “Excuse me.” He got up, went out of the room, and came back with a book. “Here,” he said. “Do you know this book? You should read it.” It was Christopher Ferrara’s The Secret Still Hidden. “Wait,” I said. “You are the Pope’s representative in the US, and you are urging me to read a book that questions what the Secretary of State wrote?” Sambi replied: “All I am saying is that there are interesting things worth reading in this book. And in the end, we are all after the truth, aren’t we? The truth is the important thing …”

European politicians respond to the urgency of the Fatima Message.

October 23 : Father Nicholas Gruner and Christopher Ferrara address the international press corps of the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, France, in support of a motion sponsored by two Members of Parliament, the Honorable Mario Borghezio and the Honorable Lorenzo Fontana, for a declaration by the EU Parliament formally requesting that “His Holiness,Pope Benedict XVI… fulfill the will of the Queen of Heaven”by performing the Consecration of Russia in order to address the threat of “great danger at the present time to world peace and the serenity of all European peoples.”

The Parliament is informed that “the Blessed Virgin Mary has promised a long period of prosperity and peace, if and only if, the Holy Father will consecrate Russia in a solemn and public manner, as precisely specified by Her in the Message of Fatima.” Father Gruner’s remarks conclude: “I urge the Members of Parliament and I urge the members of the Press to bring this motion of the Parliament to the Pope, because he wants to do this but he has many pressures against him not to do the Consecration. He needs public support for doing the Consecration of Russia in time, before it’s too late for all of us.”

The petition for this parliamentary motion is subsequently approved by the Petitions Committee for presentation before the full legislative body.

Pope Benedict “resigns” the Papacy, but with a curious qualification.

February 11 : In the wake of a rumored death threat (made public in November by an Italian Cardinal) against Pope Benedict XVI and amid concerns that, contrary to true justice, he will be forced by secular powers to be brought to trial before the International Criminal Court, Pope Benedict makes the stunning announcement that he will abdicate from the Throne of Peter: “I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”

The Pope’s stated rationale for his abdication is that “in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.” In subsequent months, however, the Pope will reveal that he is in full possession of his mental faculties, including the ability to deliver complex extemporaneous addresses and that he is under no serious physical disability.

Various canonists, scholars, and Vatican officials express the expectation that—in keeping with the rare historical precedents for papal resignation—Benedict will once again take the name Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, as well as the black cassock and the coat of arms that he used as a Cardinal, and that he will leave the Vatican to reside in Bavaria or in a cloistered monastery, because (as one spokesman puts it) “Otherwise, it will get very

February 14 : The Pope tells the parish priests of Rome that upon his resignation becoming effective he will remain “hidden from the world.” In fact, he will not remain hidden from the world but will continue to reside in the Vatican and will begin appearing at public events alongside Pope Francis.

February 26 : To the amazement of canonists, the press, and Catholics in general, two days before his resignation takes effect, Pope Benedict announces that despite his “resignation” he will retain the name “Pope Benedict XVI” (Emeritus), the title “His Holiness,” the white papal cassock, the papal coat of arms bearing the Keys of Peter, and that he will continue to live within the Vatican. Canonists and commentators express the concern that Benedict risks creating the impression that he will remain Pope in some sense after the coming conclave, for which there is no precedent in Church history.

February 27 : In his last public papal audience, Pope Benedict announces: “I will no longer vest the power of the office for the government of the Church, but … I am not returning to private life … [T]here is no return to the private sphere. My decision to forgo the exercise of active ministry does not revoke this fact.” In other words, Benedict suggests that under a certain (passive) aspect he will remain Pope and that he has not renounced this aspect of the papacy. This less-than-total renunciation of the papacy likewise has no precedent in the entire history of the Church.

March – April : In the following months, Pope Benedict does indeed continue to wear the white papal cassock (though without the symbols of active government such as the pallium and the papal ring), and he often leaves his residence next to St. Peter’s in order to meet with Pope Francis, to receive guests, and to participate in ceremonies. Speculation gathers apace as to what Pope Benedict truly meant in his resignation speech: “I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. … For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome.”

While initially offering the incredible explanation that he retained the white papal cassock because there was nothing else for him to wear, Benedict soon lets it be known through both his Secretary, Georg Gänswein, and Pope Francis himself, that he considers himself to be a “Pope Emeritus.” This is something the Church has never seen before, but Francis will declare it to be a new “institution” in the Church.

Contrary to the prior explanation the he had resigned due to mental and physical infirmity, Benedict will make various appearances at public events conducted by Francis and will continue to give addresses and receive people in audience.

May 13 : Exactly two months after Pope Francis’ election, at the Pope’s repeated and insistent request, his pontificate is consecrated to Our Lady of Fatima by Cardinal José Policarpo, the Patriarch of Lisbon, at the Fatima Shrine in a collegial act in union with all the bishops of Portugal.

July 28 : During an impromptu press conference on the flight returning to Rome from his visit to Brazil, Francis reveals that in discussing with Benedict the “Vatileaks” scandal, arising from leaks to the press concerning rampant corruption in the Vatican bureaucracy, Benedict presented him with a large box and envelope containing the investigative material and report on the scandal. Francis notes that Benedict “had it all in his head! What intelligence! Everything memorized, everything! But no, it didn’t frighten me, no. No, no. Though it is a big problem.” Aside from revealing the extent of the scandal, Francis here also reveals Benedict’s full possession of his remarkable mental faculties, thus calling into question the “official” explanation for his unprecedented “renunciation” of the “active ministry” of the papacy on grounds of weakness of mind as well as body.

August 13 : Pope Francis announces that he has invited the Catholic bishops to accompany him in consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in a solemn ceremony in Rome on the coming October 13, 2013.

October 11 : Father Gruner is in Rome preparing for the ceremonies, particularly by organizing the distribution of 200,000 copies of a 12-page newspaper explaining the true Message of Fatima and Our Lady’s request for the Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart by the Pope in union with all of the Catholic bishops of the world. A similar four-page supplement is also published in Il Tempo, the third largest daily newspaper in Rome, with a readership of 225,000.

October 12 : While in the Vatican, the day before the ceremony announced by Francis, Father Gruner is repeatedly detained and harassed by Vatican Security officers, including Dr. Dominic Giani, the head of Vatican Security. Though Giani admits to Father Gruner that he does not believe Father poses any threat to the Pope’s security, he is singled out and forbidden to approach the Pope.

October 13 : Pope Francis officiates at the announced ceremony with an uncharacteristic dour expression, as if he were annoyed at the way the proceedings had been arranged. The promised consecration to the Immaculate Heart turns out to be nothing more than yet another vague act of “entrustment” in which nothing is consecrated, not even the world is mentioned, there is no reference at all to the Immaculate Heart. This represents the weakest effort yet to carry out Our Lady’s specific request for Russia’s consecration.

“Two Popes?”; the alarming “Francis effect”; the world on the brink; yet another revelation concerning the Third Secret.

February 20 : At an “Extraordinary Consistory on the Family” convened by Pope Francis, Cardinal Walter Kasper, with the Pope’s prior approval, proposes to permit divorced and “remarried” Catholics to receive Holy Communion without any commitment to cease their adulterous relations. The implications for Catholic moral teaching are staggering, and numerous Cardinals express their opposition.

Kasper’s “revolutionary” proposal comes at the end of Francis’s first year as Pope, during which the promising signs of Marian piety and respect for the Message of Fatima have given way to a “Francis effect” consisting of an astonishing series of radically progressive and theologically dubious pronouncements made at press conferences and during interviews with various newspapers and magazines, beginning with his infamous “Who am I to judge?” regarding homosexuals in the priesthood.

By the beginning of 2014, Pope Francis has already been hailed as a “revolutionary Pope” by all the world’s major media outlets. In an unprecedented display of praise for a Roman Pontiff by the hostile organs of world opinion, Francis is named “Person of the Year” by Time magazine, which features him on its cover, is also featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine (the leading journal of degenerate “rock culture”), which hails the Pope’s “gentle revolution,” and is even lauded as “Person of the Year” by the Advocate, a magazine dedicated to militant homosexualism and the “gay lifestyle,” whose cover is likewise devoted to Francis.

March : Russia accepts the will of 96% of the Crimean people to rejoin Russia, and the threat of war with Ukraine looms large as Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainians were fearing the nonelected leader and policies of the Ukraine who takes over after the coup d’état of February 21, 2014.

May 28 : The renowned “Vaticanist” Vittorio Messori joins other prominent journalists, including Antonio Socci (author of The Fourth Secret of Fatima) and Robert Moynihan (Editor of Inside the Vatican), in recognizing a totally new situation in the history arising from the curiously nuanced “resignation” by Pope Benedict and his retention of the papal title as Pope Emeritus, the papal garb, and the signs of the papal office.

Messori contends that there are presently, in effect, two Popes acting in communion with and in recognition of each other, having even co-authored an encyclical together, Lumen Fidei, published the previous July.

Other Catholics, however, recognize that this is a false distinction. Regardless of what Pope Benedict may have meant by his words, not even a Pope has the power or authority to change the constitution of the Church established by Christ. There can only be one Pope; the office, and the task of exercising the duties of that office, can reside only in one and the same person.

This utterly unprecedented situation calls to mind the vision of the Third Secret, regarding which Lucia writes of the “Bishop dressed in white” that “we had the impression it was the Holy Father.”

July 8 : Israel launches “Operation Protective Edge,” unleashing devastating force against the Gaza strip and killing thousands of Palestinians. Only days earlier Pope Francis had conducted a patently useless and scandalous interreligious ceremony in the Vatican gardens to “pray for peace” with Jewish and Muslim representatives, including the planting of an olive tree. A Muslim Imam intones a prayer calling for the defeat of the “infidels” (i.e., all non-Muslims, which would include Francis himself) which Vatican Radio censors from the transcript. This useless publicity stunt is followed almost immediately by the worst outbreak of violence in the Holy Land in many years.

July-August : Muslim fanatics of the Islamic State organization (ISIS) begin violent persecution of Christians in Iraq, including beheadings, rapes, enslavement and the destruction of Christian churches and shrines. Tens of thousands of Christians flee for their lives.

August 17 : In an explosive column in Il Libero, Antonio Socci reports that a new biography of Sister Lucia, prepared by the nuns at the Carmelite Convent in Coimbra, reveals that during the famous apparition of Our Lady in the convent chapel to Sister Lucia on January 3, 1944, during which Our Lady directed her how to write down the Secret, the Virgin said: “Be at peace, and write what I have commanded you, but not, however, that which has been given to you to understand its meaning,” that is, the meaning of the vision published in 2000.

That is, even after the first writing on January 3, a portion of the Secret had yet to be committed to paper; but it obviously would be at some point, as it would be nonsensical for Our Lady to direct the seer to write down part of the Secret but then hide forever the other part in which She explains its meaning.

Accordingly, while the text of the vision was written and dated January 3, 1944, it was not until January 9, 1944 that Lucia wrote to her bishop to inform him that she had finally committed the Third Secret to paper as he had commanded her. Lucia evidently wrote a separate text giving the Virgin’s explanation of the vision’s meaning (which, following the Virgin’s instructions, Lucia had not written down on January 3).

This new revelation, Socci notes, is yet another “confirmation of the historical reconstruction according to which the Third Secret is composed of two parts: one, the vision, was written and sent first [to the Vatican], while the other—that which, in the words of the Virgin, is “the meaning” of the vision—was written and sent later.”

Socci concludes that this later text is evidently “the famous and mysterious ‘attachment’ of which Capovilla hinted” in the audio tape Socci played for his fellow reporters during Bertone’s television event from which he was expelled in 2007. It is in this text, “as yet unpublished,” writes Socci, “where presumably resides the part that most frightened Sister Lucia. The same part that frightened John XXIII (but also, before him, Pius XII) and which Roncalli decided not to make public because—according to him—it could be only a thought of Sister Lucia’s that did not have a supernatural origin. And a part so explosive that its existence continues officially to be denied. And the opening by Benedict XVI in 2010 [see above], which led as well to the publication of this volume, is today reopened.”

September 13 : Pope Francis declares that the Third World War has already begun “piecemeal,” although he gives no sign that he will take the measure Our Lady of Fatima prescribed as the only means to avoid it: the Consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart.

September 20 : With tensions between the United States and Russia over the situation in Ukraine at crisis levels, Russian military planes enter United States airspace, and Air Force jets “scramble” to intercept them. This is the latest incident in a series of such incursions over the past five years, with Air Force jets intercepting at least 50 Russian bombers in U.S. airspace.

April 10, 2015 : Faithful Catholics are increasingly aware of how dire the situation in the Church and the world has become. While the Church is disturbed and even scandalized by the words and deeds of a “revolutionary Pope” like no other before him, international crises threaten to spark a global conflagration at any time.

  PDF of The Complete Fatima Timeline – Click to See