The 109th anniversary of Fatima came and went. The world’s attention was centered in the Iran war, the price of oil, riots in Paris, war in Ukraine, the upcoming American elections and other things. Ever since the 2013 appearance of a second pope at the balcony in St Peter’s Square the chaos appears to be speeding up out of control. Decades old alliances collapse, the global balance of power is redrawn, a new almost unknown man is now sitting at the Petrine Chair after Jorge Mario Bergoglio left the scene of this world. From a distance we see a slow chaotic slew of changes alter the familiar structure of the Catholic Church. The disorder within seems to be the reason for the disorder without.
Some of us are reminded of the divine warnings that started long ago at La Salette-Fallavaux, France, in 1846. When Our Blessed Mother told us about the appalling state of the priesthood. Three decades before the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima, Pope Leo XIII had a chilling vision of a dialogue between Christ and the devil. That happened on October 13, 1884. Thirty three years later the sun danced over Fatima, Portugal before some 70,000 astonished witnesses. It was perhaps the greatest public miracle since the days of Moses.
Fatima begins a series of three events along with Garabandal and Akita. The three apparitions of Our Lady are part of a warning that develops the theme first presented in La Salette. The most shocking elements of that warning are:
Corruption of the clergy,
Abandonment of Holy Tradition,
Introduction of apostate practices,
A secret meant to be revealed to the public in 1960
In 1943, after having been asked by Bishop da Silva to write down the text of the Third Secret, Sister Lucy [one of the three original visionaries of 1917] was finding the task difficult. She declared to the bishop that it was not absolutely necessary to write out the text, “since in a certain manner she had said it.” Sister Lucy was very likely referring to the additional phrase she had inserted into her fourth memoir, “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.” (The Real Third Secret, quoted from The Fatima Center)
Many authors have written extensively about the Third Secret but here I only want to call your attention to what these events seem to imply.
The Third Secret is a marker in time
Many years in advance Our Lady instructed “the Pope of 1960” to make the Secret known to mankind in 1960. Now we know that year marked the beginning of a tumultuous decade: the American president was assassinated in 1963, Cuba fell under Communism on 1959, the Vietnam war, the riots in Mexico and Paris in 1968 and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the same year, the Congo crisis, the Bay of Pigs, the October missile crisis between the US and the USSR, etc. were all indicators that the world political system was under severe stress by the emergence of Communism and the general abandonment of traditional morals.
The Third Secret reveals the disobedience of the hierarchy
Regardless of what is the true text of the Third Secret we are left with one undeniable fact: Pope John XXIII disregarded the wish of Our Lady of Fatima and did not disclose the contents of the Third Secret to the faithful in 1960. The consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart was never done properly as instructed. Pope Roncalli dismissed the whole thing by saying “it does not concern my pontificate.” I do not think he had the right to ignore the wishes of Our Lady but in doing so he revealed something was off. Either he cowardly refused to warn his flock about what was coming in the future or … he did not believe that to be a true warning. He mentioned in a separate occasion that the flock should pay no heed to the “prophets of doom” — that is clear enough to me. The truth of the Secret remained a secret in spite of Our Lady’s clear and specific wishes.
Garabandal and Akita complete the revelation
Our Lady always obeys the will of God even if her sinful sons and daughters do not pay attention to her loving instructions. As soon as 1961 the news came from Spain that the Virgin Mary had appeared in the small, isolated Cantabrian village of San Sebastián de Garabandal. That was the beginning of four years of miracles witnessed by crowds of hundreds and even thousands. What is remarkable about Garabandal is the abundance of obvious supernatural events occurring daily and how the Vatican hierarchy ignored and even tried to suppress the news of those extraordinary happenings. That resistance follows the pattern established by John XXIII in 1960.
In 1965 one of the visionaries of Garabandal received the following message. It was basically a repetition of the most important part of the Third Secret: the age of disobedience had arrived and the rot was first affecting the top echelons of the Church.
“Many Cardinals, Bishops and priests are following the road to perdition, and with them they are taking many more souls. Ever less importance is being given to the Holy Eucharist. We should turn the wrath of God away from us by our own efforts. If you ask His forgiveness with a sincere heart.” (Message of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Garabandal, Spain on June 18, 1965)
Akita echoes Fatima and Garabandal
In 1973 Our Lady appeared to a nun called Agnes Sasagawa in Akita, Japan. There she repeated the same warnings with an increased sense of urgency.
“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate Me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres… 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.”
We are seeing this unfold in front of our eyes with the doctrinal crisis in the Church and the persecution of those who teach the fullness of the Faith and work to preserve the Tridentine Mass. The persecution is coming not from some powerful political tyrant but from the very hierarchy that should be guardians of the faith. After Akita we do not need to read the Third Secret because the essence of Our Lady’s warning has been repeated for our benefit by Sister Sasagawa and the visionaries of Garabandal.
Time and tide
The Marian warnings were issued so we can remain calm as the storm progresses. Even when our pastors fall one after the other into heresy and apostasy God will never abandon us. He has given us a loving Mother who will not fail to tell us where to seek refuge. She can really be trusted.
For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgement; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement —especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority. — 2 Peter 2:4-10.
