Living Our Daily Lives In the Light of the Fatima Secret

The Fatima Crusader: Issue 82


People say: “The Vatican won't reveal the Third Secret; we're not going to get it out of them. Why don't we just go on with our lives the way we are, do the best we can, and stop worrying about it?”

What we are addressing here is: Is the Third Secret important to us? And, even if the Vatican won't release it, what difference does it make to us?

First of all, the Blessed Virgin Herself thought it was important for us to have the Secret. She thought it important enough to risk the lives of the three children: Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucy. If She didn't want to put their lives at risk, She didn't have to tell them the Secret at all, and the Mayor of Ourem in August 1917 wouldn't have taken them to prison and threatened them with death for not revealing it.


Knowledge of the Third Secret Will Save Souls!

The Blessed Virgin gave a Message in 1917 and a very important part of the Message is in that Secret. She wants us to have the Secret so we can save our souls.

Pope John Paul II, when he went to Fatima, in 1982 said, “Can the Mother, with all the forces of love that She fosters in the Holy Spirit, and desires everyone's salvation, can She remain silent when She sees the very basis of Her children's salvation undermined? And the Pope answers his own question: “No, She cannot remain silent.”

The basis of our salvation, among other things, is the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Faith is being undermined and the Blessed Virgin knows that. She sees us in danger and She speaks up. But where does She tell us this? Its in the Secret. She sees that our eternal salvation is in great jeopardy and if She can give us the knowledge that we need to know, we would be alerted. We would be on our guard.

The fact is, She's telling us that one-third of the clergy are working for the devil. We know that from what John Paul II said on May 13, 2000. The Secret talks about the apostasy in the Church being led from the top, which snares one-third of the Catholic clergy to work for the devil. As a result of those clergy working for the devil, many souls are going to go to hell that would not otherwise go to Hell.

If the faithful knew that the Secret said that, they would at least be on their guard to not listen to everyone just because they have a collar on. Now someone might ask, “Well, what about you, Father Gruner?” My answer is simple: “Just measure if what I'm telling you is the same as what the Catholic Church has always taught.”

If I'm not telling you what the Church has always taught, then don't listen to me. If the Church has always taught that you must hold on to your infallible Faith, even against a priest, a bishop, a Cardinal, or even the Pope, then you MUST do that.

Are there Cardinals, bishops and priests saying things against the Faith? It would seem so. For example, Cardinal Kasper said in February 2001
This teaching of Cardinal Kasper is directly contrary to the thrice-defined infallible Catholic dogma, “outside the Church there is no salvation.”

This and other statements are scandalous. Cardinal Kasper should be defrocked, never mind just be demoted as a Cardinal. He should be reduced to a layman for the things he's saying. But it's not happening.

That is why Sister Lucy tells us:
Too many Catholics think, well, I'm okay; I'm doing what the Catholic clergy are telling me to do. In these extraordinary times, sadly, this is not the criteria to follow. In today's apostasy, do not measure what are acceptable Catholic statements and behavior by what people are doing in the chancery office, or in the Vatican. Our criteria, rather, must be to measure all things by what the Catholic Church has always taught. This is why it is important for us to know the contents of the Secret.
Know That You Are in Danger!

We are in the time of the apostasy and Cardinal Ciappi identified that the Third Secret talks about the apostasy in the Church beginning at the top. He says, “the" apostasy. There's only one “the" apostasy which is talked about in Sacred Scripture. And we are living in that time right now. We've had Sacred Scripture for 2000 years, but Our Lady of Fatima is saying that prophecy applies to today.

This is why you, particularly at this time, have to be on guard. Its not that the Catholics of previous ages didn't have to be on guard; but today, now that the apostasy is upon us, we must be on guard. That's why the Secret must be released. If people had been given access to the Third Secret, they would have seen the dangers coming.

Sister Lucy herself, in her interview with Father Fuentes on December 26, 1957, before she was silenced said, “the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle”; the devil thinks he is going to win. Some theologians counter this statement, saying that the devil knows that God has told him he is going to lose, that his head will be crushed by the Woman's heel, that is, by the Blessed Virgin Mary.

To answer: we know the devil is going to lose the battle. We know Our Lady will crush his head. But it also says in Scripture that “iniquity has lied to itself”. The devil has lied to himself. He thinks he is going to win despite the fact that God predicted absolutely that the devil will lose. So, in this final battle, he pretends to himself and to his followers that he is going to win. Thus the devil is spoiling for this final battle now upon us. One of the most tactical, one of the most important moves for him to make at this time is to destroy as many as possible of the Catholic clergy.

Sister Lucy points out that the devil knows he has a very short time and that what gains him more souls than anything else is the fall of the Catholic clergy. In 1957, she pretty well predicted that the clergy would be decimated, as there were 450,000 clergy in 1965 at the end of the Council; and ten years later, the Catholic clergy dropped to 405,000.

On the contrary, the number of Catholics in the world has increased. There were seven hundred million Catholics in 1965 and now there are over a billion, yet there are less clergy to take care of them. There are still only 405,000 Catholic priests. We have never recovered the fifty-thousand who left the ministry!

But worse, you also have many, many so-called Catholic clergy who have stayed in the ministry and are teaching false doctrines and heresy and promoting corruption by their own lifestyle.


What to do?

John Paul II, when he went to Fatima, in the year 2000, beatified Jacinta and Francisco. In his homily, he preached on Chapter 12, verses 1 to 4, of the Apocalypse. The first verse starts with the words, “A great sign appeared in Heaven, a Woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under Her feet, and on Her head a crown of twelve stars.” This is the Blessed Virgin. Verses 3 and 4 talk about the dragon. The dragon faced the Woman clothed with the sun, and the dragon was angry with Her and he used his tail to drag down one-third of the stars of Heaven, that is, Catholic priests, bishops and Cardinals.

How do we know these stars represent the Catholic clergy? Why does Saint John call them the stars of Heaven? Its very simple. A star was used to navigate, in the old days, for finding a way to port. The “port” that we are destined to go to is Heaven. So the stars of Heaven are the Catholic clergy. They are the stars that show the way to your Heavenly port. It says in the Old Testament that the lips of the priest are to guard wisdom. And so, if the priest is doing his job, he will guard wisdom, he will teach wisdom, and people will find their way to the Heavenly port by listening to him.

Some priests are confused or mistaken and are not necessarily working for the devil, but one-third of them are. And so we have to distinguish between them. We cannot follow anyone who teaches false doctrine, even if they are of good intent, even if they are ignorant.


What is Apostasy?

In this time of Apostasy, since 1960, we're living in the period of the Third Secret, and Cardinal Ciappi tells us that the Third Secret warns us of the Apostasy. Apostasy is a Greek word which means “rebellion”. A Scripture scholar pointed out to me that the great apostasy predicted in Scripture will be a widespread falling away from both belief in the Catholic Faith as well as the refusal to live as good Catholics. All rational beings follow first reason: right reason or wrong reason. Most people follow what their thoughts tell them they see, just like we look where we go with our eyes. When we make up our mind to do something, we first of all make a plan; we make a decision — this is where I want to go, this is what I want to do — and then we follow through with it.

Thus, having false doctrine in the place of the true Faith leads you to Apostasy. But some will say, “Well, I'm a good person, I don't understand all this doctrine stuff, I believe what I believe. As long as we're good people, we'll go to Heaven. What do we need all these little doctrinal points for?”

In answer, remember Our Lord said to Pilate, “Its for this reason I came into the world to witness to the truth.” The point is that Our Lord died as a witness to the truth. So the truth is important. Doctrine, that is, the truth revealed by God, is important.


Knowing the Truth

How do we know the truth? As a Catholic, we know the truth by what the Catholic Church has infallibly defined. So if somebody contradicts an infallible definition, he cannot claim, in all honesty, to be a true Catholic. Although he may be ignorant because he doesn't even know his “ABC's” of Catholicism.

St. Paul himself said: “But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” (Gal. 1:8) That is, let him be cursed, let him be cast into hell, do not have anything to do with him.


Annihilation of Faith is Worse Than Annihilation of Nations

Bishop Amaral, the former Bishop of Fatima, after consulting Sister Lucy, speaking about the Third Secret, said it does not concern 55-20 missiles but rather, it concerns the Faith. So what does the annihilation of nations mean? The physical annihilation is a terrible thing and I don't wish to minimize it, but it cannot begin to be compared with the eternal loss of souls.

So if a country, for example, gets annihilated by missiles, certainly people die and they suffer a horrible death; but if they're in a state of grace, they go to Heaven and have achieved their destiny for all eternity. On the other hand, if they've apostatized, that is, those who have been baptized and accepted Christ and then they deny Him, refuse his teaching, and say it doesn't matter; then their soul will go to Hell for all eternity.

And so, the apostasy of a nation is much worse than the annihilation of a nation. And the apostasy of a continent is worse than the apostasy of a nation. The Third Secret talks about entire nations apostatizing and losing the Faith. I've worked at this for 28 years to save nations from being annihilated; but much more so, for the salvation of souls, so they don't apostatize.


A Solemn Duty

You may recall that the strike on Pearl Harbor could have been averted had the Commander-in-Chief not withheld information warning of the planned attack. That was wrong. The men and women deserved the right to know so they would at least have had a fighting chance to save their lives.


Danger of War Should Not Prevent Revealing the Third Secret

Now I understand there's several reasons why the Vatican doesn't want to release the Third Secret. First of all, because it's an indictment of most of the changes in the Church since Vatican II, which are still imposed de facto. And certainly, to release the Third Secret would cause a lot of embarrassment for those who still defend the ill-conceived policies and practices promoted in the name of Vatican II. I'm sure I would find it embarrassing if I had been in their position. Objectively speaking though, it is their obligation to give us this truth, the Third Secret, so that we can properly defend ourselves.


We Have the Right to Insist

A man who accepts the office of the papacy does not accept it at gunpoint. He can refuse. But once he accepts it, then he has a duty to care for the flock, to guard the flock against error, and to teach the truth, even at the cost of his life. And since the Secret is obviously something important that Our Lady wants us to know for our salvation and the good of the world, the Pope has a duty to give this information to us, and we have a right to request it.


“Dangers to the Faith”

In 1984, Cardinal Ratzinger was asked why the Third Secret had not been revealed. He gave a published reply in which he said:
He also said it concerns the last times, and tells us it is contained in Sacred Scriptures, that is, those events predicted at the end of time — events of terrible chastisements and punishments that have already started to take place and are going to happen shortly, in our lifetime. We are in a certain stage of history, and we are in that stage now. That stage that has been predicted in Sacred Scripture, and we must do something about it now. We must convert now, because if not we will be dragged down along with the rest of them in the general Apostasy surrounding us.

Our Lord said, “you are the salt of the earth”. This means that the believing, practicing Catholics — the members of His one true Church — are the salt of the earth. But Our Lord warns us all, that if the salt loses its flavor, it is cast out and trampled under foot.

Thus if any of us lose the Faith, or no longer live it, if we succumb to today's general apostasy, we have lost our taste with God, we are no longer a preservative against sin, then if we do not repent we will be cast out, will be trodden under foot.

And the more Catholics lose their salt, that is, fall away from the faith, the less Catholic influence in the world, the more the devil triumphs, and the entire world falls into sin and ruin. Thus the dangers to the Faith are indeed dangers to the life of the Christian and therefore, to the life of the world.


How Can This All Fit Into 25 Lines of Third Secret?

As you know, Bishop Venancio, Auxiliary Bishop of Fatima, in 1957 was left alone with the Secret that was in a sealed envelope. He held the envelope up to the light to try to discern the contents, and said afterward that the Secret is on one sheet of paper and consists of about 25 lines.

The 25 lines of the Third Secret can cover all of what I said very simply by making references to Sacred Scripture. Why is it that every Pope who went to Fatima cites Chapter 12, verse 1 of the Apocalypse? Pope Paul VI's encyclical published on the occasion of his visit to Fatima on May 13, 1967, starts off with the words “Signum Magnum”. That is, his encyclical starts by quoting the words of the Apocalypse, Chapter 12: “I saw a great sign in the heavens, a Woman clothed with the sun.” And when John Paul II went there some 33 years later, he quotes the exact same verse. Why is that? Because it's most likely cited in the Secret, just as other passages were cited.

Cardinal Ciappi talks about the great Apostasy of the Church beginning at the top. Why does he refer to the great Apostasy? Because the Secret talks about the great Apostasy that's in Sacred Scripture. Cardinal Ratzinger, in 1984, says “Yes, I have read the Secret. The things contained in this 'Third Secret' correspond to what has been announced in Scripture.” How does he know that? Because the Secret tells him so. That's how you can compress so much into a very short passage of 25 lines in the Secret, because it makes references directly to Sacred Scripture.


What Does Holy Mass Have To Do With World Security?

Saint Padre Pio said that the world could exist easier without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What this has to do with the Secret is very simple: Everyone knows that if the sun was not there, that if the sun stopped giving its heat and its light, we would all freeze to death within a few hours. We can not exist without the sun. That's the way God made the world; that's why God made the sun. But if that is true about the sun and our physical life here, then it is even more true about the Church and the souls in the world existing without Mass.


No Grace — No Peace

Because of the lack of grace that prevails in the world without the Holy Mass, the first natural thing (if you can call it “natural”) is for mankind to kill each other, because each man then becomes his own god, each man becomes his own center of the universe; and anyone that doesn't agree with him will be shot and killed.


Lay People are Obliged to Defend the Faith Like the Pope and the Clergy

Most lay people do not understand that they too have an obligation to the common good of the Catholic Church. The Church is hierarchical — yes, there's a Pope, and yes, there are bishops, and yes, there are priests. But we have to realize that the faithful, by their baptism, are a royal priesthood. This is not to be confused with the ministerial priesthood, but by their baptism, lay people have been elevated; they have taken on a supernatural life of grace. And through that grace, they undertook the obligation to defend their Faith. Now that baptismal obligation of defending their Faith, at least to themselves, is primordial. Its more important than their respect for the priest. Its more important than their respect for the bishop. Its more important than their respect for the Pope, in that if a priest, bishop or Pope does anything contrary to the Faith, the Catholic is bound to resist them.

The Catholic must understand his primary obligations, and by his Confirmation he or she also takes on the obligation to defend the Faith: not only for themselves, but to the extent they can, for those around them. That obligation is sacred. The obligation to defend the Faith takes precedence over a priest's obedience to a bishop who would ask him to go against the Faith in any way. The obligation to the Faith takes precedence over a religious’ obligation to his superior who would ask him to go against the Faith in any way. The obligation to defend the Faith that a Catholic receives at his Baptism and Confirmation is higher than any obedience he owes to any ecclesiastical superior.

Now, St. Thomas will say that if you are not intellectually prepared to defend the Faith in public, then leave that to more capable people to do, lest your weak defense makes it look like the truth is defeated. But those who have the ability and those who have the station in life, must defend the faith and cannot and must not hide behind silence.

He is not saying, however, that you, yourself don't have an obligation to defend the Faith. Even if you are not a learned speaker there are many, many ways you can stand up for the truth, according to your own talents which God has given you. All of us are called to know and live the Fatima Message in our daily lives. All of us are called upon, to the extent that we can, to make the full Fatima Message known to those around us. Doing this will greatly help overcome the apostasy that envelops our world. In this defense of Fatima and the defense of the Catholic Faith, we must never give up.


You Have the Right and the Obligation to Petition the Pope

You, as a Catholic lay person, have a priceless heritage given to you by God, Himself; the gift of prophecy given at Fatima. You have a right to know what that prophecy is, and the Pope has an obligation to give it to you.

You have the right to petition the Pope. If you don't petition him, you have not done your duty to ask for it, when you know you can. You need that information you're petitioning for, the Third Secret, in order to protect your soul from the insidious apostasy that surrounds us right now.

In the meantime, while waiting for the full disclosure of the Third Secret we must do what St. Vincent of Lerins said:
The Church is Catholic, not just because it's universal over the whole world, it's Catholic because it's universal in time. Its the same Faith, the same practices, from the time of Christ to the end of time. And when everyone around us goes wrong, at least if we look to what our forefathers have done, we know that we're safe on solid ground.

Malachi Martin, who read the Third Secret, said on the radio to millions of people on the Art Bell Show that if the Secret was released, the churches would be full, the cathedrals would be full, the line-ups for confession would be very long, and people would be beating their breasts in the churches because of what the Secret would be telling them.


Against a Fact There is No Argument

St. Thomas tells us, “Against a fact, there is no argument.” We have certainly enough facts documented in many places, including The Devil's Final Battle, which show 11 different facts proving there must be two documents regarding the Third Secret. What the Vatican released on June 26, 2000, is not the whole Third Secret.

The Third Secret is what comes after the words “In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.” That “etc.” was not spoken by Our Lady, but was inserted by Sister Lucy to mark the place of Our Lady's words in the Third Secret. We know that the word “etc.” is not from Our Lady, not only from Sister Lucy's original handwritten text, but also because no one making an important declaration ends it with the word, “etc.”, especially the Mother of God, Whose eloquence and command of language surpasses the greatest orator or poet. It is obvious that we have a sentence that is not complete, that there is something more to follow. What the Vatican gave us is not complete. There are no words of Our Lady.

Father Schweigl tells us that there are, in fact, two parts to the Third Secret. (First of all, there is one Secret divided into three parts. The third part of the Secret is further divided into two parts.) The first part of the Secret concerns the Faith. The second part of the Third Secret concerns the Pope. The description of the vision given on June 26, 2000 describes what is going to happen to the Pope because he does not obey Our Lady of Fatima, because he does not do the Consecration of Russia. This is the second part of the Third Secret. But the first part is what Cardinal Ratzinger told us — it concerns the dangers to the Faith — the subsequent loss of Faith leading to apostasy that comes from the top of the Vatican, leading to the danger to the lives of the Christians (that is, Catholics) including the Pope, and finally the danger to the world.

It will not just happen to the Pope, by the way. As terrible as it is for the Pope, it's terrible for the priests and the bishops as well as the lay people. That part is in the vision.

All of this is happening because of the Apostasy, because of the loss of Faith. They've fallen apostate, and as a result of that they are punished through the anti-god forces working for the devil. Whether it's communism, masonry, the New World Order, whether it's new-agers, whatever they are called, it really doesn't matter here. The point is that they are being punished. Just as God used the Babylonians to punish the Jews for being unfaithful, God uses even pagans, even peoples who hate God in order to punish the people of God for not being faithful. That's what we see here and that's part of the Third Secret that has not been released to us. Its about Apostasy and about the Faith and how it's being lost.

As it is, mostly everyone is sliding gradually into apostasy, with no one raising their voice; except the Blessed Virgin Mary. She came to Fatima to warn us. She sees us in danger of losing our souls. She sees that the very basis of our salvation is being undermined. Yes, She raises Her voice, but the very people She entrusts it to, have silenced it.


Antidote for Apostasy Pray the Rosary

Being the loving Mother that She is, Our Blessed Mother also gave us the prescription for the plight we are in. She gave us the antidote, knowing, as Heaven knows all, that Her Message and Her requests of the Pope and the bishops would be ignored.

Her antidote, of course, is the Most Holy Rosary. Every time Our Lady came to Fatima, She told us to pray the Rosary. “Continue, My children, to pray the Rosary.” “Pray the Rosary every day.” “The faithful must pray the Rosary.”

Why? Because She, in Her heavenly wisdom knew how much we need the Rosary. Our Lady promised to St. Dominic that the Rosary would be powerful against heresy; the Rosary would overcome vice, decrease sin, and overcome heresy.

Today, modernism has run rampant. According to St. Pius X, modernism is the amalgamation of all the heresies. It is the sewer of all the heresies, all coming together against us, and we are living through this attack right now and as a result modernism has entered into many members of the Church today and they don't even know it.

Some of them are in good faith and some of them are in bad faith, but don't be surprised that you find somebody, even in good faith, spewing off some modernistic heresy. We are surrounded by it. We need a special inoculation; Our Lady gave us the inoculation. She says, “Here's a prescription, pray your Rosary every day.”

We need first of all, to pray the Rosary every day to save our souls. Sister Lucy says, “We shall be saved together or we shall be damned together.” “With the Holy Rosary, we will save ourselves. We will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.”