Free Republic

"Cardinal: "What Sister Lucia told me: Final Confrontation between the Lord and Satan will be over Family and Marriage."" A Cardinal tells: Sister Lucia wrote me… On Feburary 16, 2008, Cardinal Carlo Caffara (Archbishop of Bologna), after a Mass celebrated at the tomb of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, granted an interview to Tele Radio Padre Pio, which was subsequently reported in the monthly magazine “Voce di Padre Pio” March, 2008 . Here are some significant excerpts. Q. Your Eminence, recently in Corriere della Sera you said that you had always had a great devotion to Padre Pio. Please tell us...

The Pope celebrated mass in St Peter’s square this morning in honour of the Marian Day, an event organised as part of the Year of Faith on the anniversary of the final apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima (13th of October 1917). Please find below the full text of Pope Francis’ homily in English translation. In the Psalm we said: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things” (Ps 98:1). Today we consider one of the marvelous things which the Lord has done: Mary! A lowly and weak creature like ourselves, she was...

The Controversy Over the Third Secret: Objections and Responses | Fr. Andrew Apostoli, C.F.R. | Appendix D from Fatima For Today: The Urgent Marian Message of Hope The Third Secret has been dealt with in two chapters in this book. Chapter 8 presented the content of the Third Secret as Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta saw it revealed to them. Chapter 16 presented how Sister Lucia wrote the Third Secret on a separate manuscript and then placed it in a sealed envelope. The chapter also traces what popes John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II did after reading it. The...

INTRODUCTION   As the second millennium gives way to the third, Pope John Paul II has decided to publish the text of the third part of the “secret of Fatima”. The twentieth century was one of the most crucial in human history, with its tragic and cruel events culminating in the assassination attempt on the “sweet Christ on earth”. Now a veil is drawn back on a series of events which make history and interpret it in depth, in a spiritual perspective alien to present-day attitudes, often tainted with rationalism. Throughout history there have been supernatural apparitions and signs which go to the heart...

Review of The 13th Day by John Vennari In the spring of this year, I saw the riveting trailer for The 13th Day, and looked forward to its release with great anticipation. I recently viewed the movie itself. The film is good, though there are some aspects I found disappointing. The 13th Day has many fine moments. The actress who portrays Lucia’s mother is superb, and even a bit terrifying. The movie contains the best portrayal of the Miracle of the Sun I’ve seen. It is filmed in black and white, except when Our Lady brings everything to color, which...

Fatima: The secret's out, despite claims to the contrary By Cindy WoodenCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Despite claims there are still secrets connected to the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope Benedict XVI and his secretary of state said the entire message has been published and has been interpreted accurately. The Marian apparitions to three children in Fatima, Portugal, began 90 years ago May 13, and Pope John Paul II ordered the so-called "third secret" of Fatima to be published in 2000. As the Fatima anniversary approached, the Vatican bookstore was selling copies of "The Last Fatima...

“The Fourth Secret of Fatima”Mainstream Italian Author Argues Third Secret of Fatima Not Entirely RevealedSecretary of Pope John XXIII Admits There Are Two Textsby John Vennari               On November 22, 2006, Antonio Socci’s Il Quarto Segreto di Fatima (The Fourth Secret of Fatima), hit bookstores in Italy. The author, after much investigation, comes to the conclusion that the Vatican has not formally released the entire Third Secret.              The importance of this book cannot be overemphasized. Mr. Socci is a famous, mainstream Italian author and TV anchor man, not associated with any “traditionalist” group. In fact, he began the project firmly believing...

ROME, JUNE 2, 2006 (Zenit.org).- A small book of unpublished writings by Fatima visionary Sister Lucia will soon be published in Italy. The 64-page volume, entitled "The Message of Fatima," focuses on the message of Our Lady of Fatima in relation to events that have taken place. The young Lucia dos Santos witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima that began on May 13, 1917, along with Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto. Sister Lucia died at age 97 in February 2005. For 45 years, the Holy See did not reveal the content of the so-called third secret of Fatima,...

ROME, JAN. 12, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The mortal remains of Sister Lucia, who saw apparitions of Our Lady in 1917, will be moved from the Carmelite convent of Coimbra, where she died, to the Shrine of Fatima. The news was confirmed by the Roman Society for Pilgrimages, an institution dependent on the Holy See, which is organizing pilgrimages to the Portuguese shrine for the occasion. The public will be able to take part in the Feb. 19 event, which will included a procession to the Chapel of the Apparitions, Mass, and the transferal of the remains to the basilica. The remains...

Mel Gibson says he cut scenes from his soon-to-be-re-released blockbuster film, "Passion of the Christ," to tone down the violence that earned it an R rating and kept some people from seeing it. Gibson said he received "truckloads of cards and letters” when the original film was released. "What came up again and again was that a lot of people were turned away because of the brutality in the film and were afraid to watch," he told Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s "World Over Live" Friday night. "So I thought if I softened it up a bit, I could have a...

SISTER LUCY’S CELL ORDERED SEALED BY THE VATICAN by Christopher Ferrara Catholic Family News March 2005 Sister Lucy of Fatima died on February 13, 2005 -- the same day of the month on which the Fatims apparitions occurred each month for six months. (May - October) in 1917, and the same day of the month on which Ali Agca attempted to assassinate the Pope in 1981. The very next day Vito Messori, one of Italy’s top journalists, whose interview of John Paul II became the best-selling book Crossing the threshold of Hope, broke the stunning news in the Italian daily...

HERE'S A CURIOUS THOUGHT. Maybe the single most important person in the 20th century's long struggle against communism wasn't Ronald Reagan. Maybe it wasn't Karol Wojtyla or Margaret Thatcher, Lech Walesa or Václav Havel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or Mikhail Gorbachev. Maybe it wasn't anyone whose name might leap to a cold warrior's mind--for the most important figure in that long, dark struggle might have been a 10-year-old girl named Lucia dos Santos. You remember her, of course. It was Lucia who went out one day in 1917 with her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Martos to tend the family's sheep--and ended up...

HOT TOPICS: Fatima Forebodings about the Death of Sister Lucy Marian T. Horvat The first thing that struck me when I heard that Sister Lucy had died at age 97 on February 13 was: “How sudden and unexpected this news is! It must have been a heart attack, or some other such unforeseen sudden illness.” The last seer died leaving many questions about the Fatima message unresolved. Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2000 But no, it was not. Coimbra Bishop Albino Cleto told Radio Renascença that “she had been weak for several weeks and had not left her cell.”...

LISBON, PORTUGAL - Sister Lucia Marto, the last of three children who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in a series of 1917 apparitions in the town of Fatima, has died, Portuguese media reported. She was 97. Sister Lucia, a Roman Catholic nun, had been ill for the past three months and died Sunday at the Convent of Carmelitas in Coimbra, 120 miles north of Lisbon, TSF radio reported, citing family sources. Lucia and two of her cousins, siblings Jacinta and Francisco, said in 1917 that the Virgin Mary had been appearing to them once a month and predicting...

Manila (AsiaNews/UCAN) – Sister Lucia, the last visionary of Fatima who passed away on February 13, could intercede for a resolution of the 36-year-old communist insurgency in the Philippines, this according to Jesuit Father Catalino Arevalo, who spoke at a mass in memory of the Portuguese nun held on February 19 at the Carmelite Chapel in Quezon City, north of Manila. “The first mission of Sister Lucia was to contain communism,” Father Arevalo said. “So we can continue to ask for [her] intercession for the resolution of the communist problem that is present in the Philippines, which in some ways...

Hollywood A-lister buys the rights to the book ‘Stealing from Angels'Fittingly, just ten days after the death of Sr Lucia dos Santos, the last survivor to witness the appearances of the Virgin Mary at the Portuguese town of Fatima in 1917, Mel Gibson has bought the rights to the book ‘Stealing from Angels’. Brian Dullaghan’s novel tells the story of a young Irish man who escapes a dreary life in his hometown only to slip into a life of major crime in New York. Everything changes when he meets Maria and he jumps ship again, this time to Maria’s hometown...

Lisbon, Feb. 22 (CNA/CWNews.com) - The Portuguese EFE news agency is reporting that the Diocese of Leiria-Fatima has sent the final documents for the canonization of Jacinta and Francisco Marto to the Vatican. The announcement came just days after the death of their cousin, the third seer of Fatima, last week at the age of 97. "I can confirm that the so-called 'Positio,' the final document for the canonization of the two shepherd children, has been sent," said Bishop Serafim Ferreira e Silva during a Mass dedicated to the visionaries of Our Lady of Fatima. He also said the Portuguese...

Sister Lucia De Jesus Dos Santos, who died on Sunday aged 97, was the last of the three children said to have seen apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary outside the Portuguese town of Fatima in 1917. Although the Roman Catholic Church is extremely wary of private revelations, several popes have indicated their personal acceptance of the authenticity of the appearances; in 1983, John Paul II beatified the two other children involved. Nevertheless, some commentators, usually outside the Church, have continued to question the authenticity of the miracles, while a tiny minority of Catholics has cast doubts on elements which...

Cardinal Bertone Making Contradictions about Fatima, Once Again by Robert SungenisWill the disinformation campaign and cover up of Fatima ever cease? Not if that hierarch happens to be Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the long-time newsmaker and Vatican spokesman on Fatima. Needless to say, my inkling is that Bertone didn't get a chance to see Fr. Gruner's new film on Fatima, but perhaps they don't get PAX television over in Rome. In any case, it still amazes me to see the lengths these prelates will go to in order to dismiss Fatima's ominous portents. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos: I know exactly what...

Lucy and the Piratesby Mark FellowsFew revelations have been as unconvincing as the Vatican's version of the Third Secret of Fatima. Those who thought, or hoped, that the June 2000 unveiling of the CDF's booklet, The Message of Fatima [1] ended matters are probably surprised by the recent tumult over Fatima in the press. There should be no surprise: For over forty years nearly every tactic------silence, intimidation, bad theology, disinformation, and hired liars------have been used to bury the real Message of Fatima. Yet the cork continues to bob to the surface. The terrorist attacks on September 11 triggered a chain...