They form today an impressive mass of sure information from which the historian can precisely retrace its entire history and expose its essential content with a considerable degree of certitude. Such has been my double concern in writing my third volume of "The Whole Truth About Fatima", which is completely devoted to the mystery of the Third Secret.

It is this minutely detailed demonstration that I shall attempt to present to you while simplifying it and summarizing much of it, for I must be brief. But I will tell you sufficiently about it, I hope, to show you how important this final secret of Our Lady is. How it is at the very heart of the Message of Fatima, and finally why it is urgent for the good of the Church that it be revealed to the world according to the command of the Blessed Virgin.

It was in July/August, 1941, in her third memoir, that Sister Lucy mentioned for the first time the division of the Secret of Fatima into three distinct parts. "The Secret is composed of three distinct matters," she writes, "And I shall disclose two of them." The first is the vision of hell and the designation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the supreme remedy offered by God to humanity for the salvation of souls. "In order to save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart." The second, is the great prophecy concerning a miraculous peace which God wishes to grant to the world through the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the practice of Communions of Reparation on the first Saturdays of the month.(1) "If people heed My commands, Russia will be converted and the world will have peace." And there is also the announcement of terrible punishments if people persist in not obeying Her requests. As for the third part of the Secret, in 1941, Sister Lucy declares that for the moment she is not permitted to reveal it.

The Writing Down and the Transmission of the Secret

The dramatic account of the writing down and the transmission of this vital Message begins in 1943. The hour of providence had then struck. Sister Lucy was living at that time in the convent of the Dorothian Sisters of Tuy, in Spain. In June, 1943, she suddenly fell gravely ill. Her condition was so alarming that Bishop da Silva, the Bishop of Leiria/Fatima, became worried. He feared that she would die before having revealed the Third Secret of Our Lady and he sensed that it would be the loss of an exceptional grace for the Church. Canon Galamba, the friend and advisor of the Bishop, then suggested to him an extremely judicious idea, that he at least ask Sister Lucy to write down forthwith, the text of the Third Secret and then that she place it in an envelope sealed with wax, to be opened later.

On September 15, 1943, Bishop da Silva went, therefore, to Tuy and he asked Sister Lucy to write down the Secret "if she really wanted to". But the seer, undoubtedly under the impulse of the Holy Spirit was not content with this vague order. She requested of her bishop a written order, formal and perfectly clear - that is very important. The final Message of the Virgin of Fatima is, as previously were Her other requests, linked to marvelous promises. It is an exceptional grace offered by God to our 20th century in order to meet its most urgent needs. But again it is necessary that the pastors of the Church have sufficient faith and docility to the designs of Heaven in order to be instruments of this outpouring of grace that God wants to bestow upon the world through the sweet mediation of His Immaculate Mother. In 1943, God desired that it be the Bishop of Leiria, who demanded of this messenger the writing down of the Third Secret.

Finally, in mid-October, 1943, Bishop da Silva made up his mind. He wrote to Sister Lucy, giving her the express order that she had besought of him. However, new difficulties would arise. Sister Lucy experienced at that time, for almost three months, a mysterious and terrible anguish. She has related that each time she sat down at her work table and took her pen in order to write down the Secret, she found herself obstructed from doing it. One must, no doubt, see there the last outburst of satan against the messenger of the Immaculate One.

Guessing what a terrible weapon this great prophecy could set up against his dominion over souls and his plan to penetrate the very heart of the Church, such a trial endured by the seer thus indicated the magnitude of the grandiose event which was about to be carried out, should the Secret be put down on paper.

On Christmas Eve, Sister Lucy confided to her director that she had still been unable to obey the order that she had been given.

Finally, on the 2nd of January, 1944, (this is very little known) the Blessed Virgin Mary Herself appeared again to Lucy. She confirmed to her that such was truly the Will of God and gave her the light and the strength to accomplish the writing that had been commanded.

The extreme care that Sister Lucy then took to transmit it with complete safety to its recipient, Bishop da Silva, is a new proof of the exceptional importance which she attributes to this document.

She did not wish to entrust it to anyone but a Bishop. It was Bishop Ferreira, Archbishop of Gurza, who received from the hands of Sister Lucy, the envelope sealed with wax containing the precious document. He delivered it the same evening to Bishop da Silva.

Concerning the transmission of the Secret to the Hierarchy, it is necessary to underline four facts of the highest importance:

Fact#1. The immediate recipient of the Secret was Bishop da Silva and he could have read it at once. Sister Lucy told him so from the Blessed Virgin. But frightened by the responsibility that he would have to assume, he did not dare, he did not wish to have knowledge of it. He then tried to commit it to the Holy Office, but Rome refused to receive it. It was then agreed that if Bishop da Silva happened to die, the envelope would be entrusted to Cardinal Cerejeira, the Patriarch of Lisbon. It is therefore false to say, as has been so often repeated after 1960, that the Third Secret is destined explicitly and exclusively to the Holy Father!

Fact#2. It is true, however, - I provide several proofs of it in my book - that Sister Lucy wanted Pope Pius XII to know the Secret without further delay. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Fact#3. Ascertaining that Bishop da Silva persisted in not wishing to open the envelope, Sister Lucy "made him promise, in the words of Canon Galamba, that the Third Secret would be opened and read to the world upon her death or in 1960, whichever would happen first." A series of testimonies which give us an account of the repeated statements of Sister Lucy enabled this fact to be established with absolute certitude.

Fact#4. Finally, this promise to disclose the Secret immediately after the death of Sister Lucy or in any case, "in 1960 at the latest", surely corresponds to a request by the Virgin Mary Herself. In fact, when in 1946, Canon Barthas asked the seer why it would be necessary to wait until 1960, Sister Lucy replied to him in the presence of Bishop da Silva, "Because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so."

Briefly stated, I have established it solidly in my book and we have all the proofs that God desired, willed that the final Secret of Our Lady be finally believed by the Pastors of the Church and made public to the faithful. This was to be done at the earliest in 1944 or at the latest by 1960 because as Sister Lucy further explained, "It would become clearer at that time."(2)