More on the "Fourth" Secret of Fatima

In my book Unveiling the Apocalypse, I go into some detail about the various pieces of evidence which point to the existence of a hidden text related to the Third Secret of Fatima. Indeed many Fatima experts believe that the Third Secret was comprised of two distinct parts, one of which is still being suppressed by the Church. Archbishop Loris Capovilla, the private secretary to Pope John XXIII, and first hand witness to the first opening of the secret in 1959, has ignited this debate once again in a recent interview with the Catholic News Service (CNS). As of 10th May, 2012, Archbishop Capovilla has apparently hinted yet again at the existence of another text related to the Third Secret, albeit in rather typically guarded language:


Speaking to Catholic News Service, Archbishop Capovilla, now 96, dismisses reports that he told an Italian writer in 2006 that part of the secret remains unpublished. He says that he noticed no discrepancy between the published version and the original.

Yet he qualifies his statement with a rare admission of doubt about his own remarkable memory. "I remember a bit," he says, "but you will understand, after so many years I wouldn't know how to reconstruct (the secret) fully."

Nor does he rule out the presence of such a document elsewhere in the archives of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, often referred to as "the Holy Office."

"At the Holy Office there must be a kilometer of paper regarding Fatima," the archbishop says. "I don't deny that there may be something else, but I don't know it."



The above statement is very carefully worded. Upon first reading, it could be interpreted that Capovilla is claiming that Solideo Paolini fabricated the material concerning a hidden portion of the Third Secret during his interviews with the elderly Archbishop in 2006, in which he was alleged to have confirmed the existence of this "hidden" text. Yet we when examine his statement more closely, we find that Capovilla's statement is rather more nuanced. The exaxt words use by Capovilla was that he did not tell Paolini that a part of the secret remains unpublished - which appears to be a carefully chosen phrase. And when we look at Paolini's testimony, we find that this statement is quite correct. Archbishop Capovilla never at any stage explicitly informed the investigator of the existence of a hidden part of the Third Secret, but was rather more cunning in his assertions. Instead, it seems that the Archbishop deliberately guided Paolini to evidence that would lead him to form his own conclusions.
First off, we need to understand that Capovilla is a very old hand in Vatican politics, and fully knows how to manoeuvre in such situations so as to be able to placate the opposition in the hierarchy, while at the same time not compromising the truth of the Fatima apparitions, through the careful use of diplomatically evasive language. We find these same political wiles to be fully present in his interview with Paolini, which is recounted in the below material taken from The Fatima Network:

I went to visit Archbishop Capovilla at his house in Sotto il Monte, the small town, as I said before. I knew him because he was the Pontifical Bishop Delegate of the Marian Sanctuary of Loreto, which is near my house. I live, in fact, in the Marche, an eastern region of Italy — so we started talking about his presence in Loreto. I reminded him of his stay there during the eighties, so he received me with great courtesy and helpfulness. So I said to him: “Your Excellency, the reason for my visit is due to the fact that I am a Fatima researcher.” He was nodding his head, as if to say “I understand”, so I continued: “Since you are a first class source of information, I would like to ask you some questions.” He then said immediately, “No, look, also to avoid any imprecision, since it has been revealed officially, I will limit myself to what has been said.”
Now, this brings up a very well known problem regarding the so-called official version on Fatima. If they said everything on it, absolutely — and not only relatively, as I will explain afterwards — why then does a key witness tell me, in some way, that he is bound to talk only about what has been officially revealed? If we know everything about it because it has been publicly revealed, then I should not feel bound not to talk about it. If instead I feel bound by an official revelation, then this means that not everything has been said, in the whole sense of the word. Let’s examine again the words of Archbishop Capovilla: “No, look, also to avoid any imprecision, since it has been revealed officially …” What imprecisions could have anything to do with what has been revealed officially? Maybe these “imprecisions”, when using the language style of the Roman Curia, which is a diplomatic way of speaking, mean instead the “discrepancies” that could emerge between his testimony and the official version? This would be like saying that the official version is wrong!

Archbishop Capovilla continued: “Also to avoid any imprecision, since it has been revealed officially, I will limit myself to what has been said… Even if I should know something else…”; and when saying these last words he smiled openly. But what were these “other things”? Is there something more then? He continued, “Even if I should know something else… I must limit myself to what is said in the official documents…” The logical meaning of this last sentence is that there is something more besides what has been officially revealed, no matter what you think these “other things” might be or look like...

...Going on with Archbishop Capovilla, he then said to me: “You write the questions and send them to me, and I will answer them. I will search through my documents, if I still have them, because, you know, I donated everything to the museum… and I will send you something I have, maybe a phrase…”; and when he said this he smiled, like he did when he said “even if I should know something else”. His expression was evident, his face was clear, by looking at him there were no doubts what he was thinking of. “You write to me…”

Before leaving him, I asked Archbishop Capovilla whether he had any reservation or request that I keep everything he said to me as confidential and reserved, just as a private conversation to help a Fatima researcher like me in his own studies, but not to be published or the source of it to be publicly revealed. But he replied that it was fine, that I could print or use it as I wished, and so I did, and in doing that I was totally loyal to him.

Once back home, I sent the written questions to Archbishop Capovilla, as agreed, and on July 18^th he sent me back a small package...
...there were [...] interesting details in the answers he sent me by mail. All the documents sent to me by Archbishop Capovilla I have forwarded to Mr. Socci, who used them in his book. And among those documents there was one in particular, even if not the only one, which got my attention. Archbishop Capovilla sent me his reserved notes dated May 17, 1967 — 40 years ago, so very close to the facts we are discussing today, when Mons. Capovilla was quite young. Those documents had his seal on them, his personal bishop’s seal; it was a very detailed and precise document, written by his own hand and containing dates, events and locations.

In these reserved notes, he certifies that Pope Paul VI read the Secret in the afternoon of Thursday, June 27, 1963, and that this Secret was held in the Papal apartments, and specifically in a drawer of the desk called “Barbarigo”, in the actual bedroom of the Pope. Meanwhile the official document published by the Vatican in the year 2000, entitled “The Message of Fatima”, stated that Pope Paul VI read the Third Secret, together with Cardinal Angelo dell’Acqua, on March 27, 1965, and sent back the envelope to the archives of the Holy Office, with the decision of not publishing it.

What a discrepancy we have here! Archbishop Capovilla says that Pope Paul VI read it in the afternoon of June 27, 1963, while the official document published by the Vatican says that he read it on March 27, 1965! Two different dates! But there’s more: two different locations in which the Third Secret was being kept! According to the booklet “The Message of Fatima”, the Third Secret had been kept at the Holy Office archives, taken from there and given to Pope Paul VI just to read it, and then brought back to the archives. In the secret notes of Archbishop Capovilla, instead, we read that Pope Paul VI didn’t get the Secret from the Holy See archives, but he took it out of the desk of his own apartment, where the document was being held since the very beginning; while the Vatican booklet states that Pope Paul VI sent it back to the Holy See Archives. There are therefore huge discrepancies of dates and locations! It is the same discrepancy that will happen also with John Paul II, both for dates and locations of when and where he read the Third Secret.

In an interview with the Italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana, in fact, Cardinal Bertone has recently said that the theory of the Secret being held in the Pope’s apartments was just pure fabrication, a lie. But then, Your Eminence, if these are all fantasies, then Archbishop Capovilla has lied to me! He must have forged an official document 40 years ago! We will get back to this point later, but I just want to specify that Archbishop Capovilla already talked about this thing, but now it is proved by written documents, detailed and original.

I immediately called Archbishop Capovilla, thanking him for his quick answers to my questions, and I spoke to him about this incredible discrepancy. He answered saying, “Well, but I spoke the truth, I’m still lucid, you know?!” So I said, “Of course, Excellency, but how do you explain this certified discrepancy?” He then started to talk about something else, but I asked him again: “All right, Excellency, but I am referring to an official written document of the Vatican, which is obviously based on archive documents!” So he answered, “But I justify…” As if to say, we both tell the truth, me and Cardinal Bertone — this was the sense of his reply!

And then he continued with this telling phrase: “Maybe the Bertone package was not the same as the Capovilla package!” — meaning the envelope and the text that Cardinal Bertone speaks of is not the same as the one Capovilla speaks about! So I immediately interrupted him and asked: “So both dates are true because of the Third Secret there are two texts?” He remained silent for a while, a brief and telling pause; it was evident that Archbishop Capovilla was thinking about it, so his answer was well reflected upon and thought about, it was not a rushed reply. After that pause of silence, the Archbishop answered me this way: “Per l’appunto”, which in Italian means “Precisely so”, “It is as you said”!!!

After this shocking statement I obviously tried to get more information from him, but Archbishop Capovilla interrupted me and said, “Please, let it go; we have got the Gospel, let us think about the Gospel…” It was a diplomatic answer, obviously, to say “Stop, I cannot say anything more.” And this is quite revealing of how he thinks, which is quite common in the Vatican, that the Third Secret is just simply a private revelation, something for fanatics, something that does not pose any obligation on anyone, at all, something that you can believe or not, something you can just ignore if you choose. They think this way because, according to them, we don’t even know what comes from Our Lady and what comes from Sister Lucy, it’s not an important thing, etc.

This answer of his, therefore, made me think that he was trying to get away from a difficult situation, but also made me think that he maybe didn’t consider the Message as authentically supernatural. It is probably due to considerations like the one expressed by Archbishop Capovilla that a certain Party Line has been followed about Fatima.
(See the full text here)

So we can see that during this interview, factually speaking, Archbishop Capovilla did indeed not tell Solideo Paolini that there were two texts of the Third Secret. Rather he presented him with sufficient evidence to allow him to deduce these conclusions for himself. And we can clearly see that the same deftness of diplomatic sensitivity was used in this most recent interview with CNS. Yet the timing of these revelations, just before the the anniversary of the first apparitions on 13th May 1917, gives us reason to ponder as to why this elderly Archbishop would wish to venture into this spiritual minefield yet again. By doing so, he clearly intends to draw attention to this subject once again as an ongoing unresolved affair.
Capovilla then goes on to reaffirm the validity of the text released in the year 2000, but cannot resist to add that there may be another text related to Fatima which is still being kept hidden.
His statement that he would not be able to fully reconstruct the secret which he first read in 1959 is rather telling, since officially speaking, this material has been in the public domain since the year 2000. The implication here is that there is some element to the Third Secret that is not on the official records, and the fact that he states that it would require memory to access the information at hand, suggests that the text he is referring to is presently inaccessible to the public, and was only available to himself through the faculty of memory. Rather teasingly, he then goes on to state that he can't deny that there may be something else, and then includes the familiar sounding words "but I don't know it". This phrase sounds remarkably similar to the the Italian idiom "Nulla so" highlighted by Paolini Solideo and Antonio Socci:

As an answer to my question regarding the existence of an unpublished text of the Third Secret, Archbishop Capovilla wrote these two clear words, written in a good and readable handwriting “Nulla so” — “Nothing I know”!
Now, it is strange in itself that one of the very few living people who know the Third Secret, in answering my questions, says that he doesn’t know if there is anything else unpublished, because if the so-called fourth secret — an expression used by Italian media to ironically call the unpublished part of the Third Secret — does not exist, well he should be the first to know, because he read it in the summer of 1959; so he should not have told me that “he doesn’t know about it”! Instead, he should have said something like “no, it’s everything, there is nothing else”. Saying he doesn’t know anything about it sounds strange in itself, but actually, instead, is quite clear: he knows it very well, he just doesn’t want to talk about it!

Moreover, the expression “Nulla so”, “Nothing I know”, does not exist in Italian. It only exists as an idiomatic and dialectal sentence used in Sicily. In Sicily, there are entire cities or areas under control of the Mafia, the well known criminal organization. If someone speaks to the police about them, they get killed. Therefore the locals are afraid of talking about Mafiosi, and when the police ask them about the hideouts of those criminals, they answer with that expression “Nulla so”, “Nothing I know”, which truly means “I know where they are, but I cannot speak because otherwise they will kill me.” The expression, therefore, means “I cannot talk.”

I don’t want to personally offend anyone with this example, but it was Archbishop Capovilla who used such an expression, as I said; and as Mr. Socci has carefully reported in his book, Capovilla said that to clearly and ironically evoke the so-called “omerta’ siciliana”, the “Sicilian code of Silence”. This code of silence is needed when you must keep something hidden. So that’s why Archbishop Capovilla used that expression, ironically, as a joke, which brings us back to what we said at the beginning: He was not able to speak openly about it!

Another telling piece of information can be found in Capovilla's statement that he wouldn't be able to "reconstruct the secret fully" from memory, which implicitly suggests that there is some element to the secret not commonly available. Surely Archbishop Capovilla would not have to be able to reconstruct the secret from memory if it was already freely accessible to everyone after the Vatican
published it in the year 2000.
In my next post, I will detail how there appears to be yet more evidence to explain why this so-called "hidden text" of the Third Secret may have been suppressed by the Church. Evidence which concurs with my suggestion that the "hidden text" may have explicitly mentioned the turn of the millennium, and which was perceived to have failed to materialise at the appointed time by the Church hierarchy (hence Capovilla's reservations that the text in question may have been a figment of Sr Lucia's imagination). As I suggest in the book (as well as the earlier post The "Fourth" Secret of Fatima), the real reason that this hidden portion of the Third Secret was suppressed was because it specifically mentioned an exact date. I argue that this "hidden text" highlighted the turn of the millennium as a prophetic turning point - as the time when Satan would be cast from his adversarial role in the heavenly court to be confined to the earthly sphere, after his hundred years of power. Yet because none of the Signs in the Sky given at this time to indicate the opening of the sixth seal were recognised by the appropriate authorities, it seems that the fulfilment of this prophecy has been greatly overlooked.