John 333: So now any disobedience from one's superiors is to be applauded? That any priest who has been suspended for refusing to submit to a lawful order is a hero? That Canon Law is no longer of any consequence? Do you not see where Fr. Gruner has led you? All your arguments that you use in support of an "invalid" 1984 consecration, a fake Lucia, a fraudulent or incomplete Third Secret, all stem, all originate from Fr. Gruner himself. He is the author of them. As for the promised peace - I grew up in the seventies/eighties. I remember clearly the tense atmosphere, the talk of a third world war - a nuclear war. I remember studying at college the rise of communism and the game plan of the soviets to turn the rest of the world into a totalitarian, Satanic Soviet Kingdom. I remember clearly the nuns throwing away their habits and the priests jumping out of boxes dressed as clowns. And although a child, I could see with my own eyes the world and the Church headed hand-in-hand over the cliff dressed in corduroy brown. Then, suddenly, in the mid-eighties, it all grinded to a halt: Tradition was re-born. The Communist government of Russia collapsed. The threat of Nuclear war dispersed. And the devotion of the Two Hearts began to flourish in vibrant colours. Everyone here needs to study what it like in Russia pre-1984.

john333: Canon Law stands. And in the days of Our Lord, He too obeyed the law. Even to the point of death. By your reasoning any priest anywhere can tell their bishops to go jump and refuse to do anything that doesn't suit them. That's called chaos. And it is the fruit of the heresy labelled Modernism. What do you think modernism is? In broad strokes it is characterized by a deliberate break with tradition, a focus on an individual's subjective perception over objective truth, and in the words Of St. Pius IX, a compilation - a Syllabus of Errors - of all the past heresies in history.

How can you be obedient to the disobedient? Well, in regards to Fr. Gruner, you certainly don't seem to have a problem.

Carol H I fought our Bishop over the miss use of general absolution and won if I took your advice?
St Paul confronted St Peter . The Bishops today embrace the Winnipeg Statement they crossed the line blind leading the blind. Wolves have entered the flock discased as shepherds.
Obedience lies in the true Catholic teaching sacred tradition the faith of our fathers
We live in the time of the great apostasy stop being blind to reality we are in.
The Church has some 40 antipopes in its history what do you think I base my faith in on All legitimate Popes of the last 2000 years I didn't leave the church Vatican II did its a different religion

john333: We are talking about LAWFUL obedience. We are not talking about obeying a directive against faith or morals. When a bishop acts within the realms of Canon Law, we as subjects to that law, are obliged to obey. Fr. Gruner's superiors had every right to to demand that he return to his place of incardination or accept a place of incardination in the area of his residency. No priest is allowed to be a vagabond priest. It is considered equivalent to deserting the church to which they had been attached.

Carol H The bishops are in apostasy they lost the juridical rights its like obeying Anglican Bishop
Novus Odor is not Catholic Just like Opus Dei excommunicated itself when allowing communist to join their ranks when belonging to communism party was automatic excommunication

The Bishop 0f the 1960s broke their oath against heresy of modernism auto excommunication

So the gates of hell have prevailed? Christ lied? I don't think so. What ever you may feel about the current situation of our Church, you as a Catholic are obliged to do your Catholic duty and respect the laws "of the realm" as far as you are able without compromising your faith or morals as according to Canon Law and traditional values. Otherwise you are no better than "the modernists" you accuse. Even if the Holy Father betrays his ship, we do not. We hold the line. Because as traditional minded Catholics, who, for whatever reason, have been allowed to see what is happening - we are, if we maintain our position, the solution in holding the Church together. That is the grace won by devotion to the Immaculate Heart. That is the grace - I personally believe - was granted by Our Lady in 1984: the birth of the Traditionalist movement. "Upon this rock I will build my Church". Don't you see, the Church of Christ is where the Papacy is. And the anti-Christs know it. Our enemy's biggest victory is to get us Catholics to reject the Papacy; to reject the authority of Rome. Yes, it's like treading through a mine-field at times- but that is why Canon Law and traditional doctrine is so necessary; it keeps us from separating ourselves from our beloved Church while maneuvering around clergy blinded by modernist thinking. That is our cross at this moment in time.

I do not think that the modernist interpretation of Vatican II is Catholic. Far from it. I think we all understand that Vatican II was hijacked with "time-bombs" implanted by highly liberal and suspect clergy. But that has absolutely no bearing on our duty as a Catholic. We DO NOT become one of them. We carry on as we have always done. We keep the laws as we have always done. We follow tradition as we have always done. If are faced with a situation where obedience to hierarchy and those most Catholic practices conflict, then, yes - and only then - do we respectively resist. Martin Luther used to be a Catholic monk. But then, he decided that the Pope was an anti-Christ, Rome was Babylon, Canon Law no longer applied and overnight ignited the Protestant movement. His initial concerns were legitimate. However, he set himself up over the magisterium of the Church as judge and jury. It was not his place. And in rejecting the authority of the Papacy, he rejected the Church for the two are one. It's Christ's Church. He built it upon the Papacy. He built it as a hierarchy governed by a set of laws. If the voice of the Church, in its lawful capacity, declares that the 1984 consecration was accepted, that the Third Secret (which did NOT have to be published - it was meant for the Pope) is complete, then we as loyal subjects are obliged to accept this. If we have personal doubt, then we should throw all that energy into becoming a "Blue Army soldier" and promoting the beautiful Fatima message. Our Lady said that the means to peace and salvation of souls was the Consecration of Russia AND the Five first Saturdays devotion.

To conclude: The net result of Fr. Gruner's personal apostolate has been to sow confusion and dissention among the Blue Army, to have Catholics turning against the legitimate voice of the Church and to have the Catholic faithful fighting over Our Lady's peace plan. Such fruits are not from God.

john333: I was comparing your concerns, and your reaction to them, to the way Martin Luther reacted. His concern over the abuse of indulgences was legitimate - we had a Medici pope at the time who was lax and corrupt - however his total rebellion against the pope's authority propelled the protestant movement. As for the Blue Army - you ought to wash your mouth out with soup - read their history. Their founder was saintly, and the work they did spreading the faith and the message of Fatima was phenomenal. Your thinking has been wrecked by Fr. Gruner, who was a newly ordained vagabond priest who set up his "apostolate" AGAINST the Blue Army - without permission, without a mandate, without even the common courtesy of informing the local bishop whose diocese he was residing in. From the get-go his fruits were bad. And they only got worse. By the 1990's he was suspended from his priestly functions for game-playing and blatant disobedience. This suspension was definitively upheld by the Vatican in September 2001: "The Congregation for the Clergy, upon the mandate from a higher authority, wishes to state that Rev. Nicholas Gruner is under an 'a divinis' suspension, which has been confirmed by a definitive sentence of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature." What is a modernist but someone who interprets the law of the Church subjectively. Pope John Paul II may have been guilty of this too but there is no doubt that as a Slavic Pope, Our Lady chose him to fulfill the required consecration started by Pius XII. You need to detox your poisonous mind and take a fresh look at history :)

Sr. Lucia is reported as having said that Portugal's keeping the dogma of the Fatih was dependent upon its rejection of abortion. Well, sad to say, Portugal has collapsed in that regard and has become like so many other nations - choosing to legitimate the killing of the unborn. Very sad! I agree the new basilica is an abomination - along with many other abominations that have transpired there. It is in many respects ground zero for the attacks of the devil against the Faith - too many to enumerate here! Good point - glad you raised it!

I cannot state whether Portugal has kept the dogma of faith or not, nor, I suspect, can any other Gloria reader./blogger. What I can state with certainty is that the rest of the Catholic world demonstrates little enthusiasm for Fatima and its heavenly messages. Such a situation has nothing to do with a liking or disliking of an architecture edifice. but more to do with the under mining of the original messages of OBL by those purporting to be experts on the subject. May their souls rest in peace and with the knowledge of Eternal Truth!

Alex A: I would agree. Having studied the unfolding of Fatima, and the official documents and Sr. Lucia's memoirs, I too began to see a definite shift away from the original message. By 1984, this shift had narrowed into a tunnel-vision focus on "the consecration" without consideration for historical events, the voice of Sr. Lucia, or the original documents. From the outset, Fatima was designed by heaven to work with the Papacy; even the vision of the "Third Secret" revolved around the Holy Father. Then, in the very year, that the communist Fabian Society had pledged to have destroyed the ruling power of Rome by (they gave themselves 100 years: 1884 -1984), Pope John Paul II, in response to his near assassination by the KGB in 1981, formally and publically consecrated Russia in union with the bishops of the world. This was his specific, clear-cut intention. When Sr. Lucia was asked whether heaven had finally accepted, Sr. Lucia said YES. Several later interviews, including one video-taped in 1993, confirmed this. Of course, we know it was done late; the errors of Russia had already spread - even infiltrating the Vatican itself. But not even KGB agents can stop Our Lady's Triumph. The Fabians failed. The universal take over by Soviet Russia failed. The Communist hold on Russia failed. And while these KGB agents continued in frenzy on their course to divide and destroy and undermine the Church, their former power was checked and in it place the traditional movement told hold and blossomed. Everything about Pope John Paul II had destined him to be Pope who would fulfil Our Lady's requests: that story is for another time :)

Regarding this link: An ardent supporter says he is not suspended. The Vatican says he is. Hmmm, I think Church authority wins on this one.

Within months of being ordained, Fr. Gruner set himself up from the get go to defy and side-step his superiors. The games that were played are mind boggling. Yes, he had permission to reside outside his place of incardination but on the condition he was accepted for incardination elsewhere. Not only is there no evidence of him attempting to be incardinated, within weeks of arriving in Ottawa he took charge of an apostolate without a mandate (or even the courtesy of approaching the local bishop), and put himself forward as director of the Fatima pilgrim statue. After much dissention between himself and his superiors, the local bishop finally offered him incardination with the lawful understanding that he submit himself to the authority of the bishop, accept a post within the diocese, and give up his private work. Fr. Gruner point blank refused. As a consequence he was recalled back to his place of incardination back in Italy to which he also point blank refused - claiming that he had permission to be in Canada; the underlying condition attached to that "permission" conveniently ignored.

Cardinal Innocenti, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, then wrote to warn him that failure to return would result in his suspension a divinis. When he still refused, the new Bishop of Avellino, Italy (1994) issued a decree declaring Gruner a vagus ("wandering") priest. This was followed (1996) by a suspension of his priestly functions. He appealed the suspension, but was unsuccessful: "The Congregation for the Clergy, upon the mandate from a higher authority, wishes to state that Rev. Nicholas Gruner is under an 'a divinis' suspension, which has been confirmed by a definitive sentence of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature."

In short, Fr. Nicholas Gruner is suspended a divinis. According to canon 1333 §1, "Suspension, which can affect only clerics, prohibits: 1° all or some of the acts of the power of order; 2° all or some of the acts of the power of governance; [and] 3° the exercise of all or some of the rights or functions attaching to an office." Regardless of who initially imposed or declared the suspension against Fr. Gruner, the Apostolic Signatura upheld this penal sanction.

If you study the long history of Fr. Gruner, you can clearly see the Fatima was used by him as an excuse to rebel and do his own thing. From the moment he was ordained, he launched himself as a lone-ranger whose personal apostolate morphed into an consistent and unrelenting attack on Rome and all the other well established Fatima apostolates such as The Blue Army.

Also, those who have stood up for the authentic contents of the 3rd Secret have been opposed by the power structure of the Church due to the contents of the 3rd Secret. Fr. David Nix's recent video linked above talks about the authentic contents of the 3rd Secret - which warns of the failure of the hierarchy to stand up for the dogmas of the Catholic Faith. Pope Benedict XVI admitted to his former professor and friend, Dr. Ingo Dollinger, that the contents released in 2000 by the Vatican did not contain the true content of the 3rd Secret. He told Fr. Dollinger that Our Lady had warned about "an evil Council and changes in the Mass/liturgy." This is reminiscent of what Pope Pius XII had said about his stress over what he had read in the 3rd Secret - which regarded the suicide of altering the Faith -
“I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith in her liturgy...”
...Pius XII Devant L’Histoire

Dr. Maria: I have listened to Fr. David Nix's video. Again, his arguments are simply a re-hash of Fr. Gruner's fabrications, however I will address them one-by-one:

(1) Our Lady asked for Russia to be consecrated. She never said that Russia had to be mentioned for the consecration to be valid. Everyone knew this was the Pope's implicit intention. Moreover, Pope Pius XII mentioned Russia; Pope John Paul II simply completed his incomplete consecration by ensuring that all the bishops of the world had been invited to join him.

(2) Sister Lucia confirmed the consecration’s authenticity in writing, including letters dated Aug. 29, 1989, July 3, 1990, and Nov. 21, 1999:

In the Aug. 29, 1989, letter, addressed to Sister Mary of Bethlehem, Lucia stated that John Paul II “made the consecration in the way in which the Blessed Virgin had wished that it should be made. Afterward people asked me if it was made in the way Our Lady wanted, and I replied: ‘Yes.’ From that time, it is made!”

Lucia’s July 3, 1990, letter was sent to Father Robert J. Fox, of the Fatima Family Apostolate, in which she stated unequivocally: “I come to answer your question, ‘If the consecration made by Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1984, in union with all the bishops of the world, accomplished the conditions for the consecration of Russia according to the request of Our Lady in Tuy on June 13 of 1929?’ Yes, it was accomplished, and since then I have said that it was made. And I say that no other person responds for me; it is I who receive and open all letters and respond to them.”

In 1992 and 1993, Sr. Lucia also reaffirmed clearly and firmly that the 1984 consecration had been accepted by heaven in two interviews with a cardinal; one of which was video-taped.

Lucia also verbally affirmed the authenticity to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. In 2008, as the then-Vatican secretary of state and highest-ranking Church official, Cardinal Bertone put everything on the record in his crucial book, The Last Secret of Fatima. He said there, “The Act of Entrustment was entirely in accord with what the Blessed Mother had asked for.” He shared Lucia’s affirmation: “Sister Lucia personally confirmed that this solemn consecration of the whole world satisfied Mary’s wishes.” He quoted her directly: “Yes, it has been performed, as Our Lady requested, on March 25, 1984.” She told him that “the consecration Our Lady wished for was performed in 1984 … it was accepted by Heaven.” He further attested: “Lucia confirmed Mary’s satisfaction in a letter she sent to the pope on November 8, 1989” — the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The matter is closed. All other arguments are invalid. All other people's personal take on the issue is irrelevant. Sr. Lucia, Our Lady's messenger, has affirmed numerous times over, that the 1984 consecration pleased Our Lady.

(3) The Third Secret: Fr. Nix uses the words "... which I believe is a fake third secret...". This is not an argument. It is an opinion. Also, Our Lady NEVER said that she wanted the Pope to publically release the third secret by 1960. Again, this is a Fr. Gruner fabrication. I challenge anyone to provide authentic documentation in which Our Lady says this. Thus, to accuse Pope John XXIII of "double-disobedience" because (a) he opened it in 1959 and (b) chose not to publicize it, is unjust to say the least. 1960 was the suggestive date. It was not a direct command. The third Secret was not meant for publication; it was meant for the Pope. Sister Lucia's memoirs make this clear. Her interviews make this clear.

(4) Regarding the content of the Third Secret: The Second Secret contains the following words: "When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its sins, by means of war, famine, and persecutions against the Church and of the Holy Father." Our Lady makes it clear that this will be the punishment for our sins and that only Immaculate Heart of Mary can save us. The third Secret (as released by the Vatican in 2000) is a visual detail of the high-lighted words of the second secret in bold : "....an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand (symbolic of justice); ... looked as though (it) would set the world on fire (war and persecution) ...the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!’...we saw...like in a mirror (a reflection) a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain...the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins (Rome) ... he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions..."

The vision was clearly conveying to the Holy Father the fate that awaited him and all his religious brothers and sisters in Rome and worldwide, if he did not turn to the Immaculate Heart. It was a warning (symbolized by the 'looking glass' imagery). A direct warning for the Holy father; a "future" that could be changed through trust and devotion to Our Mother's heart...

This is supported by Pope John Paul's words in 1980 (Fulda, Germany) interview for the German magazine Stimme des Glaubens published in October 1981, John Paul II was asked explicitly to speak about the third secret. He refused stating: "Because of the seriousness of its contents, in order not to encourage the world wide power of Communism to carry out certain coups..."

"Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels, each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.” This is NOT theologically unsound as Fr. Nix suggests. It stems from very traditional theology: the union of the blood of Christ (grace and mercy) with the blood of martyrs; the seeds of the future crop of Christians.

(5) Last point: the length of the Third Secret: none of us outside a chosen few, knew, prior 2000, exactly how long the Third Secret is. Fr. Ottaviani held it up to light and said he thought "25 lines". But he did not see it directly and there is every possibility that the four thin pages were folded in half.

Thus we come finally to the third part of the "secret" of Fatima, which for the first time is being published in it's entirety. ~ As is clear from the documentation presented here, the interpretation offered by Cardinal Sodano in his statement of 13th May, was first put personally to Sister Lucia., who responded by pointing out that she had received the vision but not it's interpretation. The interpretation, she said, belonged not to the visionary but to the Church.
"To save souls" has emerged as the key word of the first and second parts of the "secret", and the key word of this third part is the threefold cry: "Penance, Penance, Penance!" ~ The beginning of the Gospel comes to mind: "Repent and believe the Good News"(Mk 1:15). ~ To understand the signs of the times means to accept the urgency of penance - of conversion - of faith. ~ This is the correct response to this moment of history, characterized by the grave perils outlined in the images that follow. ~ Allow me to add here a personal recollection: in a conversation with me, Sister Lucia said that it appeared ever more clearly to her that the purpose of all the apparitions was to help people to grow more and more in faith, hope and love - everything else was intended to lead to this.
~ Let us now examine more closely the single images. The angel with the flaming sword on the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images in the Book of Revelation. This represents the threat of judgement which looms over the world. Today the prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes by a sea of fire no longer seems pure fantasy: man himself, with his inventions, has forged the flaming sword. The vision then shows the power which stands opposed to the force of destruction - the splendour of the Mother of God and, stemming from this in a certain way, the summons to penance. ~ In this way, the importance of human freedom is underlined: the future is not in fact unchangeably set, and the image which the children saw is in no way a film preview of a future in which nothing can be changed. ~ Indeed, the whole point of the vision is to bring freedom onto the scene and to steer freedom in a positive direction. ~ The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. It's meaning is exactly the opposite: It is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the "secret", such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13th May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. ~ Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them. When after the attempted assassination on 13th May 1981, the Holy Father had the text of the third part of the "secret" brought to him, was it not inevitable that he should see in it his own fate? ~ He had been very close to death, and he himself explained his survival in the following words: "... it was a mother's hand that guided the bullet's path and in his throes the Pope halted at the threshold of death" (13 May 1994). That here "a mother's hand" had deflected the fateful bullet only shows once more that there is no immutable destiny, that faith and prayer are forces which can influence history and that in the end prayer is more powerful than bullets and faith more powerful than armies. ~
And so we come to the final question: What is the meaning of the "secret" of Fatima as a whole (in it's three parts)? What does it say to us? First of all we must affirm with Cardinal Sodano: "...The events which the third part of the "secret" of Fatima refers, now seem part of the past". In so far as individual events are described, they belong to the past. Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. ~ Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. ~ What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the "secret": the exhortation to prayer as the path of "salvation for souls" and likewise, the summons to penance and conversion. ~
I would like finally to mention another key expression of the "secret" which has become justly famous: "My Immaculate Heart will triumph". ~ What does this mean? The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of Her Heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world - because, thanks to Her 'Yes', God could become man in our world and remains so for all time. The evil one has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God Himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: "In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise.

~ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Taken from Fatima In Lucia's own words. (Sr. Lucia's Memoirs.
Sept. 2004. Pages 228 - 229 - 231 - 232 and 233.

Imprimatur,
Fatima, June 2003.
Episc. Leir - Fatimensis.