Ratzinger’s mariology in the Third Secret of Fátima

Mariology of Ratzinger: A Key Reading of the Third Secret of FátimaThe mariology of Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, offers one of the most influential interpretations of the third secret of Fátima. This mariology of Ratzinger does not reduce the Marian apparitions to sensationalism, but situates them within the horizon of ecclesial faith and the mystery of the Cross.The third part of the secret revealed on July 13, 1917, in the cave of FátimaI write in obedience to You, my God, who commands me through His Holiness the Apostolic Bishop of Leiria and through Your Holiness and my Most Holy Mother.After the two parts already expounded, we saw on the left side of Our Lady, a little higher, an Angel with a sword of fire in his left hand. The blade, as it gleamed, sent forth flames that seemed to set the world on fire. But they were extinguished by the radiance that emanated from Our Lady’s right hand towards him: the Angel pointing with his right hand towards the earth, with a loud voice he said: “Repentance, Repentance, Repentance!” And we saw in a brilliant light that is God: “something similar to what one sees in a mirror when a person passes in front of it” a Bishop dressed in white “we had the feeling that it was the Holy Father.” Several other Bishops, priests, religious and nuns ascended a steep mountain, at the top of which was a large cross made of rough logs, as if of overy. The Holy Father, before reaching that point, passed through a great city half in ruins, and with a trembling gait, weighed down by sorrow and pain, he was praying for the souls of the bodies he encountered along the way. Once at the top of the mountain, prostrated on his knees before the great cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who shot and wounded him with arrows, and thus one after another, the Bishops, priests, religious and nuns, and various laypeople, knights and ladies of different classes and positions, died. Under the two arms of the cross, there were two Angels, each holding a crystal sprinkler in their hand, in which they collected the blood of the martyrs and with it watered the souls approaching God.Sister Lúcia Tuy, January 3, 1944On June 26, 2000, the Vatican Press Office was as rarely filled with journalists from all over the world. A media overreaction, understandable because of the third secret of Fátima.

The revelation of the third part of the Secret of Fátima was entrusted by Pope John Paul II to Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This revelation quells sensationalism and easy alarmism, leaving some disappointed, others satisfied, and many indifferent.

The disappointed remain those who expected announcements of universal catastrophes and catastrophic evils.

Those who lived the secret as a nightmare from which they are finally freed declare themselves satisfied.

Indifferent are those who claim that the Gospel already contains everything necessary for the salvation of individuals and the world, possibly falling into the biblical reproach directed at those who show insensitivity to visions and prophecies.

“And the Lord warned Israel and Judah, through the ministry of all the prophets and all the seers, saying: Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through my servants, the prophets.”

As a true theologian, Cardinal Ratzinger distinguished the two levels of revelation, affirming the absolute primacy of the definitive, public, and necessary revelation that occurred once and for all in Christ, while other celestial communications have a subsidiary function: “The authority of private revelations is essentially different from the unique public revelation,” but “private revelations are an aid to this faith, and are credible precisely because they refer me to the unique public revelation.”

In what is called “an attempt at interpretation of the ‘secret’ of Fátima,” the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith indicates that this may constitute “a path to salvation,” something as surprising as “devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”It essentially consists in a fundamental option that, following in Mary’s footsteps, places “the availability to God’s will” at the core of the human self.To understand this, a brief explanation may suffice. “Heart” in biblical language refers to the center of human existence, the convergence of reason, will, temperament, and sensitivity, where the person finds their unity and inner direction.The “Immaculate Heart” is, according to Mt 5:8, a heart that, starting from God, has achieved perfect inner unity and, therefore, “sees God.”“Devotion” to the Immaculate Heart of Mary approximates this heart attitude, in which the “fiat,” “be it done to your will,” becomes the informing center of all existence.Continuing the analysis, the cardinal understands that, just as the keyword of the first and second parts of the “secret” is saving souls, the keyword of the third part is the triple cry: “Penance, Penance, Penance!”This cry must be situated in the current historical moment, characterized by great dangers that will be presented in the following images. Here the luminous figure of Mary appears as an effective antidote against the pernicious necrophilic trends in the world.Now let us examine more closely the individual images. The angel with the sword of fire to the left of the Mother of God recalls similar images from the Apocalypse. It represents the threat of judgment hanging over the world. The prospect that the world might be reduced to ashes in a sea of fire is no longer a pure fantasy. Human military capability has prepared the sword of fire with its inventions.The vision then shows the force that opposes the power of destruction: the splendor of the Mother of God, and, in a way stemming from this, the call to penance.There is a frontal clash between the forces of death, represented by the fire sword that seeks to incinerate the cosmos, and the pulsations of life, condensed paradigmatically in the “glory of the Mother of God.” The return to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is as inevitable as beneficial: all is resolved with an appeal to human freedom to decisively orient itself towards divine will “in a positive direction,” towards salvation and life, and not towards destruction and death.The importance of human freedom is thus emphasized. The future is not immutably determined, and the image the children saw is not a predictive movie from which nothing could be changed. The whole vision aims to bring freedom to the forefront and transform it into a positive direction. The meaning of the vision is not to show a movie about an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: to mobilize the forces of change for good. Salvation is rooted in a genuine anthropology, where fatalism is replaced by responsibility and commitment, capable of changing the human face and the course of history.Regarding the identity of the “White Bishop,” the Cardinal states:> “In his weary climb up the mountain, we can undoubtedly find several Popes summoned, from Pius X to the current Pope, who shared the sufferings of this century and strived to continue among them on the path leading to the cross. In the vision, the Pope is also killed on the path of the martyrs. It was not supposed that the Holy Father recognized in him his own fate when he was given the text of the third part of the Secret, after the May 13, 1981 assassination attempt.”However, if it is true that the “Third Secret” refers to Christian martyrs and Popes of the 20th century, we cannot exclude that the period of time it encompasses does not limit itself to the last century. It was Pope Benedict XVI who defended the possibility that it also includes the present and future, when he precisely stated in Fátima: “Those who think that the prophetic mission of Fátima is complete would be mistaken, for the Secret, beyond this great vision of the Pope’s suffering, which we can refer to first and foremost Pope John Paul II, indicates future realities of the Church that gradually unfold and reveal themselves” (Fátima, May 11, 2010).Ratzinger concludes the interpretation with this paragraph: “I would like, once more, to take another keyword from the Secret that has become famous: ‘My Immaculate Heart will triumph’. What does this mean? It means that this Heart opened to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns or any other weapon. Mary’s ‘fiat’, the word of her Heart, changed history, because it introduced the Savior into the world. Thanks to ‘yes’ said by Mary, God could become man among us and this remains forever. We see and experience continuously that evil has power in the world. It has power because our freedom is continually being diverted from God. But since God has had a human heart and thus oriented human freedom towards good, towards God, the freedom for evil no longer has the final word. What holds since then is expressed in this sentence: ‘In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart! I have conquered the world’ (Jn 16:33). The message of Fátima invites us to trust in this promise.”To deepen mariology and the Third Secret of Fátima, consult the encyclical *Redemptoris Mater* by John Paul II, on Mary and her escatological role in the history of the Church.Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian theology, Marian apparitions, and the Graduate Program in Mariology.Ratzinger’s mariology views Fatima as a prophetic sign of the Church’s passion in the 20th century. Deepening Ratzinger’s mariology is to rediscover Mary as a disciple who sustains the Church in trial. Read more about the official commentary in the document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: The Message of Fatima.