Bertone on TV - Socci Responds

Cardinal Bertone's TV Interveiw Raises More Questions about the Third Secret

by John Vennari

Antonio Socci notes
that Cardinal Bertone's
TV appearance actually
strengthens the case
that there is part of the
Secret yet unpublished

On May 31, Cardinal Bertone appeared on Porta a Porta [Door to Door], an evening program on RIA Uno, a nationwide Italian Television station.

The purpose of Cardinal Bertone’s appearance was supposedly to answer the claim that there is still a part of the Third Secret not yet published.

The controversy has received much attention in Italy due to Antonio Socci’s book The Fourth Secret of Fatima, released in November 2006. In this book, Socci concludes, based on substantial evidence, that the entire Third Secret has not yet been revealed.

Socci is a mainstream Italian journalist who, due to his high-profile position in the Italian media, forced the argument about the Secret right to the Vatican’s front door. Italian newspapers throughout the country were abuzz about Socci’s book, and the issue could not be ignored.

Cardinal Bertone, as reported in last month’s CFN, published a book in response entitled The Last Seer of Fatima, released in mid May, 2007, in which he resorted to insults toward Mr. Socci, but never answered any of Socci’s objections — a point that Mr. Socci made against Bertone in a public manner after the prelate’s book was released.

In an attempt to trump Socci, Cardinal Bertone then appeared on the May 31 Porta a Porta that headlined its program “The Fourth Secret of Fatima Does Not Exist”. The Cardinal conducted the on-air conversation through an audio/video hookup from the Vatican.

There were five journalists on the set, two of which were of no use whatsoever, as they appeared to be merely props, and asked either no questions of substance or no questions at all.

Except for one brief instance, the interviewers who did all the talking never asked Bertone difficult questions concerning the Secret. An Italian contact in Rome who saw the program told CFN, “The entire interview was manipulated and organized beforehand so as not to give any problem to Bertone and to his theory. This demonstrates that the Vatican is afraid of a true Question and Answer Session conducted by independent journalists.”

Antonio Socci wasted no time writing a response, which appeared almost immediately in the Italian newspaper Libera and on Socci’s own website. He sub-headlined his piece: “The TV Program ‘Porta a Porta’ had prepared a wide open net for Bertone to score, but he scored against himself!”

Socci points out that even though he — Socci — was the “target” of the program; he was not invited to participate in the on-air questioning of the Cardinal. “Above all”, says Socci, “he avoided my challenges. He didn’t give a single answer.” In fact the Cardinal inadvertently demonstrated that there is still a text of the Secret kept hidden.

1) Where is Pope John XXIII’s phrase?

Cardinal Bertone held up to the camera the envelope that had been opened in 2000 containing the section of the Secret that speaks of a bishop “clothed in white”.

Socci askes,
where is the phrase
of Pope John XXIII
that is supposed to
be on the envelope?

“Yet something that absolutely should have been on these envelopes was actually missing: a phrase of Pope John XXIII”, says Socci. “In fact, Archbishop Capovilla, Secretary of John XXIII, declared in two interviews to Orazio La Rocca (published in Repubblica, June 26, 2000), and to Marco Tosatti (in the book The Secret Not Revealed), that in 1959, when Pope Roncalli read the Third Secret and decided to keep it hidden, he told the same Capovilla to ‘reclose the envelope’ and write on it, ‘I do not express any judgment’ because the message ‘may be a Divine manifestation or may not be’.”

Socci then asks, “So where is the phrase John XXIII wanted? There is no trace of it on the envelopes Bertone showed. Therefore it must be somewhere else. Obviously, it can only be on the envelope containing the ‘Fourth Secret’, whose existence was sensationally confirmed by Capovilla himself to Mr. Solideo Paolini, as I report in my book. Bertone did not give any explanation about the absence of that phrase, and did not reply to what was revealed by Capovilla.”

2) Archbishop Venancio’s Testimony

Socci says that Bertone unintentionally offered even more proof that the Vatican did not reveal all of the Secret in 2000. Bertone “provided the dimensions of the envelope containing the text of the vision ‘9 cm by 14 cm’.” The prelate, says Socci, is evidently unaware of the fact that “since 1982, a document written by Archbishop Venancio, who personally carried the envelope containing the ‘fourth secret’ [from Leiria] to the Nunciature [in Lisbon] to be sent to Rome, is filed in the archives of the Fatima Sanctuary. The bishop wrote down the exact measurements of Sister Lucy’s envelope, which were 12 cm x 18 cm. So according to the official documents, that one was a completely different envelope [from what Bertone measured].

Socci reiterated that Venancio had said the Secret consisted of “a single sheet of paper” containing “25 lines”, as “witnessed by Cardinal Ottaviani and not of 4 pages containing 62 lines as the text of the vision shown by Bertone, who seemed to be ex-tremely embarrassed when Mr. Vespa [the program host] reminded him of Ottaviani’s words: he didn’t know what to answer.”

3) Contradiction: Who Decided 1960?

Cardinal Bertone had interviewed Sister Lucy three times at her Coimbra convent between 2000 and her death in 2005. The Cardinal claims Sister Lucy told him the opening of the Secret in 1960 was her own idea, not that of the Blessed Mother. Yet this was expressly contradicted by the writing that appeared on the envelope Cardinal Bertone held up to the camera.

Mr. Socci explains, “During the program, a phrase personally written by Sister Lucy (on two different envelopes) was shown, and it reads: ‘By the express order of Our Lady, this [envelope] can be opened in 1960 by the Patriarch of Lisbon or by the Bishop of Leiria’. As Sister Lucy declared many times, that date had been indicated by Our Lady Herself. Furthermore, during the program, we see that she had even written it down on paper. And this is exactly the opposite of what Bertone maintained when attributing to her [Lucy] the choice of that date.”

Thus we have written evidence that it was “the express order of Our Lady” that the Secret be opened in 1960, and not merely the idea of Sister Lucy, as the Cardinal claims. (It should be noted that these three interviews, which collectedly lasted about 10 hours, were not recorded in any way. All we have regarding their content is Cardinal Bertone’s testimony).

Annotations of Sister Lucy?

Socci then notes, “If it was Our Lady Who chose the date, then why did She choose 1960? What was happening inside the Church during that year? Roncalli had just convoked the Second Vatican Council. Therefore it is natural to believe — as the Fatima scholars do — that the Secret contained the prophecy regarding a terrible apostasy that followed as a consequence of the Council (which then happened and is still ongoing). This is the reason why Roncalli was frightened, and decided to keep it secret.”

“After all,” says Socci, “the phrase pronounced by Our Lady, which has always been considered as the beginning of the Third Secret (In Portugal, the dogma of Faith will always be preserved, etc.”), leads in that direction. During many hours of private conversation, Bertone always avoided asking Sister Lucy whether she had written a continuation of that phrase or not. And he also avoided explaining its meaning (since these words pronounced by Our Lady obviously cannot stop with a simple “etc.”). In the Vatican document, though, Bertone makes a telling observation. Regarding this phrase, he describes it as ‘some annotations’ of Sister Lucy. Therefore, does he hold then that those words of Our Lady were actually considered as fantasies of Sister Lucy, as insinuated by Roncalli? If it is really so, they would do well to tell us and freely publish these words, as is allowed with all messages of this type (since 1966 Paul VI has liberalized this kind of ‘literature’).”

The Testimony of Archbishop Capovilla Ignored

Socci mentions earlier the important testimony of Archbishop Capovilla. Since the publication of Mr. Socci’s book, I have twice had the opportunity to correspond with Mr. Solideo Paolini, the Italian journalist who interviewed Archbishop Capovilla, who admitted there were two texts. It was Mr. Paolini who supplied this information to Mr. Socci who published it in The Fourth Secret of Fatima.

Archbishop
Capovilla has not
back-tracked on his
testimony that there
are two texts of the
Secret, nor has
Cardinal Bertone
ever answered
Capovilla's claim.

I asked Mr. Paolini to explain why the testimony of Archbishop Capovilla is important.

“Archbishop Loris Francesco Capovilla was the personal Secretary of Pope John XXIII,” responded Mr. Paolini, “the first Pope who opened the envelope containing the Third Secret of Fatima. When Pope John XXIII opened the envelope, Archbishop Capovilla, as his Secretary, was present. After this, taking dictation from Pope John, he wrote on the outside of the envelope the judgment given by John XXIII about the Third Secret, so he is an extraordinarily important witness.”

When asked for a brief summary of his meeting with Archbishop Capovilla, Mr. Paolini recounted:

“I met Archbishop Loris Francesco Capovilla on July 5th 2006 in Sotto il Monte [name of a town] at his house. Since this very first meeting, during our private conversation, he made me implicitly but unequivocally understand something about the existence of two texts, or at least about not revealed things regarding the Third Secret. When I asked him the question [about the Secret], he literally answered: ‘No, look, since it was officially revealed, I must abide by what was declared in the official documents, even if I may know something more’. And at that point, when he said those words ‘even if I may know something more’, he smiled ironically. Since I was there, I was able to see from his gestures that it was clear: there is something more than what was revealed during the Holy Year 2000 [by the Vatican].

“But what Archbishop Capovilla said to me during a phone call is even more a dead giveaway. When he sent me his answers [by mail to questions I had sent to him], I called him on the phone, and he gave me the answer to a question of mine which literally was: ‘So, Excellence, as regards the two dates in which Pope Paul VI (should have) read the Third Secret, March 27, 1965 and June 27, 1965, which are confirmed by different sources, are they both correct be-cause two texts regarding the Third Secret exist?’ I asked him pointblank: he remained silent for a moment, thinking about it, and then he said to me, literally: ‘Precisely so (Per l’appunto)’. This is the most explicit confirmation that anyone could give.”

When I asked Mr. Paolini if Archbishop Capovilla had backtracked on any of his testimony since the publication of Socci’s book, he replied, “Archbishop Capo-villa has not backtracked any of his testimony. There is no text from him, no statement, no interview where he backtracks any of his testimony. This is extremely significant and represents a further re-sounding proof, because it was possible, a priori, that he would deny his testimonies, or that he would be forced by others to do so. The fact that he hasn’t published any denying statement for five months after the publication of that book (and during these months the book caused a lot of turmoil too!) doesn’t need much comment.”

Cardinal Bertone in his book, and in the TV interview Porta a Porta, avoided giving an answer to Capovilla’s testimony. In his book, he simply acknowledged the Archbishop’s words without responding to them, and in the TV program, as Socci said above, Cardinal Bertone “did not reply to what was revealed by Capovilla”.