On July 5, 2026, Spirit Daily linked to the article Holy Mother Apparitions: Reinterpreted from the perspective of the Satanic triumphs of Vatican II.[1] The author is known by the avatar name “Filemonas.”[2] The raison d’etre of the article is to discuss Fátima with a light reference to the 17th century apparitions of Our Lady of Buen Suceso (Quito, Ecuador). There are some problems with this article that need clarifying and I would like to do so here.
Filemonas opens HMA with mention of Quito and some of its highlights.[3] Worthy of attention is Filemonas’ mention (among others) about Our Lady foretelling “a reign of Satan through Masonic sects” as well as the “great immorality and a loss of faith” in the 19th and 20th centuries.[4] Such mentions at the outset are easily sensationalized, especially when such a discussion involves Fátima. There is already much talk about apostasy in relation to Fátima, about which I covered in my book (chapter 9).[5] While comparisons between Fátima and Quito can be made, doing so requires the hand of a skilled surgeon.
The second paragraph contains two inaccuracies. The first is the claim that “in 1916 . . . the Holy Mother appeared to three small children . . . in Fatima, Portugal.” Here, Filemonas gives an incorrect year. Our Lady appeared between May-October of 1917 and again in 1921. It was the Angel of Portugal who appeared between 1915-1916. The second problem is more of an imprecision: “The Holy Mother entrusted the children with three messages or ‘secrets.’” The Virgin appeared in Fátima to give a message, not messages. A part of this message involved a Secret that was given in three parts. The expression “three secrets” is often used for convenience, but is imprecise and can lead to confusion as to the Virgin’s message and its structure.
From there, Filemonas provides the first two parts of the Secret. After the description of the first two parts of the Secret, there is a one paragraph commentary by Filemonas. It is followed by a paragraph that introduces the third part of the Secret but which contains some problematic statements. The first is an historical inaccuracy: “The Holy Mother directed Lucia to write down what she saw and that it was not to be opened by the pope until 1960.” Our Lady told Lúcia that the document “could only be opened in 1960 by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon or by the Bishop of Leiria [Fátima].”[6] She never specified the document to be opened by the pope. That it was first opened by Pope St. John XXIII in 1959 came about because of a decision made by the Bishop of Leiria to send the original document, not a copy, to Rome in 1957.
In the next sentence, Filemonas wrote “Finally, after decades of evasion, a copy of an ‘official’ version of the secret was released to the public in 2000.” This wording is troubling. The opening note about “decades of evasion” might be indicative of some contempt. Moreover, why the quotation marks around the word “official?” Does Filemonas disagree that the text is official? Does he/she believe there to be an “unofficial” text, perhaps even the infamous alleged “fourth secret” of Fátima? Filemonas will clarify a bit these quotation marks.
Following these statements is a quotation of the text of the third part of the Secret. Filemonas resumes commentary after providing the text. Once again, the word “official” is put into quotation marks, saying that this interpretation “is prima facie absurd.” The reason for the alleged absurdity is that the bishop dressed in white is to be interpreted as the assassination attempt on the life of Pope St. John Paul II in 1981. Filemonas also takes aim at a remark by Cardinal Ratzinger, saying of this remark that it is “without any basis in fact or logic that the events have already occurred.” The relevant quote from Ratzinger is then provided.
Filemonas makes a grave mistake in this paragraph as he mischaracterizes Ratzinger’s actual discourse. Context determines meaning and there are two areas to Ratzinger’s comment that Filemonas leaves out. The first area is the position the Vatican took. It took the position that the entire Secret, especially the third part, prophesied events to transpire within the twentieth century. Thus, in June of 2000, the formal publication of the third part in The Message of Fatima booklet, was the last year of said century.[7] Read in this way, Ratzinger’s remarks about the foretold events now “belong to the past,” are logically consistent with the larger view taken by the Vatican.
One can argue whether the Vatican’s interpretation of the events pertaining only to the twentieth century is correct. That would be a legitimate theological debate. One cannot, however, state that Ratzinger’s remark was “without any basis in fact or logic” and fail to provide the larger position. Filemonas, regretfully, does not tell us about any of that context and his/her omission weakens the article’s presentation of the facts.
The second area Filemonas neglects is an omission concerning the assassination attempt on John Paul II. Cardinal Ratzinger does not state that the attempt fulfilled the prophecy. Rather, Ratzinger takes a broader view: the third part of the Secret visually depicts an entire century of evil that culminated (culminato in Italian) in the attempt on John Paul’s life.[8] This area of Ratzinger’s thought and discourse is underappreciated. While it is present in The Message of Fatima booklet, it appeared more prominently during the question-and-answer session of the publication of the third part of the Secret. There was no public transcript of the Q&A until 2017. Filemonas seems to be unaware of this development as it is not mentioned. In so doing, the reader is left without the fullness of Ratzinger’s remarks.
What is particularly baffling is that Filemonas then seems to reference this larger context but completely misses the point! After the paragraph we have been discussing, Filemonas provides another quote from Ratzinger. In it, Ratzinger mentions the sufferings of all the popes of the twentieth century and asks the reader “was it not inevitable that he [John Paul II] should see in it his own fate [after reading the text post assassination attempt]?”
After the quotation from Ratzinger, Filemonas provides his/her commentary. Ratzinger’s statement is questioned. The suffering of the popes is spoken of as “suffering that can’t be seen as anything more than the job stress that comes with any highly responsible position or the health issues experienced by virtually every elderly man.” This statement by Filemonas, and much of what follows in the same paragraph, is extremely spiritually myopic and damages the literal sense of Our Lady’s message at Fátima.
In the second part of the Secret, the Virgin prophesied “the Holy Father will have much to suffer.” Within Filemonas’ article, this specific prophecy of the Virgin is found only in two quotations about the second part of the Secret. There is no discussion of it. The failure to discuss this aspect of the Virgin’s message undermines a central tenet of the article found two paragraphs later: to interpret the “anonymous Holy Father of the vision as a metaphor for the Catholic Church itself.” Additionally, Filemonas argues in the following paragraph, we could “Interpret ‘the man in white’ as the Church.” In so doing, “the vision comes into focus.”
Except that it doesn’t.
The Virgin Mary was specific: the Holy Father will have much to suffer. It isn’t “the man in white” that was predicted by Our Lady, but “the bishop dressed in white.” To advance this interpretation, Filemonas does not seem to notice the harm being done to the literal sense of Lúcia’s text. It comes across to me that Filemonas has some real trouble with the papal dimension of the vision depicted in the third part of the Secret. The question is “why?” Why would someone struggle with the very obvious papal dimension given its general acceptance by just about all writers on Fátima, to say nothing of the devotion of the three visionaries to the Holy Father?
I cannot, of course, give a definitive answer to the above question. I will, however, opine that there is a lack of depth in Filemonas’ understanding of what the twentieth century popes had to endure. Here, I refer the reader to chapter thirteen of my book for a larger discussion of the sufferings of the popes.[9] It is enough for our present purposes to that Filemonas’ own apparent belief in an abandonment of the Faith in the 19th and 20th centuries[10] might be helpful to understand the point at hand. Would it not stand to reason that the father of all men would experience a rather grievous suffering over this tremendous loss of faith, as well as all that attended to it?
For whatever reason, Filemonas attempts to get around a difficulty presented by the very obvious papal dimension of the third part of the Secret. The discussion moves into the matter of the consecration of Russia and Filemonas’ discourse indicates that he/she does not accept the March 25, 1984 consecration as having fulfilled Our Lady’s request. This refusal is contrary to what Sr. Lúcia herself wrote in her book Como vejo a mensagem. Here, she expressly states the request was fulfilled by John Paul II on March 25, 1984.[11] I see no need to go into everything that Filemonas otherwise says about the consecration.
Filemonas returns to the subject of the third part of the Secret much further down in the article. He/She does in the context of the question of whether there was more to it or not. “From the moment,” says Filemonas, “the Third Secret was ‘revealed’ in 2000, there has been widespread suspicion that there is more to it than has been made public.” From there, different sources expressing this suspicion are cited. The first is an article from Dr. Maike Hickson in 2016 for OnePeterFive wherein remarks from Fr. Ingo Döllinger are discussed. Then is followed a quotation from another alleged apparition in Ákita, Japan, then further remarks from Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. Lastly, the noted Catholic philosopher Alice von Hildebrand is discussed and in relation to Dr. Bella Dodd, the former communist attorney from New York.
Together, all of these references point to the single idea that there was something else to the third part of the Secret. Bafflingly, Filemonas neglects to include one other piece of information: the now famous words of Our Lady to Sr. Lúcia in January 1944, that govern (and answer) this entire question. At that time, Our Lady told Lúcia “Write what they command you, but not that which is given to you to understand of its meaning.”[12] That there was a meaning of the vision communicated to Lúcia is no longer a question, and has been so since October 2013.
Claims made in the final paragraph are further troubling: “The text [of the third part] appears to be incomplete based upon what is known about the form in which Sr. Lucia wrote it down.” In explanation of this point, Filemonas claims, “The Third Secret was actually composed of two texts; one is the published four-page text describing the vision and the other is a single-page letter quoting the words of the Virgin Mary.” Filemonas is essentially arguing for the so-called “fourth secret” of Fátima hypothesis, but does not cite a specific source. Regardless, these claims are simply not true.
There was ever only one paper upon which the text of the third part was written. Early on, this matter wasn’t clear because of the way the Vatican reproduced the text in its booklet The Message of Fatima in the year 2000.[13] However, this question was resolved in 2007 when Cardinal Bertone appeared on the Italian television program Porta a Porta. At that time, he brought the document with him and showed it on camera.[14] The text was written on a single sheet of paper that was folded to make four separate squares. This practice was common in Portugal at that time. Additionally, World War II was in full swing and this practice saved space on an otherwise valuable resource during war time.
Lastly, let us return to the fact of the Virgin commanding Lúcia in 1944 not to reveal the meaning. If Filemonas adheres to the “fourth secret” hypothesis, then he/she must necessarily be prepared to prove beyond doubt that the Virgin granted permission to Lúcia sometime after January 1944. No such proof has been brought forth, and, in fact, the weight of all the available historical evidence is against it even existing.
In the end, Filemonas’ article is inaccurate, myopic, and full of standard, boiler-plate arguments on the third part of the Secret. It lacks a proper depth and presents old claims on Fátima that is woefully inadequate to the historical record and the scholarship thereof. The article presents no further evidence either to “reinterpret” or “reimagine” the third part of the Secret along the lines Filemonas specifies.
[1] Filemonas. “Holy Mother Apparitions.” Ecce Agnus Dei blog (June 28, 2026).
[2] Not much is known about the author “Filemonas” except what is found on the “About” page: “I have a background in medicine, science, and finance with a special interest in theology.”
[3] The story of Quito, as we know it today, is largely based upon a Spanish text by Fr. Manuel Sousa Pereira in 1790 (cf. Fr. Manuel Sousa Pereira, Vida Admirable de la Reverendissima Madre Mariana de Jesus Torres y Berriochoa [Miami, Florida: Libreria Fiat Voluntas Tua, Inc., 2008]). It was translated into a two-volume English set several years ago by Marian T. Horvat (cf. Fr. Manuel Sousa Pereira and Dr. Marian T. Horvat [trans.], The Admirable Life of Mother Mariana Vol. I [Los Angeles: Tradition in Action, 2005]). Fr. Pereira based his book upon earlier documentation in a compilation known as the Cuadernon, the location of which was lost to subsequent generations. None of this information is provided by Filemonas in the Holy Mother Apparitions (HMA) article.
[4] There is repeated mention of Freemasonry in the second paragraph by Filemonas but with a slight twist. “Masonic infiltration of the Church” is specified.
[5] Kevin J. Symonds, On the Third Part of the Secret of Fatima 2ed. (St. Louis, Missouri: En Route Books & Media, 2025), 171ff.
[6] Carmelo de Santa Teresa – Coimbra, Um caminho sob o olhar de Maria: Biografia da Irmã Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado, O.C.D. (Coimbra, Portugal: Edições Carmelo, 2013), 266.
[7] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000). Nota Bene: Centuries are marked by 1 and not 0, thus 1901, for example, was the first year of the 20th century, not 1900. Thus, the year 2000 was the last year of the 20th century and 2001 the beginning of the 21st.
[8] A prophecy about a pope being shot is rather precise and the assassination attempt on John Paul’s life was a very public affair. It is natural for people to gravitate toward that part of the prophecy in the third part (though there is a danger to emphasize it too much to the detriment of the other aspects). Emphasizing this aspect of the third part to the detriment of its others is a common mistake, one in which it seems to me that Filemonas might have fallen here.
[9] Symonds, On the Third Part of the Secret of Fatima, 271ff.
[10] This belief can be seen in the opening paragraph of the article as well as later on. For example, in the discussions on the consecration of Russia, mention of “external and internal enemies,” and “priestly corpses.”
[11] Irmã Maria Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado, Como vejo a mensagem: através dos tempos a dos acontecimentos 2ed (Fátima, Portugal: Carmelo de Coimbra and Secretariado dos Pastorinhos, 2007), 54.
[12] Carmelo de Santa Teresa – Coimbra, Um caminho sob o olhar de Maria, 266.
[13] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima, 17-20.
[14] Cf. “Entrevista com Cardeal Bertone sobre os Envelopes do Terceiro Segredo de Fátima.” Unam Sanctam YouTube Channel (March 22, 2022). The reveal begins at the 2:15 mark of this vídeo.
