Catholic World News News Feature

Italian journalists protest exclusion from Fatima discussion September 27, 2007

Two Italian journalists involved in a dispute over the content of the "third secret of Fatima" have complained that they were roughly treated by security guards when they attempted to attend a lecture in which Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone discussed that topic.

On September 21, Cardinal Bertone introduced his book, The Last Fatima Visionary: My Meetings with Sister Lucia, at a reception at the Pontifical Urbanianum University. Antonio Socci and Solideo Paolini, authors of competing books on Fatima, say that they were prevented from attending the event or speaking to the cardinal.

Socci and Paolini report that they asked Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, whether they could participate in the reception and question Cardinal Bertone about his book. When they were told that the cardinal would not take questions, the two journalists tried to confront the Vatican Secretary of State as he entered the room. Security guards hustled them out of the building, while Cardinal Bertone entered by a side door.

After the confrontation, Socci told reporters that the treatment he had received was "outrageous." In speaking to reporters at the event, Socci and Paolini produced a tape recording in which Archbishop Loris Capovilla, who once served as private secretary to Pope John XXIII, revealed that there were two texts of the "third secret."

Socci, in his popular book The Fourth Secret of Fatima, argues that the Vatican has not disclosed the entirety of the message given by the Virgin Mary to three children at Fatima. In his book Cardinal Bertone cites Sister Luica, one of the Fatima seers, who counters: "Everything has been published; no secret remains."