Fátima perplexes me. Catholics celebrated its hundredth anniversary last weekend. How do they reconcile the Church’s fairly recent teaching about it with the oral tradition that grew up around Fátima in the 20th century?

Most accept the teaching but dismiss the tradition, or are unaware of it. Those who hold to the latter tend to do so fervently, however. It’s stark and specific where the official teaching is vague, though stamped with Rome’s imprimatur and therefore mainstream and safe.

The tradition, which is more coherent — pointed, specific, and keyed to the conspicuous crisis in the Church after Vatican II — goes like this: On July 13, 1917, Mary revealed a “secret” in three parts to three shepherd children in Fátima, Portugal. The first two parts (they are not much disputed) were about the two world wars, the first of which was already in progress, and hell. The so-called Third Secret was too terrible to tell.

In October 1943, Sister Lúcia’s bishop ordered her to write it down so it could be sent to the Holy Father. She protested that it was intended for the people, not the pope, but her bishop insisted. She held out for months before committing it to paper, in January 1944. She put it in an envelope and wrote on it that it was not to be opened before 1960. Later, when asked, “Why 1960?” she said, “Because it will be clearer then.”

Theories about comets, which didn’t strike Earth, and about nuclear war, which didn’t break out, faded. What endured was the speculation that Mary in the Third Secret foretold the apostasy of the Church, which by many measures — e.g., Mass attendance, religious vocations — declined sharply in the West after the Second Vatican Council. Pope John XXIII announced the council in 1959; it commenced in 1962. (“Why 1960?” “Because it will be clearer then.”)

Pope John opened Lúcia’s envelope in 1960, read the Third Secret in private, and put it aside, declaring that it did not pertain to his pontificate. He later belittled “prophets of doom.” Mary had explained to the children that the Church’s apostasy would proceed from the top down. Why should anyone have expected the pope, his cardinals, or the bishops to trumpet heaven’s warning that they were up to no good?

Hold your comments. I didn’t say that the above was the historical truth. It may be. What it is indisputably is a common narrative based on statements attributed not only to those who reportedly read the Third Secret but to Lúcia herself, in various letters and documents that she is said to have written or in conversations that her interlocutors are said to have recorded. Fátima scholars and apostles disagree about the authenticity of this or that quote, source, or interpretation. Everyone has a point of view about Fátima. But has anyone simply collected and clearly organized the documentary evidence? Without a hypothesis or an agenda, leaving readers to assess for themselves the value of different pieces of evidence? It’s not a rhetorical question. If such a resource exists, please tell me. If it doesn’t, please compile it, someone.

We don’t need it, you say, because the Vatican has spoken? On June 26, 2000, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published what it purported to be the Third Secret as written by Lúcia in her own hand. In a commentary that accompanied the primary text, Joseph Ratzinger noted that it was bound to disappoint those who expected revelations about apocalyptic events or the future course of history. We read instead a vision about a pope assassinated. “Was it not inevitable,” Ratzinger asked, that Pope John Paul II, who survived an assassination attempt on May 13, 1981, would see in that vision “his own fate”?

That was it? A prophecy that a future pope would be assassinated? (None has been, so far, although the attempt on John Paul was close.) Why then Lúcia’s stipulation about 1960? It makes no sense. Or is that part of the story spurious? And so on. The questions pile up. They’re impertinent, of course, to anyone who believes that Rome is incapable of corruption and dishonesty. After the clerical sex-abuse scandals that exploded in the news 15 years ago, however, even the faithful who love the Church fiercely have learned to adopt a policy of “trust but verify” with respect to their bishops. And anyone who thinks that cardinals are above plotting a palace coup should read Austen Ivereigh’s book about the resistance to Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict, and the elevation of Jorge Bergoglio to replace him.

The Vatican’s text and interpretation of the Third Secret supports the view that Fátima’s historical prophecies have been fulfilled, Russia’s “errors” having been buried when Communism in the Soviet Union and its empire in Eastern Europe fell in 1989–91, but note Mary’s exact words as reported by Lúcia. They did not include “Soviet” or “Communism.” What we could not see so clearly in 2000 is that Russia indeed had more errors to spread. Read the news.