January 29, 1990 - At about 8:30 a.m., Maria do Fetal, at Fatima, states to Father Pierre Caillon that she "was inventing" when she earlier reported Sister Lucy’s statement that the 1984 consecration of the world was not in conformity with Our Lady’s request for the consecration of Russia.
October 11, 1990 - Sister Lucy’s own blood sister, Carolina, tells Father Gruner, in Fatima, that little or no trust can be put in any typewritten letter from Sister Lucy, as she does not even know how to type.
October 22, 1990 - In a written report, a highly regarded forensic expert indicates that Sister Lucy’s purported signature on a November 1989 computer-generated letter is a forgery. Excerpts from this letter, published by an Italian Catholic magazine in March 1990, are being circulated widely and cited as "proof" that the Consecration has been done. Several wire services carry that story from the Italian magazine and spread the fraudulent claim worldwide.
November 1990 - Father Gruner and The International Fatima Rosary Crusade launch a worldwide campaign to free Sister Lucy from her 30-year ordeal of silence and to encourage the Holy Father to release the Third Secret of Fatima.
May 13, 1991 - Sister Lucy declines to go to Fatima during the Pope’s visit but is commanded to do so under holy obedience. Pope John Paul II visits Fatima for the second time, and has a half-hour meeting with Sister Lucy. After this meeting neither the Pope nor Sister Lucy make any announcement concerning the Consecration of Russia having been done - an announcement that would have been forthcoming had the "letters of Sister Lucy" from 1989-90 been genuine.
The silence of the Pope and Sister Lucy concerning the Consecration of Russia is most revealing. There is an obvious disagreement between Sister Lucy and a certain part of the Vatican apparatus, which has been trying to suggest that the consecration of Russia is over and done with. Although Sister Lucy is alleged to agree that the Consecration has been accomplished, she continues to be bound by the order to be silent imposed upon her in 1960, and she does not defend herself publicly against this rumor because her enforced silence continues. Father Alonso’s 24 volumes of 5,396 original Fatima documents are still banned from publication.
October 8, 1992 - The Fatima Crusader’s Peace Conference is held. False and misleading declarations are published in L’Osservatore Romano by Cardinal Sanchez and Archbishop Sepe, suggesting that ecclesiastical permission is required for the Conference when it is clearly not necessary under Church law. Similar falsehoods are published in the Portuguese press on October 7-9. Nevertheless, more than 100 bishops accept the invitation and payment of expenses for their trip to Fatima for the Conference. While 65 bishops ultimately attend, 35 others are "persuaded" not to attend by the anti-Fatima establishment and certain officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State.
October 10, 1992 - Father Nicholas Gruner is beaten up by Fatima Shrine workers, one of whom later admits he was acting under orders of the Rector of the Shrine, Msgr. Guerra. Bishop Amaral, the Bishop of Fatima, is retired from office four months later, but Msgr. Guerra remains Rector of the Shrine.
October 11, 1992 - A questionable interview of Sister Lucy is conducted by Father Pacheco, Cardinal Padiyara, Bishop Michaelappa and a chauffeur, Carlos Evaristo. Evaristo later publishes a doctored version of the interview, which he admits was "reconstructed." Among other falsehoods, the "interview" contains a statement by "Sister Lucy" that Mikhail Gorbachev knelt in front of the Holy Father and asked pardon for his sins. This claim is denounced as a total fabrication by papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. Father Pacheco publishes a repudiation of the bogus "interview." Fatima scholar Frère François concludes that this "interview" was put together by the Rector of the Shrine in order to stop petitions for the Consecration of Russia. Today, Evaristo’s totally discredited interview is no longer mentioned as "proof" of Sister Lucy’s alleged affirmation that the Consecration has been done.
1992 - The first heavily edited volume of Father Alonso’s critical documents on Fatima is published, leaving 23 other volumes under lock and key.
July 31, 1993 - A prominent bishop in India gives written assurances that he is willing to incardinate Father Gruner, thus apparently ending any effort by the anti-Fatima establishment officials in the Vatican to force Father Gruner’s return to Avellino, Italy.
November 3, 1993 - The Bishop of Avellino, Antonio Forte, admits to Father Gruner that he is being prevented from approving Father Gruner’s transfer out of the Diocese of Avellino because Cardinal Sanchez and Archbishop Sepe, at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, will not allow it. Cardinal Sanchez and Archbishop Sepe are working with the Secretariat of State to silence Father Gruner and his apostolate. Their actions violate the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Avellino and have no basis in canon law. No other priest in the entire Catholic Church is being subjected to such interference in transferring from one diocese to another.
January 13, 1994 - Bishop Forte tells Father Gruner that he has nothing against him, and when Father Gruner asks him what he should do, the Bishop tells him to return to Canada.
January 14 - 31, 1994 - Cardinal Sanchez, Archbishop Sepe and Bishop Forte begin making the final moves in "the incardination game" they are playing against Father Gruner. They command him to find another bishop, then obstruct incardination by other bishops, while refusing him excardination from Avellino. The "checkmate" is to declare that since Father Gruner has "failed" to be incardinated elsewhere, he must now return to Avellino or else be suspended from the priesthood.
January 31, 1994 - Bishop Forte sends Father Gruner a letter accusing him of being a vagus (wandering) priest because he has not returned to Avellino from Canada - even though Bishop Forte himself had just told Father Gruner to go back to Canada only 18 days earlier. This incredible behavior is explained in Fatima Priest. It continues today, and is still being appealed in the Vatican tribunals and before the Pope.
October 1994 - The Secretary of State and the Papal Nuncios write to bishops around the world, directing them not to attend the second Fatima Crusader Peace Conference to be held in Mexico. Visas are denied and other obstacles put in the way of more than 100 Catholic bishops who accept invitations to the conference.
July 12, 1995 - The first Open Letter to the Pope is published in a leading daily Roman newspaper, Il Messaggero. It covers 2 full pages, publicly protesting the gross abuse of position, prestige and power by anti-Fatima Vatican bureaucrats during the period 1992-1994. It is signed by two bishops and thousands of priests and lay people. The Pope does not act (or is prevented from acting), although privately word is received that His Holiness did read the Open Letter.
November 1996 - The third Fatima Crusader Peace Conference is held in Rome. Again, all bishops are invited to attend, with all expenses paid. Despite the constant repetition of the same falsehoods circulated by certain members of the anti-Fatima establishment in the Vatican apparatus in 1992 and 1994 - combined with pressure not to attend the conference applied by Cardinal Gantin, various Papal Nuncios and other Vatican bureaucrats - more than 200 bishops, priests and lay people do in fact attend.
November 20, 1996 - Father Gruner’s Canonical Complaint against Cardinal Sanchez and Archbishop Sepe and their accomplices is placed in the Pope’s own hands, as shown in a photograph reproduced in Fatima Priest and published April 2, 1998 in Il Messaggero.
February 26, 1997 - Coralie Graham, Editor of The Fatima Crusader, sends Cardinal Gantin a registered letter containing seven pertinent questions concerning his illegal actions in trying to prevent bishops and priests from attending the Peace Conference. More than four years later her entirely respectful letter still has not been answered.
April 2, 1998 - The second two-page Open Letter is published. This time the Open Letter garners the signatures of 27 bishops and Archbishops, as well as 1,900 priests and religious and more than 15,000 lay people. It is published in Italian in Il Messaggero. Thousands of posters of the Open Letter are posted around the Vatican during 1998.
Meanwhile, Father Gruner’s canonical case continues to wend its way through the Vatican court system. Details of the "rigged" and absurdly unjust proceedings are provided in Fatima Priest. During the process, Archbishop Grochelewski, now chief judge in the case (after Cardinal Agustoni is forced to recuse himself due to the appearance of prejudice), admits that the case is not about Father Gruner’s incardination, but what he says (concerning Fatima). This is the real reason for the numerous unprecedented and illicit actions against Father Gruner, even though it is nowhere admitted in the written acts of the proceedings. A cardinal principle of natural justice is that the accused must be informed of the precise charges against him so that he can defend himself. To put Father Gruner on trial for an alleged "offense" concerning his incardination, when the real issue is what he says about Fatima, flies in the face of this principle.
October 1998 - The various lies, innuendoes and accusations against Father Gruner are summarized in a lengthy accusatory document prepared and issued by the Promoter of Justice, appointed by the Vatican apparatus to prepare a supposedly "impartial" summary of the canonical positions of the parties. Father Gruner is told he may not even have a copy of this "impartial" document unless he takes an oath to keep it secret. This bizarre request is issued by the Tribunal itself. (A copy of the tribunal’s demand for secrecy is available to any bishop who requests it.) Father Gruner refuses to take this oath of secrecy. He is forced to review the Promoter’s document in the presence of his canon lawyer, who must travel to Canada from Rome and then take the document back to Rome without leaving a copy.
October 10, 1998 - The Promoter’s document reveals, for the first time, the existence of some 20 letters secretly circulating against Father Gruner and his apostolate. The letters are replete with misrepresentations and outright falsehoods by certain members of the Congregation for the Clergy, the Secretariat of State and even Cardinal Ratzinger’s Congregation, going back to the early 1980s.
December 10, 1998 - Despite the almost impossible obstacles and very limited time allowed for his reply, Father Gruner submits an 80-page canonical response to the Promoter’s document, conclusively refuting its every allegation. The Promoter’s document is never again mentioned by the Tribunal.
December 1998 - Father Gruner, by registered mail, requests copies of the approximately 20 letters against him from the Congregation for the Clergy and from the tribunal. The letters are never provided. Falsehoods continue to circulate behind Father Gruner’s back, greatly hindering his efforts to persuade bishops that the Consecration of Russia must be done in the proper manner in order to avoid the annihilation of nations, of which Our Lady of Fatima warns.
August 1999 - Father Gruner provides a new document to the Bishop of Avellino that demonstrates that Father Gruner is incardinated elsewhere.
September 3, 1999 - The Apostolic Signatura issues a decision, backdated to July 10, 1999. The manifest groundlessness of the decision is demonstrated in "A Law For One Man" (a chapter in Fatima Priest), and by documents attached to Father Gruner’s rebuttal, dated October 14, 1999 (also reproduced in Fatima Priest, 2000 A.D. edition), to which the Apostolic Signatura offers no reply. Meanwhile, Father Gruner’s third canon lawyer comes under pressure to turn against him. (The misconduct of the first two canonists is detailed in Fatima Priest.) Only 16 canonists are allowed to defend 400,000 Catholic priests in the Signatura, making it easy to pressure these lawyers with threats of the termination of their admission to the Tribunal.
October 12-18, 1999 - The apostolate’s Peace Conference in Hamilton, Ontario is subjected to the same pattern of harassment, abuse of authority and calculated untruths which have hindered the apostolate’s previous Fatima conferences. Bishops and priests attend, but in reduced numbers. It has become increasingly difficult to reach the priests and bishops because of the Vatican’s campaign of blackening the reputation of Father Gruner and his apostolate. Over 300 people attend, most of them lay people.
November 22, 1999 - A second Canonical Complaint by Father Gruner is sent by registered mail to the Pope from the Vatican post office. This complaint names Cardinals Agustoni, Innocenti, and Sanchez, Archbishop Sepe, Archbishop Grochelewski and Bishop Forte.
December 1999 - The second volume of Father Alonso’s manuscripts is finally published, but with extremely heavy editing. The other 22 volumes are still unpublished after 25 years, even though they were fully prepared for the press in 1975.
Next week: Part Five
EDITOR'S NOTES: We have received the gracious permission of John Vennari, editor of the Catholic Family News to reprint various articles published in his excellent traditional monthly newspaper dedicated to defending the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church. This article appeared as a supplement in the April issue of this year by Father Paul Kramer from Canada who has a Bachelor's Degree in Philosophy and in Sacred Theology, and a Masters in Divinity, and is a Doctor of Sacred Theology.