Talk:Lúcia Santos

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[edit] Hearing voices?

Er, so a ten year old child was hearing voices in her head...and no one took her to a psychiatrist? Was any analysis of the woman's mental state ever made?

Er, the voice came from an apparition that was witnessed by others. The voice also predicted a miracle that was witnessed by tens of thousands. I don't know what good a psychiatrist would have done, given the state of psychiatry in the 1920s. All they can do is ask questions and prescribe drugs - they can't see into another person's mind.
My dear child, have you no faith at all? Do you believe in the cell? Do you believe in mitochondria, or DNA? Can you wrap your fingers around an atom and hold it up to the light? And, yet, these too are there, are they not? Believe this, if can believe nothing else: we know that we do not know. This I do know: A spirit world does exist. It dwarfs our viewable world the way a mile is dwarfed by a light year. May God bless you.
My 2c -- Lucia did not "hear voices in her head". She never reported such a thing. And since her family were rural Portuguese peasants, they had never heard of psychiatry. The closest thing they did have to psychiatry was the local priest. In those days priests knew something about psychology. They were educated to distinguish between hallucination and possible actual religious experience, and Ferreira was no exception. He questioned her very carefully. You can't apply 21st century value judgements to what was in effect a 19th century cultural phenomenon. --Bluejay Young 09:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Even though this happened in the 20th century. --Hemisemidemiquaver 17:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Right. That's why I said 'in effect' - 1917 was close enough to the 19th century, especially since we're talking about rural Portugal where attitudes and thought patterns hadn't changed that much. --Bluejay Young 17:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up Needed

This page is in need of a serious clean-up, frequent use of words like "apostate," and "so-called" for Vatican II, show a pretty serious POV issue here. The Second Vatican Council wasn't so-called, it was the second Vatican Council. It might have been the greatest movement of the Church in 100 years, or it might have been a plot from the devil himself, but whatever it was, it ceratinly was Vatican II. Several authors of this article have some pretty clear views, and they shine through in the article. NPOV needs to be established, and so I am going to be bold, as per Wikipedia's rules, and do a bit of cleaning up, especially the parts that involve doctinal name-calling. Morgaledth 03:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

There - not that I expect those that hate her or those who love her to be happy. But at least now if someone uninterested in the validity of Vatican II decides to read this article, they can get several versions of the criticisms before the text gets reverted. Have fun turning the article back into a personal screed. I've done what I could. At least try and sign your work. :) Morgaledth 04:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Sources

I'm wondering why "The True Secret of Fatima" was included under the list of external sources. It links to an article and website promoting the dogma that Mary is God, a clear perversion of the message of Fatima and this article devoted to its beloved messenger. I promptly removed it from the links.

[edit] 68.254.162.155

Allow me to explain why I undid your recent changes:

(1) There was nothing wrong with the references provided concerning Lucia's first communion. You took what was expressed in several complete sentences and created one long run-on sentence. The original paragraph reads better. Also, according to Walsh, Lucia was initially quizzed by the Prior of her local church. So I do not know on what basis you decided to change it from prior to paster/priest.

(2) I don't understand why you have removed once again the fact that the "sun miracle" was witnessed by many people who attended the event. It is true, and important, so why remove it?

(3) I asked for a reference to the date/issue of the article in the New York Times. I searched the New York Times' archive for one but none showed up for the year 1917. Without a reference this information is not useful and I can't verify it.

I am happy that you wish to contribute to this article and I am not trying to discourage you with my editing. I hope that you understand my reasons laid out above. I would encourage you to register with Wikipedia so that your edits do not show up as a different IP address every time - which makes it difficult to know if you are different people or the same person. You also get your own talk page with helps with communication and collaboration. If you are still not happy please use this talk page to discuss this with me first. Many thanks, Albie34423 (talk) 04:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

(1) I have reverted your changes to the paragraph about Lucia's first communion, because your changes are not true. It was Cruz, not the parish priest, who determined that Lucia "understands what she's doing better than many of the others". Furthermore, it is not correct to refer to the parish priest at that time as a "prior".
(2) I did not remove your statement about 70,000 witnesses being present, so why did you accuse me of doing so?
(3) I reverted your changes to this paragraph because the New York times did have a correspondent present at Fatima, and he did telegraph his report back to New York, and part of it was printed in the New York Times on October 17, 1917. If you contact the New York Times, I'm sure that they can confirm that for you. 68.250.157.126 (talk) 14:10, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
You have not addressed any of my concerns when you undid my changes. (1) That's incorrect. The paragraph clearly indicates that it was Father Cruz who made that determination. As for the title Prior, I gave Walsh's book as a reference. Finally, I told you that the changes to this paragraph create a long run-on sentence that does not read as well. (2) Well, in your last edit you restored this change. Like I said, you should register. Otherwise all that I see are IP addresses and I don't know who is who. (3) Provide a reference and we can put it back in. From what I have read, the story of the Fatima apparitions were not widely known outside of Portugal until after the publication of Lucia's memoirs. Sure enough, I did not find any articles in the NY Times until the 1940s and later. Jaki's book, God and the Sun at Fatima, which extensively covers media accounts, does not mention a NY Times correspondent either. So - how do you know this? Do you have a copy of the NY Times from 1917 or did you read about this somewhere? Provide a reference! Albie34423 (talk) 16:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
As to the dispute about "prior", Walsh does not have a reputation for accuracy. De Marchi does have a reputation for accuracy. Furthermore, if you look at the literature, including dictionaries, parish priests are not routinely described as "priors". Therefore, the consensus would have to be that "parish priest", the term used by both De Marchi in his books, and also by Lucia in her memoirs, is the correct term to use in this article.
It is NOT true that the local priest (you called him prior) denied communion to Lucia "even though 'she understands what she's doing better than many of the others'. Lucia's own memoirs report that once Cruz informed the parish priest that Lucia "understands what she's doing better than many of the others", the parish priest REVERSED his decision to deny her holy communion, hence the local parish priest didn't deny Lucia communion "even though she understood", he GRANTED her communion "because she understood". I have eliminated the problem with the run-on sentence, while making clear that it was "because she understood", not "even though she understood".
As to the article in the New York Times, the appropriate citation has been given, that being the New York Times for October 17,1917. You couldn't possibly find the article looking at archives that only go back to the 1940'S... Why don't you ask the New York Times for a copy of the article from October 17, 1917? 70.231.23.39 (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I see what you are saying now about the quotation. It was not obvious that it came from Father Cruz. I was wrong about that. As for the New York Times article, the digital archive goes back to 1851. No articles appear in my search before the late 1940s, after Lucia's memoirs were published. I used the search query "Fatima Portugal". I am not going to belabor this however. I am satisfied with a reference inserted into the text. Albie34423 (talk) 00:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Every single person there was there as a "witness". If you don't like this, explain on the talk page before you revert. It is actually not as simple as that. Not everyone "witnessed" the same exact thing or anything at all. Even more importantly, some people claimed to have witnessed the phenomena who were not there at all, but standing many miles away. This last fact in particular is an interesting one that I had previously overlooked. Albie34423 (talk) 16:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Everyone who is present is a witness, no matter what they might say they saw, and no matter what they might say that they didn't see, therefore the event that day was witnessed by all 70,000 people who arrived to witness it. Svp28 (talk) 18:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, obviously some event was witnessed by everyone that was there, but what I find most interesting about the specific sun phenomenon is that it was also witnessed by people who were not there, but standing many miles away. By the way, good catch with the paragraph on the Three Secrets. I had taken that directly from the article on the Three Secrets so I have also applied your correction to that article. I am glad you have finally registered. Now there is no way to confuse you with another anonymous editor. Hopefully we can continue to work together here to make this a good article. Albie34423 (talk) 00:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Miracle of the Sun

De Marchi and Jaki do not "disagree" in any sense concerning descriptions of the miracle of the sun. Jaki includes discussions of all of the sources that De Marchi used and many, many more. De Marchi only cites a few witness accounts, while Jaki has filled his entire book with witness accounts. In fact, that is most of what the book is about. There is no disagreement here. Different people described the phenomena in different ways. The "fire wheel" became a common expression. For example:

But in front of me was a woman with a white felt hat which I used as a mirror to see what was happening to the king of stars [the sun]. This lasted about 20 minutes. Meanwhile I heard someone by my side crying, imploring, and saying that the sun was turning around like a wheel of fire. - Senhor Silva (Jaki, 69-71)

…that he looked at the sun and saw that it turned into different colors, coming close and gyrating like a fire wheel. He saw three times that phenomenon. -Romano de Santos (Jaki, 87)

Romano was one of the witnesses to give a sworn deposition in front of the parish priest of Porto. Jaki writes, of the rest of them, "Of the remaining ten witnesses all, except the third and fourth, used the expression ‘fire wheel’ (roda de fogo)...The word 'fire wheel' had become by then a standard expression to describe what the sun had appeared to do. Their testimonies nowhere contradicted one another. The differences related only to details, an all too normal case in truthful multiple testimonies." (Jaki, 87)

Maria de Capela's description cited in De Marchi contains the same language: It turned everything different colors, yellow, blue, white, and it shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire which was going to fall on the people. (De Marchi, pg. 136 in my edition)

While I don't dispute the accuracy of your quote, for the record - which book (title, publisher, year) of De Marchi are you using? Svp28 (talk) 01:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

In fact, the following comes from Almeida's famous article:

And they ask each other if they had seen, and what they saw. The great majority confess that they had seen the shaking, the dance of the sun; others, however, state that they had seen the smiling face of the Virgin herself; they swear that the sun had rotated as if it were a wheel of fireworks; that it came down almost to the point of burning the earth with its rays. . . Another says that he saw it change color successively. (Jaki, 36-37) Albie34423 (talk) 19:12, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] De Marchi v. Zimdars-Swartz

Your last undo of my changes was completely unwarranted. I have read plenty of source material and there was nothing inaccurate in there. It is all contained in Jaki's book, and elsewhere. And I didn't revert your changes. I supplemented them. Finally, Lucia never planned to release the third part of the secret until her Bishop ordered her to do so after she fell seriously ill in the mid-1940s. Albie34423 (talk) 15:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are accurately citing Zimdars-Swartz, then De Marchi and Zimdars-Swartz disagree about when the third secret was to be released, so we'll have to decide which version to use in the article. I don't find anything in Jaki's book about the third secret not being intended for release, or being intended for release only after 1960, both of which statements you want to include in the article. Since De Marchi is the more renowned author on the topic of Fatima, and since you haven't cited anything in Jaki in favor of Zimdars-Swartz's version, I have reverted to the material supported by De Marchi. If you do not believe De Marchi should be the favored source as to when the 3rd secret was to be revealed, please explain before you revert. Svp28 (talk) 01:51, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no disagreement here. Read carefully what I wrote. Lucia did not initially plan on releasing the third part of the secret. After she fell seriously ill, Bishop da Silva was afraid that she would die and take the secret to her grave. So in 1943 he ordered her to write it down. She obeyed, but added the disclaimer that the secret was not to be read until after 1960. Thus, my text states "Lucia instructed that the secret could not be read until after 1960." See? Your wording is correct, but it does not indicate the context of that stipulation. Since there is no disagreement here, I am going to restore my wording. By the way, Jaki does not discuss the secrets. Albie34423 (talk) 06:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

To say that "the third secret was to remain secret" is unclear, because it does not indicate "whose" determination that might have been, or when that determination by them was made. To change the sentence to say that "Lucia" planned never to release the secret would be misleading, because it would lead the reader to think that Lucia planned NEVER to release the third secret (after releasing the first two), whereas there is no statement of hers to that effect. I suspect that Zimdars-Swartz was merely intending to report that Lucia had not intended to release the third secret so soon, but to wait awhile (It's my understanding that Lucia wanted it kept secret until 1960, but revealed it to the bishop sooner because her bishop feared she would die before then), but I don't have Zimdars-Swartz book to confirm Zimdars-Swartz intent, so I have reverted. If you want to revert back, could you please quote from Zimdars-Swartz, so that we can at least clarify the meaning of what you are attributing to Zimdars-Swartz's, so as to report the meaning that Zimdars-Swartz was actually trying to convey?
De Marchi reports that the secret was to be revealed "in" 1960 (p91 of the The True Story of Fatima, 1956), not "after" 1960, and, as he is the more renowned source, I have reverted to his version. Could you please quote from Zimdars-Swartz, both as to her statement, and as to her source for her statement, that the secret was not to be revealed until "after" 1960? 68.253.25.122 (talk) 14:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Zimdars-Swartz actually says "until 1960" so the word "after" was clearly a mistake. I have corrected that. Basically, Lucia did not feel from within her that she should release the third part of the secret in the year or so after she revealed the first two. It was not her intention from the start to reveal the secret in 1960, as far as can be determined. This stipulation was added once she was ordered to reveal it. In the prologue to her Fourth memoir, written after she had revealed the first two secrets but before she was ordered to reveal the third, Lucia describes how she was ordered to write down everything and then saved from the burden of revealing the last secret:
Dr. Galamba said then: "Your Excellency, command her to say everything, everything, and to hide nothing." And Your Excellency assisted most certainly by the Holy Spirit, pronounced this judgment: "No, I will not command that! I will have nothing to do with matters of secrets." Thanks be to God! Any other order would have been for me a source of endless perplexities and scruples. Had I received a contrary command, I would have asked myself, times without number: "Whom should I obey? God or His representative?" And perhaps, being unable to come to a decision, I would have been left in a state of real inner torment! (Santos, 2003, pg. 169)
Eventually, as Swartz describes, the bishop asked Lucia to write down the third secret, but only if she "wished" (204). Lucia, however, remained unconvinced, so the bishop decided to change his suggestion into an order. Now, De Marchi may be more "renowned" in the sense that his book is more widely known, but that doesn't necessarily make him more authoritative. Zimdars-Swartz, at the time her book was published, was an associate professor of religion at the University of Kansas. For sources she relies mostly on De Marchi, Walsh, Michel de la Sainte Trinite, and A. M. Martins' Novos Documentos de Fatima(a collection of primary source material in Portuguese), in addition to Lucia's first four memoirs. Albie34423 (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] questioning Albie34423's citations

Albie34423, what is Zimdars-Swartz's citation for "then it will be made clearer" relative to the 1960 scheduled release of the third secret? I am used to seeing Lucia's words translated as "then it will be better understood". Have you quoted Zimdars-Swartz's book exactly? Also, who is the publisher for your references to a "Santos" book and a "De Marchi" book, and what are the titles of those books, and the year of publication for your De Marchi book?. Your page numbers don't match those in my copies of their books. Svp28 (talk) 23:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Those two phrases pretty much mean the same thing. To make something "clearer" is also to make it "better understood." There is more than one way to translate something into English, after all. Turns out the quotation isn't quite correct. It should read "then it will appear clearer."
Here's the longer quotation:
Canon Barthas had said in 1946 that Lucia had told him that it was necessary to wait until 1960 "because the Virgin wishes it so." At a conference in 1967, Cardinal Ottaviani reported that when he had interviewed Lucia in Coimbra in 1955 and had asked her then why 1960 had been specified as the date before which the secret could not be opened, she had replied, "Because then it will appear clearer." Zimdars-Swartz lists as her source - Cardinal Ottaviani, "A propos du secret de Fatima," La documentation catholique 64/1490 (19 March 1967): 542.
Here are the full bibliographic details for those two books:
Lucia Santos, Fatima in Lucia's Own Words vol. 1. Ravengate Press, September 2004. This is the 14th edition.
John De Marchi, Fatima the Full Story, AMI Press Inc, 1999. The copyright pages states that it "contains all the text of the 1985 fifth edition published by Consolata Missions of Fatima, Portugal"
Both books have been re-printed so many times that it is not surprising that the pagination is different. Finally, you added that Lucia said the third secret could be revealed upon her death if that happened to occur before 1960, but I have never read anything other than her saying that it could not be opened before 1960. Where did you read this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Albie34423 (talk • contribs) 04:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)