Two Sister Lucys article and controversy

Polemics

The Controversy Grows...

Was St. Pius X a Conspiracy Maniac?

Dear TIA,

I just had to write and comment on the person who thought Traditionalists were inveterate "conspiracy maniacs" [click here].

One only needs to read history for a little while to see that history is and always has been rife with conspiracies. That there is an organized plan to finish with the Catholic Church and all Her Traditions, is now almost universal knowledge. Where there is smoke there is fire.

One would have to throw the writings of Pope Saint Pius X out the window if conspiracy theories were suspect. He warned about the plot of freemasons and numerous other groups intent on destroying the Church.

The number of conspiracies uncovered in our own American history would fill volumes - and it does.

Sincerely,

C.F.

Valid Points

Dear TIA and Dr. Horvat:

Regarding of the question of the two Sister Lucys:

First, I am inclined to agree with your implications that we are looking at pictures of two Sister Lucys, one pre 1947 and the other post 1967.

However, I think professional expertise must be sought to analyze whether a compete pulling of one's natural set teeth and their replacement with a set of dentures could have caused the changes in teeth, mouth, and smile - which we observe in the post 1967 Sister Lucy. As someone has already raised, are the teeth we see in the post 1967 Sister Lucy real teeth, or dentures?

I have another problem, though. Usually those with Portuguese, Mulatto, Mediterranean, or Semitic features will experience that such features in their face will INTENSIFY as they age.

The young sister Lucy from 1917 to 1946 has very, very strong Mulatto / Portuguese features. The post 1967 Sister Lucy seems to have lost these pronounced Portuguese features completely, in favor of a northern European, Danish, Germanic look.

Secondly, I would suggest the younger Sister Lucy has a very strong tendency to a very serious expression, even tending towards a frown, with rare glimpses of a smiling countenance. On the below referenced page, it is reproduced near the top the entire passage of William Thomas Walsh in Our Lady of Fatima, 1947, in the 1954 Image edition, with page referenced. Read William Thomas Walsh's passage about how Sister Lucy looked (he met her in 1946), and then look at the 1917 to 1946 Sister Lucy. It is easy to see that the early Sister Lucy fits Walsh's description, and that she has a very serious side to her which comes through in her expression.

There is a picture that is all over the internet, which perhaps you also have, in which Sister Lucy circa 1946 was trying to duplicate how Our Lady of Fatima looked when she was presenting the Immaculate Heart at Fatima.

One page with that photo of Sister Lucy is here:

Now, the post 1967 Sister Lucy not only seems to have lost her strong Portuguese / Mulatto features, but seems to have lost all of the gravitas in her eyes and in her expression. If indeed, as Fatima Crusader suggested years ago, at least at times another nun was asked under obedience (perhaps being told that her obedience would help provide security for the real Sister Lucy) to go into public and answer to the name Sister Lucy, then it is no criticism of Sister Lucy II to say that she does not have the gravitas of expression of Sister Lucy I - few could duplicate the gravity that must be induced in one's soul by a vision of Hell.

Nevertheless, the fact is that I can't imagine the post 1967 Sister Lucy coming anywhere near duplicating the look that we see in the circa 1946 Sister Lucy as she tries to imitate Our Lady at Fatima presenting the Immaculate Heart. Rather, the post 1967 Sister Lucy seems to always be on the verge of a smile - to have the 'Novus Ordo' don't-worry-be-happy vacant look so in harmony with the post Vatican II era.

The young Fatima children were in absolute reverence of the 'hidden Jesus' in the tabernacle, as reported by William Thomas Walsh. The post 1967 Sister Lucy has been photographed and videotaped standing to receive communion, and grabbing the hand of John Paul II and kissing it, with an effusive smile on her face - right after receiving Communion from him! Somehow, this, in itself, is hard to believe unless the younger Sister Lucy had been submitted to brain-destroying drugs and electric-shock type brain alteration since 1959.

Along these same lines, is it just me, or does not the pre 1947 Sister Lucy seem to have the darker skin associated with most Portuguese or Cubans, whereas the post 1967 Sister Lucy seems to have light skin like Germans or Danish? Does a person's skin become significantly lighter in pigment as she ages?

Next, one of the responses from the TIA response desk does not seem to offer a credible explanation to the dilemma posed by a reader. In reaction to the revelation that one of the orders Sister Lucy belonged to listed her year of death as 1949, the response desk said that maybe she actually died in 1949, since this had not been corrected in over a year. This solution does not seem possible, as Fr. Fuentes, a long time confident of Sister Lucy, gave a lengthy report in word and in print about his last meeting with Sister Lucy in 1957. This is reproduced on the Fatima Website. He believed that he was talking to the real Sister Lucy, and he would be in a position to know. Also, other priests who had been confessors and confidants to Sister Lucy were allowed to see her up until 1959. None of these priests raised any alarm about the identity of the pre 1958 Sister Lucy.

After John XXIII assumed control of the Vatican after the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, all of these long time confessors and confidants were forbidden to see Sister Lucy at all. The break was abrupt, total, and complete. As I understand it, a priest from a Communist country, Fr. Kondor, was brought in to be the gatekeeper for Sister Lucy (or Sister Lucy II?), and he remained the gatekeeper until 2005, the announced death of Sister Lucy.

After the 1957 Fr. Fuentes interview, which is unquestionably authentic, the next time Sister Lucy emerged was in 1967 - and this was the alleged Danish-Germanic looking Sister Lucy II, who never mentioned the 3rd secret again - a subject that was of very grave concern to Sister Lucy in her 1957 interview with Fr. Fuentes.

Next, the first time I saw this 'Two Sister Lucys' controversy was a few months ago on the Most Holy Family Monastery website. Did you pick up on this from them, or did they pick up on this from you, or did you both arrive at the analysis separately, or were you both tipped off from another source I am not aware of?

Finally, the 'picture confusion' over Sister Lucy in the March 2006 issue of Inside the Vatican may have been a deliberate ploy. Once the 'Two Sister Lucys' controversy was kicked off by www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com or someone else, it may have seemed advantageous to 'new-Church' insiders like Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican to start using the 'JFK assassination' strategy: once suppressed evidence starts coming to light - start as much confusion as possible about it so that most people throw up their hands and take a 'we can't know' attitude.

The belligerent defense for ITV's goof regarding the 'Sister Lucy picture confusion' offered by the webmaster for Inside the Vatican, Silvio Mattacchione, - (ably and politely answered by the TIA editor) - served to further the psychological confusion for the casual observer by labeling anyone as 'conspiracy-prone' who notices discrepancies in widely divergent pictures purportedly of the same person.

     Sincerely,

     Jim Condit Jr.

TIA responds:

Dear Mr. Jim Condit,

1. Your argument that Fr. Fuentes, a long time confident of Sister Lucy, gave a lengthy report about his last meeting with Sister Lucy in 1957 seems a decisive one.

After reading it, it seems very unlikely that she would have died in 1949. We seem to be wrong in our supposition. Thank you for the clarification.

2. We still have not had the opportunity to read the analysis on The Most Holy Family Monastery website about Sister Lucy.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

The Eyes Are Mirror of the Soul

Hello TIA,

I've been reading the letters concerning the photographs of both Sr. Lucy 1 and Sr. Lucy 2. [click here] I am an Old Masters portrait painter specializing in portraits of Our Lord, The Blessed Mother, saints as well as children and members of friends and family, etc. As all portraitists know the eyes are the mirror of the soul and from the moment I looked at both portraits, I knew that the two photos were of two completely different women.

Throughout the many years of drawing portraits, I've often had to rely on photos from an individual's childhood to be able to produce a portrait of that same individual 40 or 50 years later. It's been my experience that not even the entire replacement of dentures changes the bone structure of the jaw and the contour of the face.

One of your contributors stated that the "real" Sr. Lucy most probably had her teeth removed and while that may be true, it still doesn't explain the glaring disparity between the "two" Lucy's jaw bone structures and the eyes - both of which are not the same eyes.

It takes an artistic "eye" or a professional photographer to see that whoever the woman is that the world has come to know as Sr. Lucy, is, in fact, not the same young girl who took her religious vows so long ago and which is seen in the early photos.

JMJ,

A.R.

Archives Corrected

Editor,

I had written to you previously about the date of death posted on the Discalced Carmelite website for a year. It seems they have corrected it finally. Hopefully this was just an innocent mistake. Anyway, you may want to let your readers know of the correction.

The link [click here] now brings you to a corrected date of death.

Thanks for all you do.

J.K.

More Pictures of Sr. Lucy

Hello!

Here is the site of the Shrine of Fatima with lots of photos of Sr. Lucy.

I found 2 that were of a similar angle, and it looks like it could be her in both.

Click here for link to first comparison: Lucia of Jesus in the Chapel of the Apparitions dated 5-22-46:

Second to compare, click here for Lucia of Jesus in Fatima on the 50th anniversary of the apparitions at the Sanctuary of Fatima dated 5-13-67

Thank you for your site and materials,

Happy Easter,

L.W.