1. Who was Sister Lucia dos Santos of Fatima and what is the purpose of the organization and investigation of Sister Lucy Truth?
Lucia dos Santos was one of the Portuguese peasant children who, from May 1917 to October 1917, received visions from the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Cova da Iria in Fatima, Portugal. These apparitions, so full of affirmation of traditional Catholic doctrine, practice, and prophetic advice for Christians in the upcoming century, occurred before ever increasing crowds as the months of 1917 unfolded and the Blessed Virgin appeared on each 13th day of the month, except for the month of August when the Masonic mayor of the area for the revolutionary Portuguese republic, installed in 1910, imprisoned the children and, even threatened them with being boiled in oil.
In October, in response to Lucia’s request that a miracle be performed so that all would believe in the message of the apparition, the Miracle of the Sun occurred before 70,000 assembled people. The sun seemed to be dislodged from its place in the heavens and, at one point, appeared to be crashing down upon the earth.
This caused many people, even those who had come to mock at the whole event, to fall down on their knees to beg mercy of God —- thinking it was the end of the world. This Lucia dos Santos would go on to become a Dorothean sister in Spain, living through the Spanish Civil War, and then, after visiting Fatima again in 1946, entered the cloistered Carmelite Order in 1948, with the help and facilitation of Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Paul VI).
The death of “Sister Lucy” of Fatima, induced some to reconsider the photographic and handwriting evidence from the life of Sister Lucy. After Dr. Peter Chojnowski, a doctor of philosophy from Fordham University, encountered some of these articles pointing to discrepancies between the photographs and writings from the “early” Sister Lucy (pre-1967) and the “later” Sister Lucy (1967 and post-1981), he decided to act.
Through the urging of friends, also involved in spreading the Message of Fatima, Dr. Chojnowski established an educational organization to examine the life of Sister Lucy dos Santos using the available photography, handwriting, and video evidence to determine if it was the same woman who appeared as “Sister Lucy” from the Apparitions at Fatima in 1917 to her supposed death in 2005.
In order to achieve this determination in a scientific and certain way, Sister Lucy Truth referred all the materials it had collected to a diverse range of experts and facial recognition technicians and specialists in order to analyze
various aspects of the evidence, each expert examining the materials from their own particular area of specialty and, finally, attempt to render a final judgment on the question of whether or not an imposter had taken the place of the real Sister Lucy dos Santos, sometime after 1958. After viewing all the evidence collected so far, Sister Lucy Truth has determined that there was such an imposter put in place. We believe that the order for such a historic fraud, had to come from the highest levels of the Vatican, in fact, the highest.

2. Why focus on this issue? Isn’t it so small compared to everything going on in the world and the Church today?

There are several points of response to this important question. First, we have to look at the political and ecclesiastical aspects of this issue, then the theological implications, and finally, the historical importance of the issue of Fatima.

If our findings concerning the existence of two “Sister Lucys” is true, consider the massive implications for what has been happening in the Church over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries. If the Vatican has been complicit in such a coverup, the ramifications cannot be overstated. Certainly, we have already seen comparable corruption revealed in the past few decades with all the various scandals emerging from the institutional organization of the Catholic Church. The replacement of Sr. Lucy would be one more unraveled thread to the huge tapestry of corruption and radical changes that have occurred within the Church, especially since the 1960s.

Theologically, devotion to the Immaculate Heart, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is vital in the life of every Catholic. Mary came to Fatima to establish devotion to her Immaculate Heart as a remedy for the calamities revealed to the seers: firstly, the vision of Hell, and secondly, the wars, persecutions, famines that would occur in the 20th century as a result of the advance of Communism, and finally, and finally the apostasy from the faith in the Church and Society as is probably contained in the long withheld and, ultimately, distorted Third Secret.

If one studies the history of the 20th century, Fatima is at the heart of it. It touches directly upon the two World Wars, the Cold War, and the spread of Communism. It predicted the start of World War II. It coincided with the Bolshevik Revolution and the final overturning of European Christendom in World War I.

Finally, it is said by many who have read the actual Third Secret that it deals with the revolution within the Church Herself beginning with the first working session of Vatican II on October 13, 1962, the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun. It is a matter of historical fact that Our Lady came to Sr. Lucy in 1929, specifically to ask for the Consecration of Russia as if this were the most urgent matter. “The moment has come…” she said to the seer of Fatima.

We know from history what happened in those following years under Stalin’s satanic regime and his policies, which destroyed 10s of millions of lives. Sr. Lucy, trembling and sad, confirmed to Fr. Fuentes that 1960 would be a pivotal turning point in the history of the world and the Church since Our Lady’s requests for the Consecration of Russia had not been heeded. She was eliminated, and Fr. Fuentes was disavowed.

The problems that have emerged concerning the biographical evidence relating to “Sister Lucy” are: the bizarre change in Sr. Lucy, the modernistic changes in the Church, and all this tied up with the dilution of the Message of Fatima through decades of propaganda coming from the Vatican. These are problems at the heart of the Church that no observant or zealous Catholic can ignore. The identity of Sr. Lucy is emerging as a key to answering many questions.

We are making the small contribution that God has providentially granted us the opportunity to make. Given the severity of the crisis within society and the Church, this issue may seem small, but it is not. Few have the opportunity to study theology systematically and defend Church doctrine; few can become professional historians and publish how such dramatic changes could occur in a couple of generations; fewer still can combine these fields with the opportunity to publicize this knowledge. Sister Lucy Truth is using the latest in facial imaging, computer technology, and some of the best relevant experts in their various fields, to present a case to the world that cannot be denied by any person with eyes and the capacity to reason.

3. Isn’t Fatima simply a private revelation? Why can’t we just ignore all of it?

Yes, the Fatima apparitions are private revelation. However, after a thorough canonical inquiry lasting 8 years, José Alves Correia da Silva, the bishop of Fatima, solemnly approved the apparitions on October 13, 1930 in his pastoral letter A divina Providencia with the approbation of Pope Pius XI. As Fr. Antonio Royo Marín, OP, one of the 20th century’s foremost Thomistic theologians, clarifies:

“Apparitions and private revelations are not an object of Catholic faith. It is not obligatory to believe in them, and because of that, it is also not heretical to deny them.” However, the Spanish Dominican immediately adds: “But when the Church, after long and mature deliberation, has declared as ‘worthy of belief’ a specific apparition or private revelation, frankly it would be ridiculous, rash, and reckless to insist on continuing to deny it without any foundation.”

As we state above, Fatima is at the heart of every significant political and ecclesiastical event of the 20th and 21st century: the overturning of Christendom in World War I, the prediction of World War II, the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin’s genocidal program, the Cold War, and the Second Vatican Council, which marked the overthrowing of the traditional Catholic Faith in hundreds of millions of souls.

The Miracle of the Sun is perhaps the most witnessed miracle in history. Mary provided this miracle to confirm the authenticity and importance of the Fatima message. As Antonio Socci summed it up in his book, The Fourth Secret of Fatima:

“The Fatima event has received on the part of the Church—which in general is very cautious concerning supernatural phenomena—a recognition that has no equal in Christian history.”

One may certainly go on living his faith without any consideration of these facts, but anyone fired with an apostolic zeal for the state of the Church and of the world would be hard pressed to ignore them!

4. It seems suspicious that the theory of the two Sr. Lucys never showed up until 60 years after the fact and, quite conveniently, has been promoted especially among Sedevacantists (those who reject the legitimacy of the current papal claimant Francis and all those before him, after 1958, who upheld the Modernist heresies of the Vatican II Council (1962-1965), to fit their own narrative.

This objection is a textbook example of a logical fallacy called the Genetic Fallacy. The Genetic Fallacy is committed when a person attempts to disprove a position by pointing to how or why a person comes to hold that view and so fails to assess the position on its own merits.

For example, an atheist may dismiss Christianity by saying, “You believe in God because you want to hold down the superior and more talented people with the idea of an all-powerful creator.” But a person’s motivation for believing or not believing in God is logically irrelevant to whether God actually exists.

Likewise, whether someone who believes that the institutional organization (i.e, the buildings and offices) of the Catholic Church have been usurped by Her enemies and that a case for this might be bolstered by the discovery of a fake Sister Lucy, has nothing logically to do with the irrefutable force of the scientific and medical evidence that Sister Lucy Truth has gathered. “Facts are stubborn things,” as John Adams stated when he defended the British soldiers who fired on the attacking mob in Boston in 1770 in the “Boston Massacre.”

As we state in our response to the objection about how a coverup like this could be maintained for decades, the development of digital communications and the internet has provided an incredible catalyst for scrutinizing the historical facts and evidence. The determination to discover the truth of the matter by utilizing state-of-the-art facial recognition technology and expert medical analysis alone drives this project.

5. How is this not simply another crazy conspiracy theory?

These days, we are used to hearing the label “conspiracy theory” casually tossed around in order to dismiss positions that run against the mainstream narrative. Given all of the misinformation in the world, the confusion, and the opportunity for any obscure person to broadcast his ideas across the internet, no matter how bizarre, this is an understandable reaction. Initially we did not accept the theory of two Sr. Lucys, and we would not believe it ourselves—if it wasn’t for the undeniable force of the evidence. We simply ask the reader to evaluate the evidence we have presented at sisterlucytruth.com, which speaks for itself.

The experts and companies that we have commissioned are not obscure individuals or groups that have been dismissed from the wider scientific community. They are well-established leaders and notable experts of good repute within each of their respective fields. They have generously agreed to have their names attached to their work, putting their professional reputations on the line. Lastly, they are not personally invested in the results of this work.

Sister Lucy Truth, as an investigative enterprise, makes no attempt to draw theological conclusions from our findings. We simply wish to present the truth as it is uncovered.

6. Some dismiss the weight of the scientific evidence. Typically, it comes in the form of a cynical tagline: “You get the results you pay for.”

First, this is an uncharitable assumption that we have dishonest motives, and this alone should be sufficient to dismiss the accusation. But further, it ignores the fact that we have a public and professional reputation to maintain. Publicly conducting this sort of project has consequences.

The scientists and experts commissioned also have public, professional reputations on the line. Further, they are not personally invested in the results. All of them were given this material for analysis without any explanation of the desired results. They were simply asked to analyze and deliver the conclusions based on their own expertise or technological equipment. They all , in various ways and according to their own methods and standards of evaluation independently came to the same conclusion: there are two individuals.

The most critical response, however, is that we received results that we did not expect or were not in accord with the general consensus of the experts that we consulted, such as in the iPRoBe Lab or the handwriting analysis of the purported Third Secret. If we had simply paid off these experts, then all the results should be part of a uniform analysis —- which they are not. The fact that not everything lines with the consensus that Sister Lucy Truth has achieved through its consultation with the relevant specialists, is a further proof of its objectivity.

7. Why doesn’t dental work or aging explain the differences in appearance between the two Sr. Lucys?

Dr. Joseph Mascaro, Dr. Ruud Karsten, Prof. Carlos Bezerra, Dr. Julio Garcia, and Lois Gibson all independently affirm that the preponderance of physical differences between the two Sr. Lucys cannot be explained away by dental work, dentures, plastic surgery, or the aging process.

They further state that the differences are so significant that the most reasonable explanation for them is the existence of two separate individuals. When one considers that the success of their professional careers has been based on the rigorous competence of their medical and scientific training, it would be rash to flippantly claim that they were all wrong on the same points.

Further, in our facial math measurements report, conducted with the help of an independent prosthodontist, we measured ratios of specific anatomical landmarks to see whether aging could explain the observed differences between the two Lucys. These ratios demonstrate with mathematical certitude that the two individuals have fundamentally different facial measurements that cannot be accounted for by the aging process and even run counter to the aging process (e.g. Lucy II has a shorter philtrum than Lucy I, but the philtrum grows longer with age; the same applies to the distance between the eyebrows and eyes).

Lastly, Dr. Mascaro, an oral surgeon with extensive experience in jaw osteotomies, notes that Lucy II’s dentures “further support the conclusion that [there are] two different people.” Removal of the teeth “is unable to account for the marked change in profiles, particularly the mandibular protrusion. A severely prognathic chin is skeletal, not dental in origin.”

8. Why has it taken 5 years of investigation to only get to the point of identifying that there were two individuals who emerged in the public eye as “Sister Lucy of Fatima”?

First, we have not set a timetable for our experts who have other cases and distinct methods of procedure. We do not determine how they do what they do, nor do we determine the results that they come to when they look at our presented materials and answer our questions concerning those materials.

Second, our lack of serious financial resources has required that we have individuals working with us who through their generosity with regard to their time — none of whom work full-time for Sister Lucy Truth, including the director —- put in as many hours as they can, presenting and evaluating the reports and information that we receive.

Third, this is an ongoing investigation that is still uncovering evidence concerning the historical existence of an imposter and then, intends to move on to finding out what happened to the real Sister Lucy, who is the imposter, and what happened to bring about the switch and the identify theft.

It is unfortunate, but perhaps to be expected, that some have uncharitably assumed that this work is for financial gain. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact that we have taken the trouble to register Sister Lucy Truth as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization is a demonstration of our goodwill and seriousness. All donations and expenses are set aside only for the stated purposes of the organization and are thoroughly documented. Frankly, we lose money by setting aside time for this work, and we are putting our reputations on the line.

9. Wouldn’t Sr. Lucy’s family or relatives or the nuns of her convent have known that she was an imposter?

Firstly, we don’t know what Sr. Lucy’s family, relatives, or fellow nuns actually “knew” about her or her stay at the Carmel at Coimbra, Portugal, and barring the revelation of some unknown confession, we may never know. However, there are some truths we do know. The scientific and medical evidence we have is irrefutable.

All the logistical difficulties of how an imposter could be introduced are secondary details that remain to be discovered. However, we know that the relatives were never allowed to see Sr. Lucy face-to-face but always behind the grill and in the presence of other sisters of the community. Hence, there was no opportunity for intimate or in-depth conversation.

If it is true that the Vatican and its co-conspirators replaced Sr. Lucy with an imposter, is it not also reasonable to believe that these thugs acting in the name of the Church exerted pressure on Sr. Lucy’s relatives to remain silent and pretend as if nothing were happening? This isn’t proof that there was an imposter. It is simply stating that we should not be surprised that a cover up would involve tying up the loose ends with whatever threats or means necessary.

10. Wouldn’t a false Sr. Lucy have to have sacrificed her entire life in order to play a role? What could she possibly gain?

Many dedicate their entire lives to a cause, and many evil people have made incredible sacrifices for terrible purposes. Likewise, many heroic individuals have sacrificed everything knowing they would never see the fruits of their actions.

The work of internally subverting the Catholic Church in the 20th and 21st century by external enemies and conspirators is a well-documented fact. Have not Communist, Sodomites, or Masonic agents acted as priests and even prelates of the Church for the entirety of their lives? The purpose of playing such a role is simple: the destruction of the Catholic Faith itself.

11. Why replace Sr. Lucy when the Vatican could simply silence her?

For the simple reason that they could not silence the true seer of Fatima. Even more so, given the Vatican’s 40 years of silence following 1960 and its relentless propaganda to water Fatima down into a vague and generic call to holiness, prayer, and penance, they not only needed the silence of Sr. Lucy, they needed her undivided support. Her writings from after 1960 bear this point out. She called for complete obedience to the occupants of the Vatican from the 1960s to “her” death in 2005. Her adulation of these men culminated in her 1992/1993 interviews and her supposed approval of the interpretation of the Third Secret given in 2000, all of which make the Third Secret about John Paul II, and make him the great hero of the Fatima Message.

They could not silence the seer. Before 1960, she repeatedly insisted in her letters that obedience to Christ and to the Blessed Virgin Mary compelled her to speak. They could not silence the seer, who did not hesitate to criticize each pre-conciliar pope who failed to heed Our Lord and Our Lady’s requests. In 1928, she wrote how “Our Lord is profoundly displeased.”

In 1929 she let it be known that the Holy Fathers themselves would fail Our Lord as the kings of France had failed Him when they failed to consecrate the Kingdom of France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as was requested through revelations to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. In a 1935 letter to Fr. José Bernardo Gonçalves, her confessor, Sister Lucy —- the real one —- wrote, “Regarding the matter of Russia, I think that it would please Our Lord very much if you worked to make the Holy Father comply with His wishes.”

When Fr. Gonçalves wrote back in 1936 asking whether it was still necessary to insist on this point, she answered, “Believe me, if it were not for the fear of displeasing Our Good Lord because of my lack of clarity and sincerity, I would never have decided to speak so clearly.”

And like a gadfly, she continued to repeat and proclaim the renewed requests of Our Lord and Our Lady in letters all through the years between 1940 to 1952 and for the final time in 1957. At the end of 1957, she said in her interview with Fr. Fuentes,

“Believe me, Father, God will chastise the world, and this will be in a terrible manner. The chastisement from Heaven is imminent. The year 1960 is on us, and then what will happen? It will be very sad for everyone, and far from a happy thing if the world does not pray and do penance before then.”

Not only was Sr. Lucy silenced and eliminated, but Fr. Fuentes was publicly disavowed. The next bishop of Leiria, Msgr. João Pereira Venâncio, said in 1960 regarding the Third Secret: “I can say nothing.” Despite Msgr. Venâncio’s final attempt in a letter of May 17, 1960 to unite all the bishops of the world in preparation for the Consecration of Russia, John XXIII ignored it.

From then on, further word from Sister Lucia was in total agreement with whatever the Vatican, at the time, wished to say about Fatima and the Third Secret. Not only was the Vatican able to finally silence the seer who refused to remain silent, but they could have her agree with any change to the Fatima message they saw fit to promote. How do we explain this complete change in Sr. Lucy’s behavior, which occurred precisely after her final interview was published in 1959?

12. How could a cover up this extensive be maintained over decades?

We don’t have enough information to know exactly how the cover up occurred and how it was maintained. The only thing we have for certain is the irrefutable scientific and medical evidence that there were two Sr. Lucys. Nevertheless, we can still suggest a few reasons how it would have been possible to get away with the substitution.

Part of what made the coverup easy to maintain for decades was the inability to share extensive photographs, videos, and samples of Sr. Lucy’s appearance and handwriting before and after the 1960s. With the advent of the internet and social media, spreading this information has become easy and instantaneous. For the first time in history, we can see with our own eyes how Sr. Lucy appeared, how she changed, as well as her handwriting.

Before instant communication and technologies, Sister Lucy could easily have been eliminated, as she seems to have been sometime after the Fr. Fuentes interview of December 26, 1957. For added information, see sisterlucytruth.com.

— Questions and Answers by Dr. Peter E. Chojnowski for Sister Lucy Truth

About the author

Peter E. Chojnowski was born in 1965 in New Britain, Connecticut. Chojnowski has bachelor degrees in political science and philosophy from Christendom College, Front Royal, Virginia and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University, Bronx, New York. He specializes in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and Catholic Social Thought. For over 30 years, he has taught at various institutions of higher learning, such as Fordham University, Fairfield University, Iona College, St. Louis University, St. Mary’s University of Minnesota, and Gonzaga University.

Currently he teaches at Immaculate Conception Academy in Post Falls, Idaho. Chojnowski has written 2 books and over 300 articles and reviews for a variety of publications, including the British Catholic Medical Journal, Catholic Family News, the Latin Mass magazine, the Journal of Metaphysics, and the Fatima Crusader. In November of 2017, Dr. Chojnowski established Sister Lucy Truth incorporated in order to investigate the life and identity of Sister Lucy dos Santos of Fatima.