Maike Hickson March 10, 2017 323 Comments

However, in the 21 May 2016 Press Communique from the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI was himself quoted as having said “never to have spoken with Professor Dollinger about Fatima” and, secondly, that “the publication of the Third Secret is complete.” Right after this denial and added affirmation, Dr. Dollinger insisted again upon bearing his own witness. In the wake of this somewhat unsettling development, we therefore inquired further about the virtuous life and witness of Dr. Dollinger – who himself was also a close collaborator of Saint Padre Pio – and we then also published a short story of his life in order to give more credence and even a moral certitude to his story.

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Giuseppe Nardi was able to meet in Austria and then interview a close friend of Dr. Dollinger himself for many years: Gottfried Kiniger. Kiniger is a hatmaker and lives in the little beautiful village of Sillian in the East Tirol of Austria. He is now also in his late 80s and he was in his lifetime very active politically, having been supportive of the monarchist cause and of the Pan-European Movement (Paneuropa Bewegung) of Otto von Habsburg, and having also always been a public defender of the Catholic Church. As he told Giuseppe Nardi, he regularly met with Dr. Dollinger at least twice a year after they had first met in the 1990s in Salzburg, Austria. Only these recent years, due to their advanced age, these two friends have not any more been able to meet in person. Inasmuch as Father Dollinger has lived in Wigratzbad, Germany since his own retirement in 2004, the two friends often had met in that village where also the Fraternity of St. Peter’s own seminary is now located.
Gottfried Kiniger with his wife, 2009
As Nardi now reports, he first happened to visit Gottfried Kiniger on 21 December 2016, where he incidentally and quite informally mentioned the Dollinger story, as it had been publicly discussed more broadly after that 21 May of 2016. Kiniger, who does not use the Internet, had not yet heard about that story. Nardi continues, by saying:[/font][/font]

After hearing about the [21 May 2016] denial coming from Rome, Kiniger became very upset. He could not imagine that Benedict XVI was to have made such a statement, because what Hickson had reported is what Dollinger had told him already in 2000. For this reason, there took place a second conversation at which Kiniger’s own description was recorded.

“I do not remember the exact date,” says Kiniger, “but it was still in the year 2000, I am sure about that. I still remember the press conference [about the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima] in Rome, as it was then shown on television. In the fall, I visited again, as usual, Dollinger with whom I am friends for many years. On this occasion, he told me of his having met Cardinal Ratzinger – then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – shortly after that [June 2000] press conference. He even then con-celebrated with him, something which Dollinger usually does not do, but Ratzinger had invited him to do it. After the celebration [of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass], Dollinger spoke with the cardinal and brought up the topic of Fatima and the Third Secret. Ratzinger told him: ‘What we have published is not the whole secret. [‘Was wir veröffentlicht haben, ist nicht das ganze Geheimnis.’] In the sacristy, there were also present other priests – some of them high-ranking priests – to whom the cardinal had to attend intermittently. But he soon returned to Dollinger and said to him: ‘We were instructed to do so.’ [‘Es ist uns so aufgetragen worden.’] This same sentence Dollinger, a second time, repeated: ‘We were instructed to do so.’ He [Dollinger] has interpreted these words, as such: namely, that John Paul II wanted it and ordered it this way. At this meeting, when Dollinger told me all these things, other people were also present, among them my own companion.
In the years to follow, Dollinger told of this episode again and again, several times, at our meetings. Most of the time, there were also several other people present. It was no secret, there was nothing that he kept secret. This is what the cardinal told him, this is what he passed on to others. Sometimes, there were priests and seminarians also sitting with us at the table who came from the seminary of the Fraternity of St. Peter in Wigratzbad. I do not know their names. In any event, numerous people have heard this story over the course of the years. I personally can witness to the story since the fall of 2000, when Dollinger told it to me for the first time. There is for me no doubt that Professor Dollinger, in whom I have complete trust, has described the story in a truthful manner. What would have been his reason to invent such a conversation and such a content – and so shortly after the press conference at the time – and then also to tell it freely and openly to everybody who wanted to hear it? That Benedict denies it suddenly, after 16 years, is hard for me to imagine. That seems to me rather implausible. I do not know why Rome does this. I cannot account for it. It seems as if one wishes to put the lid upon Fatima and to close the case. But that does not work. But, I do not know why Rome has acted in such a manner.”