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Secrets — Our Lady of La Salette

On 19 September 1846, after speaking publicly to both children, the Beautiful Lady spoke privately to Maximin and then to Mélanie. Each later wrote a short secret for Pope Pius IX (1851). Those archival texts—not later expansions—are what this page records, with the historical cautions the Holy See has long attached to polemics about “the Secret of La Salette.”

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The apparition of Our Lady of La Salette (19 September 1846) is recognized by the Church for public devotion. The Beautiful Lady also confided a private “secret” to each child. Those secrets are not part of the public call to conversion that the Sanctuary emphasizes. This page presents the short 1851 texts written for Pope Pius IX and later rediscovered in the former Holy Office archives—not the much longer 1879 booklet associated with Mélanie Calvat, which belongs to a separate and contested documentary history. Private revelation does not belong to the deposit of faith; Catholics are not obliged to accept these texts. SanctumNomen does not apply them as a map of present or future events.

Church recognition and the secrets

On 19 September 1851 Bishop Philibert de Bruillard of Grenoble declared that the apparition had all the characteristics of truth and that the faithful had solid grounds to believe it. The approved core is the public message of conversion: reverence for the Lord’s Day, reverence for the Holy Name, prayer, and penance. The Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette continue that public mission at the shrine.

In July 1851, at the bishop’s request, Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat each wrote the secret they said Our Lady had given them, for transmission to Pope Pius IX. Those sealed texts remained unpublished for about a century and a half. In October 1999 Fr. Michel Corteville identified the 1851 manuscripts in the archives of what is now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Fr. Corteville’s research and a 2002 summary with Fr. René Laurentin (Découverte du secret de La Salette) made the short 1851 texts widely known.

A later, greatly expanded version published by Mélanie in 1879 (with an imprimatur of the Bishop of Lecce) sparked bitter controversy. The Holy See repeatedly intervened against unauthorized polemics and certain publications connected with that longer “Secret of La Salette.” A Holy Office decree of 21 December 1915 ordered the faithful to abstain from treating and discussing the so-called Secret in books and periodicals under any pretext—expressly without condemning devotion to Our Lady under the title of La Salette. In 1923 a reprint of the 1879-related booklet was placed on the Index. Because of that history, this page does not reproduce the 1879 text and avoids speculative commentary. The Church’s pastoral emphasis remains the public message of reconciliation.

Timeline of the secrets

  1. Apparition at La Salette; a secret is confided to each child after the public message.
  2. Maximin writes his secret at Grenoble for Pope Pius IX.
  3. Mélanie writes (and corrects) her secret for the Pope; the sealed texts are sent to Rome.
  4. Bishop de Bruillard recognizes the apparition as worthy of belief.
  5. Mélanie publishes a much longer version of “the Secret” (Lecce imprimatur). This later text is distinct from the short 1851 manuscripts and became the focus of lasting controversy.
  6. Holy Office decree restrains books and articles discussing “the Secret of La Salette”; devotion to Our Lady of La Salette is explicitly not condemned.
  7. A Holy Office decree places on the Index a 1922 reprint connected with Mélanie’s longer published text.
  8. Fr. Michel Corteville identifies the original 1851 secrets in the former Holy Office archives.
  9. Laurentin and Corteville publish Découverte du secret de La Salette, presenting the short 1851 texts to a wider public.

How to read these texts

Two secrets, not one numbered Fatima-style sequence. Maximin and Mélanie each received a private word. The 1851 writings are short; they are the documents actually sent to Pius IX.

Conditional prophecy. Especially in Mélanie’s 1851 text, threats are tied to failure to convert—the same pastoral logic as the public message and as biblical warnings that leave room for repentance.

Not a Holy See “Message of Fatima” style publication. The Vatican has not issued an official theological commentary presenting these secrets as a completed disclosure for the universal Church. What follows is historical: archival seer texts made public by scholarly publication after 1999.

Avoid the 1879 expansion. Popular online “Secrets of La Salette” often quote the long later booklet (attacks on clergy, elaborations absent from 1851). That is not the text used here.

1. Maximin’s secret (1851)

Archival text (1851)

Disclosure: Written by Maximin Giraud at Grenoble on 3 July 1851 for Pope Pius IX; rediscovered in the former Holy Office archives (1999) and published in Laurentin–Corteville, Découverte du secret de La Salette (2002). English rendering follows that published tradition of the manuscript.

Maximin records the Beautiful Lady’s private words about France, a decline and later rekindling of faith, disorders in the Church, persecution of the Pope, a brief peace disturbed by a “monster,” and a horizon “at the latest in the year two thousand.” Timing is said to depend on whether “my people” change. This page does not map those lines onto later history.

Archival text (English translation)

On September 19, 1846, we saw a beautiful Lady. We never said that this lady was the Blessed Virgin but we always said that it was a beautiful Lady. I do not know if it is the Blessed Virgin or another person. As for me, I believe today that it is the Blessed Virgin. Here is what this Lady said to me:

“If my people continue, what I will say to you will arrive earlier, if it changes a little, it will be a little later. France has corrupted the universe, one day it will be punished. The faith will die out in France: three quarters of France will not practice religion anymore, or almost no more, the other part will practice it without really practicing it. Then, after [that], nations will convert, the faith will be rekindled everywhere. A great country in the north of Europe, now Protestant, will be converted; by the support of this country all the other nations of the world will be converted. Before all that arrives, great disorders will arrive, in the Church, and everywhere. Then, after [that], our Holy Father the Pope will be persecuted. His successor will be a pontiff that nobody expects. Then, after [that], a great peace will come, but it will not last a long time. A monster will come to disturb it. All that I tell you here will arrive in the other century, at the latest in the year two thousand.”

Maximin Giraud (She told me to say it some time before.) My Most Holy Father, your holy blessing to one of your sheep. Grenoble, July 3, 1851.

Maximin’s diction is that of a peasant boy writing for the Pope. Spurious longer “secrets of Maximin” circulated in the nineteenth century; Maximin himself rejected fabricated prophecies attributed to him. Prefer the 1851 archival text above.

2. Mélanie’s secret (1851)

Archival text (1851)

Disclosure: Written by Mélanie Mathieu (Calvat) at Corenc / Grenoble in early July 1851 (dated 6 July 1851 on the manuscript sent to the Pope); same archival rediscovery and 2002 publication as Maximin’s text. Distinct from her 1879 published expansion.

Mélanie’s 1851 secret warns that if the people do not convert after the public message, God’s justice will be shown: chastisement of cities, persecution of the Pope and of faithful priests and religious, famine, a later religious renewal and abundance, relapse into disorder, and finally language about Antichrist—with the time said not to be far (“twice 50 years”). The Lady forbids Mélanie to speak of it until told to do so. Conditional conversion language is central; this page does not treat the lines as a certain calendar of events.

Archival text (English translation)

J.M.J. secret which the Blessed Virgin gave me on the Mountain of La Salette on September 19, 1846

Secr[e]t.

Mélanie, I will say something to you which you will not say to anybody:

The time of God’s wrath has arrived! If, when you say to the people what I have said to you so far, and what I will still ask you to say, if, after that, they do not convert, (if they do not do penance, and they do not cease working on Sunday, and if they continue to blaspheme the Holy Name of God), in a word, if the face of the earth does not change, God will be avenged against the people ungrateful and slave of the demon. My Son will make his power manifest! Paris, this city soiled by all kinds of crimes, will perish infallibly. Marseilles will be destroyed in a little time. When these things arrive, the disorder will be complete on the earth, the world will be given up to its impious passions. The pope will be persecuted from all sides, they will shoot at him, they will want to put him to death, but no one will be able to do it, the Vicar of God will triumph again this time. The priests and the Sisters, and the true servants of my Son will be persecuted, and several will die for the faith of Jesus Christ. A famine will reign at the same time. After all these will have arrived, many will recognize the hand of God on them, they will convert, and do penance for their sins. A great king will go up on the throne, and will reign a few years. Religion will re-flourish and spread all over the world, and there will be a great abundance, the world, glad not to be lacking nothing, will fall again in its disorders, will give up God, and will be prone to its criminal passions. [Among] God’s ministers, and the Spouses of Jesus-Christ, there will be some who will go astray, and that will be the most terrible. Lastly, hell will reign on earth. It will be then that the Antichrist will be born of a Sister, but woe to her! Many will believe in him, because he will claim to have come from heaven, woe to those who will believe in him! That time is not far away, twice 50 years will not go by.

My child, you will not say what I have just said to you. (You will not say it to anybody, you will not say if you must say it one day, you will not say what that it concerns), finally you will say nothing anymore until I tell you to say it!

I pray to Our Holy Father the Pope to give me his holy blessing.

Mélanie Mathieu, Shepherdess of La Salette, Grenoble, July 6, 1851. J.M.J.+

Do not confuse this short 1851 manuscript with Mélanie’s 1879 booklet, which adds extensive material absent here and became the object of Holy See disciplinary measures against related publications. The Sanctuary’s ordinary preaching remains the public message of conversion and reconciliation.

Pastoral reading (limits)

The Church approved the apparition and the public message. The secrets were private words later written for the Pope. Their later publication history is tangled; the Holy See’s interventions targeted polemical treatment and certain booklets more than the existence of secrets within an approved apparition.

Cardinal and diocesan practice for La Salette centers pilgrims on conversion, the Eucharist, and reconciliation—not apocalyptic curiosity. Prophetic private revelations, when authentic, summon freedom toward penance; they do not replace Scripture or the Magisterium, and they do not oblige the faithful.

SanctumNomen therefore publishes the short 1851 archival texts as historical documents of record, refuses the 1879 expansion, and declines speculative “fulfillment charts.” The lasting word of La Salette for the Church’s people is the one the Beautiful Lady made public: “You will make this known to all my people.”

Sources and further reading

Private revelation is not required belief. Approval means the faithful may believe with prudence.

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