Featured image: Sister Lúcia in 1946 (source)
About twenty years ago, a debate arose on the internet about whether the person appearing as Sister Lúcia in photographs taken after 1967 was really Lúcia dos Santos, one of the three visionaries of Fatima.
The controversy started on the traditionalist site Tradition in Action in 2006. On April 5, 2006, Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D. published an article in which she claims that the facial anatomy of Sister Lúcia, as seen in the 1967 photographs taken during the visit of “Paul VI” to Fatima, is not the same as the pre-1967 images. Further analysis and speculation followed.
In 2017, the Catholic philosopher Dr. Peter Chojnokowski established the non-profit “Sister Lucy Truth”. He became convinced that the second nun was an impostor and so hired experts to analyze photos of Lúcia and her handwriting and to determine whether the individual appearing before and after the 1960s is the same person or not.
The purpose of this article is not to discuss in detail the scientific investigations, just to describe them briefly and raise awareness among the faithful. Although not part of the Catholic faith, the approved apparitions of Fátima are the most popular private revelation in the Catholic Church, accompanied by a miracle witnessed by tens of thousands in 1917, and many things in the message, like the spread of Communism, has had a great impact on world history.
Lúcia with Jacinta and Francisco as children. (source)
The life of Sister Lúcia very briefly
Sister Lúcia (Lúcia dos Santos) was born on March 28, 1907 to a farmer family in Portugal. She was the youngest of seven children. The siblings Francisco Marto (1908-1919) and Jacinta Marto (1910-1920) were her first cousins.
In 1916, when the three children were herding sheep, an angel appeared to them. The angel introduced himself as the “Angel of Peace” and taught them a short prayer of reparation. In a later apparition, the angel said that he was the “Guardian Angel of Portugal” and told the children, among other things, to “[o]ffer up everything within your power as a sacrifice to the Lord in an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended; and of supplication for the conversion of sinners.”
On May 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared to the children for the first time and told them to come to the same location on the thirteenth day of each month for the next six months.
On July 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary told the seers: “… I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays…”
The children received three secrets. The first one was a vision of hell, the second a request to establish a devotion to Mary’s Immaculate Heart and the request for the Pope to consecrate Russia, and the third was unknown at the time. It was supposed to have been revealed in 1960, but that didn’t happen. The contents of the Third Secret were the subject of much controversy, until the Vatican, under “John Paul II”, released a version talking about the assassination of a pope.
Later in her life, Lúcia entered a convent in Spain. She received additional visions, including one in 1929 where she was told that the Pope should consecrate Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
In 1957, the Mexican priest Augustín Fuentes interviewed Lúcia in the convent of Coimbra, Portugal. She made warning statements. For example:
“Father, the Most Holy Virgin is very sad because no one has paid any attention to Her message, neither the good nor the bad. The good continue on their way but without giving any importance to Her message. […] Tell them, Father, that many times the most Holy Virgin told my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations will disappear from the face of the earth. She said that Russia will be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to punish the whole world if we do not beforehand obtain the conversion of that poor nation. Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin.” (source)
This was probably the last public appearance of the original Sister Lúcia. After this interview, the convent revoked permission for further interviews and Lúcia was not heard from for a decade.
The appearance of “Lúcia” in 1967
In 1967, “Paul VI” decided to visit Fátima. There, a woman claiming to be Sister Lúcia introduced herself to the public.
This “Lúcia” appeared various times in public, granting interviews. She contradicted some statements made by original Lúcia. Some examples can be found here.
She also wrote a book published in 2000, which contains various questionable passages.
This woman died in 2005.
Image from the report of Lois Gibson.
The investigation
In November 2017, Dr. Chojnokowski established an organization called “Sister Lucy Truth” dedicated to analyzing scientifically whether or not the two women were identical. He hired various scientists and experts to this end, including a facial analysis company, handwriting experts and forensic artists.
Photo analysis
One of the companies hired by Dr. Chojnokowski was called Animetrics. The report of the company writes succinctly: “Nose length and philtrum lengths differ. Eyebrow shapes inconsistent. Inner eye width, nose width and mouth width are similar.”
Super-recognizer analysis
A super-recognizer is an individual with an exceptionally good memory for human faces. Dragica Brayovic, who was credited as the top Australian super-recognizer, was hired by Sister Lucy Truth and was provided with four sets of images: young Lúcia (A), adult Lúcia (B), the second Lúcia in 1967 (C) and elderly second Lúcia (D). Her conclusion: A and B were the same person, as were C and D, but AB and CD were not the same person.
Opinion of a plastic surgeon
Dr. Julio Garcia, a plastic surgeon, has received four sets of images of the two Lúcias, similar to the super-recognizer above. He wrote:
“As a board-certified Plastic Surgeon, I am of the opinion that Subject B and Subject C share some similarities, but I am very confident they are not the same individual. The strongest evidence for this conclusion is the discrepancy between the chins. Subject C and Subject D have far more prominent, protrusive chins when compared to the profile view of Subject B. This difference cannot be explained by the aging process. Nor could dental work account for the observed discrepancy. In addition, Subject B’s eyelids provide additional evidence that Subject B is a different individual than the individual pictured in Subject C and Subject D because
a. an eyelid crease suddenly becomes evident in the latter images and
b. the space between the brow and eyelash appears to expand over time instead of diminishing.”
Handwriting analysis
In addition to the analysis of photos, the forensic handwriting expert Bart Baggett has compared a four-page letter written by Lúcia in 1944 to a one-page letter written by the alleged Lúcia in 1969. His conclusion: “highly probable that IRMA LUCIA did not write the questioned document”. He based this conclusion on differences in the writing style of certain letters. A short summary can be read here.
Image from the report of Lois Gibson.
Illustrations by forensic artists
The famous American forensic artist Lois Gibson was asked by Chojnokowski for her opinion. She holds the world record for most identifications by a forensic artist. She compared the two individuals and agreed that they were not the same person. She examined two sets of photos: Person A is the original Lucia, and Person B is the other woman. She wrote:
“There is no perfect comparison between the same individual in separate photos. However, it is possible to know when the individuals in different photos are NOT the same. Due to the various completely different facial structures of individual A compared to B, it is impossible these are the same woman.
- The foreheads show much different underlying frontal bones. The superciliary arch of B protrudes forward much more than A.
- The noses are a different shape with B having a larger, rounder, and more downward angled tip which cannot be explained by cartilage growth.
- The philtrum (distance from the top of the nose to the top edge of the top lip) is longer on A than B. The lips on A are thicker and narrower on the horizontal plane than B, with A’s bottom lip protruding forward much more than B. Dentures, should they be involved, would replicate the pre-existing dentition and thus not cause such a drastic difference*.
- The horizontal mental indention below the bottom lip, is wider on the vertical plane on A and indents deeper below the bottom lip on A than on B.
[…]” (source)
“But her family would have noticed something!”
As an editorial letter on the Sister Lucy Truth website pointed out, there are many cases in history where con artists have been able to deceive relatives of missing people. One famous example is the notorious French con-artist Frédéric Bourdin, who impersonated three missing teenagers.
Even if they would have recognized that she was an impostor, what could they have done? In the days before the Internet, they would either have to have gone to the authorities, who not have been inclined to believe them or hoped that they would find a journalist sympathetic to them who would report the issue.
Dr. Chojnokowski delivered a presentation of his findings at the 2025 Ohio State Coroners’ Association’s Annual Conference. After the presentation, all listeners (around 100) agreed with the conclusion that there are two different individuals here.