: COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF ORIGINAL TEXT VATICAN
CITY, JUN 26, 2000 (VIS) - Given below is the complete translation of
the original Portuguese text of the third part of the
secret of Fatima, revealed to the three shepherd children at Cova da
Iria-Fatima on July 13, 1917, and committed to paper by Sr. Lucia on
January 3, 1944: "I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to
do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most
Holy Mother and mine. "After the two parts which I have already
explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel
with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that
looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in
contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her
right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried
out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an
immense light that is God: 'something similar to how people appear in a
mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White 'we had
the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men
and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there
was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark;
before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in
ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and
sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having
reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big
Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows
at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other
Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of
different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there
were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which
they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the
souls that were making their way to God." .../THIRD SECRET/... VIS
000626 (380)
www.vatican.va
The Associated Press May 13 2000 1:58PM ET FATIMA,
Portugal (AP) - Ending an enduring mystery, the Vatican disclosed the
so-called third secret of Fatima on Saturday,
saying the secret the Virgin Mary is said to have told two children more
than 80 years ago was a description of the shooting of Pope John Paul
II. Since 1917 -- when two shepherd children
said the mother of Christ appeared above an olive tree in Fatima and
told them three secrets -- many have speculated about the third.
The first two are said to have foretold the
end of World War I and the start of World War II, and the rise and fall
of Soviet communism. Some believed the third, unrevealed secret was a doomsday prophecy foretelling the
end of the world. But a top Vatican cardinal said otherwise on Saturday
as the pope visited Fatima to beatify the two
shepherd children from the story.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano said the
"interpretations" of the children spoke of a "bishop clothed in white"
who, while making his way amid the corpses of martyrs, "falls
to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of
gunfire."
The description recalled the 1981
assassination attempt against John Paul, who was wounded when a Turkish
gunmen opened fire in St. Peter's Square. The shooting came on May 13 -- the same day as the first of the
reported Fatima visions in 1917.
Sodano recalled that John Paul has credited
the Virgin of Fatima with intervening and saving his life. He quoted the
pope as saying a "motherly hand" guided the bullet's path, enabling the "dying pope" to halt "at the
threshold of death."
Many in the crowd of more than 600,000
people gathered for the beatification burst into applause after Sodano,
the Vatican's secretary of state, spoke. Lucia Dias, a 31-year-old lawyer, called it a "wonderful" moment.
"He knew of the prophecy and he survived it.
Now he can die," she said. Some in the crowd, however, expressed
skepticism. "What they said all happened in the past," said Julio Estela, 33, a Portuguese car salesman.
"This isn't a prediction. It's disappointing, I think there's more."
The frail pope, who turns 80 Thursday, was
making his third visit to Fatima. Portugal's bishops had asked him to
come for the beatification of Jacinta Marto and her brother, Francisco, who were 7 and 8 years old at the time
they reported the visions. Many pilgrims hoped John Paul would reveal
the last of three secrets the shepherd
children said the Virgin told them. Beatification is the last formal
step before sainthood. The Vatican said the two are the first children
who did not die as martyrs to be so honored.
The pope leaned on his staff as his hands trembled, a symptom of
Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurological disorder. But his
voice was clear and he seemed to gain strength
as the ceremony went on.
"I desire once again to celebrate the
goodness of the Lord toward me when, severely struck on that May 13,
1981, I was saved from death. I also express my debt to the blessed Jacinta for the sacrifices and prayers made for
the Holy Father, whom she saw suffer greatly," John Paul said in his
homily.
The pope made no direct mention of the
so-called secrets, but he spoke of the horrors of the 20th century and
the two world wars. "So many victims during the final century of the second millennium!" John Paul said. The
first two of the so-called secrets were made public by a cousin of the
children, Lucia de Jesus dos Santos.
The woman -- now a 93-year-old cloistered nun --
met with John Paul near the tombs of her cousins, who both died within
three years of the reported visions of complications from influenza. Lucia, in a black nun's
habit, was assisted by two church officials as she walked with a cane.
Upon arriving in Fatima on Friday evening,
the pope placed a gold ring that had been given to him by his mentor,
the late Polish primate Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, at the foot of the statue of the Virgin of Fatima. John
Paul's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said the ring was "one of the
most precious possessions the pope had."
But he denied a Portuguese newspaper report
that the gesture was a sign of the pope's imminent resignation. "That is
150 percent wrong," Navarro-Valls said. After his visit to the shrine of Fatima, John Paul went to Lisbon
and from there flew to Rome. The archbishop of Lisbon, Jose Policarpo,
said the pope "told us that he was very happy
and did not feel tired."
Pope Punctures More Fanciful Fatima
Predictions
LISBON, May 13 (Reuters) - For decades, the
content of the so-called "Third Secret of Fatima," supposedly
transmitted to three shepherd children by the Virgin Mary in 1917, has spawned fears and fancies. From the date
of Doomsday to sex scandals so scurrilous they would sink the Roman
Catholic church, speculation has been rife
about a prophesy that the Vatican apparently felt was too delicate to
divulge. But on Saturday, before hundreds of thousands of faithful
gathered to witness the beatification of two
of the three child visionaries, the Vatican drew back the veil -- at
least partially. On the instructions of the 79-year-old Pope, who was
in Fatima to officiate at the beatification,
the number two in the Vatican hierarchy, Cardinal Angelo Sodano,
announced that the prophesy had foreseen the 1981 assassination attempt on the Pope and the persecution of
the church by communist regimes. He said other details would be released
in the future. "The vision of Fatima concerns
above all the war waged by atheist systems against the church and
Christians," Sodano said in an address at the end of the beatification
ceremony.
The protection afforded to the Pontiff by the
Virgin Mary, who Pope John Paul fervently believes saved him from an
assassin's bullet 19 years ago in Rome, "seems also to be linked to the so-called third part of the secret
of Fatima," he added. According to Sister Lucia, a 93-year-old nun who
is the last survivor of the three shepherds,
the children saw a vision in which a "bishop clothed in white...falls to
the ground, apparently dead under a burst of gunfire," the Cardinal
said.
The Pope narrowly survived the attack by
Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca and later donated the bullet dug from his
body to the sanctuary at Fatima where it was placed in the gold crown of the Madonna.
FIRST MESSAGES MADE KNOWN IN THE 1940s The
first part of the Madonna's message was a vision of hell shown to the
children. In the second part, Mary predicted
the outbreak of World War Two some 22 years before it started, asked for
devotion to her Immaculate Heart and asked that Russia, which was about
to undergo the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917,
be consecrated to her. But it was not until 1943 that Sister Lucia,
whose two young cousins died of pneumonia shortly after the visions, told her superiors about the Madonna's
messages. However, she only revealed the first two. She wrote down the
third in a sealed envelope and gave it to her
local bishop. It was sent to the Vatican in the late 1950s. When Pope
John XXIII read the secret, he was reportedly shocked and told aides he
did not want to hear about it again. His
successor, Pope Paul VI, who reigned from 1963 to 1978, and the current
Pontiff both decided against publishing it.
SECRET SPAWNED MILLIONS OF WORDS The secret
of Fatima has been the subject of hundreds of books, fills thousands of
web sites and even inspired a 1981 hijacking
by a man who wanted the Vatican to reveal it. Australian Laurence James
Downy hijacked an Aer Lingus flight between Dublin and London
holding test tubes he claimed were filled with
explosives. In 1998, Nicholas Gruner, a Catholic priest, warned that the
secret predicted the Church would be rocked by sex scandals, while others have seen it linked to Armageddon or
the collapse of Portugal's African empire, which it lost in the 1970s.
Sodano did not close the door completely to
speculation when he said that the secret contained a "prophetic vision"
similar to those found in the Bible. The full version will be issued
after "an appropriate" commentary has been
prepared by the Vatican's Doctrine of the Faith to make it intelligible
to believers. But Sodano limited the room for the doomsday theorists when he added that "the events to which the third
part of the Secret of Fatima refers now seem part of the past." From:
ABC News
The Original Announcement by Cardinal Angelo
Sodano English Version
"At the conclusion of this solemn
celebration, I feel bound to offer to our beloved Holy Father John Paul
II, on behalf of all present, heartfelt good wishes for his approaching eightieth birthday and to thank him for his
significant pastoral ministry for the good of all God's Holy Church. "On
the solemn occasion of his visit to Fatima,
His Holiness has directed me to make an announcement to you. As you
know, the purpose of his visit to Fatima has been to beatify the two
'little shepherds'. Nevertheless he also
wishes his pilgrimage to be a renewed gesture of gratitude to Our Lady
for her protection during these years of his papacy. This
protection seems also to be linked to the
so-called 'third part' of the secret of Fatima.
"That text contains a prophetic vision similar
to those found in Sacred Scripture, which do not describe with photographic
clarity the details of future events, but rather synthesize and condense against a unified background
events spread out over time in a succession and a duration which are not
specified. As a result, the text must be
interpreted in a symbolic key.
"The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war
waged by atheist systems against the Church and Christians, and it
describes the immense suffering endured by the witnesses to the faith in the last century of the second
millennium. It is an interminable Way of the Cross led by the Popes of
the twentieth century.
"According to the interpretation of the 'little
shepherds,' which was also recently confirmed by Sister Lucia, the
'bishop clothed in white' who prays for all the faithful is the Pope. As he makes his way with great effort
towards the Cross amid the corpses of those who were martyred (bishops,
priests, men and women religious and many lay
persons), he too falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of
gunfire.
"After the assassination attempt of May 13 1981,
it appeared evident to His Holiness that it was 'a motherly hand
which guided the bullet's path,' enabling the 'dying Pope' to halt 'at the threshold of death.' On the occasion
of a visit to Rome by the then bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the Pope decided
to give him the bullet which had remained in
the jeep after the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in
the Shrine. At the behest of the bishop, the bullet was later set in the
crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
"The successive events of 1989 led, both in the
Soviet Union and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe, to the
fall of the Communist regime which promoted atheism. For this too His Holiness offers heartfelt thanks
to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world, however, attacks
against the Church and against Christians,
together with the burden of suffering which they involve, tragically
continue. Even if the events to which the third part of the Secret of
Fatima refers now seem part of the past, Our
Lady's call to conversion and penance, issued at the beginning of the
twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today. 'The Lady of
the message seems to read the signs of the
times - the signs of our time - with special insight... The insistent
invitation of Mary Most Holy to penance is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern for the fate of the
human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness.'
"In order that the faithful may better receive
the message of Our Lady of Fatima, the Pope has charged the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith with making public
the third part of the secret, after the preparation of an appropriate
commentary.
"Let us thank Our Lady of Fatima for her
protection. To her maternal intercession let us entrust the Church of
the Third Millennium.
"'Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei
Genetrix!.' "Intercede pro Ecclesia Dei! Intercede pro Sancto Patre
Iohanne Paolo II! Amen."