[marshmallow]

What is it that is contained in the supposed official version of the third secret that would cause 3 popes over decades to take such great pains to keep the text hidden?

I would say that the revelation of a Pope being shot and killed would be sufficient for precisely that course of action.

Can you imagine what sort of disturbance and disquiet this would create among the faithful? Not to mention the circus it would cause in the secular world? For an officially approved apparition to predict that a future Pope would die violently would lead to all sorts of commotion in the Church and distract from its mission. "Is it today?", "Is this Pope the one?" would have been questions which spawned entire industries not unlike the JFK saga.

The Church is not "into" predicting the future. At least not in the sense that a revelation such as this foretells. It tells us that Jesus will return, that each of us will face our own particular judgement but the future violent death of a Pope is not something which we need to know for our own salvation.

There are probably other reasons which one could think of, but I think it's a stretch to infer from the long secrecy that there must be something really juicy being hidden and to further infer from this that the published version must therefore, be false.

[AAABEST]

"Precisely" huh. For some reason your post gave me a needed chuckle.

Although it won't be forthcoming, I would love to hear an solid explanation from our Church on this, as opposed to some weak article from the Zenit apologists.

On one hand they tell us (officially) that the Mother of our Lord and Savior appeared at Fatima to 3 children, on the other they tell us that they were forced to directly disobey her because of an ambiguous vision of a man in white being assaulted with bullets and arrows.

[thor76]

"The Church is not "into" predicting the future."

Then perhaps you should try reading Matthew 24.

And the Book Of Revelations.

Or perhaps those of the prophets Amos, Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaias, Joel,Abdias, Jonas, Michaes, Nahum, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharias, Malachi........

any of those dudes sound familiar? The Church recognizes them and reveres them as prophets of the Lord. And.......they predict the future.

[sageb1]

Instead of a literal interpretation, how about the dilution of Christianity and the destruction of the Church enabled by forces from within working with those from without?

Talk about things the Church wouldn't want to admit...

[Land of the Irish]

I would say that the revelation of a Pope being shot and killed would be sufficient for precisely that course of action.

So tell us please, which pope has been shot and killed as prophesized by Our Lady of Fatima? Or did the Blessed Mother make a mistake?