TWO POPES, TWO BOOKS -- AND TWO MAJOR INSIGHTS INTO FAMED THIRD FATIMA SECRET
In his book God and the World, Pope Benedict XVI not only affirmed his belief in the famed third secret of Fatima but saw in it the ability of men to "change the vision" -- to alter prophesied events -- in a dramatic way.
Referring to the secret -- which was granted to two seers in that Portuguese hamlet in 1917 and which involved an image of an angel set to torch the world (as well as a "bishop in white," who, it was prophesied, would be gunned down) -- Pope Benedict indicated that both the sparing of John Paul II's life on May 13, 1981 and the events involving Russia (preventing a nuclear holocaust) demonstrated the power of intercession.
"It becomes clear," he wrote, "from the whole drift of the three parts of the secret, that the call to repentance is central, and this makes clear at the same time that the story does not unfold with an inescapable determinism, as if everything were in any case already unalterably written, but remains a story of freedom: repentance can change the vision."
The whole secret, commented Benedict, at the time prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stands as a "dramatic call" to the free will of men, a call to change, "and thus to change the course of history."
If the Pope escaped death," he wrote, "then we may see this as a sign of how history can be changed by prayer."
That answer seems to offset the objections of those who have argued that the third secret as released by Rome was not the actual text because the Pope did not die -- as seemingly portrayed in the vision. The Pope also commented that with release of the text in seer Lucia dos Santos's own handwriting, "there can be no further reasonable discussion as to the authenticity and the completeness of this text.
It is likewise a striking argument for the notion that prophecies are not all set in stone but are often "snapshots" in time of what would happen if matters continued as they are going at the moment of the prophecy.
According to Benedict -- whose commentary accompanied release of the secret five years ago, and who was the first to officially posit the current Pope as the Pope of the secret -- the image of a bishop "whom the children themselves identified as being a pope" making his way with difficulty up a mountaintop crowned with a cross, and priests, bishops, laity, and even the pontiff killed on the way, represented the martyrs of the twentieth century and the precious nature of their blood -- which was collected by angels and became fruitful, in the vision, for the world."
That observation ties in potently with one made by John Paul II himself in his book, Memory and Identity, in which the late pontiff -- who, it is revealed, was praying sotto voce on the way to the hospital after the shooting -- states that there may have been a mystical need "for that blood to be spilled in St. Peter's Square, on the site of the martyrdom of the early Christians."
It is further revealed that John Paul II forgave the would-be assassin, Ali Agca, on the way to the emergency room -- not just later, in a famous meeting inside the prison itself, during which the Pope heard Agca's Confession.
But, said both John Paul II and his long-time secretary, Stanislaw Dziwisz, all Agca was interested in discussing was the third secret. The gunman, who John Paul II believed acted on orders from the Kremlin, remains obsessed with it.
The late Pope again credited the Blessed Mother with saving his life on that fateful day -- which was the anniversary of the first Fatima apparition -- and in the book is quoted as saying months after the attack: "Could I forget that the event in St. Peter's Square took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ to the poor little peasants occurred?"
"I felt that extraordinarily motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet," he wrote in what is basically a last testament.
"He had planned it meticulously, attending to every tiny detail," wrote John Paul II of Agca. "And yet his intended victim had escaped death. How could this have happened? The interesting thing was that his perplexity had led him to the religious question. He wanted to know about the secret of Fatima, and what the secret actually was. This was his principal concern; more than anything, he wanted to know this."
It is also revealed that upon regaining consciousness the devout pontiff was concerned that he had not had the opportunity to say the Compline.
When a follow-up operation was warranted, John Paul intentionally scheduled it for August 5 -- feast of Our Lady of the Snows, commemorating a miracle in the early centuries. At Medjugorje, August 5 is also claimed to be the actual birthday of the Blessed Mother.
Meanwhile, in a further elucidation of Fatima, Benedict XVI commented that the sun miracle at Fatima "refers to Christ as the true Light of the world," representing her "radical connection with Christ." The Face of Jesus is seen in the face of His mother. He adds that, taking after his parents, and although not always completing it, he daily recites the Rosary and that the older he becomes, "the more the Mother of God is important and close to me." He cites the passage in which Jesus on the Cross gives Mary to John as his mother, a moment that Benedict says "transcends that moment and reaches right down through history."
[resources: God and the World and Memory and Identity]