Posted on 05/11/2007 1:27:17 PM PDT by NYer
Fatima: The secret's out, despite claims to the contrary
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Despite claims there are still secrets connected to the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope Benedict XVI and his secretary of state said the entire message has been published and has been interpreted accurately.
The Marian apparitions to three children in Fatima, Portugal, began 90 years ago May 13, and Pope John Paul II ordered the so-called "third secret" of Fatima to be published in 2000.
As the Fatima anniversary approached, the Vatican bookstore was selling copies of "The Last Fatima Visionary: My Meetings With Sister Lucia." The 140-page, Italian-language interview with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, opens with a letter of presentation from Pope Benedict.
The two men worked with Pope John Paul to publish the "third secret" and to write an official commentary on it, describing its depiction of a "man dressed in white" shot down amid the rubble of a ruined city as a prophetic vision of the 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul.
In the new book, Cardinal Bertone said Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, at the time the last surviving visionary, confirmed the Vatican's interpretation.
He also said Pope John Paul felt that since the assassination attempt had already taken place and he survived, the 2000 beatification of Sister Lucia's cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, was an appropriate occasion for announcing the publication of the secret.
The continuing rumors that the Vatican is still hiding something puzzle Cardinal Bertone and, he said, they irritated Sister Lucia, who died in February 2005 at the age of 97.
In the book, Cardinal Bertone said, "The most diehard 'Fatimists,' like those who follow Father Nicholas Gruner's Fatima Crusader magazine, remain disappointed."
Father Gruner, a priest based in Canada, repeatedly has said that the Vatican's text does not match other accounts by Sister Lucia and, basically, does not contain anything worrying enough to have prevented Popes John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II from publishing it earlier.
The strange thing, Cardinal Bertone said in the new book, is that Pope John Paul decided to publish the secret precisely to put an end to the wild speculation that had surrounded it.
"The pressure from the 'Fatimists' was extremely strong," the cardinal said.
"The most absurd theses" were being spread, mainly presuming that the secret predicted catastrophic world events or widespread heresy at the top levels of the church, Cardinal Bertone said.
"Clearing up the question was a pastoral concern," he said.
Pope Benedict's letter, written in late February, reflects that concern.
The publication of the third secret "was a time of light, not only because the message could be known by all, but also because it unveiled the truth amid the confused framework of apocalyptic interpretations and speculation circulating in the church, upsetting the faithful rather than asking them for prayers and repentance," Pope Benedict wrote.
The pope, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said he wrote the Vatican commentary "after having prayed intensely and meditated deeply on the authentic words of the third part of the secret of Fatima, contained on sheets written by Sister Lucia."
Pope Benedict said that for him the secret can be summarized "by the consoling promise of the Most Holy Virgin: 'My immaculate heart will triumph.'"
Cardinal Bertone's knowledge of the Fatima secret is not something that comes just from a book.
As secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was sent by Pope John Paul to Fatima to discuss the upcoming publication of the secret with Sister Lucia.
What was known as the "third secret" was, in fact, the third part of a vision shown to Sister Lucia and her cousins.
Sister Lucia had made the first two parts public in the late 1930s. They included a vision of hell shown to the children, along with prophecies concerning the outbreak of World War II, the rise of communism and the ultimate triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially in Russia if the country was consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.
Sister Lucia wrote down the third part of the message, sealed it in an envelope and gave it to her local bishop. The message was sent to the Vatican in 1957, where successive popes read it, but decided not to reveal its contents.
As for objections that the secret could not refer to Pope John Paul since he did not die, Cardinal Bertone said such objections show an ignorance of the spiritual purpose of prophecy.
"Prophecy is not guided by a deterministic fatalism," he said. "Prayer and penance are stronger than evil and than bullets."
While prophecy warns of what could happen if people do not pray and repent, he said, it also demonstrates the fact that "conversion, penance and prayer can change the course of history."
Was PJII shot in a "ruined" city?
ping
>>Was JPII shot in a “ruined” city?<<
Kind of.
It’s being built again with B16.
Here is the 3rd secret.
“J.M.J.
The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917.
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 splendour 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.
Tuy-3-1-1944”.
Thanks Patton:)
((((hugs))))
You know this is a free hug day:)(((Hugs)))
Unless you count the various crazies who would try to become part of the prophesy! Who wants to wear a sign over their head saying 'Assissinate me - it's been foretold'.
I agree. I think it was a good decision to keep the secret hidden for the time it was.
As a prophecy, that one is as clear as mud. Considering that then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s published official commentary on Fatima states regarding Fatima that “No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled.” this new announcement is hardly surprising.
And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.
Watch on line:
Thanks MurphE.
It’s the language of the apocalypse. It’s meaning is as hard to interpret as a dream.
Well that was weird. I read the article and said the same thing.
Last Fatima child buried in final resting place (Sr. Maria's remains transferred to Fatima)
LAST OF CHILDREN WHO CLAIMED TO SEE VIRGIN MARY DIES AT 97
Last child who claimed to see "Virgin Mary" dies
Virgin Mary Child Dies (Lucia of Fatima)
Mourning for Fatima seer (Portugal declares day of mourning)
Third Secret of Fatima is not fully revealed.
Sister Lucia, last remaining witness of Fatima apparitions, dies at 97
Mystery Fatima: Death of Lucia Accents Famed Secrets & Area's Hidden History
"No More Secrets," Visionary Said in 2001 (Sr. Lucia Confirmed Russia Consecrated to Mary)
Fatima Statue Due at Vatican to Mark a Fateful Day 25 Years After Attempt on John Paul II's Life
Sister Lucia's Unpublished Writings Released - Visionary Reflects on Marian Apparitions
In another thread we learned that it was not the BVM who appeared but rather Fatima the daughter of Muhammad.
Already Muslims are rewriting history for when they take over Europe.
Maybe someday Oxford will be a Qu’ran school.
Those of us of “an age” and who went to Catholic School may remember the nuns terrorizing us children with this “third secret” stuff; that the Pope read it but that he wouldn’t make it public because “the world couldn’t take it.” In an era of “duck and cover” drills, the conclusion of elementary school kids was quite obvious. My sister and I had nightmares for weeks after hearing that stuff. It was an awful thing to do to children.
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