The Vatican has released the full text of the third secret of Fatima. The key elements were made public last month when Pope John Paul visited the site in Portugal where the three young children had their vision in 1917. It has been interpreted as foretelling the assassination attempt on the Pope in 1981, although the Vatican said today that it was not going to impose an interpretation on the vision.
The visions of the Virgin Mary seen by three poor shepherd children in Fatima were widely publicised when they happened in 1917. But the third of the messages they spoke about was kept secret by the Vatican, helping to fuel decades of speculation that it contained an apocalyptic vision of death and destruction.
Today the Vatican released the full text of the third secret, as written down by one of the three children 27 years later. It had been sealed up and sent to Rome, and seen only by the pontiff and some of his advisers. At a press conference today, Cardinal Ratzinger played down the prophetic nature of the secrets. He said that some would be disappointed that there were no great surprises to be revealed.
The only one of the three children of Fatima to survive into adulthood is Sr Lucia, who is now a 93-year old nun. Finally made public, her account talks of a "bishop in white" whom she believed to be a pope she said that he passed through a half ruined city, went up a hill with a cross on it and was then killed by soldiers firing bullets and arrows. Many other religious and bishops died.
When the outline of the third secret of Fatima was published last month, many interpreted it as foretelling the assassination attempt on the pope. As to the differences between Sr Lucia's account and the shooting of Pope John Paul in 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger said that the Fatima secrets were not intended as a preview of an unchangeable future. He added that belief in the apparitions of the Virgin Mary is not part of Catholic church dogma.
