More on the Third Secret...

As I mentioned in the previous post, the best explanation as to why the secret was kept hidden for 40 years after the date suggested by Sr Lucia was that it had contained a specific date in the future well outside the expected lifespan of Pope John XXIII. It could be argued that this hypothetical date is still at some point in the future, and this would explain why the Vatican continues to keep it hidden. But it seems that the Vatican is actually trying to distance itself from this text, which suggests that it contained some aspect which was perceived to have failed to materialise at the appointed time.
Therefore Cardinal Bertone's insistence that the secret has been fully revealed may be damage control measures on behalf of the Vatican, and could be justified from his personal point of view since he may think the words in the hidden text were the personal musings of Sr Lucia and not the words of Our Lady and therefore not part of the secret.
As to what the actual content of this hidden text actually refers to is open to speculation. But some writers on this subject (such as Fr Kramer and Antonio Socci) have pieced together a convincing framework for its content by drawing on snippets of information that were released concerning the secret before its eventual release in the year 2000.
For myself, Sr Lucia's comments that the secret referred specifically to chapters 8-13 of the Book of Revelation is one of the key insights into the content of this hidden text (See De la Sainte Trinite, M. The Whole Truth About Fatima, Volume III p533). There is nothing immediately obvious in the text of the Third Secret revealed in the year 2000 that could relate to chapters 8-10 and chapter 13 of the Apocalypse (although I show earlier in the book that it may be connected with the martyrdom of the Two Witnesses described in Rev 11). So we need to look elsewhere to find out how it may be connected to these other chapters of Revelation.
The alleged comments of Pope John Paul II during a private conference at Fulda, Germany in November 1980 is considered by many to be one of the major insights into the content of the secret:


“Because of the seriousness of its contents, in order not to encourage the world wide power of Communism to carry out certain coups, my predecessors in the chair of Peter have diplomatically preferred to withhold its publication. On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this much: if there is a message in which it is said that the oceans will flood entire sections of the earth; that, from one moment to the other, millions of people will perish... there is no longer any point in really wanting to publish this secret message. Many want to know merely out of curiosity, or because of their taste for sensationalism, but they forget that‘to know’ implies for them a responsibility. It is dangerous to want to satisfy one’s curiosity only, if one is convinced that we can do nothing against a catastrophe that has been predicted.”

If these comments of the Pope are geniune, then it may explain the secret's relation to chapter 8 of the Apocalypse, since this is where we find the "huge mountain, burning with fire" being thrown into the sea. This would explain the statement that "the oceans will flood entire sections of the earth".
Although we must note that the validity of these statements are disputed - Cardinal Bertone accepts their legitimacy in his recent book The Last Secret of Fatima, but both Cardinal Ratzinger and the Vatican press office denied that they took place some time before Bertone's book was published. We must note however that Cardinal Bertone's comments are the latest statement from the Vatican concerning these words of the late Pope and may represent an official u-turn on this matter.

But what of the rest of the chapters of the Apocalypse? We may skip forward to chapter 12 (since I'll be dealing with the Third Secret's connection to Rev 11 in a future post). Sr Lucia herself gave some insight into the content of the secret during an interview with Fr Fuentes which specifically identifies it with the combat between the Dragon and the Woman adorned with the Sun in Rev 12:

Father, the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. And the devil knows what it is that most offends God and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus, the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way, the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.
That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to hell. ... The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of lay people and thereby lead them to final impenitence.

If these words of Sr Lucia are part of the contents of the hidden secret, it may explain Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments linking the Third Secret to the current paedophile scandal in the Church whilst on pilgrimage to Fatima in 2010:


So it is true that, in addition to moment indicated in the vision, there is mention of, there is seen, the need for a passion of the Church, which naturally is reflected in the person of the Pope, yet the Pope stands for the Church and thus it is sufferings of the Church that are announced. The Lord told us that the Church would constantly be suffering, in different ways, until the end of the world. The important thing is that the message, the response of Fatima, in substance is not directed to particular devotions, but precisely to the fundamental response, that is, to ongoing conversion, penance, prayer, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity. Thus we see here the true, fundamental response which the Church must give – which we, every one of us, must give in this situation. As for the new things which we can find in this message today, there is also the fact that attacks on the Pope and the Church come not only from without, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin existing within the Church. This too is something that we have always known, but today we are seeing it in a really terrifying way: that the greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without, but arises from sin within the Church, and that the Church thus has a deep need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn forgiveness on the one hand, but also the need for justice.

If the hidden part of the Third Secret does reference the struggle between the Woman adorned with the Sun and the Dragon, and has a date relating to the turn of the millennium, then it would join a long list of other prophecies concerning this time period, including the original 1846 version of the secrets of La Salette, the prophecy of Pope Leo XIII, the prophecies of Fr Gobbi, amongst various others - all of which were considered in most respects to be failed prophecies. In my book, I show how all these prophecies were actually correct in according a great significance to the turn of the millennium, and how they all converge upon the eschatological fall of Satan described in the Book of Revelation (which is to be distinguished from his primordial fall), which is also intimately connected to the prophecy of the mark of the Beast. (Could this explain why Sr Lucia includes reference to Rev 13 in her description of the Third Secret?). I show how these apparently unrecognized events were all heralded on earth my a number of astronomical signs described in the Bible, and how they may be connected to the appearance of the Antichrist on earth.