10 years ago: Vatican reveals the third secret of Fatima

On May 13, 2000, during a pilgrimage by Pope John Paul II to Fatima, Portugal, the Vatican reported the last of three prophecies, or "secrets," said to have been revealed in Fatima by the Virgin Mary in apparitions to three children, beginning on May 13, 1917. The first secret had been interpreted as forecasting the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II; the second secret supposedly forecast the rise and fall of Communism in Russia.

According to Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano, the third secret foresaw the killing of a "bishop clothed in white;" this was interpreted as forecasting the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, which also occurred on May 13, in 1981. Two of the children died in childhood and were beatified by the pope during his pilgrimage; the third was still living.

However, the well-known priest and author Malachi Martin had a different view of the third secret (see his book The Keys of This Blood (1990), pp. 629-633). Mr. Martin asserted that the Virgin, according to the three secrets, mandated the pope who was in office in 1960 to consecrate Russia to her immaculate heart, and that the Russian orthodox church would then convert back to Roman Catholicism. If the mandate were not followed, devastating war in the world and destruction inside the Roman Catholic Church (The Great Apostasy) would follow. Mr. Martin claimed that he had stood outside the papal living quarters in 1960 while Pope John XXIII and Cardinal Bea and others were reading the document containing the third secret, and that in order to assure Russian cooperation at the approaching Second Vatican Council, the Pope decided against the mandate. Popes Paul VI and John Paul II also decided against it for various reasons. By the time the third secret was revealed by Mr. Sodano, Mr. Martin was no longer around to question the revelation; he had died on July 27, 1999 at the age of 78. He died in hospital in New York several days after suffering a brain hemorrhage, supposedly in an accidental fall at his apartment, but the timing of his death and the Vatican’s revelation of the third secret was very convenient--and very suspicious.