Is the 'Third Secret' fact or fiction?

The novel you have just read is a work of fiction based on fact. It is certainly not meant as an attack on the Catholic Church or religion in general. Unfortunately, however, it is a fact that many of the wrongs committed in this world are done in the name of one religion or another. To the thinking man, it seems obvious that no one body or race can have a monopoly on God for we are all surely created equal. Further, no one knows the truth of it for we are not privy to the mind of God. How foolish and arrogant therefore are those who claim to know the truth?

 As for the Third Secret itself, is it fact or fiction? On 26th June 2000, the Vatican released the Third Secret, said to have been revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13th July 1917. 

The following are excerpts from The Message of Fatima as published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“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.” 

The following comments are quoted from “The Fatima News”

“This revelation by the Vatican of the long-suppressed “Third Secret of Fatima” has sparked a controversy that is now rocking the Catholic Church. For more than 40 years, the Third Secret (the final part of a message by the Blessed Virgin Mary to three Portuguese shepherd children during Her apparitions in the early 1900's) has been kept under lock and key. Despite promises that it would be revealed to the world in 1960, the Secret, consisting of approximately 25 lines on a single sheet of paper, was suddenly suppressed in that year and Catholics were told it would probably remain under seal forever.
The four-page document released by the Vatican on June 26, which it claims is the Third Secret, has only renewed the Third Secret controversy. It is not the single sheet of paper containing words of the Virgin Mary which everyone had expected and to which the Vatican itself had referred in 1960.
The Vatican’s interpretation of the text released on 26th June is that it refers to the assassination attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981 and other events entirely in the past. Many have asked why, if this is so, the Vatican continued to suppress the Secret for nearly 20 years after the assassination attempt.
Many Catholic publications and secular journals have already expressed skepticism about the Vatican’s claim that this is the authentic text of the long-awaited Third Secret. There has also been much criticism of the Vatican’s official interpretation of the document.
The Vatican has offered no explanation for its long suppression of this seemingly innocuous document, which contains none of the criticism of Church policies or its leadership that it was expected to contain. “

Did something not of this world occur in Portugal during 1917 or has the world been deceived by three children with fanciful imaginations? The so-called Third Secret released by the Vatican is so insipid as to lead us to the conclusion that the latter is so. However, before condemning the children, we should remember the miracle of the sun. Such was witnessed by thousands of people and did occur as predicted. Therefore, before we sit in judgement we should question our capacity to judge or our right to decree what is possible and what is not, what can and cannot be. We, after all, have experience of this world, not the next.

At the end of the day, we can only wonder whether the story of the Third Secret is still unfolding and whether there are more chapters to be written.