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- VATICAN CITY - At the end
of Mass celebrated at the Shrine of Fatima, Portugal, during which the
Pope beatified the shepherd children Jacinta and Francisco, Cardinal Secretary
of State Angelo Sodano read out, in Portuguese, a text concerning the third
secret of Fatima.
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- The text is given in full below. It appears courtesy
of the Official Website of the Holy See.
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- "At the conclusion of this solemn celebration, I
feel bound to offer to our beloved Holy Father John Paul II, on behalf
of all present, heartfelt good wishes for his approaching eightieth birthday
and to thank him for his significant pastoral ministry for the good of
all God's Holy Church. "On the solemn occasion of his visit to Fatima,
His Holiness has directed me to make an announcement to you. As you know,
the purpose of his visit to Fatima has been to beatify the two 'little
shepherds'. Nevertheless he also wishes his pilgrimage to be a renewed
gesture of gratitude to Our Lady for her protection during these years
of his papacy. This protection seems also to be linked to the so-called
'third part' of the secret of Fatima.
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- That text contains a prophetic vision similar to those
found in Sacred Scripture, which do not describe with photographic clarity
the details of future events, but rather synthesize and condense against
a unified background events spread out over time in a succession and a
duration which are not specified. As a result, the text must be interpreted
in a symbolic key. "The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war
waged by atheist systems against the Church and Christians, and it describes
the immense suffering endured by the witnesses to the faith in the last
century of the second millennium. It is an interminable Way of the Cross
led by the Popes of the twentieth century.
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- According to the interpretation of the 'little shepherds,'
which was also recently confirmed by Sister Lucia, the 'bishop clothed
in white' who prays for all the faithful is the Pope. As he makes his way
with great effort towards the Cross amid the corpses of those who were
martyred (bishops, priests, men and women religious and many lay persons),
he too falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of gunfire.
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- After the assassination attempt of May 13 1981, it appeared
evident to His Holiness that it was 'a motherly hand which guided the bullet's
path,' enabling the 'dying Pope' to halt 'at the threshold of death.' On
the occasion of a visit to Rome by the then bishop of Leiria-Fatima, the
Pope decided to give him the bullet which had remained in the jeep after
the assassination attempt, so that it might be kept in the Shrine. At the
behest of the bishop, the bullet was later set in the crown of the statue
of Our Lady of Fatima.
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- The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet
Union and in a number of countries of Eastern Europe, to the fall of the
Communist regime which promoted atheism. For this too His Holiness offers
heartfelt thanks to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world,
however, attacks against the Church and against Christians, together with
the burden of suffering which they involve, tragically continue. Even if
the events to which the third part of the Secret of Fatima refers now seem
part of the past, Our Lady's call to conversion and penance, issued at
the beginning of the twentieth century, remains timely and urgent today.
'The Lady of the message seems to read the signs of the times - the signs
of our time - with special insight... The insistent invitation of Mary
Most Holy to penance is nothing but the manifestation of her maternal concern
for the fate of the human family, in need of conversion and forgiveness.'
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- In order that the faithful may better receive the message
of Our Lady of Fatima, the Pope has charged the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith with making public the third part of the secret, after the
preparation of an appropriate commentary. "Let us thank Our Lady of
Fatima for her protection. To her maternal intercession let us entrust
the Church of the Third Millennium.
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- 'Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix!.'
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- 'Intercede pro Ecclesia Dei! Intercede pro Sancto Patre
Iohanne Paolo II! Amen'."
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