Nexus - 0706 - New Times Magazine-pages

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FATIMAGATE! Has the Third Secret of Fatima been revealed or covered up? by John Hogue © 2000 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, religious men and women were going up a steep moun- tain, 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, an half-trembling with halting step, afflicte 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 fire bullets and arrows at him; and in the same way, there died one after another the bish- ops, priests, religious men and women, ani various lay people of different ranks and positions. "Beneath the two arms of the cross there were two angels, each with a crystal asper- sorium in his hand, in which they gathere up the blood of the martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God." (End of prophecy) Ime ~=prophecy and = Cardinal Ratzinger's interpretation have stunned and upset many Catholics and prophecy-watchers around the world. The Cardinal, who heads the papal cabinet, the Office for the Doctrine of the Faith (better known in history as the Office of the Grand Inquisitor), declared that the Third Secret only referred to events which ave already happened. "A careful reading of the text will proba- ly prove disappointing or surprising after all the speculation it has stirred," said Cardinal Ratzinger at the press conference. "No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled," he added. The good Cardinal thinks the assassina- tion of a Pope and a multitude of Catholic ishops, priests and laity on a mountaintop efore a half-ruined city fulfills a specific ast event. He would have the world believe that the prophecy describes the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II y Mehmet Ali Agca in 1981. Many believe they have experienced nothing less than a "white cassock wash" of one of Catholicism's most anticipated rophetic messages. In all my 30 years as a scholar of rophetic traditions, I have seen some interpretive stretches—but Cardinal Ratzinger's spin on this prophecy is as weak as they come. Indeed, I have seen more imaginative twists of reason made by and n 26 May 2000, the Vatican finally Ores the long-awaited Third Secret of Fatima. Fifty-six years earlier, Sister Lucia de Jesus dos Santos (custodian of this prophe- cy) claimed that an apparition of the Virgin Mary had given her a specific date for the revelation of this Secret. She said that the Pope must permit its dissemination to the world "no later than 1960". Forty years later, the Vatican's chief theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, finally present- ed the document at a press conference on 26 May. This is how it reads: The Prophecy of the Third Secret "I write in obedience to you, my God, who commands 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 lit- tle 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 67 = NEXUS OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2000