Subj: Vatican To Unveil Secret of Fatima
Date: 6/19/00 6:37:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time


Vatican To Unveil Secret of Fatima

Associated Press
June 19, 2000; 8:11 a.m. EDT

VATICAN CITY –– The Vatican said Monday it will unveil the details of
the so-called third secret of Fatima next week.

The gist of the secret was revealed last month during Pope John Paul
II's pilgrimage to the shrine of Fatima in Portugal. But the Vatican has
not yet issued an official document.

A commission led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the pope's top guardian
of orthodoxy, is to release a text and commentary about the secret on
June 26, the Vatican said.

Vatican officials have said the secret, based on visions reported by
three shepherd children in Fatima in 1917, foretold a 1981 attempt on
the pope's life.

The third secret of Fatima was one of the most enduring mysteries of
modern Roman Catholicism; many had believed it was a doomsday prophecy
too terrible to reveal.

John Paul read the secret just days after becoming pope in 1978, but
kept it to himself until the end of the millennium.

The pontiff credits the Virgin of Fatima with saving him from death
after he was gravely wounded by a Turkish gunman in St. Peter's Square
on May 13, 1981.

The other two secrets were revealed decades ago. They are said to have
foretold the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II, and
the rise and fall of Soviet Communism.