Reply to the Hoax

On June 26, 2000 the Vatican released what it claimed to be the Third Secret of Fatima. It is a vision of a “Bishop dressed in White”, traversing a half-ruined city filled with corpses, who, along with many priests, religious and lay persons, is murdered by a band of soldiers atop a hill in front of a large wooden cross.

In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s publication The Message of Fatima, the text of this vision was accompanied by a commentary, which was co-authored by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Archbishop (now Cardinal) Tarcisio Bertone. This document falsely claims that the entire Third Secret has been released, and that the vision actually refers to a past event — the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981.

The faithful — who have been awaiting the release of the Secret since long before 1960, the year designated by Our Lady for its release — were both very much disappointed and confused. They rightly asked: Is this vision all there is to the Third Secret? What happened to the continuation of the words “In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc.”, which Fatima scholars have agreed is the beginning of the Third Secret? If the Secret was merely about an attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II nearly 20 years earlier, why had the Vatican waited so long to release it?

These and many other important questions asked by the faithful are addressed by the articles contained in Issue 64 of The Fatima Crusader. They demonstrate that the entire Third Secret has not been released, and that what occurred on June 26, 2000 was really a perfidious hoax, an attempt to discredit Fatima.