The Vatican has released the text of the third secret
of Fatima and a document supporting its interpretation of the
1917 vision as a prediction of the attempt to kill the Pope
and communism's persecution of Christianity.



The broad outlines of the secret, said to have been
revealed by the Madonna to three Portuguese shepherd children,
were first disclosed in May during the Pope's visit to Fatima.

But there was great expectation to see the actual text of
the secret, which was written down in 1944 by Lucia dos
Santos, now a frail, 93-year-old nun who is the only survivor
of the three children.

The secret was long feared to contain an apocalyptic
vision of the end of the world, but in a 43-page document
called The Vision of Fatima, the Vatican reiterated its view
that the secret refers to events which now seem part of the
past.

In her recollection of the vision, Sister Lucia says she
and the other two children, Francisco and Jacinta, saw an
angel with a flaming sword.

They then saw a bishop dressed in white, and had the
impression that it was the Holy Father.

As the vision continued, the children saw the Pope passing
through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with
halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, and he prayed
for the souls of corpses he met on his way.

When the Pope reached the top of a mountain and was
praying at the foot of a cross, he was killed by a group of
soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him as he and
bishops, priests and
nuns and other people died one after another.

The Pope believed that it was the Madonna of Fatima who
saved him from death when he was shot by the Turkish gunman
Ali Agca, which were fired on the anniversary of one of the
visions reportedly seen by the three shepherd children.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vaticans doctrinal
office, said at a news conference at the Vatican on Monday
(June 26) that the Catholic Church now believed the vision
related to past events rather than those still to occur.

He said: "What we see represented here is the martyr's
Church of the century which has just ended. No great future
mystery is unveiled," he concluded.