THE THIRD SECRET

Dan Brown spawned a cottage industry
because of The Da Vinci Code.

Walk into any bookstore,
and you'll see dozens of rip-off cash-ins,
opportunistic "scholarly tomes" by anonymous academics,
digging into the secrets of the puzzles & codes
behind the worldwide bestseller,
as well as Mr. Brown's other book, "Angels and Demons".a

The bestselling author himself is not above the carnage,
releasing volume after volume of his books,
Movie Tie-Ins, Illustrated Editions, Audiobooks,
you name it, he's released it!


Thankfully,
the "novel of suspense" by Steve Berry,
while it can be conveniently lumped with the rest
and labelled as a Dan Brown wannabe,
is an excellent, thought-provoking book in its own right.

And while The Da Vinci Code forces us to look back
at the history of the Catholic Church,
THE THIRD SECRET forces us to look forward,
as it raises disturbing questions about the present,
and given the recent controversies surrounding it,
the future of the religion of a billion souls.




The novel has a brilliant conceit,
firmly established in the facts behind FATIMA:

WHAT IF THE VATICAN SUPPRESSED SECRETS
REVEALED BY THE VIRGIN MARY?

AND IF SO,
WHY?




On May 13, 1917,
Our Lady appeared to three very young cousins in Portugal:
Jacinta, LUCIA, and Francisco.
She continued to visit every 13th of the month,
until her final apparition on October of that year.


Three secrets were revealed to the children;
and while the first two were made known to the world immediately:

the first, a hellish vision with a message to repent -
often interpreted as a reference to the two World Wars;

the second issued a warning that Russia,
in 1917 undergoing the Bolshevik revolution,
would "spread her errors through the world"
unless the nation reverted to Christianity.

The Third Secret was kept hidden for over 80 years.




Jacinta and Franciso died of pneumonia
just two years after the Fatima apparitions.

However,
Lucia, the eldest among the three visionaries,
became a Carmelite nun.

In 1944,
she transcibed the Third Secret,
but still, kept it to herself,
until she finally sent it to the Vatican 13 years later,
during the Papacy of John XXIII.




Paul VI,
successor of John XXIII,
was Pope until 1978.

He never revealed the Third Secret;

although he was the 20th century Pope
who first encouraged, endorsed, and popularized,
Marian Devotion.




John Paul II finally revealed the Third Secret...

in the year 2000.

Sister Lucia,
shown receiving communion from the Pope in Fatima,
was by then 93 years old,
and was there when JP2 spoke of her own final vision:

part of the Third Secret tells of a "bishop clothed in white"
who "falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of gunfire"



Millions of devotees were underwhelmed by this revelation.

It seemed as if the Vatican had hidden a secret
that revealed an attempt on a Pope's life;
and since the revelation was made 19 years
after the assassination attempt itself,
and while that in itself was shocking,

the faithful were fully expecting the Third Secret
to be about Armaggedon, or the Anti-Christ.

Well, you can't really blame them for anticipating
something literally earthshaking and more dramatic...

after all,
they did wait for over 80 years!



And this is the point where Steve Berry starts his story;
an amazing page-turner that will take you
inside the Sistine Chapel during the Conclave for a Papal Election,
to the mountains of Medjugore, in what is now war-torn Bosnia,
and to the final revelation of what just might be The Third Secret.




After reading the book,
(remember, it is NOT Non-Fiction)
whatever you decide to believe or ridicule,
you may want to know this:

The Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima
for the very first time on May 13, 1917.

Mehmet Ali-Agca tried to kill Pope John Paul II
on the exact same day of the year, May 13, 1981.

Coincidence, Careful Planning, or Divine Revelation?

Only Mother Mary knows.....




a final note:
The Pope glimpsed a poster of Our Lady of Fatima
in the crowd in St. Peter's that day,
and was convinced that she had saved him.

The bullet that hit him is now in the golden crown
that adorns the Virgin's statue at Fatima.