Our Lady of Fatima

Mary gave Francisco and Jacinta Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos three secrets. Following the deaths of Francisco in 1919 and Jacinta in 1920, Lucia revealed the first secret in 1927. It concerned devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The second secret was a vision of hell. Lucia became a Carmelite nun and died in 2005 at the age of 97.

Pope John Paul II directed the Holy See’s Secretary of State to reveal the third secret in 2000; it spoke of a “bishop in white” who was shot by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows into him. Many people linked this vision to the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981.

The message of Fatima is simply to pray. Unfortunately, some people—not Sister Lucia—have distorted these revelations, turning them into an apocalyptic event for which they are now the only reliable interpreters. For example, some claim that Mary’s request that the world be consecrated to her was ignored. Sister Lucia, however, agreed that Pope John Paul II’s public consecration in St. Peter’s Square on March 25, 1984, fulfilled Mary’s request. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prepared a June 26, 2000, document explaining the “third secret.”