Our Lady asked that the last Secret be revealed either on Lucy's death--Lucy died this year in April--or in 1960, whichever came first. However, 1960 came and went, and Lucy's death came and went, and the Catholic Church has not changed its published version of the secret.

I read an article that said that the Pope at the time of the apparations read the Third Secret and wept. He decided not to reveal its contents because they were too disturbing. However, the contents that are purported to be the Third Secret don't seem to me to be bad or frightening enough to cause a pope to cry and to disobey the mandates of Our Lady.

Several people, however, including Portuguese translators, claim to have seen and read the (real) letter containing the Secret.

Here is the prophesy as described by Art Bell on his show "Coast to Coast AM" on May 14, 1998 at 10:48 PM (P.T.), two years almost to the day before the Vatican announcement. I add my own cautionary statement to his, although, as he admits, I too have a sense of authenticity about this. I have divided the paragraphs and added my own annotations here and there, in brackets.

Remember, this prophecy was made more than 80 years ago.

The Third Secret of Fatima

"A great plague will befall mankind.

"Nowhere in the world will there be order, and Satan will rule the highest places, determining the way of things.

"He [Satan] will succeed in seducing the spirits of the great scientists who invent arms with which it will be possible to destroy a large part of humanity in a few minutes [Nuclear weapons]. Satan will have his power, the powerful who command the people and who will incite them to produce enormous quantities of arms ["Axis of Evil! We must bomb Iraq!"].

"God will punish man more thoroughly than with the flood. There will come the time of all times, and the end of all ends. The great and powerful will perish together with the small and weak.

"Even for the church, it will be the time of its greatest trial. Cardinals will oppose cardinals, bishops will oppose bishops, Satan will walk among them, and in Rome there will be changes. The church will be darkened, and the world will be shaking with terror. [This perhaps needs no further comment. If the Pope had read that his priests would be accused of sexual crimes against children, I think that would have caused him to weep.]

"One great war will erupt in the second half of the 20th century [Remember that the U.S. first started fighting with Iraq in the 1990s]. Fire and smoke will fall from the sky. The waters of the oceans will change into steam, and the steam will rise and overflow everything. The waters of the ocean will become mist. Millions and millions of people will die from hour to hour. Whoever remains alive will envy the dead. Everywhere one turns one's glance there is going to be anguish and misery, ruins in every country.

"The time draws nearer, the abyss widens without hope, the good will perish with the bad, the great with the small, the princes of the church with the faithful, the rulers with their people. There will be death everywhere because of the errors committed by non-believers and crazy followers of Satan which will then, and only then, take control over the world. [Religious extremists?]

"At the last, those who survive will at every chance newly proclaim God and His Glory, and they will serve Him as when the world was not so perverted."

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A holy card depicting Our Lady of Fatima.

English Version of Vatican Announcement