Beatriz Alonso de Medina
On May 13, 1917, in a small, negligible village in Portugal, three children claimed they saw the Virgin Mary. Their names were Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia—they were 7, 9, and 10 years old, respectively.
What began as the impossible account of three shepherd children ended up becoming one of the most influential Marian devotions in the modern world.
The apparitions of Fatima have one distinct element: the so-called “three secrets”—messages that, according to the children, the Virgin Mary entrusted to them in the form of prophecies.
The first two were revealed by Lucia in her memoirs in 1941. They were a vision of hell and the horrors of World War II. But the third secret remained hidden for much longer.
PABLO RIOJA
Writer and journalist
The third secret of Fatima took decades and decades, and decades, and it was not fulfilled when the Virgin said it should be told, it was not told, and a long time passed until, I believe, John Paul II explains it well.
Although the third was written in 1944, Lucia asked that it not be revealed until 1960. But when that date arrived, the Vatican decided not to publish it.
Then, twenty-one years later, on May 13, 1981— the day of Fatima—this happened: John Paul II was shot during a general audience. The Pope was always convinced that he survived thanks to the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
ODER SLAWOMIR
Postulator of the Cause of John Paul II
He himself said: ‘A man fired, and another hand, the hand of the Virgin, guided that bullet,’ safeguarding practically all the vital organs of his body. In fact, the doctors, at the moment of the operation, were surprised because the path of the bullet through his body grazed vital organs without damaging them. It is inexplicable — scientifically inexplicable.
For John Paul II, the attack and the message of Fatima were deeply connected, and he interpreted it as the final prophecy of Fatima.
ODER SLAWOMIR
Postulator of the Cause of John Paul II
It is so true that, even during his convalescence, he had all the documentation related to that case brought to him. He read it and, very likely, made a personal interpretation, a reading in light of what it was and of that revelation made by the Virgin through the visions. The connected secret.
Under John Paul II, the Vatican eventually published the third secret of Fatima in the year 2000. It prophesied of a “bishop dressed in white who falls dead under gunfire.”
From then on, the relationship between the Polish pope and Fatima became inseparable. John Paul II made several pilgrimages to the Portuguese sanctuary. And in 1984, he gifted the Virgin of Fatima the bullet from the assassination attempt, which is now set in her crown.
Today, more than one hundred years after those apparitions, Fatima continues to attract millions of pilgrims. It is a site where history, faith, and mystery intertwine, revealing something of the prophetic nature of Christian faith.
