Cecil’s recently posted column from 1981, What happened to the secret message of Fatima? (which also appears on page 37 of The Straight Dope) needs to be updated, because a couple of years ago Pope John Paul II released the text of the “third message”, and said it was a reference to his 1981 assassination attempt.
The Vatican website has posted the full text of the messages at The message of Fatima. According to this site, the third message, translated from the original portuguese, reads:
[scrolls back up]
[attempts to read message]
[gives up]
[loads up WordPad]
[copies and pastes it into WordPad]
[paragraphs it a bit]
[tries reading it again]
Erm…Actually, what it says is that the Holy Father dies. Period. Along with everybody around him
So, what, she saw the wrong vision? She was issued the “Massacre” vision, instead of the “Assassination Attempt” vision?
Nope, it’s interpreting the words to mean whatever they want them to. Just like they do with everything in the Bible. (Tell me again where the bible says birth control is wrong?)
There’s the “holy father” and some gunshots. Close enough for government work, hand grenades, and religious interpretations.
<< Tell me again where the bible says birth control is wrong? >>
Saint Peter’s letter to the Obstetricians, 4:13: “For the condom shalt thou not use, neither any interuterine devices, for they are unnatural in the sight of those who manufacture coat hangers.”
You will forgive me. I was pressed for time, and figured someone would dig up the link for me. Behold, it has come to pass. The column has been updated. Thanks to all for your help.
I interpret the third Fatima message to be a foretelling of the fall of the Catholic Church.
Replace the word “soldiers” with “former alter boys and parishoners,” and “bullets and arrows” with “lawsuits and sexual abuse accusations” and I think you’ll see what I mean.
:rolleyes:
stv
Does “be fruitful and multiply” really equal “say no to birth control?” It doesn’t say how many children you should have, or how to have them…just says to reproduce. You can use birth control all but a handful of times and still reproduce. Scripture or no, I still don’t see why this hang-up has presisted for so long.
The passage looks pretty much like a foretelling of a massive persecution and destruction of the Church. You combine it with the contents of other messages, specially the stuff on the conversion of Russia, and you could see how some people would have assumed it was about a final battle with dem godless commies overrunning the Christian world and destroying the Church hierarchy. And when it came to pass that the Evil International Communist Menace went kaplooie circa 1989, they figured, hmmm… maybe there was a less-scary explanation?
Sort of of like how some fundamentalists claim the Book of Revelation is a still-pending prophecy about the future of the world, while others believe it’s an already-fulfilled one about the persecution of Christians in Rome and the eventual triumph of Christianity as the eligion of the Western world.
Of course, the thing is: the person writing talks about a Bishop in white, and “we had the impression that it was the Holy Father”. What if… just maybe… they were wrong, and it was NOT the Holy Father in the sense of being the Pope, Temporal Head of the Holy See? Who knows if it is about a persecution that befalls the really holiest prelates in Christendom, who may NOT be the people in official positions?
Also, even granting the reality of the visions, you’d have to question if by 1944 the memory of the “witnesses” was no longer as reliable, having since since 1917 become skewed in a particular direction by too many conversations, discussions and interrogations – specially with WWII going on around them, I can see them getting carried away towards the gloom-and-doom side.
[quote]
the person writing talks about a Bishop in white, and “we had the impression that it was the Holy Father”. Yes, you see, the Catholic Church is nicely color-coded in this regard. Abbots wear black, regular bishops wear (I think) blue, cardinals wear red, and the Pope wears white. The abbot of the monastery that ran our high school told us that this was so they’d know how to line up for parades :).
So, given that this is a reference to the Catholic church, a “bishop in white” would pretty much have to be the Pope. Of course, which pope is still open to interpretation.
And for the record, I noticed who I was posting after, too, but didn’t see the need to mention the fact. What good does it do to mention in this thread that Cecil posted? His name’s right there next to his post.
This isn’t true; the colors of vestments are seasonal. It’s true that priests and monsignors are mostly seen in black, that red the “the color of cardinals,” and that the Pope wears white very often, but at various times of the year, any priest might be required to wear white or red vestments. Blue is not a liturgical color at all, although it’s popular for christenings.
At any rate, I’ve seen pictures of Archbishop Romero in white vestments.