| ALL ABOUT PARANORMAL

Most theories about ancient unknown civilizations are based on absolutely no physical evidence, usually just hearsay and speculation. What really would shake the basis of our knowledge of history would be an actual artifact. This probably wouldn't be something spectacular like finding a sunken city in the Atlantic, or armor-piercing bullets embedded in a dinosaur skeleton. It would probably be something that only an expert in the field would recognize as anomalous.
More likely, this artifact would be a document or tradition from the past which reveals a deep understanding of some scientific fact recently discovered. This could be a description of the structure and function of DNA, knowledge of astronomy or physics which is only known to modern science . . . or accurate maps of the earth drawn long before the "Age of Exploration". The Piri Re'is map appears to be just that artifact.
The Piri Re'is Map is only one of several anomalous maps drawn in the 15th Century and earlier which appear to represent better information about the shape of the continents than should have been known at the time. Furthermore, this information appears to have been obtained at some distant time in the past.
Piri Re'is, Ptolomy (2nd Century A.D.), as well as Mercator and Oronteus Finaeus, well-known 15th Century map-makers, included the traditional southern continent in their world maps, as did others. Antarctica was not discovered until the 19th Century, and it was largely unexplored until the middle of the 20th. This is just the start. Anomalous maps also show the Behring Strait as linking Asia and America, river deltas which appear much shorter than they do today, islands in the Aegean which haven't been above water since the sea-level rise at the end of the ice-age and huge glaciers covering Britian and Scandinavia. Long dismissed as attempts by cartographers to fill in empty spaces, some of the details of the old maps look very startling when correlated with modern (very mainstream) knowledge of the changes in the Earths' geography in the geologic past, particularly during the Ice Ages.
The Piri Re'is map is most interesting because of the attribution of the source of its information, and the extraordinary detail of the coastal outlines.
The Piri Re'is map was found in 1929 in the Imperial Palace in Constantinople. It is painted on parchment and dated 919 A.H. (in the Islamic calendar), which corresponds to 1513 AD. It is signed by an admiral of the Turkish Navy named Piri Ibn Haji Memmed, also known as Piri Re'is. According to Piri Re'is, the map had been assembled from a set of 20 maps drawn in the time of Alexander the Great.
This map and others were analyzed by Charles H. Hapgood and his graduate stutents. Hapgood was a historian and geographer at the University of New Hampshire, in his book Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966). Only the conclusions of this book are sensational; for the most part it is a technical monograph on the history and geography of the anomalous maps, employing spherical trigonometry to associate map features with actual geographic locations. This book has recently been republished, and we highly recommend it.
The conclusion that Hapgood reached was that a civilization with high seafaring and mapping skills surveyed the entire earth in the ancient past. They left maps which have been copied by hand through many generations. The Piri Re'is map is a patchwork which has gaps (most notably the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica) which can be explained as non-overlapping areas between the source maps. Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings and Hapgood's other book The Earth's Shifting Crust, in which he advanced a theory of polar shifts, are controversial, and earned him the scorn of offical academia.
More evidence has appeared in recent years. Hapgood may yet be vindicated (at least his guess as to the signficance of the anomalous maps). The Piri Re'is map is one of the cornerstones of the growing body of evidence for an unknown Ice Age civilization. Along with this we can include the book

Hamlet's Mill, by De Santillana and von Dechend (1969), and the works of Graham Hancock.
One striking thing about this map is the level of detail of the coasts and interiors in South America. Although the scale is somewhat off, a long, high mountain range is shown as the source of the rivers flowing to the coast of South America.
However, the best-known feature in the Piri Re'is map (and other pre-modern maps) is the Antarctic coastline. In Hapgood and others' opinions, this represents the outline of the coast of Antarctica without glaciers.
Our modern knowledge of the coastline under the ice was obtained using seismic sounding data from Antarctic expeditions in the 1940s and 50s. Sonar is one way to map the coast under the Antarctic glaciers. The other way would be to have surveyed them when they were ice-free. According to Hapgood, who based the claim on 1949 core samples from the Ross Sea, the last time the particular area shown in the Piri Re'is map was free of ice was more than 6000 years ago. More recent studies show that this may be off by a couple of orders of magnitude. In any case, this geography should have been unknown to the ancients. If this is correct, there are some big mysteries to explain.
A number of writers have rushed in and attempted to do just this. One school of thought about the Piri Re'is map is the 'Atlantis in Antarctica' thesis. The chief proponents of this are Rand and Rose Flem-Ath in their book When the Sky Fell, though there are others. The Flem-Aths buy into both Hapgoods' Sea Kings and Polar shift thesis. In the latter, Hapgood claimed that the inclination of the Earth's axis of rotation shifted suddenly in the year 9,500 B.C. causing Antarctica to move hundreds of miles to the south. This transformed its climate from semi-temperate to freezing. In contrast to the Sea Kings hypothesis, there is no evidence that a rapid polar shift actually occured at this time and much negative evidence that it didn't.
There is no scientific explanation for a mechanism which could cause such a global transformation in a matter of hours without completely destroying the crust of the planet. A planetary collision would be required, of the sort that has not occurred since the early period of planetary formation. If such a collision occured in 9,500 B.C., it is fairly certain that all life on Earth would have been wiped out, which is obviously not the case. While it is not impossible that some instability in the planet could cause the Earth's axis to change its inclination, this would not occur overnight. Additionally, a polar shift would probably leave an obvious mark in the geomagnetic strata found in sea floor cores, which is not the case.
Much has been made of Einstein's endorsement of Hapgood's polar shift theory. This proves nothing, since Einstein was not a geologist. Furthermore, although Einstein's theories have stood up to rigorous experimental and observational evidence, it's important to note that he was a human being and wasn't always right. Part of Einstein's greatness was his ability to admit his errors.
In any case, the Flem-Aths propose that this shift destroyed a hypothetical Antarctic civilization, located somewhere in the present-day Ross penninsula. They attempt (with mixed success) to relate this to Plato's Atlantis. Unfortunately, proving this would involve doing archaeology under an ice sheet thousands of meters thick. This is an excellent example of 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'.

While features suggestive of advanced geographical knowledge are shown in the map itself, the annotations and illustrations paint a different picture. Skeptics will note that the Piri Re'is map of the Antarctic coast, of which so much has been made, is notated as follows:

This country is a waste. Everything is in ruin and it is said that large snakes are found here. For this reason the Portuguese infidels did not land on these shores and these are also said to be very hot.

There are also pictures of some mythical animals in the same vicinity, of which the text reads:

And in this country it seems that there are white-haired monsters in this shape, and also six-horned oxen. The Portuguese infidels have written it in their maps. . . .

This doesn't invalidate the startling landforms, but does indicate that whoever wrote these notes (presumably Piri Re'is) never actually visited Antarctica. Non-skeptics might argue that when the source map was surveyed there could have been 1) large snakes, 2) unknown varieties of land mammals, as well as a 3) "very hot" climate in Antarctica, but there is no physical evidence that this has ever been the case. This also does not explain the other fanciful illustrations and notations on the map, including a sketch of a red-haired headless man (with his face on his chest) in the Andes area. This takes us out of the realm of the possible into the fantastic, a line which Hapgood was careful not to cross, at least in Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings.

During World War I Pope Benedict XV made repeated but forlorn pleas for peace, and finally, in May 1917, made a direct appeal to Mary to intercede for peace in the world. The response was Mary's first appearance at Fatima just over a week later. At this time Fatima was just a small village about seventy miles north of Lisbon; the three children to whom she appeared were Lucia dos Santos, aged ten, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, brother and sister, aged eight and seven respectively.

The Angel of Portugal

However, it was in the spring of the previous year, 1916, that the children had their first joint supernatural encounter as a means of preparing them for their meetings with Mary. As they were looking after the sheep one day they saw a dazzlingly beautiful young man, seemingly made of light, who told them he was the Angel of Peace; he invited them to pray with him.

Later on, in the summer, the Angel again appeared to the children and encouraged them to pray and make sacrifices, as a way of drawing down peace on the country.

In the autumn the children again saw the Angel as they were out looking after the sheep. He appeared before them holding a chalice in his hands, above which was suspended a host from which drops of blood were falling into the chalice. The Angel left the chalice suspended in the air and prostrated himself before it in prayer.

He then gave the host to Lucia to eat, and let Francisco and Jacinta drink from the chalice whilst saying: "Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God." Then he prostrated himself again in prayer before disappearing. The children did not tell anyone about these visits of the Angel, feeling an interior necessity of keeping quiet about these events.

13 May 1917

On 13 May 1917 the three children took their flocks out to pasture on the small area known as the Cova da Iria. After lunch and the rosary they suddenly saw a bright flash of something like lightning, followed quickly by another flash in the clear blue sky.

They looked up to see in Lucia's words, "a lady, clothed in white, brighter than the sun, radiating a light more clear and intense than a crystal cup filled with sparkling water, lit by burning sunlight." The children stood there amazed, bathed in the light that surrounded the apparition, as the Lady smiled and said: "Do not be afraid, I will not harm you." Lucia as the oldest asked her where she came from.

The Lady pointed to the sky and said: "I come from heaven." Lucia then asked her what she wanted: "I have come to ask you to come here for six months on the 13th day of the month, at this same hour. Later I shall say who I am and what I desire. And I shall return here yet a seventh time."

Lucia then asked if they would go to heaven and she was told yes, she and Jacinta would go to heaven, but Francisco would need to say many rosaries first. The Lady then said: "Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners?" Lucia as spokesman for all three readily agreed: "Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort."

Lucia recounted that at the same moment as she said these words the Lady opened her hands and streamed a "light" on the children which allowed them to see themselves in God. The Lady finished with a request: "Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and the end of the war." With that she began to rise into the air, moving towards the east until she disappeared.

The children got together and tried to think of ways they could make sacrifices, as the Lady had asked, resolving to go without lunch and to pray the full rosary. Francisco and Jacinta received more support from their parents than Lucia, but the attitude of the local inhabitants was sceptical and even derisory; the children had much to suffer, just as the Lady had told them.

13 June 1917

About fifty people turned up at the Cova da Iria on June 13, as the three children assembled near the holmoak tree where the Lady had appeared. The children then saw a flash of light followed immediately by the apparition of Mary, as she spoke to Lucia: "I want you to come on the 13th of next month, to pray the Rosary every day, and to learn to read. Later, I will tell you what I want."

Lucia asked Mary to take them to heaven and was reassured in this way: "I will take Jacinta and Francisco shortly; but you will stay here for some time to come. Jesus wants to use you to make Me known and loved. He wishes to establish the devotion to My Immaculate Heart throughout the world. I promise salvation to whoever embraces it; these souls will be dear to God, like flowers put by Me to adorn his throne." This last sentence is found in a letter written in 1927 by Sr. Lucia to her confessor.

Lucia was sad at the first part of this reply, saying: "Am I to stay here alone?" Mary replied: "No, my daughter. Are you suffering a great deal? Don't lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God."

One of the witnesses to this apparition, Maria Carreira, described how Lucia then cried out and pointed as Mary departed. She herself heard a noise like, "a rocket, a long way off," and looked to see a small cloud a few inches over the tree, rise, and move slowly towards the east until it disappeared. The crowd of pilgrims then returned to Fatima where they reported the amazing things they had seen, thus ensuring that there were between two and three thousand people present for the July apparition.

13 July 1917

On 13 July the three children assembled at the Cova and again they saw the indescribably beautiful Lady over the holmoak. Lucia asked what she wanted, and Mary replied: "I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you."

Lucia then asked her who she was and for a miracle so everyone would believe: "Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe."

Lucia made some requests for sick people, to which Mary replied that she would cure some but not others, and that all must say the rosary to obtain such graces, before continuing: "Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary."

The vision of hell

Lucia later revealed that as she spoke these words, Mary opened her hands and rays of light from them seemed to penetrate the earth so that they saw a terrifying vision of hell, full of demons and lost souls amidst indescribable horrors.

This vision of hell was the first part of the "secret" of Fatima, and was not revealed until much later. The children looked up to the sad face of the Blessed Virgin, who spoke to them kindly:

"To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."

At this point the second part of the secret of Fatima ends and the third part begins with the words, "In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved ... " The first two parts of the secret only became publicly known in 1942. The third part of the secret has only recently been publicly divulged, in June 2000.

Mary specifically told Lucia not to tell anyone about the secret at this stage, apart from Francisco, before continuing: "When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need." After assuring Lucia that there was nothing more, Mary disappeared off into the distance.

August 1917

As 13 August approached, the story of the apparitions had reached the anti-religious secular press, and while this ensured that the whole country knew about Fatima, it also meant that many biased and negative reports were circulating. The children were kidnapped on the morning of the 13th by the Mayor of Vila Nova de Ourem, Arturo Santos. They were interrogated about the secret; but despite his threats and promises of money, they refused to divulge it. In the afternoon they were moved to the local prison and threatened with death but determined that they would die rather than reveal the secret.

On August 19, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta were assembled at a place called Valinhos, near Fatima, late in the afternoon, when they again saw Mary, who spoke to Lucia: "Go again to the Cova da Iria on the 13th and continue to say the Rosary every day." Mary also said she would perform a miracle, so all would believe, and that if they had not been kidnapped it would have been even greater.

Looking very sad, Mary then said: "Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them." With that she rose into the air and moved towards the east before disappearing.

By now the children had thoroughly absorbed Mary's plea for prayer and penance, and did everything they could to answer it. They prayed for hours while lying prostrate on the ground and went as long as they could without drinking, in the burning heat of the Portuguese summer. They also went without food, as a sacrifice for sinners, to save them from hell, the vision of which had so profoundly effected them. They even knotted some pieces of old rope around their waists as a form of mortification, not removing them day or night.

13 September 1917

On September 13 very large crowds began to converge on Fatima from all directions. Around noon the children then arrived, and after the customary flash of light, they saw Mary on the holmoak tree. She spoke to Lucia: "Continue to pray the Rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October Our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Dolours and Our Lady of Carmel. Saint Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus to bless the world. God is pleased with your sacrifices. He does not want you to sleep with the rope on, but only to wear it during the daytime."

Lucia then began to put forward the petitions for cures, to be told: "Yes, I will cure some, but not others. In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe." With that she rose, moved to the east, and disappeared.

13 October 1917

The proclamation of a public miracle caused the most intense speculation throughout Portugal, and the journalist Avelino de Almeida, published a satirical article on the whole business in the anti-religious newspaper <I>O Seculo</I>. People from other parts of the country descended, in their tens of thousands, on the Cova, despite the terrible storm that lashed the mountain country around Fatima, on the eve of the 13th. Many pilgrims went barefooted, reciting the rosary as they went, all crowding into the area around the Cova, as by midmorning the weather again turned bad and heavy rain began to fall.

The children reached the holmoak around noon, and then saw the flash of light as Mary appeared before them. For the last time, Lucia asked what she wanted: "I want to tell you that a chapel is to be built here in my honour. I am the Lady of the Rosary. Continue always to pray the Rosary every day. The war is going to end, and the soldiers will soon return to their homes."

Again Lucia made her requests, being informed that people must amend their lives, and ask forgiveness of their sins, if they wanted healings or conversions. She reported too that Mary grew very sad and said: "Do not offend the Lord our God any more, because He is already so much offended." Then rising into the air and opening her hands towards the sun, growing more brilliant as she did, she disappeared, being replaced by various visions seen only by the children.

The Miracle of the Sun

At the same time the vast crowd saw a true miracle. The black clouds parted, and the sun became visible, looking like a dull grey disc that could be looked at directly quite easily. In <I>O Seculo Avelino de Almeida would adopt a very different tone from his earlier satirical article on Fatima:

"...one could see the immense multitude turn towards the sun, which appeared free from clouds and at its zenith. It looked like a plaque of dull silver and it was possible to look at it without the least discomfort. It might have been an eclipse which was taking place. But at that moment a great shout went up and one could hear the spectators nearest at hand shouting: "A miracle! A miracle!" Before the astonished eyes of the crowd, whose aspect was Biblical as they stood bareheaded, eagerly searching the sky, the sun trembled, made sudden incredible movements outside all cosmic laws - the sun "danced" according to the typical expression of the people. ...

"People then began to ask each other what they had seen. The great majority admitted to having seen the trembling and dancing of the sun; others affirmed that they saw the face of the Blessed Virgin; others, again, swore that the sun whirled on itself like a giant Catherine wheel and that it lowered itself to the earth as if to burn it with its rays. Some said they saw it change colours successively. ..."

Other witnesses too, such as Maria Carreira, testified to the terrifying nature of the solar miracle: "It turned everything different colours, yellow, blue, white, and it shook and trembled; it seemed like a wheel of fire which was going to fall on the people. They cried out: 'We shall all be killed, we shall all be killed!' ... At last the sun stopped moving and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We were still alive and the miracle which the children had foretold had taken place."

Other people witnessed the solar miracle from a distance thus ruling out the possibility of any type of collective hallucination. A final intriguing, and important, point was that the heat of the sun, as it descended on the people, also had the effect of drying their clothes and the ground, so that they went from being completely soaked to being dry in about ten minutes.

The deaths of Francisco and Jacinta

An influenza epidemic swept Europe in autumn of 1918, just as the War was finishing, and both Jacinta and Francisco fell ill. Francisco recovered somewhat and there were hopes that he might become well, but he realised that he was destined to die young, as Our Lady had foretold, and his condition worsened again. He offered up all his sufferings as a way of consoling God for the sinfulness and ingratitude of mankind, becoming so weak that eventually he could not even pray. He received his first Communion, and on the next day, 4 April 1919, he died.

Jacinta too was confined to her bed during the long winter months, and although she recovered was struck down with bronchial pneumonia, while also developing a painful abscess in her chest. She was moved to the hospital in Ourem in July 1919, where she underwent the painful treatment prescribed for her, but without much effect, returning home in August with an open wound in her side. It was decided that another attempt should be made to treat her, and so in January 1920 she was taken to Lisbon, where she was diagnosed as having purulent pleurisy and diseased ribs.

Eventually in February she was admitted into hospital, where she underwent another painful operation to remove two ribs; this left her with a large wound in her side that had to dressed daily, causing her agony. On the evening of 20 February the local priest was called and heard her Confession, but he insisted on waiting till the next day to bring her Communion, despite her protests that she felt worse, and as Mary had told her she died that night alone and far from her family. Her body was returned to Fatima and buried with that of Francisco, until both were later moved to the basilica built at the Cova da Iria.

Later apparitions to Sr. Lucia

The new bishop of the restored diocese of Leiria decided that it was best if Lucia was removed from Fatima, both to spare her from the continual questionings she had to endure, and to see what effect her absence would have on the numbers coming as pilgrims. Her mother agreed to her being sent away to school, and she left in May 1921, in great secrecy, for Porto, where a school run by the sisters of St. Dorothy was situated. Later she became a sister in this congregation, before joining the Carmelites.

On 10 December 1925, while at the convent in Pontevedra, Spain, Lucia saw another apparition, this time of Mary with the Child Jesus. Mary told Lucia to announce that she promised all the graces necessary for salvation to those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, confessed, received Holy Communion, recited five decades of the rosary, and meditated on the rosary for fifteen minutes, all with the intention of making reparation to her.

On 13 June 1929 Sr. Lucia, while at prayer in the convent chapel at Tuy, where she had moved, saw another apparition, this time a representation of the Trinity. She also heard Mary speak to her, asking that the Pope, in union with all the bishops of the world, make the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart that she had spoken of during the July 1917 apparition.

On 25 January 1938, a strange light filled the skies of northern Europe; it was described as a particularly brilliant display of the Aurora Borealis, but Sr. Lucia realised it was the "unknown light," also announced by Mary in the July apparition. It meant punishment for the world was close, principally through the Second World War, because it had not turned back to God.

Pope Pius XII consecrated the whole world to Mary's Immaculate Heart in 1942, and carried out a similar consecration of Russia in 1952, but neither of these fulfilled Mary's request at Fatima. This collegial consecration, in union with a "moral totality" of the world's bishops, was finally carried out by Pope John Paul II in 1984. Fatima received further Papal support when, on 13 May 1979, the Pope declared Jacinta and Francisco "venerable," the first stage in the process of their possible canonisation.

Pope John Paul has further emphasised the importance of Fatima by beatifying Jacinta and Francisco on 13 may 2000 during the Jubilee Year. At the same time he has announced that details of the third part of the Fatima secret will be revealed, while also entrusting the third millennium to Our Lady of Fatima.

The Bishop approves of Fatima

The Church, meanwhile, had maintained silence about the apparitions during the years from 1917, and it wasn't until May 1922 that Bishop Correia issued a pastoral letter on the subject, indicating that he would set up a commission of enquiry. In 1930 he issued another pastoral letter on the apparitions, which, after recounting the events at Fatima, contained the following brief but important statement.

"In virtue of considerations made known, and others which for reasons of brevity we omit; humbly invoking the Divine Spirit and placing ourselves under the protection of the most Holy Virgin, and after hearing the opinions of our Rev. Advisors in this diocese, we hereby: 1. Declare worthy of belief, the visions of the shepherd children in the Cova da Iria, parish of Fatima, in this diocese, from the 13th May to 13th October, 1917. 2. Permit officially the cult of Our Lady of Fatima."

Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈfatimɐ]) is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary with respect to reported apparitions of her to three shepherd children at Fátima in Portugal on the 13th day of six consecutive months in 1917, starting on May 13. The three children were Lúcia Santos and her cousins, siblings Jacinta and Francisco Marto. The title of <I>Our Lady of the Rosary is also sometimes used in reference to the same apparition (although it was first used in 1208 for the reported apparition in the church of Prouille), because the children related that the apparition specifically identified herself as the "Lady of the Rosary". It is also common to see a combination of these titles, i.e. Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima (Portuguese: ''Nossa Senhora do Rosário de Fátima''The events at Fatima gained particular fame due to their elements of prophecy and eschatology, particularly with regard to possible world war and the conversion of Russia. The reported apparitions at Fatima were officially declared "worthy of belief" by the Catholic Church.

On Sunday, 13 May 1917, ten year old Lúcia Santos and her younger cousins, siblings Jacinta and Francisco Marto, were tending sheep at a location known as the Cova da Iria near their home village of Fátima in Portugal. Lúcia described seeing a woman "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal ball filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun."Further appearances are reported to have taken place on the thirteenth day of the month in June and July. In these the woman exhorted the children to do penance and to make sacrifices to save sinners. The children subsequently wore tight cords around their waists to cause pain, abstained from drinking water on hot days, and performed other works of penance. Most importantly, Lúcia said that the lady had asked them to pray the rosary every day, repeating many times that the rosary was the key to personal and world peace. This had particular resonance since many Portuguese men, including relatives of the visionaries, were then fighting in World War I

According to Lúcia's account, in the course of her appearances, the woman confided to the children three secrets, now known as the Three Secrets of Fátima.

First two secrets

The first secret was a vision of Hell, which Lúcia describes in her Third Memoir, as follows:

"Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror."

The second secret included Mary's instructions on how to save souls from Hell and convert the world to the Roman Catholic faith, also revealed by Lúcia in her Third Memoir:

"You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world."

Consecration of Russia

Main articles: Pope Pius XII Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and Sacro Vergente

According to Sister Lúcia, the Virgin Mary promised that the Consecration of Russia would lead to Russia's conversion and an era of peace.

Pope Pius XII, in his Apostolic Letter of 7 July 1952, Sacro Vergente, consecrated Russia to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pius XII wrote,

Just as a few years ago We consecrated the entire human race to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, so today We consecrate and in a most special manner We entrust all the peoples of Russia to this Immaculate HeartIn 1952 the Pope reminded the Russian people and the Stalinist regime that the Virgin Mary was always victorious. "The gates of hell will never prevail, where she offers her protection. She is the good mother, the mother of all, and it has never been heard, that those who seek her protection, will not receive it. With this certainty, the Pope dedicates all people of Russia to the immaculate heart of the Virgin. She will help! Error and atheism will be overcome with her assistance and divine grace."

Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II both had special relations to Our Lady of Fátima. Pope Benedict XV began Pacelli's church career, elevating him to archbishop in the Sistine Chapel on 13 May 1917, the date of the first reported apparition. Pius XII, was laid to rest in the crypt of Saint Peter's Basilica on 13 November 1958, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima. Our Lady of Fátima is credited by many faithful and by John Paul II himself with saving his life during the assassination attempt, which took place on 13 May 1981.

Pope John Paul II again consecrated the entire world to the Virgin Mary in 1984, without mentioning countries like Russia. Some believe that Sister Lúcia verified that this ceremony fulfilled the requests of the Virgin Mary. However, in the Blue Army's Spanish magazine, Sol de Fatima, in the September 1985 issue, Sister Lúcia said that the ceremony did not fulfill the Virgin Mary's request, as there was no specific mention of Russia, and "many bishops attached no importance to it". In 2001, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone issued a statement, claiming that he had met with Sister Lúcia, who reportedly told him, "I have already said that the consecration desired by Our Lady was made in 1984, and has been accepted in Heaven." Sister Lúcia died on 13 February 2005 (the anniversary of the apparitions), without making any public statement of her own to settle the issue.

Third Secret

The third secret, a vision of the death of the Pope and other religious figures, was transcribed by the Bishop of Leiria and reads:

"After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!' And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, Religious men and women going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, Religious men and women, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

Controversy around the Third Secret

Main article: Third Secret of Fatima controversy

The Vatican withheld the Third Secret until 26 June 2000, despite Lúcia's declaration that it could be released to the public after 1960. Some sources, including Canon Barthas and Cardinal Ottaviani, said that Lúcia insisted to them it must be released by 1960, saying that, "by that time, it will be more clearly understood", and, "because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so."When 1960 arrived, rather than releasing the Third Secret, the Vatican published an official press release stating that it was "most probable the Secret would remain, forever, under absolute seal."After this announcement, immense speculation over the content of the secret materialized. According to the New York Times, speculation over the content of the secret ranged from "worldwide nuclear annihilation to deep rifts in the Roman Catholic Church that lead to rival papacies.

Some sources claim that the four-page, handwritten text of the Third Secret released by the Vatican in the year 2000 is not the real secret, or at least not the full secret In particular, it is alleged that Cardinals Bertone, Ratzinger and Sodano engaged in a systematic deception to cover-up the existence of a one-page document containing the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which some believe contains information about the Apocalypse and a great apostasy. These sources contend that the Third Secret actually comprises two texts, where one of these texts is the published four-page vision, and the other is a single-page letter allegedly containing the words of the Virgin Mary which has been concealed The content of one of these books, The Devil's Final Battle by Father Paul Kramer, is available online

The Vatican has maintained its position that the full text of the Third Secret was published in June 2000. A report from the Zenit Daily Dispatch dated 20 December 2001, based on a Vatican press release, claimed that Lucia told then Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, in an interview conducted the previous month, that the secret has been completely revealed and published, and that no secrets remain. Bertone, along with Cardinal Ratzinger, co-authored the The Message of Fatima, the document published in June 2000 by the Vatican that allegedly contains a scanned copy of the original text of the Third Secret.