Contrary to rumors circulating throughout the Catholic world lately, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI denies having ever said that the release of the third secret of Fatima in the year 2000 was incomplete.

Vatican Radio is reporting on the communique, issued Saturday by the Holy See Press Office, which confirms that the contents of the third secret have been published in their entirety.

“Several articles have appeared recently, including declarations attributed to Professor Ingo Dollinger according to which Cardinal Ratzinger, after the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima (which took place in June 2000), had confided to him that the publication was not complete,” the Communiqué reads.

“In this regard, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI declares ‘never to have spoken with Professor Dollinger about Fatima’, clearly affirming that the remarks attributed to Professor Dollinger on the matter ‘are pure inventions, absolutely untrue’, and he confirms decisively that ‘the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima is complete’.”

According to Sr. Lucia de Jesus Rosa Santos, one of the three children to whom Mary appeared between May and October of 1917, Our Lady entrusted the children with three secrets in a vision that occurred on July 13, 1917. Lucia later wrote down these three secrets and delivered them to the Pope.

Two of the secrets were released to the public, but the third secret remained in a sealed envelope with the instructions that it should not be opened before 1960.

In a meeting that took place on April 27, 2000 between Sr. Lucia and Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Lucia was asked about the stipulations regarding the third secret.

“Why only after 1960? Was it Our Lady who fixed that date?” Archbishop Bertone asked.

Sister Lucia replied: “It was not Our Lady. I fixed the date because I had the intuition that before 1960 it would not be understood, but that only later would it be understood. Now it can be better understood. I wrote down what I saw; however it was not for me to interpret it, but for the Pope.”

At the directive of St. John Paul II, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State at the time, was asked to interpret the secret. He found it to be symbolic in nature and summarized it as follows:

“The vision of Fatima concerns above all the war waged by atheistic systems against the Church and Christians, and it describes the immense suffering endured by the witnesses of the faith in the last century of the second millennium. It is an interminable Way of the Cross led by the Popes of the twentieth century.”

Click here for a complete description of the secret and its interpretation.

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