I often wonder what the real third secret was about.

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The German magazine "Stimme des Glaubens," has published the following account of Pope John Paul II's interview, with a small group of German Catholics, on the occasion of his visit to Fuida, in November of 1980. We are reproducing it here for the benefit of our readers.

THE QUESTION: "Holy Father, what has become of the 3rd Secret of Fatima? According to Our Lady's instructions, wasn't it supposed to be revealed in 1960? And what will happen in the Church?"

'THE HOLY FATHER'S RESPONSE: "Because of the seriousness of its contents, in order not to encourage the world wide power of Communism to carry out certain coups, my Prederessors in the Chair of Peter have diplomatically preferred to withhold its publication.

"On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this much: if there is a message in which it is said that the oceans will flood entire sections of the earth; that, from one moment to the other, millions of people will perish...there is no longer any point in really wanting to publish this secret message.

"Many want to know merely out of curiosity, or because of their taste for sensationalism, but they forget that 'to know' implies for them a responsibility. It is dangerous to want to satisfy one's curiosity only, if one is convinced that we can do nothing aganst a catastrophe that has been predicted."

At this point, the Holy Father took hold of his Rosary and said: "Here is the remedy against the evil! Pray, pray and ask for nothing else. Put everything in the hands of the Mother of God!"

Then he went on to say: "We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-to-distant future; trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives, and a total gift of self to Christ and for Christ. Through your prayers and mine, it is possible to alleviate this tribulation, but it is no longer possible to avert it, because it is only in this way that the Church can be effectively renewed. How many times, indeed, has the renewal of the Church been effected in blood? This time, again, it will not be otherwise.

"We must be strong, we must prepare ourselves, we must entrust ourselves to Christ and to His holy Mother, and we must be attentive, very attentive, to the prayer of the Rosary. "