Jesuit's America:

Badly distressed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone ??

And his new book, The Last Secret of Fatima?

The one with an introduction by Pope Benedict XVI?

Adapted from this up - to - date source: the Jesuit magazine, America, July 21 - 28, 2008. Book review by Ms. Sally Cunneen.

"Reading this slim and puzzling book is a little like receiving a message from another period of church history.

"Why do these distinguished church leaders find it useful now to revisit well - publicized information about the famous secrets associated with the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima to three Portuguese children in 1917?

"Unlike many earlier apparitions, during which viewers were asked to have a church built on the site of Mary's appearance, a number of serial 19th - century appearances, beginning with La Salette in 1843, suggested divine punishment if people did not repent and pray.

"La Salette was also accompanied by secrets the children were told not to share.

"The events at Fatima [1917] followed in this pattern, but received far more attention for two reasons.

"First, because Lucia, the primary caretaker of the secrets from 1917, became a Carmelite nun and under her superior's orders, wrote four memoirs between and 1935 and 1941 revealing further details of the Virgin's visitations.

"And second, because those revelations were widely understood to apply not only to then but to all of 20 - century history.

"Only when Lucia seemed near death did her bishop tell her to write down the third and final secret, which was sent in 1957 in a sealed envelope to the confidential archives of the Holy Office.

"Pope John XXIII read the document in 1959 and decided to return it to the archives as irrelevant to our times.

"Pope Paul VI read it and also sent the the envelope back.

"But when John Paul II read the message while recuperating from his near - assassination in 1981, he was convinced that the bishop in white was himself, and that Our Lady of Fatima had saved his life."

Bullet that struck him was placed in the crown of her statue...

"A year later he made a pilgrimage to Fatima to thank he; he also had the bullet that struck him placed in the crown of her statue.

"One piece of evidence that convinced him of his personal connection with the secret was the extraordinary coincidence of a number of dates.

"For instance, Our Lady had appeared to the young visionaries on May 13, 1917; and John Paul was shot on May 13, 1981..."

A good read, this review... :)

Note: we are told, regarding reviewer Ms. Sally Cuneen herself, that she "is emeritus professor of English at Rockland Community college of the State University of New York and the author of In Search of Mary."