End of the World

Third Vision of Fatima Revealed
Vatican Announcement Stuns the World

"Understand this: the vision shows the time of the End."
Daniel 8:17

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On Saturday, May 13, 2000, the 83rd anniversary of the Fatima vision, the Roman Catholic Church, under the direction of the Bishop of Rome, revealed the contents of the third vision of Fatima to the world.

The startling announcement was front page news all across the world. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, wrote that the "the third secret of Fatima had become one of the most intriguing mysteries of modern times."

According to Vatican sources, the vision described a bishop in white, agonizingly making his way to the Cross through a sea of corpses of Christian martyrs, suddenly cut down by a fusillade of bullets. Together with the revelation, the Vatican gave an interpretation that applied in part, but failed to address completely major elements of the prophecy.

Vatican officials concluded that the third Fatima prophecy applied to the past, especially to the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square in 1981.



The Vatican found compelling evidence to make this association during the subsequent trial of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman. During his 1985 trial Agca made the statement that his assassination attempt was "connected to the third secret of the Madonna of Fatima." (Agca made his attack on May 13, 1981. The apparition at Fatima first occurred on May 13, 1917, exactly 64 years to the day earlier).

The Vatican, and especially Pope John Paul II, found the coincidence of dates compelling, but they were completely awestruck by Mehmet Ali Agca's later trial announcement because no one knew the contents of the prophecy except for the Pope himself and a very few of the highest Papal Cardinals. The obvious conclusion was that Agca must have been inspired to make that claim through supernatural means. It meant that the Holy Spirit had used the gunman to verify the truth of the Fatima prophecy.

If any questions about the truth of the prophecies remained, they were swept away by Agca's comments. The incident guaranteed a permanent embrace of Lucia dos Santos' visions by the Catholic Church. All three visions were defined as true prophecy and Lucia's two cousins, partners to the vision, were beatified by the Pope. Lucia herself could not be beatified at the same time because she is still alive.

The first vision predicted the end of World War I and the coming of World War II. The second was an appeal to pray for the conversion of Russia, which occurred with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. The third vision, sealed by Lucia under orders that it could not be opened until 1960 (apparently by the instruction of the vision of Mary), was never revealed. Not until now.

Agca's claim with respect to Fatima and the fact that he said he had not acted alone (many high officials say he was a paid gunman acting under orders of the Soviet Union and communist Bulgaria) seem to tie the Fatima prophecies to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the second of the three aspects of the visions. The actions of Pope John Paul II following the assassination attempt played a central role in that collapse and the subsequent re-conversion of Russia, starting first with Perestroika in 1984 and leading to the total collapse of Russian communism in 1992.

Those events, and the fact that the papal shooting coincided with the anniversary of the Fatima visions made a deep and personal impact on John Paul II. He felt that his life had been spared by Mary, the Virgin of Fatima, for the purpose of the prophecy, especially with respect to his role in the conversion of Russia. John Paul realized that these visions came from the Holy Spirit and were very important.

The facts surrounding the second vision speak for themselves and cannot be argued. However, the Vatican's interpretation of the third vision seems to leave large vacancies. It does not, for instance, take into account the corpses of the martyrs that surround him as he is gunned down. Nor does it address the torturous process and singular character of his resolve to reach the Cross.
The "bishop clothed in white," who is the pope, "makes his way with great effort toward the cross amid the corpses of those who were martyred. He, too, falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of gunfire."

The fact that the vision states that the bishop, "too", falls to the ground indicates that the sea of Christian bodies through which he is making his way were killed in the same time frame. The same day at most, or more likely within the same hour. A bloodbath seems to have occurred in the vision. Not in St. Peter's Square, but inside the basilica itself. Invaders have taken over the Vatican by force. They have murdered the Pope.

This does not describe the shooting of John Paul II in 1981. The vision more likely points forward. To something far more momentous. To something that has not yet occurred. It seems to describe the linchpin of the tribulation -- the end of the 62 weeks in Daniel's vision -- the defining moment when the world passes from the millennium of Christian rule and reverts back to the reign of Satan. "And after the sixty-two weeks an anointed one will be cut off." (Dn. 9:26). The Fatima prophecy and its revelation show that this terrible event has now drawn very close.

In Daniel's prophecy, what follows the assassination can only be described as utter chaos: "the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed by a prince who will come. His end will come in catastrophe and, until the end, there will be war and all the devastation decreed." (Dn.9:26).

The vision describes the bishop as "apparently dead". To all eyes in Babylon, he would be. But those whose bodies die in Christ cannot be killed (Jn.11:25). Daniel states that the beast will be brought before God and "a court will be held and his power will be stripped from him, consumed, and utterly destroyed. And sovereignty and kingship and the splendours of all the kingdoms under heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Most High." (Dn.7:26-27). Those who have obeyed Jesus Christ will be raised up to eternal life. The bishop's apparent lifelessness will be reversed. He will only have appeared to die. "After the three-and-a-half days, God breathed life into them and they stood up, and everybody who saw it happen was terrified; then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, 'Come up here', and while their enemies were watching, they went up to heaven in a cloud." (Rv.11:11-12).

Metaphorically, the reference to the bishop's 'white' clothing is, in itself, quite significant. It cannot help but remind us of Ezekiel's prophecy which refers to a man in white marking the sign of the cross on the heads of those chosen by God for salvation. "In the middle of them was a man in white, with a scribe's ink horn in his belt. (God) called to the man in white and said to him, 'Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who deplore and disapprove of all the filth practiced in it (in the city)." (Ez.9:2-6).

The mark described here is an obvious reference to baptism. Therefore, the bishop's role on earth is precisely that described in Ezekiel's prophecy.


Why Is This Third Prophecy So Important?

Daniel has informed us that the world we know (our Christian-oriented world) will collapse in a "Great Revolt". This event is currently in progress. Scripture teaches that when the revolt nears its peak, Satan will raise up a man of perdition (a beast) who will deceive mankind, topple the Christian Church and bring the civilized world to a chaotic and fiery end.

He will be successful in his efforts because he will have the full backing of Satan himself, who will be freed from the chains that now bind him in the Abyss, and allowed by God to come back and deceive all those who have fallen victim to the apostasy of the revolt. (2 Thes.2:11-12).

According to Paul, although Satan is destined to reappear in response to the Revolt, the madman who carries out his purpose on earth cannot appear openly until the "one who is holding him back is first removed". (2 Thes.2:7). The person who is holding the Rebel back is the 'anointed one' that Daniel said 'would be cut off at the end of the sixty two weeks' (Dn.9:26).

These words refer to the assassination of a great, powerful and popular Christian leader, almost certainly the Bishop of Rome (see 'The Last Days of Babylon', Chapter 25, "An Anointed One Cut Off"). The recent revelation of the third prophecy of Fatima virtually guarantees that the 'Anointed One' who is holding back the wrath is the Pope -- "the bishop in white", holder of the highest priestly office in the Christian Church.

The priesthood in this prophecy is important. This assassination mirrors the circumstances that led up to the appearance of Antiochus, the great desolater of the Jewish Temple during the Greek occupation of Jerusalem. Jesus, Himself, directed us to Daniel's description of the last days, and much of Daniel's prophecy is built on the events that surrounded the rise and fall of Antiochus Epiphanes IV, around 170 B.C. It was Antiochus' forces that put up the desolating sacrilege in the Temple that Jesus predicted would be re-created in Christian terms during the last days.

As a prelude to the erection of the desolating sacrilege, immediately before Antiochus came to power, his forces assassinated Onias, the immensely popular High Priest of Jerusalem. The prophecy of Daniel with respect to the 'cutting off of the Anointed One' just before the tribulation (Dn.9:26) shows that the assassination of Onias (2 Macc.4:34-38) is a foreshadow of a similar catastrophe involving a great Christian bishop at the end of time.

Paul confirmed all this when he told the people of Thesalonia that the Great Rebel who was destined to enthrone himself in God's sanctuary at the end could not appear until this person was first removed (2 Thes.5-7). Since it is this Christian prince that God has assigned the function of holding back the wrath from the earth, none of the terminal events described by Daniel can happen until this horrendously violent act takes place.

Paul's words warn that as a consequence of this fateful removal, the Beast will appear openly on earth, precipitating a wrath from which there will be no escape. Since the success of the Revolt will prove the true measure of the world's collapse in faith, the assassination of the Christian bishop at the end of it will be the ultimate act of violence which finalizes that rebellion and condemns the world to death. .

By removing from the world the priest whose office oversees the communion sacrifice, the safety of the Cross which flows into the world through the perpetuation of that sacrifice will evaporate, taking away with it the mercy that stayed the execution and allowed the world to live.

As proof of this, and to make certain the mercy of the Cross is neutralized, the Rebel whose allies conducted the bishop's murder will erect in the sanctuary where the Cross once stood (and where the communion ceremony once took place) the 'abomination of desolation'. Jesus said that when we see this take place, we must head for the mountains and take cover immediately.

The revelation of Fatima's third prophecy not only adds further credence to the truth of Jesus Christ, and to the writings of scripture, it again proves that all people who believe in Jesus belong to God, no matter what church affiliation they adhere to.

Revelation of Fatima's third prophecy would never have been made public had the current Pope not been the object of assassination, and had Agca, the gunman, not publicly proclaimed that he was attempting to fulfil the third vision of Fatima (a vision he had no way of knowing applied to the shooting of the Pope). So the shooting of John Paul II has to be considered part and parcel of the Fatima vision.

But (as is almost always the case in the Bible) God has brought it to fruition in pairs. This time not just as a warning of an impending event of far greater moment, but as the mechanism to make that warning public. It turned a card in the Vatican and made them reveal the prophecy -- a prophecy that four previous Popes, for obvious reason, never wanted to make public.

The fact of its revelation at this particular time is very sobering.

The third prophecy of Fatima shows that the ghastly spectacle it heralds and the terminal implications that surround it are now close at hand. The time for repentance is almost at an end. There is very little time left. The madman is at the portals. Anyone who has not made a commitment to Christ must do so very soon or be left to the fate of the Apostasy now sweeping the planet.