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INTRIGUE AND CONTROVERSIES ABOUT FATIMA REMAIN NINETY YEARS AFTER GREAT MIRACLE

Nearly a century after the first apparitions, the famed site of Fatima remains in the news, most recently due to renewed controversy over the third secret.

Earlier this month, two journalists who claim that Rome never released the full message attempted to confront a Vatican official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and were unceremoniously escorted out -- barred from a talk by the official -- while Cardinal Bertone had to enter via a side door.

Is it the true secret? The strongest defense of the message as revealed by the Vatican is the way it flows from the previous two parts of the prophecy -- which largely focused on Russia.

In those first two parts, the Blessed Mother mentioned that if Russia was consecrated to her Immaculate Heart -- and if we established the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays -- that nation, which was about to turn Communist, would be converted.

If not, said the Blessed Mother, Russia would spread her error of atheism throughout the world.

There would a persecutions of the Church.

And the Pope would suffer.

In the end, she said, her heart would triumph. The Holy Father would consecrate Russia to her. A "period of peace" would be granted to the world.

The first two secrets thus focused on Russia, as does the third secret. It displays symbols of the martyred just as million were indeed martyred in the Soviet Union.

It shows a "Bishop in White" (the Pope) attacked, just as John Paul II was shot -- on the Fatima anniversary of May 13, 1981, by a gunman who many have linked to Russia's old KGB.

And it includes the vision of an angel ready to torch the world but drowned out by the light of Mary -- presumably representing the nuclear threat of Russia, which John Paul II implicitly consecrated when he consecrated the world to her Immaculate Heart in 1984.

But listen to this: In August 1991 at the apparition site of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Hercegovina -- which John Paul II called "the fulfillment of Fatima" -- the Blessed Mother's message monthly said, "I invite you to renunciation for nine days so that, with your help, everything I wanted to realize through the secrets I began at Fatima may be fulfilled."

She said what the Pope had! More remarkably, it was the same month that there was an attempted coup as the last of the Soviets tried to prevent break-up of the empire. Prayers indeed. Renunciation -- that Fatima might be fulfilled.

It was August, 1991, that tanks rolled into the streets of Moscow, but by December the unthinkable -- the miraculous -- had taken place and Russia was freed; the Soviet Union was dissolved.

Meanwhile -- if only partially -- Russia has seen a remarkable trend back toward Christianity, with the Orthodox Church surging into public view (in such a way that cosmonauts are blessed by a Patriarch, below, left, before lift-off, something that would never happen in the U.S. One cosmonaut has revealed that when he went into space, he had a Cross in his pocket all along that an aunt gave him for protection.]

But what about the "period of peace"?

Here we get to what may be the most fascinating remaining aspect. Sister Lucia told interviewers in the early 1990s that this "period" referred to the miraculous fall of Communism and the subsequent lessening worldwide of tensions in the 1980s. Do we remember? Few are those over the age of forty who can not recall how it was to grow up with the constant threat of a third world war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. every time there was any sort of international tension, from Cuba to obscure Africa countries -- and how Soviet Russia, erasing the identity ("annihilating") nations like Ukraine and Latvia, attempted to spread its credo of atheism everywhere.

Thus, there indeed has been a period of peace -- not a 1,000-year era, as some expect, but a more limited reference to a tremendous lessening of tensions the Soviet Union.

Still, the question now is whether that period (the Blessed Mother never used the word "era") is waning: beginning to end. Might the West now be facing far greater challenges from abroad -- in the way of China, which never did relinquish its official atheism?

That nation has reportedly been gearing up for cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, plots to cripple the U.S. carrier fleet in the Pacific, the selling of nuclear technology to Iran, and has been spying "aggressively" on U.S. infrastructure.

The "red dragon" is rising militarily and economically, and is not only as set as ever against America but also cooperating with Russia and other Western enemies, as Russia itself is cooling its attitude toward the U.S. after two decades of relative bliss in that relationship.

Are we nearing an era of war? And at the same time, internally, might the U.S. be approaching a time of great internal dissent? Might it one day crumble from within, like the Romans?

This is a prayer need because in America large racial and ethnic groups still have not adequately consolidated and violent animosities threaten a nation that no longer has the unity of its Christian foundation. There is even talk of secessions from the South to California and New England -- not talk to be taken seriously, as yet, but something to watch. There are economic concerns. Has the nation lived beyond its means, and what will happen if there is a serious downturn?

What will happen if the next president in pro-abortion?

Or even brings occultism into the White House?

Indeed, nations from Venezuela to Iran are hankering for our demise, and we are approaching a time of inner turmoil. The refuge will be in her Immaculate Heart! Remember, in Scripture the red dragon must face off against the woman clothed with the sun.

And the message of Fatima remains relevant -- perhaps most pointedly displayed in the fact that many still report sun "miracles," as occurred [left] on October 13, 1917.

On the Blessed Mother's birthday of September 8, in fact, an estimated one thousand pilgrims at the Blue Army Shrine in Washington, New Jersey, saw such a sign. Victoria Tancio of Leonia, the coordinator of the pilgrimage, summed up the series of phenomena that the witnesses observed in the following account: "About 5:00 p.m., I led a long procession that featured prayers and hymns to the Blessed Mother. After the procession, I told the children to release the balloons that they were holding. They did what I said, looked up at the sky with gleeful anticipation, and then they screamed."

According to Tancio, the children saw a dazzling sun, sparkling like a diamond, changing colors at two-minute intervals, going faster and faster, and looming larger and larger.

During the procession, Father Fred Otiendo A.J., the resident chaplain, was busy clearing the altar after the 4:00 p.m. Mass, which he had concelebrated with eight other priests, when he heard someone say, "Look, Father, it's the 'Miracle of the Sun."

"According to the witnesses, the sun changed colors -- yellow, pink, purple, green, and red -- before a blue capital letter 'M' settled in the middle of it," notes a chronicler of the event, Dom Forker. "Remaining for a short while, it passed away after a cloud covered the sun.

"Something different happened," Father Otiendo said. "There was no manipulation. One thousand people would not have been held spellbound for 15 minutes if there were not something different. I sensed a divine presence."

And so Fatima remains with us still -- still relevant, still mysterious, still controversial.

Will there be another "great sign"? Will there be another aurora borealis pronouncing huge conflict (as the great sign prophesied at Fatima turned out to be an unusual display of the northern lights just before Hitler annexed Austria)?

Most do not realize that another unusual aurora was witnessed in April of 1981, just before John Paul II was shot, and auroras became especially prevalent after September 11, causing some to wonder if we were indeed embarking upon a new era of conflict, one that would involve the Muslims, one that brings another coincidence in that "Fatima" itself is a Muslim name.