Explosive in both its pace and its revelations, The Third Secret is a remarkable international thriller. Bestselling author Steve Berry tackles some of the most controversial ideas of our time in a breakneck journey through the history of the Church and the future of religion. Fatima, Portugal, 1917: The Virgin Mary appears to three peasant children, sharing with them three secrets, two of which are soon revealed to the world. The third secret is sealed away in the Vatican, read only by popes, and not disclosed until the year 2000. When revealed, its quizzical tone and anticlimactic nature leave many faithful wondering if the Church has truly unveiled all of the Virgin Mary’s words–or if a message far more important has been left in the shadows. Vatican City, present day: Papal secretary Father Colin Michener is concerned for the Pope. Night after restless night, Pope Clement XV enters the Vatican’s Riserva, the special archive open only to popes, where the Church’s most clandestine and controversial documents are stored. Though unsure of the details, Michener knows that the Pope’ s distress stems from the revelations of Fatima. Equally concerned, but not out of any sense of compassion, is Alberto Cardinal Valendrea, the Vatican’s Secretary of State,. Valendrea desperately covets the papacy, having narrowly lost out to Clement at the last conclave. Now the Pope’s interest in Fatima threatens to uncover a shocking ancient truth that Valendrea has kept to himself for many years. When Pope Clement sends Michener to the Romanian highlands, then to a Bosnian holy site, in search of a priest–possibly one of the last people on Earth who knows Mary’s true message– a perilous set of events unfolds. Michener finds himself embroiled in murder, suspicion, suicide, deceit, and his forbidden passion for a beloved woman. In a desperate search for answers, he travels to Pope Clement’s birthplace in Germany, where he learns that the third secret of Fatima may dictate the very fate of the Church–a fate now lying in Michener’s own hands. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steve Berry’s The Columbus Affair.

May 13, 1917: Three children of the hamlet of Aljustrel, near Fatima in Portugal, tend their sheep at the Cova da Iria. Lucy, the eldest of the trio, is only ten years old, and her two cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, are nine and seven. It is hardly surprising that these cheerful and ingenuous children who were also very pious, would become the object of the predilection of the Queen of Heaven, who would appear to them six times in a row, from May 13 to October 13, to pass on to them Her Message.

Teenage detectives Frank and Joe Hardy investigate a case of counterfeiting.

This book seeks to explain in reader-friendly terms the controversial 'Third Secret' of Fatima as released by the Catholic Church on June 26, 2000. Included in this work is the commentary written by Cardinal Ratzinger and titled, 'The Message of Fatima.' Discover the increasingly important role private revelation plays in the lives of Christians worldwide.

This is the book that has been electrifying Rome and the rest of Europe for three years! This fascinating inquiry into the theories and the truths of the most disconcerting mystery of the 20th Century was a huge best-seller in Europe. On June 26, 2000, Vatican officials (including Cardinal Bertone) released what they claim was the Third Secret of Fatima. They further said that it was a prediction of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. Antonio Socci, an acclaimed Italian journalist and television personality, originally sided with the Vatican¿s interpretation of the Third Secret.Upon closer investigation of this matter, the evidence led him to the conclusion that there is another document of the Third Secret containing the actual words of Our Lady. So far, the Vatican is still hiding this text while claiming that all is released.Antonio Socci, for the first time, in this book produces the testimony of a still-living witness from the inner circle of Pope John XXIII, to prove his point. This book has caused a public sensation and debate. Far from being a ¿dead issue¿ the urgent message of Our Lady to the shepherd children of Fatima is now being more critically discussed and examined than ever before.

The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.

The truth about the vatican's most impenetrable secret, hidden for over eighty years! *On May 13, 1917, three young shepherds witness a vision of the Virgin Mary and hear the Holy Mother reveal three prophecies... *Elements of the first two prophecies have already come true: the end of World War I, the rise of Russia as a superpower, and the beginning of World War II... *The third secret was revealed in the year 2000, its details still shrouded in secrecy and controversy. What is the Vatican trying to hide? The Lady of Fátima left a final prophecy so powerful that no pope in over eighty years had dared reveal it. Why? The third secret is contained on a page of parchment written by the last surviving witness to the miracle...and hand delivered to the Pope. Even now, after the Vatican has released their version of the contents of the third secret, intense debate rages as to whether the Church has revealed the truth. Here, for the first time, is a complete inquiry into the mystery of Fátima: what the three shepherds really witnessed, the astonishing turn of their lives, the unfolding of the prophecies, and how the Fátima Secret has dominated Pope John Paul's reign and changed world history. Was the Fátima prophecy a warning to the Pope...or a vision so dire it must be suppressed at any cost?

This text is the inside story of how the CIA combined with the Vatican under the Polish Pope John Paul II to launch a massive campaign to destabilise Warsaw - and how the KGB reacted by trying to kill the Pope in 1981. The rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, which began the undermining of the Soviet Bloc and the defeat of international communism, was essentially funded by the CIA covertly, through the Vatican.

Describes the condition under which communion in the hand was established in the Catholic church.