LISBON, Portugal, DEC. 10, 2001 (Zenit.org).- The third Fatima secret did not include the announcement of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a Vatican official told Portuguese radio.
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Friday told Radio Renascenca of an interview he had with the surviving visionary of the Fatima apparitions, Carmelite Sister Lucia, 95.
The interview is about to be published in L´Osservatore Romano.
Archbishop Bertone met with Sister Lucia at the request of John Paul II, in order to learn the truth about rumors of new apparitions of the Virgin to the Portuguese religious.
These rumors, which originated in Italy and France and have been circulating since October, claimed that the third secret of Fatima had not been totally revealed.
The archbishop said he obtained «personally the denial of all those rumors and information.»
«In a word, Sister Lucia denies all the rumors attributed to her,» the archbishop told the Portuguese radio station.
The Pope was immediately informed of the nun´s denial. Sister Lucia´s cloistered convent, the Carmel of Coimbra, has already published its own denial of the rumors, Archbishop Bertone said.
