Travel Reference
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fore a cross made of rough-hewn tree trunks, and was killed by soldiers who gunned him
down.
Some claim that this predicted the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981.
The attempt happened on 13 May - the anniversary of the apparitions - and the pope him-
self claimed the Virgin of Fátima saved him from death. (According to some reconstruc-
tions of the shooting, the assassin's bullet followed a bizarre elliptical path rather than a
straight line, thereby avoiding the pope's vital organs.) Conspiracy theorists, meanwhile,
claim that the church was hiding the 'real' third secret, which related to the apocalypse
and a great apostasy within the church - a breakdown that begins at the top. Recent scan-
dals, including the Catholic sex-abuse cases in various parts of the world, have only
fuelled the speculation among some 'Fátimists' that the third secret has yet to be revealed.
