Book Review: The Third Secret

This novel by Steve Berry is buried in Catholicism and includes some broad and very controversial religious ideas, not unlike the Da Vinci Code. However, there’s a big difference in the books. The book follows the Pope’s quest to find the truth about the Third Secret given by the Virgin Mary to the children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917, which was disclosed in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. The secret apparently prophesized the assassination attempt on JP2 in 1981. The book is premised around the fact that the Third Secret seemed extremely different than the first two released by the Vatican, and that there was something missing or there was more to the secret than what was released. The story follows Colin Michener, who is the Papal secretary, and who acts for the fictional Pope Clement successor to JP2, (who like real Pope Benedict XVI, was German). The adventure takes Michener to Romania and Bosnia to discover the truth behind the Third Secret. The novel explores and questions whether a priest should be celibate, murder, suicide, whether a woman should be a priest, whether the Vatican has lost its way, whether there could be a black pope, along with many other controversial ideas. The book is very informative from the perspective of how things operate in the Vatican, particularly around the death of a pope, and the overall infrastructure of the Church. Berry points out a number of times how strange it is that the Popes have always been white Europeans, when the vast majority of Catholics are now Asian or Hispanic. Even tying in the Prophecy of St. Malachy to the story – in fact, the 112th pope after Celestine who is noted in the prophecies will be the very next Pope in real life, after Pope Benedict XVI.

If prophecy holds, the 112th pope is expected to be Pope Peter II… The prophecy reads as follows (courtesy: newagedirectory.com): "In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations, at the term of which the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the formidable Judge will judge the people. The End."

Kinda ominous… and this is supposed to be the next pope!!

Anyways, overall, very interesting book if you have any interest in this kind of stuff, but it’s very isolated to the Catholic world and the Church, which gives it a very different feel than the Da Vinci Code. Rather than an adventure or quest, this one felt a lot more like a religious statement more than anything else… and as with The Romanov Prophecy, the end was not one I enjoyed too much. I liked the ties to real life though, making it a very realistic read, and I learned quite a bit more about Catholicism (6/10)…