ROME —After the Vatican said the third secret of Fatima foretold the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II, the Turkish gunman in that attack proclaimed himself an ''unwitting instrument'' in a divine plan.
Mehmet Ali Agca, who is serving a life sentence in an Italian prison for shooting and seriously wounding the pope in 1981, said through his lawyer that he felt relieved from the weight of responsibility by the disclosure of the secret.
''I was an unwitting instrument in a mysterious design: Now I know this with certainty,'' Agca was quoted as saying by his lawyer, Marina Magistrelli. Agca said he would further explain his thoughts in a letter to the pope on the occasion of the pontiff's 80th birthday May 18.
Magistrelli said Agca had watched TV coverage of the pope's Mass at Fatima, Portugal, May 13 when Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, announced that the ''third secret'' said to have been revealed by Mary to three children in 1917 involved a prediction of a war waged by atheistic systems against the church.
The message also referred to a ''bishop clothed in white'' who ''falls to the ground, apparently dead under a burst of gunfire,'' Cardinal Sodano said. He said Pope John Paul II believes this foretold his being shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square May 13, 1981 -- the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.
The pope met with Agca in his prison cell in 1983 and forgave the gunman. On that occasion, Agca later recounted, he asked the pope about the third secret of Fatima, but the pope would not discuss it.
Later, Agca began claiming that he was part of a divine design connected with the Fatima apparitions. He also made other claims: that he was Jesus Christ, that he was an angel, and that he was sent by God to announce the end of the world.
Agca at one point claimed that the papal shooting was carried out on the orders of Bulgarian intelligence officials. Bulgarian and Turkish defendants were acquitted in 1986, in a trial that featured incoherent outbursts by Agca.
Agca later said the Bulgarian connection was a fabrication of Italian intelligence officials who had promised him early release if he went along with their plan.
In recent years, Agca has said he acted on his own in shooting the pope. Agca, a Muslim, had publicly threatened to kill the pontiff in 1979 when the pope visited Turkey; in a letter to several Turkish newspapers, he called the pope a ''crusader commander'' sent by Western imperialists.
After Agca shot the pope in 1981, he was immediately wrestled to the ground and arrested. A letter found in his hotel room said he had committed the act to demonstrate the ''imperialistic crimes'' of the Soviet Union and the United States.
For several years, Agca and his relatives have pressured Italian justice officials to release him, saying he has served long enough. Now 42 years old, Agca would be eligible for conditional release in 2005.
Italian press reports quoted Agca as saying that if released, he would travel to Fatima to pray for 10 days.
That is an unlikely scenario, since Turkish authorities want Agca back in their country to serve a life sentence for the killing of a Turkish journalist in 1979. Vatican officials have said they have no objections to Agca's early release from his Italian sentence and his return to a Turkish prison.
— John Thavis, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — The Diocese of Coimbra concluded its phase of the sainthood cause of Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children who saw Our Lady of Fatima in 1917.
Bishop Virgilio Antunes of Coimbra formally closed the local phase of investigation into her life and holiness Feb. 13 in the Carmelite convent of St. Teresa in Coimbra, where she resided until her death in 2005 at the age of 97.
The ceremony included the sealing of 50 volumes -- 15,000 pages -- of evidence and witness testimonies detailing the life of Sister Lucia. The documents sealed at the ceremony were to be shipped to the Congregation for Saints' Causes at the Vatican.
After a thorough review of the materials and a judgment that Sister Lucia heroically lived the Christian virtues, her cause still would require the recognition of two miracles -- one for beatification and another for canonization -- attributed to her intercession.
The Marian apparitions at Fatima began on May 13, 1917, when 10-year-old Lucia, along with her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, reported seeing the Virgin Mary.
The apparitions continued once a month until Oct. 13, 1917, and later were declared worthy of belief by the Catholic Church.
Father Romano Gambalunga, postulator of the visionary's cause, said that while "Lucia is already a saint in the eyes" of many people, "the prudent path of the church is that she is proposed to all, not just those who believe."
"Lucia became holy over the years, not because of the apparitions," Father Gambalunga told Agencia Ecclesia, the news agency of the Portuguese bishops' conference.
While many hope her heroic virtues will be recognized by the church soon, it is important "not to do things in a hurry," he said Feb. 13.
The evidence and testimonies gathered for Sister Lucia's cause, he said, provide "a great occasion for spiritual and theological deepening," and the material will help "illuminate the history of the church over the last 100 years."
Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Fatima May 12-13 and many people hope he will use the occasion to canonize Sister Lucia's cousins, Francisco and Jacinta, who were beatified by St. John Paul II in 2000.
Bishop Antonio Marto of Leiria-Fatima told Radio Renascenca, the Portuguese bishops' radio station, that while nothing is certain, he is "deeply hopeful" the canonization will take place this year, the centenary of the apparitions.
"We are waiting and continue to pray to the Lord. But I hope that, during the centenary, we will have the grace and joy to participate in the canonization," he said.
Bishop Marto also admitted that "he is a convert," who, as a priest, was initially skeptical of the Marian apparitions in Fatima.
"I was a skeptic. I didn't care; I did not take an interest nor did I take a position. I understood it as something for children," Bishop Marto said.
The skepticism changed into belief after attending a conference on the apparitions and reading Sister Lucia's memoirs, he told the radio station. "I was deeply impressed, both by the authenticity of the testimony she gave and by the seriousness of the problems she dealt with. I read her memoirs three times to find the historical and ecclesial context" of the apparitions.
— Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service