Le Troisième Secret

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Set in the near future, the story introduces Jakob Volkner—Pope Clement XV—a German "caretaker pope" elected as John Paul II's successor at nearly 80. Three years into his papacy, Clement begins to express skepticism about papal infallibility and the Church's strict dogma, making unusual requests of his secretary, Monsignor Colin Michener, an Irish-born priest struggling with celibacy. Clement frequently visits a guarded section of the Vatican archives and sends Michener to Romania to find an elderly cleric who translated three cryptic prophecies from the Virgin Mary to children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. While these secrets are believed to be fully disclosed, Michener questions this after Clement's shocking suicide. He embarks on a perilous quest for truth, following a twisted trail of clues and religious forecasts from Rome to Bosnia and Germany, alongside his former lover, journalist Katerina Lew. However, revealing any new secrets will pit Michener against doctrinal conservatives, led by Cardinal Alberto Valendrea, the Vatican's Italian secretary of state, who is determined to succeed Clement as Vicar of Christ, even if it means inventing new sins and disregarding a 900-year-old prediction of doom for the next pope.