Page 2 is usually reserved to promote books and publications that may be of interest to our members. But this month we are doing something different: we’re advising against buying something. That something is the audio version of the book The Third Secret, by Steve Berry.
In August, The Most Reverend John Clayton Nienstedt, Bishop of the Diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota, was kind enough to send us a letter and the five-disc audio version of the book. While in a bookstore, he picked up a copy and was intrigued by what he read on the disc’s jacket. He soon found out, however, that the work was as deceptive as it was pernicious.
In the May Catalyst, Bob Lockwood reviewed several Catholic-bashing books, including Berry’s The Third Secret. Both Bishop Nienstedt and Lockwood were taken aback by the Da Vinci Code dimension to the book: it is based on utter falsehoods, yet it is presented as though it were at least plausible.
“In The Third Secret, Steve Berry has an intrepid couple discovering that Church leadership had hidden the true revelation of the Blessed Mother at Fatima,” wrote Lockwood, “namely that birth control and abortion are fine, priestly celibacy is wrong and the ordination of women right, and that homosexual marriage is a noble thing.” Along the way, two popes commit suicide, a good priest is murdered and almost all of them are having affairs.
These lies will be seen for what they are by educated persons, but to many others they will be seen as containing at least a kernel of truth. What is particularly troubling about Berry’s work is that it is published by Random House, a premier publisher.
Our thanks again to Bishop Nienstedt.
