The Three Secrets of Fátima are related to a number of appearances of Mary to three shepherd children in 1917 at Fátima, Portugal. It was there that Mary revealed three secrets to the shepherds. The Catholic Church released the first two secrets in the 1940s but the surviving shepherd did not write down the third secret until 1944. She sealed the envelope and instructed the church to not open the secret until 1960. The Legio Maria Church believes that Church officials in Rome refused to release the true secret because it revealed Mary's prophecy of a Black Christ for Africa. Schwartz recounts the theory: