Other aspects of the timing of the announcement were not lost on commentators. Not only did it come in the week of the Pope's 80th birthday, it also fell in the year 2000, and in the Vatican's Jubilee year which runs until Easter 2001. He lost his own mother at the age of eight. She saved him for a providential mission to topple communism and lead an often persecuted flock into the third millennium. It is hardly surprising such a message should appeal so strongly to the anti-communist Polish Pope.
Some mystery still remains.
The decades-long concealment of the Third Secret is not completely over for the text of the revelation has yet to be revealed in full. The Vatican is still working on the interpretation to be published along with the full text, so the affair is not done and dusted yet. Though there are two precedents for a Pontiff stepping down, it is 585 years since it last happened and John Paul II, though personally keen on retirement to a Polish monastery, is said to believe God wants him to continue his reign. Nevertheless the topic of resignation has had a high profile since Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, president of the German Bishops' Conference, suggested in January that the Pope should consider resignation if poor health impaired his performance of his duties. On his 80th birthday, however, the Pope seemed determined to carry on.