IS war coming? It is raging in Ukraine, but thankfully not in Asia. Still, in the past week or so, amid the controversial visit to Taiwan of America’s House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the forces of China, Taiwan and the United States demonstrated how ready they are to shoot, bomb, sink, decimate and otherwise wage war over the island.

In fact, the 1950s-to-1980s Cold War is back between the West — the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), plus America’s rich Asia-Pacific allies Australia and Japan — and the “East” — Russia and China.

It’s “Cold” because the two alliances are not directly fighting each other, but through third countries like Ukraine, armed by NATO with the express aim of degrading Russia’s military, and with economic and other sanctions, mostly imposed by the West.

But that’s no cold comfort for the world. As the war in Ukraine and the saber-rattling over Taiwan warn, Cold War can turn white hot fast. Indeed, Taiwan officials and Western analysts believe China is rehearsing for invasion or blockade.

We will leave for a future article the geopolitical and security assessment of Taiwan’s situation. For this column, we return to the August 4 column topic of Marian apparitions and what they portend for our world today and coming years.

Will there be another ‘great war’?

Perhaps most crucial among the Marian prophecies is the warning in the full Third Secret of Our Lady of Fatima, who appeared over a period of six months in 1917 to three shepherd children, siblings Jacintha and Francisco Marto, 6 and 8 then and canonized as saints in 2017, and their cousin Lucia dos Santos, 9 at the time.

The First Secret on the existence of Hell, and the Second warning of the Second World War, were revealed in 1941 by Sister Lucia, who had become a Discalced Carmelite nun, as requested by the bishop in charge of Fatima then. The Third followed in 1944, also at the prelate’s urging when she fell seriously ill with influenza and pleurisy (her cousins died in the 1920 Spanish flu pandemic).

According to a number of Fatima studies, including the new book Revelations: The Hidden Secret Messages of the Blessed Virgin Mary by French apparitions expert Xavier Reyes-Ayral, the Vatican allegedly concealed part of the Third Secret, on top of delaying its partial publication till 2000, four decades after our Lady wanted the whole message made public.

Prelates and priests privy to the full Third Secret, however, disclosed the allegedly hidden portions. And what may be the most telling for our time of war fears is the warning found in the second of two sealed envelopes given by Lucia. The second note reportedly said in part:

“In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved. A great chastisement will fall on the entire human race, not today as yet, not tomorrow, but in the second half of the 20th Century. … The Church