Some people say the Third Secret has not been fully made public due to its content on the end of the world.
I tend to think that too. Part of it, as I understand it, showed a man in white (the Pope) with a lot of dead bodies around him. He was climbing a hill.
Many have said that the picture represented the attempted assasination of Pope John Paul II.
There just seems to be more than we really know right now.
BTW, the message of Fatima to the three children — Pray the Rosary daily for peace. Very simple message.
Ratzinger has given what must be the definitive answer on this. From an interview:
"Cardinal Ratzinger, have you read what is called the Third Secret of Fatima: i.e., the one that Sister Lucia had sent to Pope John XXIII and which the latter did not wish to make known and consigned to the Vatican archives?"
(In reply, Cardinal Ratzinger said)
"Yes, I have read it,"
(which frank response provoked a further question)
"Why has it not been revealed?"
(To this the Cardinal gave the following most instructive reply)
"Because, according to the judgement of the Popes, it adds nothing (literally 'nothing different') to what a Christian must know concerning what derives from Revelation: i.e., a radical call for conversion; the absolute importance of history; the dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian, and therefore of the world. And then the importance of the 'novissimi' (the last events at the end of time). If it is not made public - at least for the time being - it is in order to prevent religious prophecy from being mistaken for a quest for the sensational (literally: 'for sensationalism'). But the things contained in this 'Third Secret' correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and has been said again and again in many other Marian apparations, first of all that of Fatima in what is already known of what its message contains. Conversion and penitence are the essential conditions for 'salvation'."
--November 11, 1984 issue of Jesus magazine
Thanks to Canticle_of_Deborah for first posting the above