The call to prayer, penance, and conversion is still there

Concerning the vision of the martyrs of the Church, Cardinal Ratzinger explained: "The vision of the third part of the "secret" (of Our Lady of Fatima, Portugal), so distressing in its beginnings, ends in a picture of hope: no suffering is in vain, and precisely a suffering Church, a Church of martyrs, becomes a sign for man in search of God."

But Cardinal Ratzinger raises the question of the meaning of the whole vision, reminding us that although it evokes past events, it still carries a relevant message of conversion and penance for today: "The situations to which the third part of the "secret" of Fatima alludes seem to belong to the past."

Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world and the future course of history will be disappointed. What is still there, as we have seen from the beginning of our reflection on the text of the "secret," is the exhortation to prayer as a path for the "salvation of souls" and, along the same lines, the call to penance and conversion.

Taken from the explanations given by Cardinal Ratzinger about the 3rd secret of Fatima, in 2000

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