PORTUGAL’S FATIMA SHRINE: THE CATHOLIC PILGRIMAGE SITE
FATIMA, PORTUGAL—Pope Francis will make a whirlwind visit to the shrine of Fatima in central Portugal on Saturday as part of his visit to the country for World Youth Day festivities.
The 86-year-old pontiff is scheduled to recite the rosary with sick and disabled young people before returning to Lisbon.
Here are some key facts about Fatima:
Apparitions
The Roman Catholic Church teaches the Virgin Mary first appeared to three Portuguese children on May 13, 1917, as they were tending sheep near Fatima, which was then an impoverished farming village.
She is said to have appeared five other times over the following months to the children who were aged 7, 9 and 10.
A crowd estimated at around 70,000 gathered at the site on her last apparition on Oct. 13, 1917, when many say the sun appeared to “dance” in the sky in what has been dubbed “the Miracle of the Sun.”
After initially questioning the authenticity of the children’s visions, the Vatican in 1930 accepted them as appearances of the Virgin Mary.
Sainthood
During a visit to Fatima in 2017 on the centenary of the reported apparitions, Pope Francis
declared two of the three shepherd children to be saints at a ceremony attended by around 500,000 people.
Francisco and Jacinta Marto had already been beatified—the final step before sainthood—by Pope John Paul II in 2000.
The two siblings died in an influenza pandemic at the ages of 10 and 9, within three years of the 1917 apparitions.
Their older cousin Lucia Dos Santos became a nun and died in 2005 at the age of 97. Efforts are underway to make her a saint as well.
The remains of the three are buried inside the Basilica at Fatima.
Three secrets
The Church believes the Virgin Mary gave the children three messages, the so-called secrets of Fatima.
The first message concerned a “vision of hell,” which was interpreted as a need for a conversion to God and prayer, as well as a call for the end of the persecution of the Catholic Church.
The second was seen by believers as predicting of the outbreak of World War II and a warning of the need to “convert Russia,” which at the time of the apparitions was shaken by the Bolshevik revolution.
The first two secrets were revealed by Pope Pius XII in 1942. The third secret was only revealed in 2000.
The Vatican said at the time that it was a prediction of the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on May 13— the same day of the first reported apparition in 1917.
During a visit to Portugal in 2020, his successor Pope Benedict XVI said the significance of the third secret could be extended to include the suffering the Church is going through as a result of the cases of sexual abuse involving the clergy.
Pope John Paul II, who believed he survived the attempt on his life in 1981 thanks to the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima, visited the shrine three times—in 1982, 1991 and 2000
Papal visits
Pope Paul VI was the first to pray at the shrine in 1967, on the 50th anniversary of the first apparition.
Pope John Paul II, who believed he survived the attempt on his life in 1981 thanks to the intervention of Our Lady of Fatima, visited the shrine three times—in 1982, 1991 and 2000.
He even donated the bullet which had been removed from his body to the shrine.
It is now lodged in the bejewelled crown of the statue of the Virgin Mary of Fatima, housed in the chapel built on the site where she is said to have appeared to the children.
Pope Benedict XVI visited Fatima in 2010, and Pope Francis in 2017 became the fourth pontiff to go there.
Pilgrimages
Around 6 million pilgrims visit Fatima annually, making it one of the most visited shrines to the Virgin Mary in the world alongside Lourdes in France and Guadalupe in Mexico.
Many make the trip on foot and complete the final stretch towards the shrine’s chapel on their knees to demonstrate their devotion.