Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Apparitions at Fátima
For many Portuguese Catholics, Fátima represents one of the most momentous religious
events of the 20th century, and it transformed a tiny village into a major pilgrimage site for
Catholics across the globe. On 13 May 1917, 10-year-old Lúcia Santos and her two young-
er cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, were out tending their parents' flocks in the fields
outside the village of Fátima. Suddenly a bolt of lighting struck the earth, and a woman
'brighter than the sun' appeared before them. According to Santos, she came to them with a
message exhorting people to pray and do penance to save sinners. She asked the children to
pray the rosary every day, which she said was key to bringing peace to one's own life and
to the world. At the time, peace was certainly on the minds of many Portuguese, with the
country already deeply enmeshed in WWI. She then told the children to come again on the
13th of each month, at the same time and place, and that in October she would reveal her-
self to them.
Word of the alleged apparition spread, although most who heard the tale of the shepherd
children reacted with scepticism. Only a handful of observers came to the field for the 13
June appearance, but on the month following several thousand showed up. That's when the
apparition apparently entrusted the children with three secrets. In the weeks that followed,
a media storm raged, with the government accusing the church of fabricating an elaborate
hoax to revive its flagging popularity. The church for its part didn't know how to react. The
children were even arrested and interrogated at one point, but the three refused to change
their story.
On 13 October 1917, some 70,000 gathered for what was to be the final appearance of
the apparition. Many witnesses there experienced the so-called Miracle of the Sun, where
the sun seemed to grow in size and dance in the sky, becoming a whirling disc of fire,
shooting out multicoloured rays. Some spoke of being miraculously healed; others were
frightened by the experience; still others claimed they saw nothing at all. The three children
claimed they saw Mary, Jesus and Joseph in the sky. Newspapers across the country repor-
ted on the event, and soon a growing hysteria surrounded it.
Only Lúcia made it into adulthood. Jacinta and Francisco, both beatified by the church in
2000, were two of the more than 20 million killed during the 1918 influenza epidemic. Lú-
cia later became a Carmelite nun and died at the age of 97 on 13 February 2007.
