LISBON (AFP): Pope Francis will make a lightning visit to the shrine of Fatima in central Portugal on Saturday as part of a major Catholic youth festival.
The 86-year-old pontiff, who arrived in Lisbon on Wednesday, will fly by helicopter to the town located 150 kilometres (90 miles) north of the Portuguese capital.
He will recite the rosary with sick and disabled youths at a shrine built on the very spot where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three shepherd children in 1917.
Francis is also scheduled to deliver a speech at the shrine before he returns to Lisbon, where on Saturday evening he will lead a vigil at the waterfront Parque Tejo.
Church organisers expect one million faithful will attend the vigil at the park that has been built for the occasion on a former landfill site.
Massive crowds are also expected to turn out in Fatima to see the pope, who visited the shrine in 2017 on the centenary of the reported apparitions.
– Crowds gathering –
Thousands of worshippers had already gathered in Fatima on Friday on the eve of the pope’s arrival, many setting up folding chairs in the shrine’s vast square to mark their spot.
Worshippers roamed around the square, singing hymns, beating drums and waving national flags.
“I’m delighted to be here, we are really looking forward to see the pope,” David Keating, a 41-year-old plumber who came from Britain with a group of youths, told AFP.
Fatima draws millions of pilgrims from around the globe, making it one of the world’s most visited shrines devoted to the Virgin Mary.
Many walk to the town and some complete the final stretch on their knees to demonstrate their devotion.
Others toss wax limbs or organs into a fire beside the chapel as they recite prayers for healing.
The shrine contains dozens of shops where souvenirs are sold alongside rosaries, bibles and assorted images of the Virgin Mary.
Susana Marino, a 48-year-old Portuguese psychologist, said she had come to Fatima because “it really will be the last chance we have to see the pope”.
– Raucous welcome –
The pope, who is in increasingly fragile health, and now uses a wheelchair or walking stick to get around, spent nine nights in hospital after undergoing hernia surgery in June.
He has received a enthusiastic welcome throughout his visit in Portugal for World Youth Day, which is in fact a six-day international Catholic jamboree.
Half a million young people chanted, cheered and shouted on Thursday as they packed a Lisbon park for an official welcome ceremony for the pope.
Francis will deliver a Mass on Sunday on the last day of his visit at the Parque Tejo when a heatwave is expected to peak, with temperatures forecast to soar to 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 Fahrenheit).
Local authorities have repeatedly urged pilgrims to drink plenty of water.
Registered participants received rucksacks containing reusable water bottles and sunhats, along with a rosary.
World Youth Day, created in 1986 by John Paul II, is the largest Catholic gathering in the world and will feature a wide range of events, including concerts and prayer sessions.
This edition, initially scheduled for August 2022 but postponed because of the pandemic, will be the fourth for Francis after Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Krakow in 2016 and Panama in 2019.
Facts about Fatima
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 seven, nine and 10.
A crowd estimated at around 70,000 gathered at the site on her last apparition on October 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 accepted them as appearances of the Virgin Mary in 1930.
– 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 nine, 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.
– 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 six 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.
