TWO YOUNG SHEPHERDS who had visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago in Fatima, a Portuguese site now a global draw for pilgrims, were declared saints by Pope Francis today.
Catholic faithful from all over the world cheered, filling a giant, 400,000-capacity, esplanade that faces the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima, some of them crying, with many more watching the canonisation from adjacent streets on giant screens.
“We declare the blissful Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto saints,” the Argentine pontiff said in front of the white basilica where the siblings are buried, two giant portraits of the little shepherds hanging in the background.
“We register them on the list of saints, declaring that they must be venerated as such by the Church.”
The canonisation took place on the 100th anniversary of the day when Jacinta, then aged seven, her brother Francisco, nine, and their cousin Lucia, 10, first reportedly saw the Virgin Mary on the spot where the sanctuary was built.
She is said to have appeared six times between May and October 1917 to the three impoverished, barely-literate shepherds, and apparently shared three prophesies with the trio at a period marked by the ravages of World War I.
These reportedly included a warning of a second conflict. Francisco died in 1919 and his sister Jacinta the following year in the Spanish Influenza epidemic that swept through Europe at the end of the war.
Two miracles
Their cousin Lucia lived on until 2005, becoming a nun and meeting several popes including the late John Paul II.
A process that could lead to her also becoming a saint has been opened.
Pope John Paul II was possibly the most devoted to Fatima, attributing his narrow escape from an assassination attempt at St Peter’s Square on 13 May 1981, the anniversary of the first reported apparition, to the intervention of the Virgin Mary.
He beatified Jacinta and Francisco in 2000 following decades of debate over the events at Fatima and their meaning.
They were canonised today after the Church officially attributed two miracles to the pair, a necessary step to become a saint.
Wheelchair-bound Maria Emilia Santos said she regained the ability to walk on 20 February 1989, the anniversary of Jacinta’s death, after praying to her.
And the parents of a Brazilian boy say he healed at lightning speed after falling more than six metres from a window in 2013, after they prayed to the late Jacinta and Francisco for help.
“The doctors, including non-believers, weren’t able to explain this recovery,” his father Joao Batista told reporters in Fatima on Thursday.
Luisa Pacheco, a 48-year-old seamstress from the northern region of Porto, said she had spent the night in her car to see the ceremony.
“They’re our little shepherds, it means everything to us.”
Miracle or hallucination?
Talk of apparitions and miracles outside of those described in the Old and New Testaments does not sit comfortably with everyone in the Church.
At the time of the reported apparitions, local authorities considered the child shepherds to be troublemakers, throwing them briefly in jail before they were released under public pressure.
The alleged apparitions, seen only by the trio, were followed by strange phenomena on 13 October 1917, when some 70,000 onlookers waiting for a sign of the Virgin are said to have seen the sun dancing in the sky.
Catholics remain divided on the subject.
The reported apparitions have been officially recognised by the Catholic church since 1930.
But generally, the recognition of visions or miracles follow a long and cautious process, so as not to risk the Church’s credibility.
The Vatican, for instance, has yet to recognise the reported continuous apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje since 1981.
Jacinta and Francisco have joined the ranks of recognised saints such as Mother Teresa.
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