All Roads Lead to Fátima

Map courtesy of cnn.com/2000/WORLD

Every year in the month of June millions of Catholics, most of them women, flock to a small town of Fátima in the center of Portugal in order to pray at the spot where they believe Mary appeared to three children n 1917.

The roads of this small country are filled with pilgrims, carrying sticks and wearing straw hats, making their way to Fátima, some to pay homage to what they believe is the mother of their god-- some to ask this entity for a favor, and others to carry out a promise they have already made when they asked for a favor on a previous trip.   

Some of these unfortunate souls will be run over on the way and their relatives will make the same trip the next year to ask Our Lady to make them walk again.  Sadly the number of people who die on the way, most of them hit by cars, is greater than the number of people cured by the Virgin.

Once these pilgrims have arrived at their destination, many of them will walk across a large square on their knees—although placing pads so as not to lacerate the flesh—in front of all the curious onlookers, in order to show the Virgin Mary that they are true believers and willing to make sacrifices in order for their request to be granted.  

The requests are usually for someone—often the pilgrim himself—to find a cure for some physical ailment, but often the request can be connected to a psychological or a social problem, and can even be something as mundane as getting into university.  

The Temple of Jerusalem

The town of Fátima will swarm with people, most of whom are believers in the miracle they claim occurred there years before.  The only other religious site in Iberia that  receives as many people is Santiago de Compostela, but the reasons for making the pilgrimage there are often not religious.

Most of them will part with their money in the infinity of shops given over to the sale of indescribable religious kitsch:  The Virgin in every shape and size, adorning barometers, thermometers, plastic tree trunks, key rings, perfume bottles, bellows, candles, sweets, and illuminated plastic replicas of the oak tree. 

But it is not just nickels and dimes garnered from the sale of trinkets that have made Fátima so successful.   The six million visitors who come to Fátima every year have made the banks there rank among the most profitable in Portugal.  

Some of the former rural inhabitants of the region  have taken advantage of this religious tourism and left their farms to become handicraft workers (many of the rosaries sold are made by women at home). Others have become successful renting out their houses to visitors on the days of pilgrimage.  

The local shopkeepers do a great business selling religious knickknacks but they are worried about the competition from much cheaper statues of Our Lady "Made in China".  

As for the Sanctuary itself, in 1999 alone it  had a profit, after expenses, of more than 80 million Euros, not counting the 20 kilos of gold added to the treasure.  All tax free. (Fátima: Nos Bastidores do Segredo, p. 178)

While some of the more observant visitors will notice the crass commercialism and wonder where all the money is going  few will take the time to read anything about the historical facts surrounding the events, nor do they care.  

Few of them will question the plausibility of someone who supposedly died two thousand years ago appearing in Portugal in 1917.  Few of them will have read the most important book of their religion—the Bible.  Many of them are semi-literate.  A tiny percentage will have studied science or history.  An even tinier percentage will have ever heard of applying scientific methodology to the phenomena of apparitions.  

They are caught up in a religious fervor that accepts as fact that a dead person made an appearance to three small peasant children in a remote part of Europe.  

Official Acceptance by the Church

Sister Lúcia and Pope John Paul II

Defying logic and the most basic criteria of scientific methodology, the Catholic Church has officially accepted the apparitions at Fátima as worthy of veneration, joining a select group of nine, which are The Apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, The Apparitions at Rue du Bac, Paris, France, The Apparition at La Salette, France, The Apparitions at Lourdes, France, The Apparition at Pontmain, France, The Apparitions at Beauraing, Belgium, The Apparitions at Banneux, Belgium, and finally Fátima. 

Although reluctant to accept the apparitions in the beginning, the Church soon lent its complete support, and under the most recent pontiff, has even elevated two of the children Jacinto and Francisco to the status of blessed, one step before sainthood. 

The Pope feels that it was the Virgin of Fátima who saved him from an assassination attempt—since the attempt on his life occurred on the day of the celebrations of Fátima—and he visited the site of the apparitions on the 13^th of May 2000 to publicly announce the beatification of the two children. In fact the bullet involved in the assassination attempt was taken by the Pope to Fátima and placed in the crown of the Virgin Mary.

The Secret

But would the events of Fátima have reached such repercussions without the existence of a secret?

It was the Secret of Fátima, that like a snowball, crossed borders and gave the apparitions of Fátima an international dimension.  Today, foreigners who visit Portugal, include Fátima in their excursion, making it a point of obligatory pilgrimage.  

There is a popular saying in Portuguese that says:  "Secrecy is the soul of business" (O segredo é a alma do negócio).  And the secret was the soul of Fátima.  For possessing this secret, Lúcia is the most popular Portuguese woman in the world.  In 1997 the topic "Lúcia", was the fifth most consulted on the Internet. (Fátima, Nos Bastidores do Segredo, p. 177).

Unfortunately, no one cares about the appearance of a strangely dressed woman, no larger than a child, whose only preoccupation was to make sure the children were praying their Rosary or having a platform built for the Virgin of the Rosary.  Such mundane words do not captivate millions for the Church.  With the original events of 1917--even with the supposed Miracle of the Sun-- Fátima today would be a minor place of pilgrimage, a Rocio or Guadalupe in Spain.

But leaving a Secret (that only the seerer knows) has made Fátima the Altar of the World. 

  The Visions of 1917