DCF Seleção, Doc. 120 (= DCF II, Doc. 9)

[3v] The seers and the official inquiries

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sincerity of the seers and truth of their statements

The report of the parish inquiry, documents nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10, that is, the collection of the "Voz da Fátima", are to be considered as reproduced here, and

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the books "Fátima", by Leopoldo Nunes, "Fátima, das portugiesische Lourdes" by university professor Dr. Ludwig Fischer, and "As grandes maravilhas de Fátima", by the Visconde de Montelo. If it is proved that the children were sincere and that they were not [5v] mistaken, there is a moral duty to accept their testimony and to believe in the supernatural reality of the apparitions. 1st. The sincerity of the children cannot be doubted. How could three simple and ignorant children, one ten years old, another nine and another six, have acted out a comedy? How could they have maintained their statements despite the threats made to them, the persecutions they were subjected to, and the imprisonment they suffered? None of the children could read at the time the events took place, and their intelligence was no higher than that of other children of their age. Clearly theirs were not heads in which the gigantic design of mystifying everyone could have sprung up.

Besides, what aim could they have had in view with so improbable a lie? They did not seek to profit from their visions, not even to satisfy their vanity. They did not speak of the matter except when they were questioned. And it is even a fact observed by many people that they not infrequently ran away and hid when they were sought out to be subjected to interrogations.

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their reflections could not fail to impress and move the mind most full of prejudice. In their features there shines a charm all the more gentle and penetrating since one discovers in it only the outpouring of candid souls. It is impossible to harbour the slightest suspicion of imposture about them. The administrator of the council of Vila Nova de Ourém himself, who questioned them on the 13th of August and took them as prisoners to his house, where he kept them for two days, trying by threats and terror to force them to retract, showed himself visibly impressed after that day and declared that he would never again interfere in such a matter. It was the children's sincerity that imposed itself on everyone, categorical, decisive, overwhelming. Their statements were made in such a way that they completely removed any fear of bad faith. The children gather their flocks on a property belonging to Lúcia's family and situated beside the great district road. While the animals are grazing, they amuse themselves innocently by playing, and, at a certain moment, they pray the rosary together, as they used to do every day. No event, then, was less prepared, more spontaneous, more visibly unexpected for the children who were its protagonists. But the heavenly scene, of which they had in no way thou-[6v]ght before witnessing it, they were afterwards aware of having contemplated; nothing can prevent them from saying so, and they said it, and resolutely, with a certainty that never weakened. 2nd. But if their good faith is certain, if no one can doubt, nor does anyone doubt, that they truly believed they saw and heard what they claimed to have seen and heard, were they not the victims of an illusion, which they then innocently caused others to share? Were they not influenced by a nervous temperament that produced in them hallucinations of sight and hallucinations of hearing? This is the question that must be resolved: a) To be under the sway of a nervous nature, the first condition is evidently... to have a nervous nature. Is this the case with the children? No symptoms of any illness were found in them. More than that: they had never been ill. No indication allows one to believe that nerves played a preponderant part in their temperament. They never presented a single one of the symptoms observed in neuropaths; they did not present them before the events of the Cova da Iria, nor did they present them afterwards. They were, on the contrary, of a peaceful and balanced character. They did not appear withdrawn or pensive. Carefree and outgoing, they liked to play with children of their age. Naturally cheerful, their cheerfulness was simple, frank, childlike. The exaltation of which they would have to be accused, since

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religious hallucinations, they would have had to go against both their physical dispositions and their moral dispositions at once. And then what would have been the origin of these hallucinations? Where would they have come from? That is why a great error, which is at the same time a great injustice, is committed when the children are likened to certain hallucinating women in hospitals. The hallucinations of the latter and the visions of the former have such different characteristics that we are clearly not in the presence of the same phenomenon. To obtain the hallucinating patients of the hospitals it is necessary to choose natures whose nerves are particularly excitable. It should be noted, in passing, that childhood hardly lends itself to hallucinations. It is not at that period of life that they are easily produced. The most nervous women or girls of a hospital for nervous diseases are chosen. Real patients are needed, disordered brains, unbalanced creatures. And that is not all: these morbid dispositions are carefully developed by means of repeated acts. Only then do these unfortunate women come to have hallucinations in a very noticeable way. What, in truth, do these poor patients, chosen out of a thousand and whose illness had deliberately received a kind of intensive cultivation, have in common with the little seers of the serra de Aire, simple children of nature, with calm nerves and an imagination as orderly and tranquil as their nerves? To suffer hallucinations one must be predisposed in a certain way. Now the seers of Fátima did not have this necessary predisposition, either physically or morally. Let us now study hallucination in the particular characteristics it presents, and study it from three distinct points [8] of view: before the visions, at the moment when they occur, and after them.

Before the visions

On the thirteenth of May, the day of the first apparition, Lúcia and Jacinta, the two children who say they heard the words spoken by the Apparition, related that the heavenly being who had manifested herself to them had asked them to return for six months, from month to month. The children thus showed that they believed they were destined to enjoy their visions five more times. Now hallucinating persons do not make prophecies about what they are to see and hear, above all prophecies that come true: it has never been observed that they announced how many hallucinatory crises they would experience. Their absolute persuasion, if they had any on this point, is that they will always see what they see and cannot fail to see it: no doubt enters their soul, because it is their own organism that

forms their conviction. Moreover, to return each month on the thirteenth to the same place, as really happened, the children needed a very clear memory, a perfect docility, an exact and clear sense of what they had to do: things of which a hallucinating person is not capable. In addition, the children made other prophecies, such as, for example, the one concerning the sign from God, which came true on the day foretold. It should also be noted that hallucination occurs under certain conditions, the whole of which is indispensable. For the seers of Fátima, on the contrary, the visions happen in the most varied circumstances. Will it be said that the young seers need the influence of the crowd? Let us observe them on the thirteenth of May, the first day: they are alone. Let us observe them on the thirteenth of June, the feast of St Anthony: there are present only [8v] about fifty people. Will it be thought that they need solitude? Let us look at them on the thirteenth of September and the thirteenth of October: the crowd presses from every side on the poor children, distressed to the point of tears; there are twenty thousand spectators on the first day and some seventy thousand on the second. Usually the vision begins after the children have prayed the rosary on their knees. But on the sixteenth of August, at the place called Valinhos, the Lady appears to them suddenly, without their expecting it and without their having been at prayer. There are no conditions required for their visions, and this is the contrary of what happens in the dreams of the hallucinated. That is certainly not how hallucination proceeds. It has something fatal about it; one never finds in its manifestations this absolute independence with respect to the conditions that give it existence.

During the visions

Let us now study the events of Fátima in themselves, in the way in which they took place. In hallucinating hysterics, the imagination retains something vague and vaporous. The forms they see remain somewhat imprecise, floating and, at least in certain parts, undefined. Let us now consider the visions of the seers of Aljustrel. They present an absolute precision, even in the most insignificant details. The dress, the veil, the rosary, everything leaves a frank, clear, decisive impression on them. They can describe everything, they do describe everything: the length of the dress and of the veil, the way the latter is

placed on the head, the colour of the beads and of the chain, everything is observed with minute exactness. This is the capital difference between the two states. Another consideration regarding hallucination in general and the visions of Fátima is that the latter were fruitful, [9] whereas the former is sterile. The hallucinated person discovers nothing in his sick dreams; he creates nothing, either in the forms that his imagination presents to him or in the ideas those forms suggest to him; he does not invent, he simply remembers. The visions of the Cova da Iria are completely different. The children announce months in advance a mysterious sign, a miracle, promised by the heavenly apparition and intended to make all the people believe that it was the Virgin of the Rosary who was appearing, as a promise of blessings, in the land of Portugal. And on the appointed day, the thirteenth of October, seventy thousand people of all ages, classes and social conditions, come from every part of the country and even from abroad, crowd together on the slopes of the serra de Aire to witness the prophesied sign. And the marvellous spectacle, the stupendous phenomenon, the unheard-of prodigy that the children, which no one had ever seen, brings that immense multitude to its knees, in which unbelievers and the impious, mingled with the believers, weep, sob and pray, all overcome, moved and stupefied before the compelling and undeniable evidence of so astounding a miracle.

After the visions

A hallucinated person shows himself proud, irritable, insubordinate and insensible to family affections. The seers of Fátima were not like that. They were always humble, gentle and docile children. When Lúcia's mother forbade her daughter to go back to the Cova da Iria, she was ready to obey, and, if she did return there, it was because her mother, at the request of various people, revoked the prohibition she had made. Modest and simple, it was a real torment for the poor little girl to have to describe the heavenly spectacles she witnessed, lending herself to it out of obedience or courtesy, and then doing it kindly and without letting any sign of annoyance show. Towards her mother and the other members of her family she was always very affectionate, showing a lively and constant interest in everything that concerned them and above all in their spiritual good. The numerous letters she has written to her mother since she left home to be educated are admirable models of filial piety and of charity towards her closest relatives. Thanks to

her entreaties and efforts, one of her nieces was admitted free of charge to an educational establishment run by nuns⁸. She was always cheerful and jovial, and even today, after her religious profession, her simplicity, her good humour and her inner joy, which is mirrored in her face, charm all who approach her. The visions she enjoyed not only did not harm her moral state, but contributed to raising her, above ordinary life, to the heights of complete and special perfection in the religious state. It must also be stressed that the visions had as their epilogue a material and perceptible fact that proves their supernatural reality: the solar phenomenon. Nothing similar happens in hallucinations. Therefore the visions were not hallucinations. This is a conclusion that imposes itself as absolutely undeniable. In addition, hallucinations degrade the character and diminish the intelligence. But after the apparitions Lúcia de Jesus, as well as her cousins, showed themselves superior to what they had been, both in character and in mind. Finally, the apparitions of Fátima, affirmed by the seers as real facts, have as a guarantee of their reality and of their supernatural reality marvellous happenings that hallucination is incapable of producing.

[10] The liturgy of the Church on the day of the first apparition

The first apparition took place on the thirteenth of May, nineteen hundred and seventeen, at the hour of solar noon, when the little shepherds were playing and could not foresee the extraordinary thing that was about to happen. Fátima was, at the time of the apparitions, incorporated into the Patriarchate of Lisbon. The diocesan calendar assigns to that day, as its own proper feast, the feast of the dedication of the church of Santa Maria dos Mártires. At the time of the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the founder of the Portuguese nation, Dom Afonso Henriques, having already conquered from the Moors almost all the territory north of the mouth of the Tagus, laid siege to the city of Lisbon and, with the help given him by a fleet of crusaders on its way to the Holy Land, took it after a hard-fought struggle in which many Christians also perished. The valiant first king of the Afonsine dynasty had fervently implored the

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protection of the august Mother of God for his heroic enterprise and had promised that, if it were crowned with success, he would have two basilicas built in honour of the Most Holy Virgin, one in the western part and the other in the eastern part of the conquered city. The enterprise having ended happily, he hastened to fulfil the vow he had made and ordered that the image of the Most Holy Virgin be placed in the western basilica, whose presence on the battlefield, where it had been carried by one of the commanders when the outcome was still uncertain, instilled in the Christian soldiers so great a courage that it made them win the victory. As it was then the custom to call martyrs the Christian soldiers who died in combat against the infidels, and as this basilica had been built at the place where their bodies were buried, it began to be commonly known by the name of the church of Santa Maria dos Mártires, a title that has been kept down to our own day with the consent of the diocesan Prelates and with the approval of the Holy Father Pope Urban the Sixth, the feast of its dedication being celebrated in Rome on the same day on which it is celebrated in Lisbon. This church is the first in the Portuguese capital in which, after the reconquest, Christian worship was celebrated. For that reason, at the request of its titular Bishops and of the kings of Portugal, the Supreme Pontiffs granted it special privileges. From the year eighteen hundred and fifty-one, by concession of His Holiness Pope Pius IX, of blessed memory, this feast, which has a special office and mass, is celebrated with the rite of a double of the first class with an octave in the church itself, and with the rite of a double of the second class without an octave throughout the Patriarchate. The first words of the proper, in the divine office, are those that form the versicle and responsory of vespers: "You went forth for the salvation of your people, rejoice; for salvation with Christ, rejoice". The first antiphon of lauds says that a great sign appeared in Heaven: a woman who had the sun for a mantle, the moon for hair and on her head a crown of twelve stars. The hymn of vespers proclaims that the Most Holy Virgin rises among the stars. The versicle and responsory insist on the reason for her coming. Finally the antiphon of the Benedictus says: "Blessed be the Lord, who through the blessed Virgin Mary has visited our people and our city and has freed us from the hand of all those who hated us, and has guided our feet into the way of peace". Moreover, throughout the office there are continual allusions to the beneficent action of the Queen of the Angels on behalf of her people, of whom she is the Patroness, and to the joy, confidence and enthusiasm with which they acclaim her in their [11] apotheoses of Faith and piety. It is extremely consoling for all Portuguese Catholics that this feast coincides with the first day of the

apparitions. It is surely permissible to see in so singular a coincidence one more indication of their supernatural character.

The ecstasy

of humble condition, without literary culture, possessing an elementary religious education. She could not, therefore, in any way, precisely note the essential characteristics of an ecstasy. More than that. It is certain that she had never heard that word spoken or, if she had ever heard it, she did not understand or know its theological meaning. Her deposition, made with all the ingenuousness of her sincere and deeply believing soul, is therefore of great value and allows one to suppose that, at least in Lúcia, there really occurred on the last day of the apparitions, and perhaps on the other days too, the supernatural phenomenon that mystical theologians call ecstasy. In addition, as can be gathered from the depositions of the seers, Lúcia sometimes, during the time of the apparition, seemed oblivious to everything around her, unaware of what was being said and done beside her and as though beside herself.

The springs of water

From the time of the apparitions, and above all after the seers stated that the Lady had expressed her wish that a chapel be built at the Cova da Iria, the piety of the faithful desired ever more ardently to raise at the sacred place a grand monument in honour of the august Mother of God. The project received [12] with the greatest enthusiasm is that of building a church on the top of the hillock that overlooks the Cova da Iria, at the spot where the seers say they saw the first flash of lightning that preceded the apparition of the thirteenth of May. A short time after the apparitions, a committee of inhabitants of the neighbourhood of the Cova da Iria resolved, out of devotion and in memory of the events, to have a small chapel built at their own expense next to the place where the holm oak stood, on whose crown the mysterious Lady who appeared had rested her feet¹¹. When later the ecclesiastical authority took charge of the chapel and authorised public worship to be celebrated in it, the devotion and enthusiasm of the faithful grew beyond measure, and grand and imposing plans were at once put forward for marvellous constructions like those at Lourdes. The Bishop of Leiria took upon himself the supreme direction of all the drawing up of plans and of all the works that were to turn the arid and deserted heath into a splendid city of the Virgin. For these works, as well as for the pilgrims who in their hundreds

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of thousands flocked to Fátima, for the animals that carried them there, and to meet the requests of countless faithful who later continually asked from all over for consignments of water out of mere devotion or for the cure of their own or others' illnesses, it was absolutely necessary that there be water at the Cova da Iria, and water in abundance. But within a radius of many kilometres no water is found in Fátima except in small quantities, coming from rain and collected in ponds, wells and cisterns. That is why a committee of inhabitants of that locality took the initiative of having soundings made in the land adjacent to the chapel commemorating the apparitions. The first sounding was made on the ninth of November, nineteen hundred and twenty-one, after the first open-air mass, at a dis-[12v]tance of forty metres from the chapel. The work having begun in the morning, by noon all the workmen were already quenching their thirst with the water that gushed abundantly from the living rock. In the last months of summer the water almost disappeared, after work was resumed to increase the capacity of the well, only one of the walls being seen to weep. At the beginning of November, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, the works on the first well, which is now many metres deep, having been completed, the clear water of the spring, bursting forth with force following the first autumn rains, entirely filled the vast reservoir, as the numerous faithful who visited the place of the apparitions on the thirteenth of that month had occasion to see. In recent years, by order of the ecclesiastical authority, two more wells have been opened, one on each side of the original well, which supply abundant water, enough to satisfy the thirst of the pilgrims and the demands of their devotion, for the works that are incessantly being carried out at the place of the apparitions, for the needs of the population, already numerous, of the settlement of the Cova da Iria, and even to be sent in cans to many places in Portugal and abroad. A singular thing! The second well, wider and deeper than the first, was ordered to be made to receive the water that in winter overflowed, as usual, from the original well. As soon as it was finished, water gushed forth halfway up and at the bottom in such quantity that it filled it completely within a few hours. In the early days after the apparitions, many people who did not believe in the supernatural character of the marvellous events, and among them some priests, protested that they would believe only if water appeared in that arid and barren ground, as it had appeared at [13] Lourdes, beside the rock of Massabielle. The fulfilment of what they had deemed impossible deeply shook, as was

natural, those Christians of little faith, many of whom later became great devotees of Our Lady of Fátima and ardent apostles of her cult.

Attitude of the parents of Lúcia de Jesus

Maria Rosa dos Santos, mother of Lúcia de Jesus, was at the time of the apparitions married to António dos Santos, or António dos Santos Abóbora, of whom she was widowed a year later. She was then forty-eight years old. Besides Lúcia, she had four more daughters and a son, all older than the seer. Lúcia's parents were of humble condition, but not absolutely poor. They owned some land, which they cultivated and whose yield was enough to support themselves and their children. And if they did not live in greater comfort, it was because of the father, who often neglected the tilling of his properties. The place at the Cova da Iria where the apparitions occurred belonged to a brother of Lúcia, who had returned from Brazil a short time before the first apparition. One day, on the occasion of one of the apparitions, Lúcia's father, annoyed at so great a crowd going to that place, where it might cause damage to the sown fields and the crops, made the greatest efforts, though without result, to prevent the gathering of people. A year later he died, the victim of a cerebral congestion, without ever having shown the least enthusiasm for the strange events of the Cova da Iria and without even believing in his daughter's supernatural mission. Lúcia's mother is a woman of deep-rooted religious sentiments and pious, as are the country women who live given over to agricultural work, far from the parish church, so [13v] that they cannot assiduously attend the acts of worship and the sacraments of confession and communion. The type of the Christian woman and good housewife, devoted to her household chores, she always sought to inspire her children with the holy fear of God and to lead them to fulfil all their moral and religious duties. Endowed with uncommon good sense and with extraordinary prudence and tact, she was greatly concerned by the events that at every moment drew the attention of thousands of people to her poor dwelling, until a short time before unknown to the world, and it was noticed from the start that her mind hesitated, in restless anxiety, between the hope that her daughter was really privileged

that of her husband. Honest, reli-[14v]gious, fond of work, she longed ardently for the peace and quiet of her home as it had been before the apparitions, which would never return except at the price of losing her daughter, a loss which, resigned to the will of God but with a heart torn with grief, she foresaw as imminent.

Attitude of the parents of Francisco and Jacinta

According to the deposition of Manuel Goncalves Júnior, of the village of Montelo, in the parish of Fátima, an absolutely trustworthy witness, "the parents of Francisco and Jacinta, Manuel Pedro Marto and Olímpia de Jesus Marto, are very good people, deeply religious and respected and esteemed by all. The father has the reputation of being the most honest man in the village (Aljustrel). He is incapable of deceiving anyone. Very hard-working, they are occupied in tilling their properties, from whose yield they live. Although they are not rich in the strict sense of the word, they have abundant means, unlike Lúcia's family, which can be considered only fairly comfortable and living in modest circumstances. In the face of the events that unfolded at the Cova da Iria, they placed themselves unconditionally, from the very first hour, on the side of their children, whose simple and artless innocence they knew well and whose sincerity they could not doubt in the least. Their own piety, at once profound and unaccompanied by a solid religious culture, led them, in the rough frankness of honourable people who considered it a duty of conscience to judge others by themselves, to believe fully in the children's statements. One would have said, hearing their observations and comments, that they considered belief in the apparitions as obligatory as belief in the defined dogmas of the Christian faith. Good and humble as they were, believers without fanaticism, they defended their views on the matter with serene and calm enthusiasm, but they did not offend, not even slightly, with their words full of warmth and life and imbued with the most evident sincerity, the people, generally neighbours, with whom they talked and argued in the evenings, who denied the reality or the supernatural character of the marvellous events or cast doubt on the manifest good faith of the seers. And if by chance one or another of their opponents grew heated in maintaining his opinion, unyielding in his intransigence, those two good souls, full of charity and lovers of peace, at once fell silent, thus putting an end to the discussion before it took a course repugnant to their temperament and to their Christian sentiments. And it is very much to be noted that only the love of

truth and justice guided them in everything they said. They could be mistaken, they were perhaps often mistaken, in the judgements they formed, but it was through an unconscious straying of the intellect and not through a stubborn error of the will. Neither self-interest, nor vanity, nor any other shameful passion was ever the motive of their words or their attitudes. Their Christian virtues, attested by all who knew them in their private life, as well as their recognised lack of concern for material aims, entirely excluded the possibility that it was so. Besides, there was no one who did not do them that justice. The admirable resignation with which they bore the great blow of the loss of their two youngest children, whom the Most Holy Virgin, as they believed without any hesitation, had privileged with her divine apparitions, a loss which for them meant the failure of all human hopes [15v] they might perhaps have nourished, is one more testimony to their sincerity and their disinterestedness, and a sure sign that the deeply Christian spirit that animated them made them sense and, as it were, divine the only solution to be given to the momentous problem of Fátima.

The death of Francisco

Francisco Marto, cousin of Lúcia de Jesus, the protagonist of the apparitions of Fátima, fell seriously ill on the twenty-third of December, nineteen hundred and eighteen, struck by the terrible bronchopneumonic epidemic which was then raging throughout the world. At that date all the people of his family were in bed, struck by the same scourge, except the father. He and some charitable neighbours devotedly looked after the sick, making every effort so that they should lack nothing. For about fifteen days the innocent child was kept in bed "by the force of the illness", in his mother's expression, getting up at the beginning of January in a state of great weakness which, far from diminishing, on the contrary grew from day to day. Once, during the apparitions, Lúcia having asked the mysterious Lady who spoke to her whether she and Jacinta would go to Heaven, and having obtained an affirmative answer, asked the same question about Francisco, and the Vision replied that such great happiness would also fall to him, but that first he would have to pray the rosary many times. From that moment until he fell ill, the happy seer never again let a day pass without offering this simple homage to the Queen of Heaven. After he got up from his bed, sometimes not feeling the strength to pray the whole rosary,

he would sadly tell his mother that he could only pray half of it. The good woman tried to reassure him, reminding him [16] that, if it was hard for him to pronounce the words of the Lord's Prayer and of the Angelic Salutation, he should say those prayers only in his mind, and Our Lady would accept his homage with the same pleasure. He often urged his mother not to forget the prayer that the Most Holy Virgin had taught the three seers, because he never forgot to pray it. And when the poor woman lamented that she not infrequently omitted it through a lapse of memory, the little boy pointed out to her that she could pray it even along the roads. Now and then he complained feelingly that he did not know how to offer the rosary as many people had the happiness of knowing, which caused him a good deal of sorrow. Although he never again had good health, from time to time he would take a short walk, going even as far as the Cova da Iria. When anyone assured him that he would get better, his answer was at once a "no", uttered with a mysterious air and in a tone that was extraordinarily impressive. When one day his godmother Teresa de Jesus promised, in his presence, to give his weight in wheat if Our Lady made him better, he declared peremptorily that it was useless to make that promise, because he would never obtain the grace of his cure. He had an extremely delicate conscience, despite his young age and his having received a very deficient and rudimentary religious formation. Once when he was advised to take the sheep entrusted to his care along the edge of his godmother's properties, which she would certainly not have objected to, he would not do so without her express permission, thinking it would be theft. On the second of April, the family, finding his health worse, had him put to bed and called the parish priest to hear his confession. He had not yet made his first communion and so he feared that he would not be allowed [16v] to receive Our Lord. Great, even extraordinary, was his joy, then, when the parish priest promised to bring him the Holy Viaticum the next morning. The evening before, he asked his mother to let him remain fasting until that hour, a request to which she agreed without reluctance, assuring him that she would give him nothing to take after midnight. When the parish priest arrived with the Most Blessed Sacrament, he wanted to sit up in bed to make his confession and receive communion, which he was not allowed to do. He was radiant with contentment at having received the Bread of Angels in his breast for the first time, and when the parish priest withdrew, he asked his mother whether he would receive communion again, to which she replied that she did not know. During the rest of the day he asked from time to time for water and milk. At night his condition seemed to grow still worse, but when his mother asked him how he felt, he declared that he was no worse and

that nothing hurt him. The next day, Friday, the fifth of April¹³, at about ten o'clock in the morning, without agony, without a moan, without a sigh, with a slight smile on his lips, the soul of that earthly angel gently detached itself from the fragile bonds of the body and flew to the bosom of God¹³. He was ten years, nine months and four days old, for he had been born on the eleventh of June, nineteen hundred and eight, at ten o'clock at night. His last words were for his godmother, whom he asked, a few moments before breathing his last, when he saw her appear at the door, to bless him and forgive him any sorrows he might have caused her. His mortal remains lie buried in an unmarked grave in the humble parish cemetery of Fátima.

The death of Jacinta

It is a general belief among the people that the whole family of the seers [17] of Fátima, and the seers themselves as well, are condemned to disappear within a short time, and it is added that this was announced to them by the Apparition. Whatever the foundation of this belief, it is certain that little Francisco, Jacinta's brother, has already died, Jacinta too, as well as a sister¹⁴, Lúcia's father likewise, and her mother was at death's door a short time ago. Of the three children only Lúcia remains, the one who conversed with the Lady, according to what she states. Jacinta, who was relatively robust, was struck by the pneumonic influenza, from which she developed purulent pleurisy, followed by other complications. A distinguished specialist from the capital having come to Fátima and having examined the little girl, he insisted that she go to Lisbon, to see whether by means of an operation it was still possible to save her. Lodging was sought for her in the house of some well-to-do person, but none was found.

She then went to stay in the poor dwelling of a modest woman, who received her gladly, to the great contentment of the little girl who, taken out of her provincial surroundings, was all shyness and confusion. The hospital of Dona Estefânia was chosen for the operation. Before going into the hospital, however, the child said that the Lady had

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appeared to her, assuring her that she "would die", and for that reason she considered the operation useless. In spite of this, and although she kept insisting that it was all useless, the operation was performed on her, and it went well, though without a happy outcome, as was seen. Four days before she died, as the little girl was in great pain and complaining, the woman who had taken her in, and whom she called "godmother", told her to bear her pains with patience, that this would be very pleasing to God. The next morning Jacinta said to her: "Look, godmother! I don't complain any more! Our Lady appeared to me again, saying that she would soon come to fetch me and that she was taking [17v] my pains away now!". And in fact, from that day until she died, so it is said, she did not complain again or show signs of suffering. When the "godmother" happened to pass or sit down by the bed, not far from the spot where "Jacinta said she had seen the Lady", the seer exclaimed: "Move away from there, godmother, for the Lady was there!...". And she showed the same concern when some nurse passed by the same spot. When some immodestly dressed people came to the hospital, either to visit her or to see other patients, and some nurses appeared with certain exaggerations in their dress, she would say, pointing to those people and referring to certain ornaments and low necklines: "What is that for!? If they knew what eternity is!...". Speaking of some doctors whom she thought to be unbelievers, she pitied them, saying: "Poor things, little do they know what awaits them!". The seer stated that Our Lady had told her "that the sin that leads most people to perdition was the sin of the flesh, that people must give up luxuries, that they must not persist in sin as up to now, and that much penance must be done". And it seems that the Lady, in saying this, appeared very grieved, for the little girl would add: "Oh! I feel so sorry for Our Lady! I feel so sorry!". While she was in the house, before going to the hospital, she lived in the company of another little girl, whom she often urged "to be very obedient, not to be lazy and never to fail to tell the truth". Shortly before she died, when asked whether she wanted to see her mother again, she answered "that her family would not last long and that they would soon meet in Heaven". She also said that Our Lady "was still to appear once more, but not to her, because she would certainly die, as the Lady had told her". She asked leave to go to confession, although she had made her confession and received communion before entering the hospital. The Rev.^do parish priest [18] of the Anjos, Dr. Pereira dos Reis, went to hear her confession, but did not have time to give her Holy Communion. She entered the hospital on the second of February

and died on the twentieth. After she died, someone put forward the idea of taking her to her native place, and this was done, a subscription being raised for that purpose. Many people who had not wanted to receive her into their homes now, after the little girl died, showed themselves eager to pay her homage, perhaps even with a little exaggeration, which provoked some just remarks from a distinguished priest. The little girl's body lay in the vestry office of the church of the Anjos, awaiting removal to the station and the necessary formalities, leaving afterwards with a large following. Someone noted the coincidence that, when the funeral left, Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho¹⁵ and some members of his family, who had gone there by chance, were in the church, and connected this fact with the famous article written by that distinguished lawyer in October nineteen hundred and seventeen, which, although orthodox, gave rise to criticism from some people who boil over in a little water. The little girl left two secrets for a person who has taken an interest in this matter¹⁶. In sum and in conclusion: may God grant that the light of truth shine upon this case, not only for whatever it may have of the miraculous, but for the consequences that may result from it for the spiritual regeneration of this our beloved Fatherland. Meanwhile, be that as it may, let us carry out the exhortation that the little girl attributed to Our Lady and which is, after all, the doctrine of the Church: "Let us do penance! Let us avoid luxury and the sin of the flesh! Let us not persist in sin", so that it may not happen to us as to some unfortunate people to whom the little girl referred when, her godmother telling her that she must also pray for their intention, she answered: "Yes, godmother, but those are beyond remedy now!"

[18v] The throng of pilgrims

One of the most impressive aspects of the Fátima case is the enormous flocking of the faithful to the place of the apparitions, which takes on

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truly astounding proportions on the thirteenth of each month during the months of Spring and Summer. There is something in that blessed place that fascinates and enchants believers, that attracts and holds souls, that seizes and enraptures hearts. Already at the time of the marvellous events the crowds rose to tens of thousands of people, far exceeding, in the last apparitions, the size of the crowds at Lourdes in the corresponding period of its history. At Fátima the number of people who witnessed the grandiose solar phenomenon is reckoned at about seventy thousand. Above all since public worship was permitted at the Cova da Iria¹⁷, the throng of pilgrims has intensified to such a degree that in recent years, on the thirteenth of May and the thirteenth of October, about half a million people of both sexes, of all ages and of all classes and social conditions must have passed through Fátima. The surprise and admiration this fact arouses grows still greater if one considers that the throng has up to now consisted almost entirely of Portuguese, that Portugal is a country of only six million inhabitants, that the nearest railway station is about twenty-five kilometres away, and that access to the place of the apparitions is difficult because of the bad state of the roads and excessively expensive. In a German review, the Katholische Kirchenblat-Korrespondenz, in its issue of the twenty-third of November, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, Bety Arenz concludes thus an article reproduced in other German newspapers: "Whoever has been once, on the thirteenth of [19] October, at Fátima, can count the hours spent there as the most beautiful of his life. On the thirteenth of May last alone, three hundred thousand pilgrims were there. This place is becoming ever more beautiful... Certainly the time will soon come when the "Portuguese Lourdes" will be like in every respect to the "Place of Grace" of the French: "the number of pilgrims at Fátima is today already greater than at Lourdes"."

The official inquiries

Given the importance that the events of Fátima had from their very beginning, whose echo resounded in an astounding way through every corner of the country and soon passed beyond its very borders, the

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ecclesiastical authority hastened to intervene in their course, promoting inquiries whose results would enable it to pronounce with certainty on the origin and nature of these events. At the time of the apparitions the Holy See had already restored the diocese of Leiria, suppressed at the end of the last century, under the monarchical regime, by agreement between the Supreme Pontiff and the Royal Patron. The appointment of the first Bishop of the restored diocese was still to take some time. Meanwhile its ecclesiastical government was divided between the Patriarchate of Lisbon and the Bishopric of Coimbra, the dioceses to which the two tracts of territory of which it was composed were annexed. The region of Fátima formed part of the southern ecclesiastical circumscription, the Patriarchate of Lisbon. Presiding at that time over the destinies of the first Portuguese diocese in dignity was the Most Excellent and Most Reverend Dom João Evangelista de Lima Vidal, Archbishop of Mitylene and Vicar General, in the absence of the Most Eminent Cardinal Patriarch, Dom António Mendes Belo¹⁸. In an official letter [19v] dated the third of November, nineteen hundred and seventeen, and attached to the process, the venerable prelate ordered the parish priest of Fátima, the Reverend Manuel Marques Ferreira, to carry out a conscientious inquiry into the events that had occurred in the parish in his charge on the thirteenth of the previous October, hearing trustworthy witnesses and above all the children who claimed to have been favoured with singular graces from Heaven. On the twenty-eighth of April, nineteen hundred and nineteen, the report of the inquiry, accompanied by an official letter, was finally sent to the venerable Prelate. It consists of seventeen folios and contains the depositions of the three seers and of four more people who were eyewitnesses of the events. By an official letter dated the same day, the Archbishop charged the Rev.^do Vicar of Porto de Mós with carrying out a similar inquiry, of which he gave an account on the eleventh of November, nineteen hundred and seventeen, in a document of five folios containing the depositions of sixteen witnesses sworn on the Holy Gospels. On the third of May

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nineteen hundred and twenty-two, His Most Reverend Excellency Dom José Alves Correia da Silva, venerable Bishop of Leiria, published a pastoral provision on the events of Fátima. In that document, after giving a brief account of the facts and recalling the doctrine of the Church, he appoints the canonical commission charged with studying the Fátima case and drawing up the corresponding process in accordance with the canonical laws. This commission, after all its members had taken the customary oath, began its work, of whose results it now presents the appropriate report, together with the very numerous documents in which are found the elements on which it based the studies it carried out and the considerations it made. Among the documents, there should be singled out for its exceptional importance the rep-[20]ort of the official inquiry ordered by His Most Reverend Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and carried out in Porto in nineteen hundred and twenty-four, with the due authorisation of the venerable Prelate of that diocese, with the seer Lúcia de Jesus, who was at that time a pupil of the Asilo de Nossa Senhora de Vilar in that city, run by the Sisters of St Dorothy, whose Institute she embraced two years later¹⁹.

The counterfeits

The news of the apparitions of Fátima had spread far and wide, throughout the whole vast extent of the Portuguese land, with the lightning speed of a thunderbolt. On the thirteenth of each month, in the last months, near solar noon, the hour set by the seers for the mystical contact between earth and Heaven, many thousands of people crowded around the sacred holm oak, on whose crown the heavenly Vision rested her virginal feet. The crowd, believing and devout, waited anxiously, praying in recollection and silence, for Lúcia's mysterious colloquy with the Virgin to be renewed and for the extraordinary phenomena that had accompanied the previous apparitions to be produced once more. The ardently longed-for moment came, and the seers, who had just finished reciting the rosary, kneeling on the rough and stony ground of the arid and bare heath, turned their eyes upwards, rapt in contemplation of the supernatural Being who deigned to address them. Meanwhile the powers of hell, allied with those of the world, made use of every means to

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discredit the apparitions of Fátima, covering them with ridicule, and to prevent at all costs the impos-[20v]ing manifestations of Faith and piety to which they gave rise. One of these means, already used without success at Lourdes, was the launching throughout the whole country of a wide network of fictitious visions and heavenly apparitions. And from then until today the machinations of the spirit of darkness have never ceased, seeking to drag into the meshes of that net the popular masses, ignorant and easily credulous, making use for the execution of their plans of ambitious, self-seeking and unscrupulous helpers. Barral, Alcanhões, Póvoa de Santarém, Estremoz, Póvoa de Varzim, Estarreja, Bitarães, Abelheira and Constância are so many meshes of that net which, thanks to the bad faith of some and the ignorance and superstitious spirit of many others, have forced the ecclesiastical authority to adopt severe but just and necessary measures to put a stop to ignoble exploitations that resulted in discredit and contempt of Religion. These pseudo-supernatural manifestations, which caused great uprisings of the people for many days, all collapsed of themselves, vanishing as if by magic after so much excitement and so much enthusiasm, because they did not have to make them fruitful the divine sap that nourishes Lourdes and nourishes Fátima. False coin soon disappears from circulation.

The opposition of the clergy

The extraordinary events of Fátima, at the time of the apparitions and during the first years that followed them, found the Portuguese clergy occupying various positions with regard to them. The great majority of the ministers of the Church maintained an attitude of waiting, of absolute indifference and extreme coldness, considering the rarity of supernatural apparitions [21] and the difficulty of proving their divine origin. A quite considerable number of priests maintained, together with the prudent reserve that the Church counsels in the face of facts of this nature, a benevolent expectation, but unaccompanied by any intervention in the course of events. No one could claim with a shadow of truth that the clergy, more interested than any other class of society in what was happening, contributed in any measure, however insignificant, with its work, with its material or moral support, or even with its encouragement and applause, to the resolution of the Fátima case in a direction favourable to the interests of the Church. Some of its members even, carrying too far the need to safeguard the prestige of Religion, attacked the Fátima case from the outset

Private persecution: the outrages

During the night of the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen, some Carbonari of Santarém stealthily carried off the objects that popular piety had placed at the place of the apparitions, and the next day they organised a sacrilegious procession in which they exhibited these objects and which went through the main streets of that city with the complacency of the administrative authority and before an entire population deeply indignant and horrified. It is said that the civil governor and the administrator of the council not only permitted but even assisted this ignoble and hideous mockery of a religious procession. The newspaper "Diário de Notícias", of the twenty-fourth of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen, in a report from Santarém, publishes the following:

The second outrage was committed on the sixth of March, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, in the small hours of the morning. Fear of outbursts of popular anger led the criminals to carry out their horrible design under cover of the darkness of night. Well-founded suspicions fall on certain individuals from Lisbon, Santarém and Vila Nova de Ourém, pointed out [24v] as promoters, perpetrators and accomplices of the heinous outrage, and whose names are mentioned. The wretches broke open the door of the chapel and with blows of a pickaxe opened four holes in the walls, at equal distances, two spans above the floor, placing in each of them a bomb of great power. These four bombs exploded, setting fire to the timbers of the roof and bringing it down. A fifth bomb was placed in the hole where the root of the holm oak lies, on which, according to the seers, the feet of the Apparition rested, but it did not explode. The walls of the chapel, although considerably damaged, remained standing. The Associação do Registo Civil and the Federação do Livre Pensamento issued a long pamphlet headed: "To the Portuguese liberals", with the subheadings: "Reaction runs rampant!!! Against the vile speculation made with the ridiculous comedy of Fátima the Associação do Registo Civil and the Federação Portuguesa do Livre Pensamento protest energetically"²⁰.

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The official persecution

administrator of Torres Novas, having learned that an image [25v] of Our Lady of Fátima, offered by a devout person of that town, was to be exposed for public veneration, did not allow it to leave for Fátima, having the house where it was kept surrounded by troops. A pious stratagem frustrated the plans of the authorities. Large detachments of line troops, infantry and cavalry, and a force of the republican guard on foot and on horseback, commanded by a lieutenant, had been sent to Fátima by order of the government. The forces formed two cordons: one at the Cova da Iria and the other two kilometres away beside the parish church of Fátima. In the council of Vila Nova de Ourém and in other councils it was not permitted to hire carriages. A tremendous thunderstorm that broke out, accompanied by heavy rain, forced the troops to withdraw. The pilgrims, who were already making their way by shortcuts across the fields towards the neighbourhood of the Cova da Iria, seeing the roads free, flocked en masse to the place of the apparitions. On the thirteenth of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, a new attempt was made to forbid the great national pilgrimage. In Torres Novas and in other places a manifesto entitled "The comedy of Fátima" was widely distributed. The civil governor of Santarém, a democrat and free-thinker, sent the administrator of Vila Nova de Ourém the following telegram, which he declared to be a reproduction of another received from the ministry of the interior: "Absolutely forbid that great parade of reactionary forces at Fátima". The president of the ministry, the engineer António Maria da Silva, told an editor of the newspaper "A Época" who interviewed him on the subject that the government had not forbidden the pilgrimage. The administrator of the council replied to the civil governor "that he would in no way forbid that pilgrimage, in which about fifty thousand people were taking part; that to forbid it would be to discredit the regime itself; that his unshakeable resolution had the support of all the [26] democrats and republicans of various shades in the council, whom he had consulted". There was still another attempt at prohibition, legal proceedings against two primary-school teachers for not having given class on a thirteenth, isolated cases of defamation, and mockery and attacks on Religion and the Church in the columns of the sectarian press on account of the manifestations at Fátima.

Dom José Alves Correia da Silva and the "Work of Fátima"

Dom José Alves Correia da Silva was appointed Bishop of Leiria two years after the apparitions and the marvellous events.

He had not yet received episcopal consecration when a colleague of his in the episcopate congratulated him on having the future Portuguese Lourdes subject to his jurisdiction. The reason for these congratulations was for the venerable Prelate one more source of worries and responsibilities. That is why a shadow of sadness clouded his mind on hearing those words of congratulation, which reminded him of one of the sharpest thorns of his episcopal office. When a member of the clergy of the Patriarchate, whom the Most Excellent Archbishop of Mitylene, in the absence of the Most Eminent Cardinal Patriarch, had charged with following closely and studying the events of Fátima, went to Leiria, a month after His Most Reverend Excellency had taken possession of his episcopal See, to pay his respects and receive his instructions on the direction of the work relating to the propagation of Fátima, he could easily discover, amid captivating demonstrations of kindness and courtesy, a coldness and an indifference, hard to disguise, towards everything that concerned the main purpose of the vi-[26v]sit. A month later, the venerable and much-missed parish priest of Olival and vicar forane of Vila Nova de Ourém wrote to him, after an interview he had had with the Most Excellent Prelate, saying that the latter, informed of everything that had happened at the Cova da Iria, clearly recognised the finger of Providence in giving rise to so many marvels and, far from creating obstacles to the propagation of Fátima, willingly permitted it, while reserving, however, as could not be otherwise, the rights of the ecclesiastical magisterium as regards the assessment of the nature of the events deemed marvellous. From that moment the action carried out by the illustrious and untiring Prelate has been truly colossal. Witness the intensification of the propaganda pro Fátima, which has reached the most remote corners of Portugal and even the ends of the earth. Witness the spread of the monthly "Voz da Fátima", herald of the glories of the Virgin, whose print run rises to many tens of thousands of copies and whose circulation is not equalled by any other publication of its kind. Witness the majesty and grandeur of the grandiose manifestations of Faith and piety held in the precinct of the apparitions. Witness the admirable zeal he devotes to the Work of Fátima, promoting the construction of the sanctuaries of the Cova da Iria and their annexes, taking part in the grandiose manifestations of Faith, striving to curb every kind of abuse, fostering the faith and piety of the pilgrims, organising the work of retreats, instituting the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Rosary and the Associations of Servants of Our Lady of the Rosary, founding a hostel for pilgrims and providing

with the greatest solicitude and affection every kind of comfort for poor and sick pilgrims. And, the culminating fact in the life of the illustrious and apostolic Prelate, about five years after the first apparition, Holy Church raises her voice for the first time to speak of the even-[27]ts of Fátima through the mouth of the venerable Prelate of Leiria. On the third of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, Dom José Alves Correia da Silva published a pastoral provision, the first official document on so momentous a subject, not to pronounce on the origin and nature of the extraordinary phenomena, but to prepare the elements on which the ecclesiastical authority is to base itself in order to be able to deliver its verdict with full knowledge of the case. In that provision he appoints the commission charged with studying the facts considered miraculous and drawing up the corresponding canonical process. It is this commission that now has the honour of presenting to His Most Reverend Excellency the result of the work it has carried out in obedience to the directions of that provision.

The official interrogation of Lúcia de Jesus

In view of the exceptional importance of a matter of this nature, it is fitting to examine closely the report of the formal examination to which the principal protagonist of the apparitions was subjected, at such a time and in such circumstances of her life that her deposition cannot fail to offer the surest guarantees of credibility. It was on the sixth of July, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, that His Most Reverend Excellency Dom José Alves Correia da Silva, venerable Bishop of Leiria, in an official letter addressed to the Bishop of Porto, Dom António Barbosa Leão, requested permission for the Reverend Doctors Monsignor Canon Manuel Pereira Lopes, professor at the Seminary of Porto, Manuel Marques dos Santos, professor at the Seminary of Leiria, and Manuel Nunes Formigão, professor at the Seminary of Santarém, to question the only surviving seer, putting her statements into a formal record to be added to the ecclesiastical process that was under way in the diocese of Leiria concerning the events that occurred at Fátima in nineteen hundred and seventeen. Lúcia de Jesus [27v] was then seventeen years old and was a boarder at the Asilo de Vilar, in the city of Porto, run by the Sisters of the Institute of St Dorothy. The interrogation took place on the eighth of July of the same year, precisely on the day after the last day of the first National Marian

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The religious profession of Lúcia de Jesus

When on the thirteenth of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen, there had taken place the stupendous sign from God which Lúcia de Jesus, the Virgin's privileged one, had announced two months before as [29v] confirmation of the truthfulness of her depositions, and which more than sixty thousand people of all classes and social conditions and from every part of the country witnessed with astonishment and extreme emotion, the happy seer had concluded her mission as ambassadress of the Mother of God, august Patroness of Portugal. Like the forerunner St John the Baptist, from that moment she had to decrease, to efface herself, almost to disappear from the eyes of the world, so that the Virgin alone might be glorified and her work might assume the proportions of the most colossal marvel of the twentieth century... It was indispensable that the frail and disproportionate instrument which Divine Providence had deigned to use to begin that work should for the moment fall into oblivion. Like Bernadette Soubirous, the humble little shepherdess of the Pyrenees, the happy seer of Fátima went to prepare herself for another mission that concerned her more closely, because her immortal destiny was bound up with it: the grand task of her sanctification and eternal salvation. Having completed her education in a school in the North, where she lived for many years given over to the practice of all the virtues, she obeyed the divine call without hesitation, leaving her country and entering the Novitiate of one of the most illustrious and deserving religious Congregations, the Congregation of St Dorothy. The atmosphere of the Novitiate, wholly steeped in prayer, sacrifice and love, was undoubtedly the element suited to her spiritual life after her formation at the School. There, occupied in the roughest services of the house, she edified everyone with her profound humility and her exact observance of the rule, and the Queen of Heaven favoured her with new privileges as a pledge of her special predilection. A year later, on the third of October, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, the day of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, in the Novitiate house of Tuy (Spain), in that abode of blessed peace where each year so many candid and innocent souls contract mystical espousals with [30] Jesus, the divine king of kings, a chosen band of virgins is making the final preparations for the mysterious union long yearned for, the sublime and ineffable marriage with the heavenly Bridegroom. All are already in place for the touching solemnity that is about to take place.

A Portuguese priest, the honour and glory of his most noble order, enters the lovely and devout chapel where voluntary victims of reparation and expiation every day raise to Heaven the incense of their fervent prayers, the myrrh of their refined virtues and of their sacrifices, and the gold of a precious and unalloyed love, heroic and holy. It was His Most Reverend Excellency Dom José Alves Correia da Silva, first Bishop of Leiria after the restoration of the diocese, who was to preside at the ceremony, having been expressly invited for that purpose. A matter of force majeure prevented him from attending. The sacred precinct overflows with the faithful. In places of honour some guests of high rank can be seen. The solemn, anxiously awaited moment of the mystical espousals approaches, of the fortunate maidens who are going to consecrate themselves for ever, in a special way, to the service of that adorable Lord whom to serve is to reign. In a modest and recollected attitude, and in the most perfect and edifying composure, but throbbing with intense and moved joy, there they are, in a row, on the long benches of the chapel, with hands joined and eyes raised to Heaven, praying unceasingly and with fervour. Mingled with the rest there is one whom nothing marks out to the attention of the bystanders, but who deserves a most particular mention. It is Lúcia de Jesus, the happy seer of Aljustrel, the principal protagonist of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima, the Lourdes of Portugal. She is twenty-one years old. This tender and delicate flower of the fields, gathered among the heather and holm oaks of the serra de Aire and transplanted from her native soil to a strip of foreign land, where respect for the rights of human Conscience is not reduced [30v] to an empty word and freedom for good is not a fiction, can be seen there, amid flowers born in other climes and under other skies, ready to perfume perennially with her delicious fragrance the holy altar and the atmosphere of the august sanctuary. The illustrious officiant²⁸, vested in the sacred vestments, intones the "Veni Creator", invoking upon the future brides of the Redeemer the lights and graces of the Divine Paraclete, the uncreated and consubstantial Love. The religious community and the multitude of the faithful sing the admirable liturgical hymn, which the organ accompanies with its majestic and plaintive voice, turning it into a canticle of glory, a vibrant hymn of resurrection and triumph. Next the sacred minister, pronouncing the prayers of the Ritual, blesses the crucifix destined for the future professed sister, sprinkles it with lustral water, using the aspergillum for the purpose, and then proceeds in the same way with the

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blessing of the veil. The last prayer concluded, he turns to the novice and says to her: "My daughter, what do you ask?". Lúcia de Jesus, grave and austere in her graceful simplicity, answers in a firm and measured voice: "For the Love of God and of Most Holy Mary, my tender and dear Mother, I ask the grace of being admitted to this holy Institute, to consecrate myself in it wholly to the service of God and the salvation of my neighbour, and also to bind myself with the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience, which I wish to make according to the spirit and rules of this same Institute". And the interesting and moving dialogue continues, ever more lively and animated, between the venerable priest, who represents Holy Church and speaks and acts in her name, stressing the greatness and importance of the act of religious profession and the duties and responsibilities inherent in it, and the humble and unpretentious girl, who answers without hesitation, firm and unshakeable in her generous resolution and full of filial [31] confidence in the omnipotent goodness of the Most High. "Have you thought well about the obligations attached to these vows?". "Yes, I have thought about them seriously, and I hope, with the help of God and the intercession of Most Holy Mary and of the Holy Patroness of this Institute, to be able to fulfil them, and that is why I ask the grace of your receiving them from me". "Have you renounced, with complete freedom and with all your heart, the world and all worldly ambitions?". "Yes, Most Reverend Sir". "Then do you wish to take Jesus Christ as your Bridegroom?". "Yes, with all my heart". At this point the minister of the Lord presents the crucifix to the novice and, giving it to her to kiss, says: "Receive, my daughter, this cross on which is nailed He who must be your model and the sole object of all your love". And he adds the following words, which are as it were the substantial form of the mystical espousals that are taking place: "May your Beloved be to you as a bundle of myrrh and make your heart his permanent dwelling, as a pledge of an eternal union and an eternal love. May your beloved be to you a bundle of myrrh, and may he abide upon your heart, as a sign of love and everlasting union." There follows the imposition of the veil, during which the officiant says: "Receive the yoke of the Lord; his yoke is sweet and his burden is light". These words spoken, he gives her his blessing and then vests to say holy Mass. The unbloody sacrifice of our altars begins. The silence is deeper, the recollection more intense, the prayer of all more fervent. Heavenly harmonies hover vaguely in that sacred atmosphere. One would say that the guardian Angels of the Tabernacle, where the Divine King of love rests in the sacrosanct Host, perceptibly join their joys and delight to the rejoicing of the souls gathered in that house of God. The moment has come to administer the

living Bread come down from Heaven. But, [31v] before that, the celebrant turns, with the Most Blessed Sacrament in his hands, to the Lord's chosen one, who, in a clear but moved voice, pronounces before Heaven and earth her consecration: the formula of the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. These vows made, the aspirant sister hands the Superior the formula of them signed in her own hand and then receives the Bread of Angels. The Mass ended, the representative of the Church addresses an exhortation to the aspirant Sister. They are fatherly words addressed to the dear little lamb of the spiritual flock of the venerable Prelate of Leiria, to the Bernadette of the Lourdes of his privileged Diocese. He enjoins upon her once more the strict duty of fulfilling the sacred and inviolable promises she has just made before the holy altars. He recommends to her with particular insistence the observance of the constitutions and rules of the glorious and deserving congregation to which she has the honour and good fortune to belong. And, in conclusion, he offers ardent prayers to Heaven that, faithful to the inspirations of divine grace, she may rise on the wings of humility and confidence to the heights of spiritual perfection, to the summits of holiness. The singing of the "Te Deum", with the customary versicles and prayers, brought to a close this solemnity, at once simple and grand, on which the rites and ceremonies of the Christian liturgy stamp a seal of incomparable beauty and majesty. Lúcia de Jesus, in religion Sister Maria Lúcia das Dores, a flower of the fields now turned into a delicate flower of the cloister, will be one more lightning conductor raised over this unhappy land of Portugal, once a homeland of heroes and saints, to disarm the divine wrath, angered by individual faults and collective follies, and to draw down upon this unfathomable abyss of iniquity mighty and incessantly renewed torrents of pardon, grace and mercy.

[32] The cult of Our Lady of Fátima in mainland Portugal, in the adjacent islands and in the overseas possessions

Perhaps never in the whole world has a devotion been welcomed with such excitement and enthusiasm by the faithful and spread so rapidly everywhere as the devotion to Our Lady of Fátima. These characteristics, which single it out among so many other devotions and forms of worship, clearly show its providential origin. Already at the time of the apparitions everything that happens in this respect is extraordinary and inexplicable. On the thirteenth of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen, on the occasion of the last apparition, some seventy thousand people gathered at the Cova da Iria,

and yet not the slightest announcement had been made, no invitation had been published, and the difficulty of access to the place was enormous because of the distance and the scarcity of transport. It would be long and idle to give here a detailed account of the different phases of the growth of the devotion and cult of Our Lady of Fátima in all the provinces and dioceses of mainland, island and colonial Portugal. The "Voz da Fátima", although it does not tell everything, is a vast repertory of materials for the history of the cult of Fátima. Rare is the church in the dominions of the Republic that does not have an altar or at least an image of Our Lady of Fátima. Very few are the families in which the Virgin of Fátima is not piously venerated and her patronage confidently invoked. Even in the circles most resistant to all religious ideas and sentiments this admirable cult manages to penetrate and produce abundant fruits of blessing. In the Azores and Madeira, in Cape Verde, in São Tomé and Príncipe, in Angola and Mozambique, in India and in China, in short in all the Portuguese colonies, the devotion of Fátima spreads and takes root more and more day by day. In the course of every [32v] year, and above all in the months of May and October, the newspapers are full of news of the festivities and processions held in honour of Our Lady of Fátima, in the great cities as well as in the humblest villages. The sick have recourse with confidence to the protection of the Virgin of Fátima. The rosary is prayed privately and publicly as in the golden days of the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary. The water of the miraculous spring is carried by pilgrims or sent by post to every corner of the country. The throng of pilgrims to the Sanctuary of the apparitions grows from year to year, and all those who go to Fátima once long to return there more often, that journey being the only one that does not weary the spirit and that always produces new and unforgettable sensations. Fátima, the Portuguese Lourdes, is truly a little corner of Heaven, which fascinates all souls and holds and captivates all hearts.

The cult of Our Lady of Fátima in foreign countries

If the propagation of the cult of Our Lady of Fátima throughout the country is truly admirable and exceedingly consoling, no less admirable and no less consoling is the fact of the astonishing speed with which that cult has spread and put down solid and deep roots in the principal nations of the world. It is again above all the "Voz da Fátima" which, in various issues, sets before the enraptured eyes of the

believers the phases and progress of this humanly inexplicable diffusion. At the head of this astounding movement of propaganda are the Osservatore Romano, in Italy; La Croix, La Revue Sociale, La Revue du Rosaire and the Bulletin du Rosaire Perpétuel, whose monthly print run rises to one hundred and seventy-five thousand copies, in France; Die Schildwache, in Germany; De Illustratie, in Holland; El Santísimo Rosario, Sal Terrae and Santuarios [33] Católicos, in Spain; and the Jornal Pequeno and the Mensagem do Rosário, in Brazil, among many other newspapers and reviews of all countries and all languages. In Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, English, Italian, German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, in all the cultured languages, pamphlets of every size and format are going round the world, proclaiming the incomparable glories of the august Queen of the Rosary in her favourite sanctuary of Fátima. Even in China and Japan the press concerns itself with the Portuguese Lourdes, describing the apparitions and the marvellous cures, and numerous apostles of devotion to the Virgin of Fátima promote public and solemn homage in her honour. In nineteen hundred and twenty-eight the Rev.do Fr. Louis Marie Baron, distinguished director of the Revue du Rosaire, having accompanied to Lourdes the great Rosary pilgrimage organised by the Dominican Fathers, which led no fewer than twelve thousand devotees to the feet of Mary Immaculate, spoke three times to the clergy and faithful gathered in the venerable sanctuary of Massabielle about the great marvels of Fátima, being heard, as he himself declares, with interest, edification and profit. If the cult of Our Lady of Fátima is perfectly fused with the Portuguese soul, it is no less certain that, as this devotion becomes known in the various parts of the world, countless chosen souls of all nations join in the homage that our good people pay to the glorious Mother of God in the Sanctuary of her predilection.

The conversions

There is a most important aspect of the astounding case of Fátima which, by reason of its intimate nature, which places it within the sacred and inviolable bounds of conscience, does not allow, and can never allow, the strong light of historical investigation to be cast upon it. [33v] It is that concerning the conversion of souls. If the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is, by antonomasia, the sanctuary of physical miracles, of the cures of diseases of every kind from which poor humanity suffers, it can truly be said that the Sanctuary of Our

Lady of Fátima is, par excellence, the Sanctuary of conversions and spiritual graces. Despite the secrecy that surrounds these resurrections, more beautiful and more admirable than that of Lazarus when he came out of the tomb at the portentous voice of the Lord calling him back to life, there is no one who does not know of the consoling movement of confessions, incessant and intense, that takes place at Fátima, above all on the thirteenth of each month. The church of the Penitentiary, set aside for confessions, is on those days completely filled with the faithful who ardently desire to approach the holy tribunal of penance. In spring and summer, when the candle procession is held on the eve, confessions last all afternoon and all night and continue almost to the end of the afternoon of the following day. Often, besides the pilgrim priests and leaders of pilgrimages, teams of diocesan priests sent expressly for that purpose by His Most Reverend Excellency the Bishop of Leiria help to hear confessions. It is a spectacle that deeply moves the soul, that long procession of men and youths, in their hundreds and thousands, who for hours on end, in the cold, the wind and the rain, standing, tired and fasting, not infrequently until sunset, wait with truly heroic patience and courage for their turn to be reconciled with God, sometimes without succeeding, because of the great throng of the faithful. According to the testimony of all the priests who there, in that blessed place, exercise the ministry of confessor, the graces and blessings with which the Lord crowns their work surpass anything one can imagine. It is, so to speak, impossible that a sacrilegious confession be made there, a [34] badly made confession, a confession without the due dispositions on the part of the penitent and without fruit for his soul. From every part of Portugal there come to that true pool of Bethesda countless unhappy and afflicted souls, who are purified and transfigured there, changing from the impious, unbelieving, indifferent or lukewarm people they were into deeply believing and fervent ones, if not into apostles and saints. It is enough to go through a few issues of the "Voz da Fátima" to become certain at once that this is so. And what is to be said of the countless conversions brought about everywhere, from north to south of Portugal, thanks to the propagation of the cult of Our Lady of Fátima and to the miracles that her merciful goodness works at every moment? Fátima is therefore incontestably a marvellous factory of conversions in ceaseless operation, tempering the Portuguese soul in the forge of love and devotion to the Virgin and preparing it for high and sublime destinies. Blessed be the august Queen of the Rosary, Mother of mercy and refuge of sinners, who came from Heaven to earth,

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descending to the sacred abode of Fátima, to give God to Portugal and Portugal to God!

The quickening of faith and piety

When in October nineteen hundred and ten the old regime fell and the republican form of government was established in Portugal, the decline of the Christian spirit, of piety and of Faith itself had become astonishingly marked. With the aim of overthrowing the institutions then in force, undermining their centuries-old edifice at its foundations, the leaders of the antimonarchical movement directed their most violent attacks against Religion and against the Catholic Church. On the other hand, the Church lived with the State under a concordat regime, and the relations [34v] between the two powers, ecclesiastical and civil, were so close that religious society and civil society seemed to form a single whole. Owing to the liberal spirit that saturated the institutions and public men, the State interfered in the government and administration of the Church, abusing the privileges that the Concordat conferred on it or arrogating to itself rights that did not belong to it. Politics, which had a large-scale influence on appointments to ecclesiastical posts, even to the highest grades of the hierarchy, turned the sacred ministers, by force of circumstance, into servants of the State. The most lucrative benefices were often filled not by those priests who were distinguished by their talent, virtues and merits, but by those who had rendered the most and best services to the political parties and their leaders. The fruitful vitality of the Church being thus stifled, as it did not have the necessary conditions to expand and produce its fruits of blessing, a wide field was left free for the enemies of the Faith to exercise their baneful action. They, taking advantage of the political circumstances, which were favourable to them, began, by means of the press and of propaganda rallies, a disloyal and spiteful war against the Church, in order more easily to overthrow the throne once the altar had been overthrown. The regions of the centre and south of the country, because of their proximity to the capital, which was the main revolutionary centre, were those that suffered most from the effects of this tenacious and formidable propaganda. Above all the great cities and the other more important population centres were almost completely de-Christianised and paganised. As religious instruction was in general extremely deficient and in many places non-existent, men, losing their faith on hearing the sophisms against Religion and the calumnies against the clergy, and with their faith, [35] nobility of sentiment and good morals,

abandoned the reception of the sacraments and religious practices. Impiety and indifference spread everywhere. The lack of living faith, of ardent piety and of the spirit of sacrifice on the part of the few Christians who remained faithful meant that no serious and effective resistance was opposed to the wave of evil that sought to subjugate everything. The Catholic camp, much reduced, lacked appropriate organisation for defence and for combat. As the Church was united to the State, it relied on the latter for its defence, and meanwhile Catholics comfortably folded their arms or gathered around the throne, supposing that by supporting it they were effectively supporting the Church. Finally the Republic came. The most terrible campaign imaginable was officially unleashed against the Church. The little that still remained of the grand and centuries-old edifice of religious institutions, which the sledgehammer of liberalism had spared, was completely dismantled. But at the same time as the iconoclastic fury of the new holders of power broke the shackles of the Church's centuries-old slavery, she, poor but free, began to rise from amid her ruins. Seven years later, in an unknown corner of a mountain range, a Vision of Paradise announced that the war was about to end... Within a few weeks the cycle of religious persecution closed with the triumphant revolution of Sidónio Pais, which reached its end on the 8th of December, feast of the glorious Patroness of Portugal, and from then on Fátima became the most intense centre of Faith and piety there has ever been in this country. Cities, towns and villages, thanks to this providential devotion, are re-Christianised and regenerated as if by magic. In all the provinces of the glorious land of Holy Mary, Faith is revived, piety grows, love of Jesus [35v] in the Blessed Sacrament, a cult so dear to the Portuguese soul, is intensified, and devotion to the blessed Virgin of Fátima spreads, subduing even the coldest souls and the hardest and most resistant hearts. One would say that the Queen of Heaven wished to attach to her cult under the title of Fátima a mysterious power of attraction that holds everyone and draws them on irresistibly. It is enough to read the "Voz da Fátima" to form an idea of the immense good that the sweet and enchanting devotion of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima has produced from the spiritual point of view of the strengthening of Faith and the intensifying of piety. Happy the country which, in what was perhaps the most painful and most tragic hour of its historical existence, was the object of the merciful love of the Heart of the Mother of God, who saved it from the abyss into which it was about to fall!

Fátima and the Pope

The glorious Pontiff happily reigning, His Holiness Pope Pius XI, receiving in private audience on the 9th of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, the superiors and students of the Portuguese College in Rome, deigned to present each of them with two lovely holy pictures of Our Lady of Fátima, one for themselves and the other for their families, with the recommendation that they pray for the Pope. The great and excellent Catholic daily of Lisbon "Novidades", in its issue of the twentieth of January of the same year, printed a long letter from Italy, under the heading "Fátima in Rome" and with the subtitle "A gift from the Pope", in which was described this gesture of the Supreme Hierarch of the Church, which, whatever its significance, has, with regard to the marvellous events of the Portuguese Lourdes, the merit of holding in check the [36] loyal adversaries and of imposing at least a deferential and respectful silence on the few and ever rarer opponents in the Catholic camp. It is certain that by this simple, though highly significant, act the Supreme Pontiff did not intend to give his definitive judgement on the nature of those events, but neither is there any doubt that no one can refuse to see in this act the manifestation of the lively sympathy of the August Visible Head of Christendom for the "Pearl of Portugal", as the Spanish review "Sal Terrae", one of the most highly regarded in the neighbouring country, recently called Fátima. And this attitude of the Vicar of Christ on earth, an attitude in no way commonplace or insignificant, is so compelling that a distinguished Prelate, of great authority by reason of his virtue and learning, did not hesitate to describe this fact, which will be recorded in letters of gold in the annals of Fátima, as a true "implicit approval". In the month of December of the same year, at the request of the superiors and students of the Portuguese College in Rome, His Holiness deigned to bless a lovely wooden statue of Our Lady of Fátima, made and donated by the Portuguese sculptor José Ferreira Tedim for the high altar of the new chapel of the Portuguese College in Rome. His Most Reverend Excellency Dom Domingos, of the Order of St Dominic, venerable Bishop of Portalegre, was perhaps the only Portuguese Prelate who showed himself reluctant to authorise the public cult of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fátima in his diocese. After the visit he made ad sacra limina in the middle of the year nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, all his scruples ceased, and he not only gave permission for the cult of Our Lady of the Rosary under the title of Fátima in the public churches and chapels of his bishopric,

but even with great rejoicing lent himself at once to blessing solemnly some of her images, inaugurating that cult in several places in [36v] his bishopric. It is said that the distinguished Bishop of Portalegre declared that he had recognised himself obliged to adopt this attitude because he had seen public worship paid to Our Lady of Fátima in the very capital of Catholicism, and he considered that he could not and should not be more papist than the Pope. There were those who thought that this change of attitude was the consequence of a consultation made personally with the Pope by Dom Domingos on the occasion of his visit ad sacra limina.

The great war

as in the sacred text the word "day" not infrequently indicates a more or less long period of time, sometimes even of thousands of years, so too the word "today" frequently has the same value as the adverb "soon". From the moment this interpretation is accepted, no one may legitimately deny that the prophecy was strictly fulfilled, because, the war having lasted for three years and ceasing, as in fact it did, by virtue of the armistice, about a year after the thirteenth of October, it was true to say on that day that it was ending "soon". 2nd - The adverb "today" may mean the same as the expression "on this occasion" or "at this point", but only a year later. The fact is that on that day the war was, so to speak, at its height. The news from the battlefield, received by means of telegrams published in the newspapers, spoke even on the eve of the thirteenth of important military operations that were unfolding and that could not reach their conclusion on the following day with the definitive suspension of hostilities. The war could only have ended on the following day by means of a stupendous prodigy, a sudden, violent, overwhelming intervention of divine power that would completely paralyse the conscious and free action of the human agents. There was no entity on earth capable of so much. Now nothing, absolutely nothing, made a prodigy of this order indispensable. No one had the right to expect it, according to the absolutely established theological-philosophical principle, "miracles are not to be multiplied without necessity". Everything, on the contrary, suggested that the war would continue with greater or lesser intensity for some time, and even the people most inclined to believe in the supernatural character of the apparitions considered that the seer's prophecy should not be interpreted literally, meaning only that the war would come to an end within a more or less short period. 3rd - The prophecy may refer principally to the religious war unleashed in Portugal and only secondarily to the great European war. The circumstance that the apparitions took place in our country, and certainly above all for the good of the Portuguese, seems to authorise this interpretation. For eight years Holy Church had been cruelly oppressed by the public authorities. The religious war kindled by the provisional government with the tyrannical decrees it had promulgated had filled the unhappy Portuguese nation with moral and social ruins. The suppression of the embassy to the Holy See, the breaking off of diplomatic relations with the highest moral power in the world, the exile of the bishops after their expulsion from their palaces, the usurpation of ecclesiastical property, the prohibition of acts of public worship, in short the suppression of all religious freedom,

constitute so many aspects of that fierce war waged by the State against the Church, of which the whole territory of the Republic was the theatre. Now it was precisely when this formidable and relentless struggle was reaching its most acute period that the August Que-[38]en of Heaven, the Immaculate Patroness of our land, deigned to appear in an unknown corner of the serra de Aire, at the geographical centre of the country, to establish there an intense and inexhaustible centre of spiritual life. The moral and religious decline of Portuguese society, above all after the fall of the old regime, because of the persecution of the Church, became frighteningly marked, especially in the great centres, producing a wide crop of evils of every kind. It was certainly to remedy these evils and to set up a dyke against the devastating wave of impiety and demoralisation, which was spreading unchecked thanks to the complacency of the authorities, that the Most Holy Virgin raised up a new Lourdes in the land of Holy Mary. But for the efficacy of her intervention to be seen in a quite evident way, it was necessary for the religious war to cease, or at least to abate its fury. And this is indeed what happened. While the humble seers of Aljustrel contemplated the ineffable Vision on the heath of Fátima for six consecutive months, from May to October, the two months consecrated in a special way by the Church and by the piety of the faithful to the cult of the Queen of the Angels, a pleiad of valiant men, friends of true freedom, sought to put an end to the tyranny that was crushing the Portuguese and to prepare the advent of better days for the beloved fatherland. On the eighth of the following December, the day of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of Portugal, a little more than a month after the last apparition, Major Sidónio Pais definitively defeated his enemies and proclaimed the regime of the New Republic. Relations between the Church and the State were immediately renewed, never to be interrupted again down to the present day. A decree of Moura Pinto, minister of justice of Sidónio Pais, who was Head of the government and afterwards President of the Republic, put an end to the religious struggles and [38v] prepared the freedom of the Church with the renunciation by the State of oppressive interference in her internal organisation. And from that moment, even though the enemies of Religion later rose again to the heights of power, the draconian measures promulgated by the governments before Sidónio Pais were never again renewed against the Church. 4th - The Apparition wished the rosary to be prayed and penance to be done so that God might deign to put an end to the great scourge of the war that was devastating so many nations, producing millions of victims and sowing every kind of moral and material ruin everywhere. She announced that the

tremendous scourge would end, or rather would have ended, on the thirteenth of October, if men repented and amended their sins and appeased divine justice by praying and doing penance. Lúcia was mistaken in considering the Vision's statement as absolute. The condition implicitly laid down by the Vision was not fulfilled, and so the war did not end. Already in the Old Testament Jonah had been mistaken in making, by God's command, a prophecy which he thought absolute and which was only conditional. The city of Nineveh would be destroyed on the day fixed by the prophet if its inhabitants did not do penance. "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." The population of the city believed the threat, and all, from the king down to the last of his subjects and even the very animals, put on sackcloth and ashes. For this reason Nineveh was spared, to the great astonishment and even a certain vexation of Jonah, who, not knowing the merciful designs of the Lord, wanted at all costs the prophecy to be fulfilled, so that no one would doubt that he had spoken in the name and by the command of God. Something very similar happened to St Leonard of Port Maurice, the great apostle of Europe in the Middle Ages. In his preaching he announced the end of the world for two years later. He even [39] raised to life a dead man who was being carried to the cemetery, in order to confirm the truth of his preaching. The dead man affirmed that everything he said was true. But the two years passed and the world did not end, because Europe was converted by the preaching of St Leonard of Port Maurice. Besides, the Most Holy Virgin may have permitted Lúcia's mistake on purpose, to keep her in a spirit of deep humility through the confusion that came to her from having erred, at least apparently, on a point of capital importance. Nor does the circumstance of her having fallen into a misunderstanding prevent her depositions from deserving full credence. That misunderstanding had its providential reason and in no way hindered, as in fact it did not hinder, the regular course of the events that made Fátima the Portuguese Lourdes. 5th - The Apparition announced that the war was to end on the 13th of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen, if the leaders of all the belligerent peoples had a sincere and lively desire for a just and honourable peace and if the voice of the Vicar of Christ on earth were heeded. The French newspaper "Le Matin", in its issue of the fourteenth of August, nineteen hundred and twenty, speaking of government secrets, publishes the letter of M. Briand to M. Ribot, minister of foreign affairs, in which on the twentieth of September, nineteen hundred and seventeen, he set out the conditions under which the former president of the council would have

The works at the Cova da Iria

Ever since the radiant Apparition told Lúcia on the thirteenth of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen, that it was her wish that a chapel be built at the Cova da Iria, the piety of the faithful ardently desired to raise at the place of the apparitions a grand monument in honour of the august Mother of God. The project received with the greatest enthusiasm was that of building a church on the top of the hillock that overlooks the Cova da Iria, at the spot where the seers said they had seen the first flash of lightning that announced to them the apparition of the 13th of May. A few months after the apparitions, the people of Fátima built a small chapel precisely at the spot where the sacred holm oak had stood. When the ecclesiastical authority authorised public worship of Our Lady of the Rosary at the place of the apparitions, while reserving its judgement on the nature and origin of the facts deemed supernatural that had occurred there, there was built a short distance from the monument commemorating

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the apparitions another chapel, somewhat larger, called the chapel of the masses, and in front of it a large pavilion for the sick, supported by tall, thick columns of reinforced concrete. A short time afterwards there rose behind the sacristy of the chapel of the masses a church, graceful and spacious, intended for the confessions of men and for the celebration of acts of worship on days when bad weather prevented their being held in the open air. Meanwhile, three great avenues were being opened, two more wells built and the porticoes and side colonnades raised. After the chaplain's house was built, in which for some years the Medical Verification Office was installed, which has recently moved its seat to the Hostel, and which is still today the headquarters of the servitas, construction began of the Hostel of Our Lady of the Rosary³¹, an enormous, gigantic building, one wing of which is already finished. Finally, on the thirteenth of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, His Most Reverend Excellency Dom Manuel Mendes da Conceição Santos, venerable archbishop of Évora, in the presence of the illustrious prelate of the Diocese of Leiria, the Most Excellent and Most Reverend Dom José Alves Correia da Silva, before a crowd of about half a million faithful from every part of Portugal, solemnly blessed the foundation stone of the monumental Basilica³² of the Rosary, of such vast proportions that it will be one of the largest churches in the world. Outside the sacred precinct, where thirteen years ago there was not a single human dwelling within a radius of several kilometres, hundreds of buildings can already be seen, some of them of extraordinary size, built by private initiative. They are hotels, restaurants, commercial establishments of every kind, dwelling houses and other buildings [40v] which little by little are occupying, over a wide area, the free space around the place of the apparitions. The movement of pilgrims at all times of the year, and above all in Spring and Summer, is so astounding that the municipal councils are building wide one-way roads from their districts to Fátima, and the National Railway Companies are studying plans for new railway lines that will carry the pilgrims to and from the new city of the Virgin. The government itself has recently taken an immense interest in the urban development of the site of Our Lady of Fátima. On its initiative and under its high patronage there was formed an

important and numerous commission, which includes high-ranking official bodies and distinguished engineers and architects, and which agreed on the adoption of a preliminary urban development plan that will make of the vast plain in front of the entrance to the precinct of the sanctuaries one of the largest and most beautiful cities in Portugal. His Excellency the President of the Republic, General Óscar Carmona, as the president of the ministry had already done previously with other official figures interested in the matter, visited on the twelfth of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, accompanied by the venerable prelate of Leiria, the place of the apparitions, the sanctuaries and the site intended for the future city of Fátima, the Portuguese Lourdes.

The phenomenon of the cloud of smoke

The solar phenomenon and Lúcia's prediction

the speed of its rotation, detaches itself from the firmament and, blood-red, advances on the earth, threatening to crush us with the weight of its fiery, enormous millstone. They are seconds of terrifying impression. During the solar occurrence that I have been describing in detail, there were shifting colours in the atmosphere. I cannot be precise about the moment, because two months have already gone by and I did not take notes. I remember that it was not right at the beginning, and I rather think it was towards the end. While I was staring at the sun, I noticed that everything was darkening around me. I looked at what was near and extended my gaze far out to the farthest horizon, and I saw everything the colour of amethyst. The objects, the sky and the layer of atmosphere had the same colour. A purplish oak tree that rose in front of me cast a heavy shadow on the ground. Fearing that I had suffered a reaction of the retina, an unlikely hypothesis, because in that case I should not have seen things in purple, I turned round, closed my eyelids and held them shut with my hands to cut off all light. Still with my back turned, I opened my eyes and recognised that, as before, the landscape and the air continued the same purple colour. The impression one had was not that of an eclipse. I saw an eclipse of the sun which, in Viseu, where I was, was total. As the moon moves on to hide the sun, the light turns greyer and greyer until everything becomes dim and black. The eye reaches a small circle, beyond which objects become more and more confused until they are lost in the blackness. The temperature drops considerably, and one would say that the life of the earth had been extinguished. At Fátima the atmosphere, although purple, remained transparent to [44] the limits of the horizon, which could be distinguished and seen clearly, and I did not have the sensation of a halt in universal energy. Continuing to look at the sun, I noticed that the atmosphere had grown lighter. Immediately afterwards I heard a peasant who was near me saying in a voice of amazement: "this lady is yellow!". Indeed everything had now changed, near and far, taking on the colour of old yellow damasks. People looked sickly and jaundiced. I smiled to find them frankly ugly and unattractive. Laughter was heard. My hand had the same yellow tone. Some days later I made the experiment of staring at the sun for a few brief moments. When I looked away, I saw, after a few moments, yellow patches, regular in form. One does not see everything in a uniform colour, as if a topaz had been volatilised in the air, but blotches or spots that move with the movement of the eyes. All these phenomena that I have mentioned and described I observed calmly and serenely, without emotion or alarm. It is for others to explain or interpret them. To conclude, I must make the statement that never, either before or after the thirteenth of October, have I seen similar solar or atmospheric phenomena". The distinguished

journalist Avelino de Almeida published in number six hundred and ten, second series, of "A Ilustração Portuguesa", an account from which the following passage is reproduced, transcribed in the "Episódios Maravilhosos de Fátima", p. twenty-seven: "And when I no longer imagined that I would see anything more impressive than that noisy but peaceful crowd animated by the same obsessive idea and moved by the same powerful longing, what did I see that was truly strange on the heath of Fátima? The rain, at the hour foretold, stop falling; the dense mass of clouds break up and the king of stars, a disc of dull silver, at its full zenith, appear and begin dancing in a violent and convulsive dance, [44v] which a great number of people imagined to be a serpentine dance, so beautiful and glittering were the colours that successively covered the surface of the sun. A miracle, as the people cried; a natural phenomenon, as learned men say? I am not concerned now to know, but only to tell you what I saw... The rest is a matter for Science and for the Church". This phenomenon has been repeated several times, not only at the place of the apparitions but also in other places, even far from Fátima, and at various hours of the day, though without the same circumstances occurring and without its having the same resonance it had on the thirteenth of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen. The book "As grandes maravilhas de Fátima" includes three photographs of the solar phenomenon taken on a thirteenth by a pilgrim a few kilometres from the Cova da Iria, shortly before sunset³³. Questioned by an editor of the newspaper "O Século", of Lisbon, about the solar disturbances observed at Fátima, the distinguished astronomer Frederico Oom³⁴ replied: "If it were a cosmic phenomenon, the astronomical and meteorological observatories would not have failed to record it. And that is precisely what is missing: that inevitable recording of all disturbances in the system of the worlds, however slight they may be. These words establish that the phenomenon witnessed at Fátima by some tens of thousands of people left no traces on the astronomical and meteorological instruments, as it would have done if it had been a purely natural phenomenon. In the light of what has been said, it can be concluded that the phenomenon that occurred on the thirteenth of October, nineteen hundred and seventeen, whether it be astronomical or meteorological in nature, is of supernatural origin. It is supernatural because it was not

recorded by any instrument; it is supernatural because it took place at solar noon, when the sun is at its full zenith, and it is therefore more difficult for such a phenomenon to occur; it is supernatural because of the special and extraordinary circumstances in which it took place, on the occasion of and as the close of the sixth and last apparition; and supernatural, finally, and this is what most impresses and astounds, by virtue of its coincidence with the statements of the seer Lúcia, who days and months before had announced it as proof of the apparition of the Most Holy Virgin and of the truth of what she said. Could it perhaps be admitted that the Queen of Heaven would allow the seventy thousand people who flocked to Fátima to be witnesses of an undeniable proof of her apparitions, as well as Portugal and the whole world, to be victims of an illusion or an error, when it is certain that no one, absolutely no one, in good faith, dares to deny that this phenomenon presents the characteristics of a suggestive and compelling reality?

Bibliography of Fátima

For about thirteen years Fátima has been the theatre of the portentous scenes that fill the whole of Portugal with astonishment, enthusiasm and joy. Since then, in the columns of newspapers and on the pages of reviews, Fátima and its marvels have provided the subject for thousands of articles, chronicles and news items, accompanied by illustrations relating to the events, to their consequences and to the people who took part in them or are connected with them. It would be impossible to collect or even to list all the writings of this kind, published not only in the newspapers of the mainland but also in those of the adjacent islands and overseas provinces. And what is simply remarkable is that, as the years go by, Fátima is invoked with ever more interest and ever more affection by the greater and better part of the press of Portugal. On the thirteenth of October, nineteen hundred and twenty-[45v]two, there appeared publicly in Leiria, with the approval of the venerable diocesan Prelate, the first number of a monthly newspaper entitled "Voz da Fátima", intended to make known the marvels of the Portuguese Lourdes. In that first number publication began of the Pastoral Provision of His Most Reverend Excellency the Bishop of Leiria on the Fátima case, in which the illustrious Prelate, as has already been said, appoints the commission charged with carrying out a rigorous inquiry and drawing up a canonical process to ascertain the origin and character of the events deemed supernatural, and at the same time invites all those who had personal knowledge of those events to make their statements and give their depositions before the

members of the said commission. The "Voz da Fátima", which has been published every month without exception up to today, has in recent years reached a monthly print run oscillating between fifty and a hundred thousand copies, its distribution being free. This newspaper, copies of which are scattered in profusion over the five parts of the world, wherever there are Portuguese, has carried everywhere, together with the blessed name of Fátima, admiration and astonishment at the marvels that the Most Holy Virgin works there. Among the booklets, pamphlets and books written in Portuguese on the things of Fátima, the following deserve special mention: "A minha peregrinação a Fátima", a booklet of fourteen pages by Dona Maria Augusta Saraiva Vieira de Campos, published in October nineteen hundred and seventeen with the approval of the Bishop-Count of Coimbra; "Os episódios maravilhosos de Fátima", a pamphlet of seventy-two pages by the Visconde de Montelo, published in August nineteen hundred and twenty-one with the approval of the Bishop of Guarda; "Cartas sobre Fátima", a book by Gilberto Fernandes dos Santos, published in nineteen hundred and twenty-seven with the [46] approval of Canon Manuel Anaquim, governor of the Patriarchate; "Os acontecimentos de Fátima", a pamphlet of forty pages by the Visconde de Montelo, published in March nineteen hundred and twenty-three with the approval of the Bishop of Leiria; "Fátima", a book of eighty-eight pages illustrated with numerous pictures, by Leopoldo Nunes, published without canonical approval in April nineteen hundred and twenty-seven; "O manual do peregrino em Fátima", a book published in nineteen hundred and twenty-seven by the Rev.^do Dr. Manuel Marques dos Santos, professor at the Seminary of Leiria, with the approval of the Most Excellent Diocesan Prelate. The second edition of this book has already appeared; "As Grandes Maravilhas de Fátima", a book of four hundred and fourteen pages, illustrated with numerous pictures, by the Visconde de Montelo, published in December nineteen hundred and twenty-seven with the approval of the Bishop of Leiria; "O poema de Fátima", a book in verse published in nineteen hundred and twenty-eight; "Romagens de Fátima", a book of ninety-six pages, illustrated with pictures, by Dona Maria Feio, published in Lisbon in nineteen hundred and twenty-nine without canonical approval. In recent years the propagation of Fátima in foreign countries in the different parts of the world, and above all in the countries of Europe, has intensified prodigiously. Not to speak of the daily newspapers and periodicals, among the reviews that have dealt with the events of Fátima, some in long series of articles accompanied by illustrations, the following deserve special mention: "Sal Terrae",

"El Santíssimo Rosário" and "Los santuarios católicos", in Spain; "Revue du Rosaire" and "La vie sociale", in France; "La revue des idées et des faits", in Belgium; "De Illustratie", in Holland; "Stella matutina", in Italy; "Die Schildwache", in Germany; "Kalendarium Srca Isusova i Marijina", [46v] in Yugoslavia; and the "Mensagem árabe do Coração de Jesus". Among the books one can already mention "Fátima, das Portugiesische Lourdes", a book of one hundred and thirty-two pages, illustrated with pictures, published by the Rev.^do Dr. Luís Fischer, professor at the University of Bamberg, in November nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, with the approval of the ecclesiastical authority. The second edition of this book is about to appear, which shows the excellent reception it had in Germany. Of the first edition a print run of ten thousand copies was made. "Die Erscheinungen von Fatima", by the Rev.^do Dr. Luís Fischer, about to come off the press. "Les grandes merveilles de Fatima", a French translation, about to come off the press, of the book "As grandes maravilhas de Fátima" by the Visconde de Montelo, published by the Rev.^do G. Tournebise, director of the "Revue sociale", of Paris, with the approval of His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris.

The manifestations of faith and piety

To speak of the manifestations of faith and piety that for thirteen years have been held periodically, above all in Spring and Summer, on the holiest mountain of Portugal, is to evoke the most beautiful, most moving and most grandiose scenes that it has been given to witness on earth, according to unimpeachable testimonies such as that of Dr. Luís Fischer, professor at the University of Bamberg, in Bavaria, who went expressly to Fátima on the thirteenth of May, nineteen hundred and thirty³⁵, to attend the religious ceremonies of that day. There has never been, nor is there in the whole world, any spectacle that can be compared with that offered by the city of the Virgin on one of the days of greatest throng of pilgrims. Dr. Artur Bívar³⁶, the eminent publicist and critic, as intelligent as he is erudite, of the north of Portugal, who has travelled round the [47] principal sanctuaries of Europe,

already in May nineteen hundred and twenty-three³⁷ stated that he had never witnessed such thrilling scenes and that he had never seen, not even at Lourdes, so lively a faith and so ardent a piety as that of the crowds that flocked to Fátima. It would be endless to attempt an exact description of the marvellous and touching things that happen on a thirteenth of May or a thirteenth of October, or even on the thirteenth of another month. From the biblical scene, superb and indescribable, of the last apparition, when the miracle announced by the seers, occurring at the appointed hour, brought a crowd of seventy thousand people to their knees, praying and weeping with emotion, down to the portentous manifestation of faith and piety of the thirteenth of May, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, when about half a million pilgrims passed through the Cova da Iria, in that long period of twelve years, how many prodigies of the omnipotence of the Lord, how many testimonies of the goodness of the Virgin, how many graces poured out on souls, how many blessings come down upon bodies, how many acts of adoration of Jesus in the Host, how many proofs of devotion and confidence in the august Mother of God! Whoever wishes to form an approximate idea of what these unheard-of marvels of our times are, let him read the collection of the "Voz da Fátima" or one of the books dealing with the events of the Portuguese Lourdes. The throng of tens of thousands of pilgrims of both sexes, of all ages, classes and social conditions and from every part of Portugal and even from abroad, many of them covering tens of leagues on foot over consecutive days to reach the place of the apparitions and afterwards to return to their distant homes; the fulfilment of vows, leading so many people of every rank, on foot and barefoot or on their knees on the ground, to go round the chapel of the apparitions [47v] or to proceed from afar to the chapel; the dazzling candle procession with its surging waves, in which the gentle murmur of prayers mingles with the enthusiastic singing of the Ave of Fátima; the most moving ceremony of nocturnal adoration of Jesus in the Host exposed in the Sacred Monstrance on a throne of lights and flowers; the long and endless communion administered by dozens of priests to tens of thousands of people for hours on end; the mass and the blessing of the sick with the Most Blessed Sacrament; the confessions by the thousand, the resounding conversions, the miraculous cures and the processions of the Virgin: these are so many stanzas of that poem of mercy and love that is the divine poem of Fátima. When, during the candle procession, a pilgrim

arriving late reaches the top of the hill overlooking the Cova da Iria and contemplates the sea of fire that blazes across that vast amphitheatre, he thinks himself transported to a land of dreams and enchantment, and his dazzled eyes fill with tears of emotion and irrepressible exclamations of astonishment and joy come from his lips. No less lively and profound, but gentler and more touching still, is the impression he experiences on suddenly turning his eyes to the throne of love on which the Divine King rests, hidden under the eucharistic species, and to the immense multitude prostrate at his feet, adoring, praying and making reparation, and on hearing the prayers and hymns carried far and wide by the powerful voice of the loudspeakers. On those unforgettable days one sees, in great numbers, ecclesiastics, titled nobles, magistrates, members of parliament, army officers, professors of the most important educational establishments, writers and poets, doctors, lawyers, journalists, great landowners of the North, of Estremadura, of the two Beiras and of the Alentejo, and ladies of the highest nobility of Portugal, in a most moving mingling, united as brothers by the same Faith [48] and the same sentiments, side by side with men and women of the humblest social condition, poor and unlettered but worthy and honourable inhabitants of the villages and the countryside. No one ever goes to Fátima without bringing back the imperishable memory of those scenes of supreme beauty and majesty and an ineffable longing for those blessed places where the soul feels freed from the bonds of the body, further from earth, nearer to God.

The three titles of Our Lady

Portugal is perhaps the only country in the civilised world where, for about a century, since the establishment of the constitutional regime, steeped to the marrow in regalism and liberalism, freedom of religious association has been so precarious and so hedged about with restrictions as to make the existence of convents and houses of religious congregations practically almost impossible. This restriction and almost total crushing of the right belonging to souls called by God to serve him in the practice of special and complete perfection through religious profession and the taking of the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience according to the rule and constitutions of some Institute of solemn or simple vows approved by the Holy See constitutes a violation, as flagrant as it is revolting, of natural law and of the independence of the Church and her canonical legislation, all the more so since, alongside such tyranny, the greatest facilities are granted for the establishment of every kind of institution whose

Vadre Santa Marta de Mesquita e Melo (Andaluz)³⁸, to found, under the high patronage of Their Most Reverend Excellencies the Archbishop of Évora and the Bishop of Leiria, a work of an apostolic and reparatory character, entitled Apostolic and Reparatory Work of Our Lady of the Rosary, with three distinct branches, having as heavenly patroness the Most Holy Virgin under the titles of Carmel, of the Rosary and of Sorrows respectively. The first branch, whose seat is in Santarém, has as its aim the apostolate in various forms, principally through teaching and the press, and already has ten houses in regular operation, spread over four dioceses of the country. The second branch, with its seat in Lisbon, is devoted to the contemplative life, mitigated in harmony with the most recent prescriptions of Holy Church, and proposes to make reparation day and night for the offences committed against Our Lord, adoring Him and making reparation to Him, exposed in perpetual adoration, in his sacrament of love. The existence of this branch seems to have a close relation to certain predictions which the seer Jacinta Marto communicated on the eve of her death, saying that they had been made by Our Lady, who had appeared to her twice on that occasion. The third [49v] branch, which has its seat in Portalegre, is devoted to the preservation of persons of the female sex who find themselves in moral danger and to the regeneration of those who have already gone astray. The personnel of the three branches of the Work, not including the numerous auxiliary element, numbers about a hundred people, some choir sisters and the others lay sisters. The houses are spread over five dioceses. The good that this deserving institution has done is incalculable. Our Lady of Fátima seems to have it under her special protection, heaping on it graces and blessings of every kind. It has already organised the house of formation for its personnel, which will begin to operate in the current year of nineteen hundred and thirty, under the high patronage of His Most Reverend Eminence Dom Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, illustrious and venerable Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon

The extraordinary cures

If the august Sanctuary of the Portuguese Lourdes has been for these thirteen years past a fruitful wellspring of spiritual graces and blessings, it has also not failed to be a wellspring of health for bodies, an inexhaustible source of truly marvellous cures. Even at the time of the apparitions many sick people had recourse, full of

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confidence, to the power and goodness of her who is the Health of the sick, and that confidence was not disappointed. But above all after the apparitions, and especially since the appearance of the first spring of water at the very place of the apparitions, on the occasion of the celebration of the first open-air mass, as the cult of Our Lady of Fátima spread, the extraordinary cures attributed to her intercession multiplied astonishingly, making Fátima, from this point of view too, a second Lourdes no less marvellous than the first. These cures took place sometimes during or at the end of novenas made in honour of Our Lady, at other times as a result of the application of earth from the place of the apparitions kneaded with water, at other times after the internal or external use of water from the springs of the Cova da Iria. Many sick people of both sexes and of all ages and conditions, given up and declared incurable, whose ills had resisted the most vigorous and prolonged treatments, thus recovered their health, sometimes in a few days or a few hours, sometimes suddenly. These cures had an enormous repercussion throughout the country, and their echo reached foreign countries. From the various parts of Portugal and from other nations requests rain down incessantly for water from the springs of Fátima, reputed miraculous. Countless sick people, many of them in danger of death, some even in a comatose state, are carried amid the greatest discomfort, owing to the distance and the difficulty of access, to the sacred plateau of Fátima and, after passing through the medical verification office, go to occupy in long rows the benches of the respective pavilion, where they attend the religious acts, pray, weep and sing, and finally receive the blessing of the Most Blessed Sacrament and with it, sometimes, an instantaneous and complete cure or the relief of their infirmities, and always abundant graces of comfort and Christian resignation to bear the weight of their cross with glory to God and profit to their souls. These marvellous cures, wrought through the intercession of Our Lady of Fátima, are permanent. What is the power that produces them? A merely natural power? Science, consulted on this matter, has answered in the negative. The cures of Fátima exceed created powers; therefore they are the work of God. And as they are most intimately related to the Apparition, because it was she who inspired the confidence of the sick, and are truly supernatural and divine, the Apparition too is supernatural, the Apparition too is divine. In this way the miracles of Fátima constitute by themselves an evident, compelling and undeniable proof of the supernatural character of the apparitions. There follows a list of some of the most important cures attributed to the

intercession of Our Lady of Fátima, which are recorded in documents forming part of the canonical process and which are recognised as humanly inexplicable by conscientious and competent doctors.
1st case: Cecília Augusta Gouveia Prestes, of Torres Novas. Pulmonary and peritoneal tuberculosis with ascites. Certificate of Drs. Eugénio Ribeiro de Almeida and Augusto de Azevedo Mendes. "Voz da Fátima", no. 20, of 13 May 1924. 2nd case: José de Oliveira Carvalho, of Porto. Lumbar Pott's disease. Certificate of Dr. António do Couto Soares Júnior. "Voz da Fátima", no. 32, of 13 May 1925. 3rd case: José Rodrigues Vala, of Ribeira de Baixo (Porto de Mós). Tuberculous purulent pleurisy. Certificate of Dr. Adelino Pereira da Silva. "Voz da Fátima", no. 33, of 13 June 1925, and no. 43, of 13 April 1926. 4th case: Etelvina da Conceição Barroso, of Santarém. Gastric ulcers. Certificate of Dr. António Baptista Leite de Faria. "Voz da Fátima", no. 44, of 13 May 1926. 5th case: Rosa Maria Ribeiro, of Ponte da Barca. Gastric ulcers. Certificate of Drs. Bernardo Maria Coelho Vieira Ribeiro and Albino Domingues dos Santos. "Voz da Fátima", no. 49, 13 October 1926, and no. 59, of 13 August 1927. 6th case: Dr. Acácio da Silva Ribeiro (doctor), of Lisbon. Bone [51] fractures. Certificate-report of the cured doctor himself. "Voz da Fátima", no. 61, of 13 October 1927. 7th case: Maria Emília Fernandes, of Vilar (Cadaval). Left sciatica with homologous scoliosis. Certificate of Dr. Mário Pereira da Costa. "Voz da Fátima", no. 73, of 13 October 1928. 8th case: Aurora da Silva Tavares, of Porto. Chronic suppurative otitis media of the right ear. Certificates of Drs. António Teixeira Lopes Júnior and António Caetano Ferreira de Castro. "Voz da Fátima", no. 75, of 13 December 1928. 9th case: Dona Maria Margarida Teixeira Lopes, of Lousada. External abscesses. Certificate of Dr. Joaquim Hermano Teixeira de Carvalho. "Voz da Fátima", no. 75, of 13 December 1928, and no. 76, of 13 January 1929. 10th case: Maria Augusta Dias, of Alter do Chão (Alentejo). Atrophy of the optic nerves, with one eye completely blind and the other barely perceiving light, considered incurable by the most celebrated specialists of Lisbon. "Voz da Fátima", no. 78, of 13 March 1929. 11th case: Amélia da Silva, of S. Martinho da Arada, Ovar. Gastric ulcers and chronic laryngitis. Certificate of Dr. Benjamim Tiago Valente de Brito (Feira). "Voz da Fátima", no. 79, of 13 April 1929. 12th case: Maria Pereira Soares, of Guilhufe (Penafiel). Ulcerative

gastritis. Certificate of Dr. Guilherme Augusto Pereira Cunha. "Voz da Fátima", no. 79, of 13 April 1929. 13th case: Dona Maria José dos Santos Nunes, of Lisbon. Serious lesion of the central nervous system of bacillary nature. Certificate of Dr. Fernando Wanzeler Pessoa. "Voz da Fátima", no. 80, of 13 May 1929. 14th case: Emília Martins Batista, of Aldreu (Barcelos). Certificate of Dr. José Gomes de Matos Graça. "Voz da Fátima", no. 80, of 13 May 1929. 15th case: Arnaldo Duarte da Silva, of Igreja Nova (Mafra). Tuberculous meningitis. [51v] Certificate of Dr. João Torrado da Silva. "Voz da Fátima", no. 82, of 13 July 1929. 16th case: Dona Emília de Jesus Marques, of Lousada. Complete paralysis of the left arm and leg. Certificate of Dr. Joaquim Hermano Mendes de Carvalho. "Voz da Fátima", no. 83, of 13 August 1929. 17th case: Albina de Matos, of Avanca. Generalised visceral ptosis. Certification of Dr. António de Abreu Freire. "Voz da Fátima", no. 87, of 13 December 1929.

Final considerations

In the presence of everything set out up to this point, it remains to formulate, recapitulating and summarising, the final considerations of this report, which cannot fail to be entirely favourable to the reality of the apparitions and to the supernatural and divine origin of those apparitions, as well as of the other extraordinary events that accompanied and followed them. The seers, as appears from the psychophysiological analysis of their persons and from the attentive and rigorous examination of their depositions, were neither mistaken nor sought to deceive in the assertions they made, in the statements they gave. Some contradictions, more apparent than real, admit of fully satisfactory explanations. The very case of the prediction concerning the approaching end of the great European war may have more than one plausible solution, one that leaves the most demanding mind entirely at rest. The juridical principle no one is presumed bad unless it is proved has full application here. Nothing proves that any of the children consciously departed from the truth. Nothing proves either that any of them was the victim of any illusion or hallucination. No one can doubt their sincerity. It imposes itself on all minds and all well-formed consciences, thanks to their innocence, their candour and their charming simpli-[52]city. The scenes of which they were witnesses they describe without affectation and with touching ingenuousness, as if they were things that did not concern them. Belief in their assertions is won by the force of conviction that

characterises them. Their disinterestedness is manifest. The most generous offers leave them absolutely indifferent. The terrible threats addressed to them, even by the administrative authority itself, and the harsh trials to which they are subjected, although they succeed in intimidating Francisco and Jacinta to the point of making them cry, do not prevent them from constantly maintaining their assertions, nor are they even able to wrest from them the secret that the Apparition communicated to them and which they keep, religiously and inviolably, with a fidelity and firmness proof against everything, impossible to explain at their tender age without special assistance from On High. And how can it be admitted that the seers were mistaken? How can it be supposed that they did not see or hear what they believed they saw and heard? How can they be considered victims of a hallucination? The good sense of their answers, allied to a childlike ingenuousness, reveals a normal mind, a serene and calm imagination, an uncommon good sense. There was in the children no morbid affection that disposed them to produce imaginary creations. Their age, their temperament, their upbringing and their piety, which in no way differed from the piety of the other children their companions, completely exclude any exaltation of religious feeling arising from some disorder of the intellect and the senses or from some organic deformity. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the visions of the little shepherds were fruitful, unlike the visions of neuropaths, which are utterly sterile, as the effects of an exalted mi-[52v]nd and a disordered imagination. Moreover, the news of the apparitions of Fátima, like that of the apparitions of Lourdes, spread with lightning speed, and already on the occasion of the sixth and last apparition, without there having been any invitation, any announcement, any prior organisation, there gathered at the Cova da Iria a crowd of pilgrims truly astounding in its quantity and quality, if one considers the circumstances of the time, the distance and the access. One would say that a powerful spiritual magnet was making the souls and hearts of the Portuguese converge on the ridge of the serra de Aire. And once the cycle of the apparitions was definitively closed, the throng of pilgrims intensified exceedingly, and for thirteen years that incessant and mighty torrent of the crowds flocking to the Portuguese Lourdes has been one of the most beautiful and most moving spectacles it is given to witness on earth. Lukewarm souls grow fervent, indifferent ones return to religious practice, and sinful ones are reconciled with God. All afflicted and troubled hearts find in that blessed centre of heavenly graces the comfort and consolation they need to embrace their cross with resignation. The attitude both of Lúcia's parents and of the parents

of Francisco and Jacinta, correct and absolutely disinterested, further vouches for the truthfulness of the children. This truthfulness is proclaimed by many people who knew them and considered them incapable of lying, as can be seen in various documents that form part of the canonical process. The circumstance that the apparitions began in May and ended in October, months especially consecrated by Holy Church throughout the Catholic world to the cult of the Most Holy Virgin, and this last month precisely [53] under the title of the Most Holy Rosary, and on a Saturday, a day which the Church also dedicates to Our Lady, and the coincidence of the first apparition with the Portuguese feast, prescribed by the ecclesiastical calendar of the Patriarchate, in honour of Our Lady of the Martyrs, whose office and mass seem an anticipated glorification of the marvels of Fátima, are well calculated to make a deep impression on anyone who sees in the events, as one should see, the admirable plan of Divine Providence unfolding gently and firmly, like a consoling promise of graces and blessings. The ecstasy that occurred in Lúcia, at least on the 13th of September, during the penultimate apparition, constitutes, as an effect of a supernatural order, a valuable argument for the reality of the apparition. The phenomenon of the cloud of smoke and the solar phenomenon are facts that cannot be explained naturally. Still less can Lúcia's prediction concerning the solar phenomenon, fulfilled on the day and at the hour the seer named, be explained naturally. The statements given by the seers in the inquiries carried out by the ecclesiastical authority and, in a particular way, the deposition of Lúcia, who is unquestionably the principal seer, in the Porto inquiry, at eighteen years of age, when she was about to embrace, like Blessed Bernadette Soubirous, the religious life in the Congregation of St Dorothy, where she has since been professed, allow no doubts to be entertained about the sincerity of the children. The edifying death of Francisco Marto and the no less edifying death of his sister Jacinta Marto, truly extraordinary in the circumstances that surrounded it, with the implicit confirmation, made by both the one and the other, of all the statements they had made up to then concerning the apparitions, are elements of proof that should not be disregarded. The false apparitions, the opposition of the clergy, the private and official persecutions, in which every kind of expedient was resorted to in order to stifle the great nascent movement of moral and religious renewal that was spreading throughout the whole country in an unexpected and astounding way, are, so to speak, the counter-proof of the truth of the

apparitions and of the supernatural origin of the events. The appearance of a spring of abundant water at the very place of the apparitions, in a region where there are no springs but only wells with rainwater, is a truly providential fact, if one considers above all the imperious and urgent need there was for water for the pilgrims, for the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of the place, for the animals used to convey the pilgrims and for the grandiose works to be carried out at the Cova da Iria and on the site of the future city of Fátima. Compelled by the overwhelming evidence of the truth, His Most Reverend Excellency Dom José Alves Correia da Silva, venerable Bishop of Leiria, in nineteen hundred and twenty-two, after having authorised public worship of Our Lady of the Rosary at the Cova da Iria, independently of the reality or non-reality of the apparitions, appointed a canonical commission to carry out a long and detailed inquiry into the events of Fátima. The throng of pilgrims, whose number in the course of each year is incomparably greater than that of the pilgrims to Lourdes, despite the distances, the difficulties of access and the lack of considerable contingents of foreign elements; the numerous and incessant conversions brought about not only at Fátima but throughout the country, above all on the thirteenth of each month, thanks [54] to this providential devotion; the quickening of the Faith and piety of the Portuguese people, nourished by the correlative frequenting of the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist; the stupendous and utterly inexplicable diffusion of the cult of Our Lady of Fátima in our fatherland and in the other countries of the world; the inflow of alms, so many and many of them so large, which permit the immediate construction of one of the largest churches in Christendom; the foundation of a great Work of apostolate, reparation and regeneration which has spread and continues to spread everywhere an incalculable sum of benefits of the temporal and of the spiritual order; and, finally, the great manifestations of Faith and piety of which the Cova da Iria, or rather the whole of Portugal, is the theatre on the thirteenth of May and the thirteenth of October of each year, and which have nothing in the universe to compare with them: these are so many arguments of great value in favour of the supernatural fact of Fátima. And as the last, definitive and irrefutable confirmation that the Most Holy Virgin appeared at Fátima for the salvation of so many souls, there stands to attest it the long series of miraculous cures, many of which have been established as such by the verdict of Science.

[54v] Table of contents

1. The seers and the official inquiries
2. The liturgy on the day of the first apparition
3. The ecstasy of Lúcia de Jesus
4. The springs of water
5. The attitude of the parents of Lúcia de Jesus
6. The attitude of the parents of Francisco and Jacinta Marto
7. The death of Francisco Marto
8. The death of Jacinta Marto
9. The throng of pilgrims
10. The official inquiries
11. The counterfeits
12. The opposition of the clergy
13. Private persecutions: the outrages
14. Official persecutions
15. The Bishop of Leiria and the Work of Fátima
16. Official Interrogation of Lúcia de Jesus
17. The religious profession of Lúcia de Jesus
18. The cult of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal and the colonies
19. The cult of Our Lady of Fátima abroad
20. The conversions
21. The quickening of Faith and piety
22. Fátima and His Holiness Pope Pius XI
[Fátima and the Pope]
23. The great European war of 1914
24. The works at the Cova da Iria
25. The phenomenon of the cloud of smoke
26. The solar phenomenon
[The solar phenomenon and Lúcia's prediction]
27. Bibliography of Fátima
28. The manifestations of Faith and piety
29. The three titles of Our Lady
30. The marvellous cures
[The extraordinary cures]
31. Final considerations

[55] The great European war

The Apparition wished the rosary to be prayed and penance to be done so that God might deign to put an end to the great scourge of the war that was devastating so many nations, producing millions of victims and sowing every kind of moral and material ruin everywhere. She announced that the tremendous scourge would end, or rather would have ended, on the 13th of October, if men repented and amended their sins and appeased divine justice by praying and doing penance. Lúcia was mistaken in considering the Vision's statement as absolute. The condition implicitly laid down by the Vision was not fulfilled, and so the war did not end. Already in the Old Testament, Jonah had been mistaken in making, by God's command, a prophecy which he thought absolute and which was only conditional. The city of Nineveh would be destroyed on the day fixed by the prophet if its inhabitants did not do penance. "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" The population of the city believed the threat, and all, from the king down to the last of his subjects and even the very animals, put on sackcloth and ashes. For this reason Nineveh was spared, to the great astonishment and even a certain vexation of Jonah, who, not knowing the merciful designs of the Lord, wanted at all costs the prophecy to be fulfilled, so that no one would doubt that he had spoken in the name and by the command of God. Something very similar happened to St Leonard of Port Maurice, the great apostle of Europe in the Middle Ages. In his preaching he announced the end of the world for two years later. He even raised to life a dead man who was being carried to the cemetery, in order to confirm the truth of his preaching. The dead man affirmed that everything he said was true. But the two years [55v] passed and the world did not end, because Europe was converted by the preaching of St Leonard of Port Maurice. Besides, the Most Holy Virgin may have permitted Lúcia's mistake on purpose, to keep her in a spirit of deep humility through the confusion that came to her from having erred, at least apparently, on a point of capital importance. Nor does the circumstance of her having fallen into a misunderstanding prevent her depositions from deserving full credence. That misunderstanding had its providential reason and in no way hindered, as in fact it did not hinder, the regular course of the events that made Fátima the Portuguese Lourdes. In the official interrogation to which Lúcia was subjected,

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at eighteen years of age, when she was a boarder at the Asilo de Vilar, in Porto, the seer says, word for word, the following: "it seems to me that the Lady also spoke in this way: be converted, the war ends today, expect your soldiers very soon. My cousin Jacinta told me at home that the Lady had spoken thus: be converted, for the war will end within a year. As I was thinking about the requests I wanted to make to the Lady, I did not pay close attention".

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