Domingos Pinto Coelho

As to what, in this last respect, occurred on the recent 13th, a Saturday, we can bear witness, because we were there, not as a pilgrim, be it well noted, but as a curious onlooker.

From 11 to half past one the rain was constant and driven by a strong wind: frankly rough and unpleasant weather, which the enormous multitude of many thousands of people bore in excellent humour, with no other shelter than umbrellas and vehicles — for not a single building is to be seen in the vicinity.

One hour 37 and a half minutes — solar noon — was the announced hour of the vision, with which the phenomena in the sky were expected to coincide.

At that hour it was still raining.

Minutes later the rain lessened, and when it was a quarter to two it stopped completely.

The sun, hidden until then, showed itself between clouds that were moving with some speed. And as their density varied, so the veil they drew over the king of stars was more or less transparent.

Like all that multitude, we then looked at the sun with sustained attention and, through the clouds, we saw it with new aspects: new to us, be it well noted.

Sometimes surrounded by blood-red flames, at other times haloed with softened yellow or purple, at other times seeming to be animated by a very swift rotary motion, at other times again appearing to break away from the sky, to approach the earth and to radiate a strong heat.

Why deny it? These phenomena, which we had never seen, impressed us strongly. In multitudes a collective psychology takes hold. And, broadly speaking, a great wave of faith passed over that multitude, which was deeply moving.

[…]

In short, we came back from Fátima in the same state of mind in which we had gone there - in doubt.

Now what did we say about the Fátima affair? That we, the obscure author of these lines, had not observed any fact that would lead us to suppose the supernatural. But not only is this a personal and unauthoritative point of view; we also have no wish whatever to dispute the observations, different from ours, that other people may have made.

We would desire nothing more than to witness facts to which no natural explanation could be fitted.

Great was our disappointment when on Sunday, as we said, we ascertained the emptiness of what had seemed marvellous to us the day before: all the more so as we had been greatly impressed by the coincidence of the rain, after three consecutive hours, stopping almost exactly at the hour when the children were praying, the sun then appearing among the clouds.

"Now what did we say about the Fátima affair? That we, obscure author of these lines, had not observed any fact that would lead us to suppose the supernatural. But not only is it a personal and unauthoritative point of view, but in no way do we wish to dispute the observations that other people may have made, different from our own".

The transcription is verbatim.

[…]

In my article of Tuesday, after narrating the second observation I had made, on the Sunday, of the appearance of the sun seen through clouds, I added the warning, given me by a doctor, that it was dangerous to stare at the sun, cases of blindness produced by that imprudence not being rare.

That the effects of the sun on the 13th seemed marvellous and strongly impressed the multitude, we already noted in the articles of the 16th and 17th.

And there we also pointed out the coincidence of the phenomenon taking place on the day and at the hour announced (with a difference of only a few moments), and of the rain, which until then had been falling for hours on end with a persistence fit to try one's patience, stopping at that moment.

[…]

Or are they even commonly observed, given certain favourable circumstances in the sky, as seemed to us to result from Sunday's observation?

Of all these, only the Pintos Coelhos raise doubts or exaggerated prudence, Domingos even coming out and writing in the "Ordem" that the following day he saw the same thing in the sun!

One doubt remained to us, however.

Was what we had seen in the sun something exceptional? Or would it be reproduced in analogous circumstances?

Now precisely this analogy of circumstances presented itself to us yesterday. We were able to see the sun half veiled by clouds, as on Saturday. And sincerely: — we saw the same successions of colours, the same rotary movement, etc.

The Ordem [1v] shows doubt about the Apparition, suspects the children of suggestion, and declares that on the following day it saw the same phenomenon in the sun, in order to remove from the public mind any idea of a miracle!

Dr. Pinto Coelho asserts that on the following day he saw (at Cascaes) the same phenomenon that 50 thousand people witnessed in the hills of Fátima amid the greatest emotion. But it is singular that only the illustrious lawyer should see the repetition of the phenomenon (which he says is natural) anew, in contradiction with the astronomer Oom, who denies that it is natural, and that nobody else there should have noticed the sensational occurrence.

This displeasure of those who believe in the revelations to the children and in the miracle of the sun — and they are almost all of those who were at Fátima on the 13th of October last, at one in the afternoon — was not escaped by Mr Dr. Domingos Pinto Coelho, a man of the noblest character, a Catholic of indisputable authority and prestige, because he came forward loyally to confess that he saw the same phenomena in the sun on the following day, and to explain the Catholic attitude to be observed in cases of this kind: prudence, study and expectation.