In Portugal, Pope Francis Proclaims Two Fátima Siblings Saints<br />The children, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, along with an older cousin, Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos, told skeptical elders<br />that they had witnessed six apparitions of the Virgin between May 13, 1917, and Oct. 13, 1917, when Jacinta was 7, Francisco was 9 and Lúcia was 10, according to the Vatican.<br />By RAPHAEL MINDERMAY 13, 2017<br />FÁTIMA, Portugal — Pope Francis canonized two Portuguese shepherd children during a Mass on Saturday, a century after the children<br />and their cousin said they first saw the Virgin Mary here.<br />The sanctuary is home to two basilicas, but its most important feature is the much smaller Chapel of the Apparitions,<br />which stands where the Virgin is said to have appeared to the children in 1917, on the side of the esplanade.<br />The third secret was long kept a mystery, but the sanctuary’s importance grew after Pope John Paul II credited the Virgin of Fátima<br />with saving his life when Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman, tried to kill him on May 13, 1981, the anniversary of the visions.<br />Nancy said that There are priests who just look at you from a distance, but he’s simple, humble and wants to touch and greet people spontaneously,<br />Lara Saavedra, 28, a nun and theology student, said she had walked about 13 miles to Fátima early on Friday<br />and then spent the night on the esplanade, getting ready for Saturday’s morning Mass.<br />"It’s also different because the Virgin appeared at a moment of great difficulties,<br />when the world needed reconciliation," he added, in reference to World War I.
