FATIMA, Portugal — Mary's example of believing and following Jesus is what matters most; she cannot be some image "of our own making" who Christians barter with for mercy, Pope Francis said.
On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions at Fatima, the pope asked tens of thousands of pilgrims May 12 to reflect on "which Mary" they choose to venerate, "the virgin Mary from the Gospel" or "one who restrains the arm of a vengeful God?"
Is the Mary they honor "a woman blessed because she believed always and everywhere in God's words or a 'plaster statue' from whom we beg favors at little cost?" he asked.
As the sun set at the shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima, pilgrims held thousands of lit candles, filling the square with a fiery light before Pope Francis led them in praying the rosary.
The pope already had visited the shrine earlier in the evening, arriving by helicopter from Monte Real air base. Excited crowds, waving flags and white handkerchiefs, cheered as he arrived in his popemobile.
He then made his way to the Little Chapel of the Apparitions where Mary appeared to three shepherd children May 13, 1917. The apparitions continued once a month until Oct. 13, 1917, and later were declared worthy of belief by the Catholic Church.
The festive cheering of the crowd turned to near absolute silence as the pope spent several minutes with his head bowed and hands clasped in prayer, occasionally looking up at the statue of Mary venerated by his predecessors and millions of devotees across the globe.
Pope Francis then recited a prayer he wrote, an expanded version of the traditional "Salve Regina" ("Hail Holy Queen").
Alternating his verses with a choral refrain venerating the "Queen of the Rosary of Fatima," the pope consecrated himself to Mary and entrusted to her intercession a suffering humanity where blood "is shed in the wars tearing our world apart."
Begging Mary's assistance, the pope prayed that believers would "tear down all walls and overcome all boundaries, going to all peripheries, there revealing God's justice and peace."
"In the depths of your being, in your immaculate heart, you keep the sorrows of the human family, as they mourn and weep in this valley of tears," the pope prayed.
He also presented himself before the image of Mary as "a bishop robed in white," a reference to the third secret revealed to the children at Fatima. Published 83 years after the Fatima apparitions, the vision described the image of a "bishop dressed in white" shot down amid the rubble of a ruined city.
The official Vatican interpretation, discussed with the visionary Sister Lucia dos Santos before its publication, was that it referred to the persecution of Christians in the 20th century and, specifically, to the 1981 assassination attempt on the life of St. John Paul II.
As Blessed Paul VI and retired Pope Benedict XVI did before him, Pope Francis placed a small silver vase containing 24-karat gold roses at the foot of the statue. Embedded in the statue's crown is one of the bullets used in the assassination attempt against St. John Paul II on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, 1981.
Returning to the little chapel for a nighttime vigil, Pope Francis reminded pilgrims to pray, as Mary taught the children at Fatima, for "those most in need" of God's mercy.
"On each of the destitute and outcast robbed of the present, on each of the excluded and abandoned denied a future, on each of the orphans and victims of injustice refused a past, may there descend the blessing of God, incarnate in Jesus Christ," he said.
Pope Francis held up Mary as a "model of evangelization," particularly because Christian men and women can look at her and see that "humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong."
Those who emphasize God's punishment of sinners, he said, commit "a great injustice" to him by not recognizing that sinners "are forgiven by his mercy."
"Mercy has to be put before judgment," he said, "and, in any case, God's judgment will always be rendered in the light of his mercy."
"With Mary, may each of us become a sign and sacrament of the mercy of God, who pardons always and pardons everything," he said.
— Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service
Pilgrimage to Fatima a time of prayer, encounter, pope says
LEIRIA, Portugal — Pope Francis said his two-day pilgrimage to Fatima would be a time of prayer and encounter with Jesus and Mary.
The visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima "is a bit special," he told reporters aboard his flight from Rome May 12. "It is a journey of prayer, an encounter with the Lord and the holy Mother of God."
After a three-hour flight, during which Pope Francis greeted each of the 69 journalists traveling with him, the papal plane landed at Monte Real air base, about 25 miles from Fatima.
The pope's trip was planned for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Mary's apparitions to three shepherd children in Fatima.
On the actual anniversary, May 13, Pope Francis was to canonize two of the three young seers, Blessed Jacinta Marto and her brother Blessed Francisco Marto, making them the youngest non-martyred saints in the Catholic Church.
Arriving at the military base, the pope was welcomed by Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and held a brief private meeting with him at the base. He also visited the base chapel and blessed sick members of military families.
Before leaving his residence at the Vatican that morning, the pope met with six women, who "had been through tough times," said Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman. Two were pregnant and several were migrants. They all brought their children with them to meet the pope.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state and the pope's closest collaborator, said Pope Francis' visit would "express his own love and devotion to Mary" and his great respect for the Marian devotion of Catholics around the world.
In the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima to the three shepherd children, Pope Francis sees an example of the Mary described by the Magnificat, the biblical hymn of praise for the great things God has done through her, Cardinal Parolin told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
At Fatima, "Our Lady of the Rosary appeared not to the rich or powerful, nor to people who were influential, but to children," he said. The children were from simple families and were illiterate, "like the least of society or, to use the terminology of the pope, the 'discarded' of society. And Mary wanted to favor this category of people, giving the little shepherds a countercultural message."
In 1917, World War I was raging and people and public discourse was filled with words of hatred, vengeance and hostility, the cardinal said. "Mary, on the other hand, spoke of love, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and giving oneself to others. It was a total reversal of all the values, or anti-values, that prevailed at that time."
The two lessons Pope Francis draws from Fatima for the world today, he said, are the need to value the least of one's brothers and sisters and the need "to live those authentic values that can be the basis for peaceful coexistence and solidarity within a nation and among countries."
Bishop Antonio dos Santos Marto of Leiria-Fatima, also writing in the Vatican newspaper, said the Fatima message has touched so many people around the world for generations because it spoke and continues to speak about strengthening faith when the world around one is in turmoil.
The messages given by Our Lady of Fatima to the three children in 1917, the bishop said, spoke of "the two world wars and the suffering of humanity, with a specific mention of nations like Russia; the persecution of the church with the mention of the martyrs of the 20th century and of the pope himself; and of the great cause of peace among people."
"All of that," Bishop Marto said, "was accompanied by a very strong warning to not resign oneself to those situations as if they were normal" and not to give into a sense that evil will determine human destiny. "It is possible to defeat evil by starting with the conversion of hearts to God, prayer and reparation for sins."
— Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis will visit Portugal in 2017 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions of Fatima.
The pope, who accepted the invitation made by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and the bishops of Portugal, "will go on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima from May 12-13," the Vatican announced Dec. 17.
The pilgrimage will mark the anniversary of the Marian apparitions, which first began on May 13, 1917, when three shepherd children reported seeing the Virgin Mary.
The apparitions continued once a month until Oct. 13, 1917, and later were declared worthy of belief by the Catholic Church.
Following the announcement, Father Carlos Cabecinhas, rector of the Fatima shrine told Agencia Ecclesia, the news agency of the Portuguese bishops' conference, that the visit was a "cause for joy" for the shrine.
"For the shrine of Fatima, it is a great joy to receive this confirmation of Pope Francis' visit," he said.
"We know that those days will be a pilgrimage marked by this festivity that, on the one hand is for the centennial of the apparitions and, on the other hand, marks the presence of the pope in our midst and a pope as beloved as Pope Francis," Father Cabecinhas said.
While the Vatican confirmed the dates of the visit, the pope had already said that he intended to go.
"Certainly, as things presently stand, I will go to Portugal, and only to Fatima," he told journalists during his return flight to Rome from Azerbaijan Oct. 2.
Pope Francis will be the fourth pontiff to visit the Marian shrine, following the footsteps of Blessed Paul VI, Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, who each paid homage different years to Mary on the anniversary of the first apparition May 13.
— Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service