By FR. SEAN CONNOLLY
(Editor’s Note: This is the seventh in a series of articles on the one hundredth anniversary of our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima. Fr. Connolly is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.)
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During the entirely misnamed age of the “Enlightenment,” movements to dethrone prominent Catholic monarchies began to spread throughout Europe. Both absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Catholic Church were the primary targets of the philosophes who achieved their most striking victory in 1789 when the King of France was dethroned.
The revolution embroiling France did not really end when the monarchy was completely abolished in August 1792. Revolutionary fervor continued even into the 18th and 19th centuries and became allied to Freemasonry, whose pursuit of political liberty was filled with a virulent strain of anticlericalism. (1)
The alliance of altar and throne came to be viewed as a formula for tyranny and finally in 1870 even the Papal States fell to the Kingdom of Italy and its unification movement. Many saw Blessed Pius IX’s resistance to the papacy’s loss of temporal power as political obscurantism, but it can be rightly viewed as the last heroic stand of Christian civilization against the forces of the anti-Christian spirit of the Enlightenment and its revolutionary fervor. (2)
In 1910, revolution came to the nation of Portugal where the village of Fatima is located. The anticlerical government that replaced the ancient Catholic monarchy comprised prominent freemasons who sought the complete secularization of society. The cardinal patriarch of Lisbon and many other bishops were exiled, Church property was seized, seminaries were closed, priests and religious were forbidden to wear their cassock or habit in public, and divorce and family laws were approved which considered marriage as a purely civil contract.
The chief of one of the lodges of Masons in Portugal, Alfonso Costa, boasted that in two generations Catholicism would be eliminated in Portugal. (3)
After the apparition of July 13 in which an estimated four thousand people were present, word began to spread, especially on account of the reports our Lady had confided a secret to the children and that there would be a great miracle in October to prove her appearances to them.
The area of Fatima was administered by a fiercely anticlerical freemason named Arturo de Oliveira Santos. He not only felt compelled to put an end to the “hysteria” taking place there because of his own anti-Catholic prejudice, but also because, as word continued to spread, the journalists of the country began to criticize governmental authorities for their negligence in putting a stop to what they considered to be “clerical deceptions.” (4)
Steadfast
Administrator Santos began his efforts to put an end to the Fatima event by first arranging to meet with the three children and their parents at the administrative council headquarters in Ourem. Lucia’s father accompanied her, but Ti Marto, the father of Francisco and Jacinta, went alone as he refused to have his young children make the nine-mile walk from Fatima to Ourem in the summer heat. (5)
At the meeting, Lucia persevered in resisting Santos’ threats to have her killed and her parents punished if she refused to admit the apparitions were nothing but a hoax.
Later, when the date of our Lady’s next apparition arrived on August 13, Santos went to the homes of the children, claiming he wanted to witness the apparition so that, like St. Thomas, “seeing he would believe.” (6)
From their homes he accompanied the children to the rectory of the local parish priest, Fr. Manuel Ferreira, for a brief meeting, and from there, deceived the children into making them think he would take them to the Cova da Iria for the apparitions, but instead took them by his horse-drawn wagon to Ourem.
By noon, the hour of the apparition, the children were in his custody at Ourem while six thousand people were assembled in the Cova. The Mother of God came as she said she would. A faint murmur like a very distant thunder was heard and a white shadow was seen floating over the holmoak tree where all the apparitions had occurred. (7)
The three children remained steadfast in their account of all they had seen in the Cova on the 13th of the three preceding months. As a result, they were throw into a common room with other prisoners of the local jail. What a sight this must have been — three little children among hardened criminal men! From it, came some beautiful anecdotes that testify to the holiness of the children.
In the jail, Jacinta began to cry, fearing she, Lucia, and Francisco were abandoned by their parents. Words of consolation came from her brother Francisco, which show a depth to the spiritual life far beyond his years: “Don’t cry. We can offer this to Jesus for sinners.” Then, raising his eyes and hands to Heaven, he made the offering: “Oh my Jesus, this is for love of you, and for the conversion of sinners.” Then, Jacinta added: “And also for the Holy Father, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” (8)
On display in the jail was the childlike faith and firm resolve of the saints. The three children knelt together and began praying the rosary. Touched, some of the men joined them. When one was on his knees beside the children praying with his hat on, he was sternly rebuked by Francisco to remove it. He did so without any hesitation. (9) When one of the prisoners sought to console the children by informing them their lives would be spared if only they would tell the administrator the secret, Jacinta replied: “Never! I would rather die.” (10)
As time passed, one of the prisoners began to play his concertina while others began to sing. Jacinta joined in and even took one of the prisoners as a dance partner!
The levity was broken when Administrator Santos returned to interrogate them further. He threatened if they did not reveal the secret and admit this was all a hoax, he would throw them alive into a vat of boiling oil. The children were separated with each one being told the other had died in agony. Being only ten, nine, and seven years old, they believed the lie but held firm, nonetheless.
On August 15, the Feast of our Lady’s Assumption, Santos had to admit defeat and returned the children home. They were returned to the rectory and were seen there as villagers came from the holy day Mass at the parish. They were incensed, thinking Fr. Manuel Ferreira, the pastor, was complicit in the abduction. The priest had to be protected from the angry crowd by Francisco and Jacinta’s sympathetic father.
Lucia was received with indifference by her parents. Her mother, who was particularly opposed to her claims of seeing the Blessed Virgin, which she thought was a lie, hoped the frightening tactics of Administrator Santos would bring her daughter to her senses. This was a heavy cross to bear for Lucia who resolved to offer it to God as a form of penance. (11)
Four days later on August 19, when the children resumed their task of caring for their family’s sheep, our Lady appeared to them unexpectedly at 4:00 in the afternoon, not in the Cova da Iria, but in a place called Valinhos, which is about a ten-minute walk from where they lived in the hamlet of Aljustrel near the site where the Angel of Peace made two of his appearances. (12)
Lucia had a sense that our Lady was coming. Jacinta was not with them, so Lucia sent an older brother of Francisco and Jacinta named John who happened to be with them to go fetch her. When Jacinta arrived, there came a flash of light and our Lady stood before them on a small bush.
In this brief appearance, the Blessed Virgin Mary told the children she wished them to return again to the Cova on the 13th of the next month of September and to continue praying the rosary daily. She also repeated her promise to perform a miracle in October so all might believe.
Lucia asked her what ought to be done with the offering of money people left at the Cova. The simplicity of our Lady’s answer and dialogue with the children charms the soul: “Have two litters [used to carry statues] made. One is to be carried by you and Jacinta and two other girls dressed in white; the other one is to be carried by Francisco and three other boys. The money from the litters is for the festa of Our Lady of the Rosary, and what is left over will help toward the construction of a chapel that is to be built here.”
The simple but clear response of our Lady indicates that the Church’s liturgical and devotional worship utilizing statues and processions is pleasing to her. Her answer to Lucia’s question also shows approval of monetary offerings of each according to his means as acts of thanksgiving in support of the Church.
And, interestingly, years later, when an archbishop asked Sr. Lucia about her thoughts of the attention our Lady gave to the litters, Sr. Lucia indicated that it was a prophetic sign pointing to the pilgrim statues of Our Lady of Fatima that travel throughout the world and those used in the daily processions around the grounds of the Cova in the sanctuary of Fatima today. (13)
Lucia asked our Lady to cure some sick people and another simple response came in reply: “Some I will cure during the year.” The apparition ended with our Lady’s face becoming sad as she said: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them.” (14)
A Fragrance
After this final message, our Lady rose toward the east and disappeared. John was disappointed, as he tried hard to see the Blessed Virgin, but only reported hearing a clap of thunder similar to the firing of a gun. (15) The children broke off a small branch of the bush, which the resplendent robe of Mary had touched, and raced home to inform their parents of the unexpected visit from Heaven they had received at Valinhos.
All who took the branch into their hands acknowledged the penetratingly sweet fragrance that emanated from it. Even Lucia’s doubting mother acknowledged it, and from that time, modified her opinions of the apparitions from staunch opposition to agnosticism. (16)
Several days later, the three children found an opportunity to put into practice our Lady’s request for penance on behalf of sinners in need of conversion. While walking together, they found a heavy piece of rope lying in the road. They cut pieces of it to wear as girdles around their waists upon their skin so they might offer the pain and discomfort to God for the conversion of sinners. In this manner and with increased prayer, they awaited our Lady’s return on the 13th of the next month.
FOOTNOTES
1. Eamon Duffy, Saint and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 280.
2. Ibid, p. 290.
3. Andrew Apostoli, Fatima for Today: The Urgent Marian Message of Hope (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p. 95.
4. Ibid., p. 96.
5. Ibid., p. 97.
6. Ibid., p. 98.
7. Warren H. Carroll, 1917: Red Banners, White Mantle (Front Royal, Va.: Christendom Publications, 1981), p. 88.
8. Apostoli, p. 99.
9. Apostoli, p. 100.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., pp. 102-103.
12. Ibid., pp. 103.
13. Ibid., pp. 105-106.
14. Ibid., pp. 106-107.
15. John de Marchi, The True Story of Fatima: A Complete Account of the Fatima Apparitions (Constable, New York: The Fatima Center, 2009), p. 41.
16. Ibid., p. 42.
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