Pope Francis Approves Decrees . . . Fatima Visionary Sr. Lucia Declared Venerable
By CHRISTOPHER WELLS
VATICAN CITY (VaticanNews) — Pope Francis has approved decrees recognizing the heroic virtues of five servants of God, including Sr. Lucia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos, one of the visionaries of Fatima; along with the martyrdom of twenty martyrs of the Spanish Civil War.
Carmelite Sr. Lucia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos, who, along with her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto witnessed a series of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima, has been declared venerable by the Church.
The decree recognizing Sr. Lucia’s heroic virtues was promulgated on Thursday, June 22 with the approval of Pope Francis.
In 1916, Lucia and her two cousins reported being visited by an Angel in the area of Fatima, Portugal. The following year, beginning on May 13, the children claimed to receive a series of apparitions from the Blessed Virgin Mary, which culminated six months later with the famous “Miracle of the Sun” that was witnessed by tens of thousands of people.
After the untimely death of her cousins, who died a few years later due to Spanish flu, Sr. Lucia remained the sole custodian of the message entrusted to her by our Lady, which she transcribed, at the instigation of the bishop of Leiria, José Alves Correia da Silvia, into four documents between 1935 and 1941.
A later document, dated 1944, contained the so-called third secret, was sent to Rome and opened for the first time in 1960. St. John Paul II, who had a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, allowed the secret to be published in 2000.
Exceptionality And Ordinariness
Sr. Lucia spent her whole life devoted to the message she had received in Fatima. At first she entered the college of the Dorothean Sisters in Vilar; later she became a Carmelite in Coimbra, where she died on February 13, 2005.
The distinction between her life and the apparitions, the decree says, “is also difficult because much of her suffering was due to them: she was always kept hidden, protected, guarded. One can see in her all the difficulty of keeping together the exceptionality of the events of which she was a spectator and the ordinariness of a monastic life like that of Carmel.”
The apparitions have been endorsed by various Popes, while the Church observes May 13 as an optional memorial of Our Lady of Fatima. Pope Francis visited Fatima in 2017 for the 100th anniversary of the apparitions, during which he canonized Francisco and Jacinta. With this most recent decree, Venerable Lucia’s cause for canonization continues to advance.
According to CNS, Pope Francis will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima during his trip to Portugal for World Youth Day 2023.
In a statement May 22, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, confirmed that the Pope will travel to Lisbon August 2-6 and will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima August 5.
Pope Francis, who repeatedly has said he intended to be in Lisbon for World Youth Day, had not spoken publicly about also going to Fatima in August. In October 2022, he publicly registered to attend World Youth Day as a pilgrim with the help of two Portuguese university students after praying the angelus from the window of the papal apartments overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
Martyrs Of The Spanish Civil War
The Pope’s decree also recognizes the martyrdom of twenty people killed out of “hatred of the faith” in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.
Fr. Manuel Gonzalez-Serna Rodríguez, born in Seville in 1880 and appointed parish priest in nearby Constantina in 1911, was arrested on the night of July 19, 1936 by Republican militiamen, and was executed in his sacristy four days later.
That summer marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, numerous other priests were executed in and around Seville, often without trial. Among the martyrs were Fr. Mariano Caballero Rubio, who had his parish in Huelva burnt down before his arrest; seminarian Enrique Palacios Monraba, who was arrested and killed along with his father at the age of 19; as well as a lawyer, a pharmacist, members of the parish council, and a bellboy of the Poor Clare nuns, who lived with his widowed mother near the monastery.
Over two thousand martyrs of the persecution in Spain have already been canonized, while the causes of some two thousand more continue to advance.
Four Other New Venerables
Along with Sr. Lucia, four other Servants of God saw their causes advanced on June 22.
Sr. Mary Lange, who left her native Cuba for the United States because of racial discrimination, founded the Congregation of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore in 1829. The order is dedicated to school education.
Salesian Antonio de Almeida Lustosa, who served as archbishop of Fortaleza, Brazil and died in 1974, and has now become venerable, was “convinced that the first evangelization consists in restoring dignity to the poorest people and families.” He was also an essayist, scientist, and artist.
Venetian priest Antonio Pagani was a Franciscan theologian at the Council of Trent, a promoter of the Catholic laity, and founder of the Brothers of the Cross.
Finally, Sr. Anna Cantalupo, a Vincentian nun from Catania, dedicated herself to caring for the sick poor, particularly war orphans, by organizing spiritual care for World War II soldiers passing through the Sicilian city.
