Pope Francis canonized two new saints Saturday at the beginning of a mass in Fátima, Portugal.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto were small children in Fátima on May 13, 1917, when they said they saw a vision of the Virgin Mary while they were tending sheep. The farm town became an important Catholic shrine as a result of the children's visions, drawing pilgrims from around the world.

Many such visitors were at the mass where the canonization was announced Saturday, and the declaration was met with joyous applause. The Associated Press reports that, according to the Vatican, about 500,000 people watched from the square in front of the shrine's basilica.

One visitor from Ireland told the Associated Press, "It is amazing. It's like an answer to prayer, because I felt that always they would be canonized."

According to the website for the Shrine of Fátima, the children saw a series of apparitions over the course of several months. By the time the Virgin Mary appeared to them for the sixth time, they had been joined by tens of thousands of Catholics who had come to pray with them.

As NPR's Tom Gjelten has reported, the process of becoming a saint in the Catholic church is extensive.



"Humanitarian work alone, however, is not sufficient for canonization in the Catholic Church. Normally, a candidate must be associated with at least two miracles. The idea is that a person worthy of sainthood must demonstrably be in heaven, actually interceding with God on behalf of those in need of healing."



The New York Times speculated in March that the Martos might soon be canonized, since the Pope had officially recognized a miracle attributed to them.

The two children were first beatified seventeen years ago, long after their deaths in 1918. Their cousin Lucia, who also is said to have also seen the vision, is now being considered for beatification, the first step towards sainthood. She died in 2005 at the age of 97, having become a nun and written several memoirs about the visions she and the other children saw.

Alison Roberts reported for NPR's Newscast that Francis is the fourth pope to visit the shrine at Fátima, but the centenary and the canonization of the new saints gives Pope Francis's visit special significance for Catholics.</s>Pope Francis canonized two new saints Saturday at the beginning of a mass in Fátima, Portugal.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto were small children in Fátima on May 13, 1917, when they said they saw a vision of the Virgin Mary while they were tending sheep. The farm town became an important Catholic shrine as a result of the children's visions, drawing pilgrims from around the world.

Many such visitors were at the mass where the canonization was announced Saturday, and the declaration was met with joyous applause. The Associated Press reports that, according to the Vatican, about 500,000 people watched from the square in front of the shrine's basilica.

One visitor from Ireland told the Associated Press, "It is amazing. It's like an answer to prayer, because I felt that always they would be canonized."

According to the website for the Shrine of Fátima, the children saw a series of apparitions over the course of several months. By the time the Virgin Mary appeared to them for the sixth time, they had been joined by tens of thousands of Catholics who had come to pray with them.

As NPR's Tom Gjelten has reported, the process of becoming a saint in the Catholic church is extensive.



"Humanitarian work alone, however, is not sufficient for canonization in the Catholic Church. Normally, a candidate must be associated with at least two miracles. The idea is that a person worthy of sainthood must demonstrably be in heaven, actually interceding with God on behalf of those in need of healing."



The New York Times speculated in March that the Martos might soon be canonized, since the Pope had officially recognized a miracle attributed to them.

The two children were first beatified seventeen years ago, long after their deaths in 1918. Their cousin Lucia, who also is said to have also seen the vision, is now being considered for beatification, the first step towards sainthood. She died in 2005 at the age of 97, having become a nun and written several memoirs about the visions she and the other children saw.

Alison Roberts reported for NPR's Newscast that Francis is the fourth pope to visit the shrine at Fátima, but the centenary and the canonization of the new saints gives Pope Francis's visit special significance for Catholics.</s>FATIMA, Portugal (AP) — Pope Francis and pilgrims from around the world are flocking to a Catholic shrine town in Portugal to honor poor, illiterate shepherd children whose visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago marked one of the most important events of the 20th-century Catholic Church.

Francis arrives Friday to celebrate the centenary of the apparitions and canonize the children. He is hoping the message of peace that they reported 100 years ago, when Europe was in the throes of World War I, will resonate with the Catholic faithful today.

Thousands of pilgrims, waving flags from as far as Venezuela, Argentina and Cuba, braved a steady cold rain Friday as they waited for him, many spending the night outdoors to make sure they had a good spot.

Over the past several days, church groups, families and individuals have made their way to Fatima, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Lisbon, some completing the final leg of the pilgrimage on their knees in prayer.

Carrying candles, rosaries and roses, they have made their way to the statue dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima or tossed wax body parts — ears, hearts, limbs — into a huge fire to pray for healing.

“For me it is the second time I am here with a pope, first with John Paul II and now with Papa Francisco,” said pilgrim Elisabete Fradique Conceicao in between rain showers. “They are simple men and that simplicity makes sense when you think what happened here 100 years ago.”

On May 13, 1917, while they were grazing their sheep, the children saw the first of a half-dozen visions of the Virgin Mary. They said she revealed to them three “secrets” — apocalyptic messages foreshadowing World War II, hell, the rise and fall of communism and the death of a pope — and urged them to pray for peace and turn away from sin.

At first doubted by the local Catholic Church and even their parents, the children’s story gained believers and was eventually accepted as an authentic apparition by the church in 1930. The children being canonized, brother and sister Francisco and Jacinta Marto, who were 9 and 7 at the time of the apparitions, died of influenza two years later. Their cousin, Lucia dos Santos, at 10 the ringleader of the group and who became the main raconteur of their tale, is on track for beatification, the first step toward becoming a saint. Her case couldn’t begin until after her death in 2005.

Francis’ deputy, Cardial Pietro Parolin, said the importance of Fatima lies specifically in the fact that poor, illiterate children — not the wealthy, learned or intellectuals — were able to convey a powerful message of love and forgiveness at a time of war when “the talk was of hatred, vendetta, hostilities.”

Fatima has long been associated with St. John Paul II, given the Polish-born pope credited the Virgin Mary with having saved his life in 1981 when a would-be assassin shot him on Fatima’s feast day — May 13 — in St. Peter’s Square. John Paul made the first of his three pilgrimages to Fatima the following May, and one of the bullets fired at him now adorns the crown of the Madonna at the shrine.

Like John Paul, the Argentinian-born Francis is exceedingly devoted to the Madonna, thanks in large part to the strong role that Marian devotions play in the popular piety of Latin American Catholics.

Before every trip he takes, Francis brings a bouquet of flowers to an icon of Mary at the Rome basilica dedicated to her name, St. Mary Major.

On his first trip as pope, to Brazil, he prayed at the shrine to the Madonna at Aparecida. He has done the same at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, at the shrine of Caacupe in Paraguay and the Virgin of the Charity of Cobre in Cuba.

One major shrine he has avoided visiting is in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where six youngsters reported having had regular, repeated visions of the Virgin starting in 1981. A Vatican-appointed doctrinal commission finished its study years ago, but Francis hasn’t released the results.

He has cautioned against such tales of regular visions, however, and has said Marian devotion must be to “the real Madonna. Not the Madonna who’s like the head of a post office who every day sends a different letter saying ‘My children, do this and then the next day says do that.'”

The church says the Fatima case is altogether different.

In a video message on the eve of his departure, Francis urged all faithful to join him, physically or spiritually, in Fatima.

“With all of us forming one heart and soul, I will then entrust you to Our Lady, asking her to whisper to each one of you: ‘My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the path that leads you to God.'”</s>Pope Francis canonized two new saints Saturday at the beginning of a mass in Fátima, Portugal.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto were small children in Fátima on May 13, 1917, when they said they saw a vision of the Virgin Mary while they were tending sheep. The farm town became an important Catholic shrine as a result of the children's visions, drawing pilgrims from around the world.

Many such visitors were at the mass where the canonization was announced Saturday, and the declaration was met with joyous applause. The Associated Press reports that, according to the Vatican, about 500,000 people watched from the square in front of the shrine's basilica.

One visitor from Ireland told the Associated Press, "It is amazing. It's like an answer to prayer, because I felt that always they would be canonized."

According to the website for the Shrine of Fátima, the children saw a series of apparitions over the course of several months. By the time the Virgin Mary appeared to them for the sixth time, they had been joined by tens of thousands of Catholics who had come to pray with them.

As NPR's Tom Gjelten has reported, the process of becoming a saint in the Catholic church is extensive.



"Humanitarian work alone, however, is not sufficient for canonization in the Catholic Church. Normally, a candidate must be associated with at least two miracles. The idea is that a person worthy of sainthood must demonstrably be in heaven, actually interceding with God on behalf of those in need of healing."



The New York Times speculated in March that the Martos might soon be canonized, since the Pope had officially recognized a miracle attributed to them.

The two children were first beatified seventeen years ago, long after their deaths in 1918. Their cousin Lucia, who also is said to have also seen the vision, is now being considered for beatification, the first step towards sainthood. She died in 2005 at the age of 97, having become a nun and written several memoirs about the visions she and the other children saw.

Alison Roberts reported for NPR's Newscast that Francis is the fourth pope to visit the shrine at Fátima, but the centenary and the canonization of the new saints gives Pope Francis's visit special significance for Catholics.</s>The Latest on Pope Francis' trip to Fatima shrine in Portugal (all times local):

Pope Francis has arrived at the shrine in Fatima to an ecstatic welcome from the huge crowds waiting in the pilgrimage site's vast square.

The basilica's bells rang out as the pontiff passed in his popemobile through a sea of people waving flags from dozens of countries.

The crowd fell silent as Francis stood and prayed at the Chapel of the Apparitions, dedicated to the three local shepherd children who said the Virgin Mary appeared to them here 100 years ago. He will make two of them saints at a Mass on Saturday.

After arriving in Portugal at a military air base, the pope traveled 10 minutes by helicopter to Fatima, twice circling the shrine before landing as crowds waved.

Crowds of well-wishers in Portugal hoping to see Pope Francis have lined up along the barbed-wire fence surrounding the military air base where he landed.

In nearby Fatima, the pontiff's destination, throngs of people in the shrine's huge square erupted in cheers when TV screens showed him stepping off the plane. There was no official crowd estimate, but authorities have said they are expecting 1 million to come for the centenary of the Fatima apparitions when three shepherd children said the Virgin Mary appeared to them.

A small group of schoolchildren serenaded Francis on the tarmac. The pope rode in an electric golf cart to the air base's tiny chapel. He stopped to greet an elderly woman in a wheelchair, kissed children on the head and embraced a handicapped man.

Pope Francis has arrived in Portugal where he is to visit the shrine at Fatima, one of the world's most popular Catholic pilgrimage sites.

Two Portuguese Air Force F-16 fighter jets escorted the pope's plane as it came in to land at the Monte Real Portuguese Air Force base, which lies amid pine forests a short distance from the rural town of Fatima. A guard of honor has lined up on the runway next to the plane.

The pontiff's first official event Friday is a brief private meeting with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa at the air base.

Fatima is famous for being the place where three Portuguese shepherd children said the Virgin Mary appeared to them in 1917. The pope will make two of them saints on Saturday.

Officials at the Catholic shrine in Fatima, Portugal say about 45,000 pilgrims are making their way on foot to the town for Pope Francis's visit, which is expected to draw 1 million people.

The pilgrims traditionally walk there as an expression of thanks to Our Lady of Fatima for helping them, or to pray to her for help. Others toss wax limbs into a fire beside the shrine's chapel as they say a prayer for healing.

Like the shrine at Lourdes, France, Fatima draws huge numbers of visitors from around the world — a total of around 6 million each year on average, local officials estimate.

The shrine was built where three shepherd children said 100 years ago that the Virgin Mary appeared to them in "visions." The pontiff, who arrives Friday, is to canonize two of the children on Saturday before leaving Portugal.

Open-air Masses are held in the shrine's vast square, in front of its basilica. The shrine's Church of the Holy Trinity, dedicated in 2007, can seat 8,633 people, officials say.

Portuguese authorities have mounted a huge security operation for Pope Francis's visit to the shrine at Fatima, which is 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital Lisbon.

Officials say around 3,000 police and other security personnel are involved.

Before the pontiff's scheduled arrival on Friday afternoon, Portugal restored mandatory identity checks and vehicle inspections at its borders for European Union citizens.

Drones are banned over the shrine during the pontiff's visit of just under 24 hours. Police have placed concrete blocks on roads leading into the shrine to prevent truck attacks.

Authorities are expecting some 1 million people to converge on the small town where three shepherd children claimed in 1917 that the Virgin Mary appeared to them. Pope Francis will make two of the children saints on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of people are gathering in the small town of Fatima in Portugal to see Pope Francis, who is due to arrive for a visit.

Officials say they expect around 1 million people to converge on the rural town, which hosts one of the world's most popular Catholic pilgrimage sites. Hotels and apartments were sold out months ago.

One hundred years ago, three Portuguese shepherd children said the Virgin Mary appeared to them in Fatima, and the pontiff is visiting the shrine on the centenary of the "visions."

Security is tight for the pope's scheduled arrival at 4:20 p.m. (1520 GMT) Friday afternoon.

On Saturday morning, Pope Francis is to hold a Mass to make two of the shepherd children saints.

Pope Francis and pilgrims from around the world are flocking to a Catholic shrine town in Portugal to honor two poor, illiterate shepherd children whose visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago marked one of the most important events of the 20th-century Catholic Church.

Francis departed from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport on Friday afternoon to celebrate the centenary of the apparitions and canonize the children. He is hoping the message of peace that they reported 100 years ago, when Europe was in the throes of World War I, will resonate with the Catholic faithful today.

Thousands of pilgrims, waving flags from as far as Venezuela, Argentina and Cuba, braved a steady cold rain Friday as they waited for him, many spending the night outdoors. Over the past several days, church groups, families and individuals have made their way to Fatima, 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Lisbon.

Carrying candles, rosaries and roses, they have gone to the statue dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima or tossed wax body parts — ears, hearts, limbs — into a huge fire to pray for healing.</s>FATIMA, Portugal (AP) — The parents of a Brazilian boy whose recovery from a severe brain injury is being cited by the Vatican as the “miracle” needed to canonize two Portuguese children are breaking their silence to share the story.

The boy’s father says his then-5-year-old son, Lucas, fell 6.5 meters (21 feet) from a window in 2013 and sustained head injuries that doctors predicted he had little chance of surviving.

Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yuri, told reporters at the Catholic shrine in Fatima, Portugal, on Thursday that they and Brazilian nuns prayed to the late shepherd children who said the Virgin Mary appeared to them in “visions” in 1917.

Two of those children, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, are due to be canonized by Pope Francis in Fatima on Saturday.</s>The meeting between Francis, an Argentine gay man and his long-term partner came to light as the Vatican tried to tamp down controversy about a separate meeting the pope held with well-known American gay marriage opponent Kim Davis.

The pontiff met on Sept. 23 with Yayo Grassi, a U.S-based Argentine caterer, Grassi's male partner of 19 years, Iwan Bagus and three other people for 15 minutes, Grassi told Reuters.

Grassi, 67, has known the pope since Francis, 78, taught him literature and psychology at a high school in Argentina in the 1960s and has stayed in touch.

"What I can say is that he met with me knowing that I am gay, and we had an extraordinary, very moving conversation," Grassi said.

The Vatican confirmed the meeting. A statement said Grassi, who had met the pope in the past, asked to present his mother and several friends to the pontiff in Washington.

"As noted in the past, the pope, as pastor, has maintained many personal relationships with people in a spirit of kindness, welcome and dialogue," spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

Both Grassi and his partner posted a video of the encounter on their Facebook pages.

The video shows Francis and his former student warmly embracing and chatting in Spanish in an ornate room in the embassy.

Grassi then introduces the pope one-by-one to three women and his partner, Bagus. Francis appears to know Bagus, and they shake hands warmly and talk about having met earlier in Rome.

At the end of their conversation, Francis embraces both men and kisses them on the cheek.

Grassi said that in 2010 he had emailed Francis, then archbishop of Buenos Aires, about gay issues, and his former teacher replied to say he would not tolerate homophobia.

The gay couple met the pope in Rome in 2013 shortly after Francis became pontiff, Grassi said. He described last week's encounter as "two friends seeing each other after a while."

Their meeting happened a day before Francis met Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who went to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

In a bid to contain the controversy about the meeting with Davis, the Vatican said on Friday that the meeting with her should not be seen as an endorsement of her views.

The progressive group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good welcomed the news that Francis had met the gay couple.

"Pope Francis never ceases to surprise us. The news that Francis met with a gay couple should put to rest any notion that Pope Francis is held down by the narrow ideological divisions that plague the United States. He is first and foremost a pastor who is willing to encounter and engage anyone," the group's executive director, Christopher Hale, said in a statement.</s>Pope Francis canonized two new saints Saturday at the beginning of a mass in Fátima, Portugal.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto were small children in Fátima on May 13, 1917, when they said they saw a vision of the Virgin Mary while they were tending sheep. The farm town became an important Catholic shrine as a result of the children's visions, drawing pilgrims from around the world.

Many such visitors were at the mass where the canonization was announced Saturday, and the declaration was met with joyous applause. The Associated Press reports that, according to the Vatican, about 500,000 people watched from the square in front of the shrine's basilica.

One visitor from Ireland told the Associated Press, "It is amazing. It's like an answer to prayer, because I felt that always they would be canonized."

According to the website for the Shrine of Fátima, the children saw a series of apparitions over the course of several months. By the time the Virgin Mary appeared to them for the sixth time, they had been joined by tens of thousands of Catholics who had come to pray with them.

As NPR's Tom Gjelten has reported, the process of becoming a saint in the Catholic church is extensive.



"Humanitarian work alone, however, is not sufficient for canonization in the Catholic Church. Normally, a candidate must be associated with at least two miracles. The idea is that a person worthy of sainthood must demonstrably be in heaven, actually interceding with God on behalf of those in need of healing."



The New York Times speculated in March that the Martos might soon be canonized, since the Pope had officially recognized a miracle attributed to them.

The two children were first beatified seventeen years ago, long after their deaths in 1918. Their cousin Lucia, who also is said to have also seen the vision, is now being considered for beatification, the first step towards sainthood. She died in 2005 at the age of 97, having become a nun and written several memoirs about the visions she and the other children saw.

Alison Roberts reported for NPR's Newscast that Francis is the fourth pope to visit the shrine at Fátima, but the centenary and the canonization of the new saints gives Pope Francis's visit special significance for Catholics.</s>Pope Francis heads to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in northern Portugal on Friday to celebrate the centenary of the first appearances of the Virgin Mary as described by three shepherd children on May 13, 1917.

What were those apparitions and why have they played such a central role in Catholicism over the past 100 years? And what are the “secrets of Fatima?” Let us explain:

Fatima is a small city in central Portugal where the landscape is dry and rocky. For centuries, people made their living raising sheep and other animals. In May 1917, three shepherd children — two girls and a boy — claimed they saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The children described Mary as “a lady dressed all in white, more brilliant than the sun.” Mary told the children that praying the rosary would end what was then called The Great War — World War I— which left 17 million dead.

According to the children, Mary appeared to them six times that year. In one appearance, Mary said a miracle would occur on Oct. 13, 1917. Initially the children were scolded and even threatened with death for spreading what were considered baseless stories. But pilgrims from all over the world gathered in Fatima on that date and awaited Mary’s appearance. In what came to be called the “Miracle of the Sun,” many reported seeing visions in the sky while others reported miracles of healing. A newspaper of the day reported, “Before their dazzled eyes the sun trembled, the sun made unusual and brusque movements, defying all the laws of the cosmos, and according to the typical expression of the peasants, ‘the sun danced.'”

In 1930, the Catholic Church declared the events at Fatima “worthy of belief,” and chapels, sanctuaries, shrines and other memorials to the events popped up.

Some people wonder about a connection to Islam because the village has the same name as the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite daughter. Legend has it that the village was named after a Moorish princess who converted to Christianity as Muslim rulers were driven from Portugal during the Reconquista.

Why do Catholics travel there?

When the church declared the Fatima apparitions worthy of belief, it said pilgrims who travel there may obtain a special blessing as well as pray for healing or other special intentions. Today, Fatima attracts between 5 million and 6 million pilgrims a year, making it one of the most popular shrines in the world. The largest numbers come on May 13 — the anniversary of the first apparitions. Pope Francis’ visit will coincide with the 100th anniversary of the apparitions.

Francis will be the fourth pontiff to visit Fatima; Pope Paul VI marked the 50th anniversary in 1967, John Paul II went three times and Benedict XVI visited once, in 2010, according to The Associated Press.

While there, Francis will canonize two of the shepherd children — Jacinta and Francisco, who first had the visions. Jacinta was 7 years old and Francisco, 9, on May 13, 1917, and their cousin Lucia dos Santos was 10. Jacinta and Francisco died a year later in the Spanish flu epidemic.

What are the 'Secrets of Fatima?'

Lucia dos Santos became a Carmelite nun and, in 1941, wrote her memoirs. In them, she said Mary gave the children three secrets, or prophecies, two of which she revealed at that time. The first secret was a vision of hell that Mary showed to the children, full of lakes of fire with screaming souls in torment. The second was that World War I would end — it did, a little more than a year after the children saw their first apparition — and that another great war would come if the people of Russia were not converted to Catholicism. They weren’t, and World War II began in 1939. There was also a prediction that Russia would “spread her errors throughout the world,” which many believe is a reference to Soviet communism.

Sister Lucia wasn’t eager to share the third prophecy, but was compelled to write it down in the case of her untimely death. She told Rome the secret could be revealed in 1960, but the Vatican decided to keep it sealed to avoid inflaming the wild speculation that was already connected with the so-called Third Secret of Fatima. Sister Lucia died in 2005 at age 97.

In 2000, then-Pope John Paul II — now St. John Paul — ordered the secret published. The prophecy turned out to be an apocalyptic vision of a terrible persecution of Christians, including priests and bishops and in particular “a Bishop dressed in White” who was killed by soldiers as he knelt before a cross at the top of a hill.

The publication hardly dampened the fervor over the Third Secret since the assassination attempt against John Paul took place on May 13, 1981 — the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima — as he rode around St. Peter’s Square wearing his white cassock, the traditional vestment of the Bishop of Rome. It seemed like a near-fulfillment of the prophecy and John Paul said that he believed the Virgin Mary saved his life by guiding the bullet past a major artery. He later sent the bullet to Fatima where it was placed in the crown of the original image of Our Lady of Fatima, fitting perfectly into the only empty space left available when the crown was made 40 years earlier.

Even now, however, there are conspiracy theorists who believe that the Third Secret has not been published in full, or that there is in fact a Fourth Secret of Fatima. Pope Francis is expected to try to tamp down such ideas and focus on his trip as a simple spiritual “pilgrimage” focused on personal conversion.

That’s a message that Vatican has been trying to connect to the Fatima apparitions for years in an effort to shift attention away from the more sensational claims and interpretations.

“Insofar as individual events are described, they belong to the past,” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — later Pope Benedict XVI — wrote in an authoritative text accompanying the publication of the Third Secret. “Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way, just as Christian faith in general cannot be reduced to an object of mere curiosity. What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the ‘secret’: the exhortation to prayer as the path of ‘salvation for souls’ and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion.”</s>Pope Francis addresses journalists during the traditional press conference on his flight back to Rome, following a two-day visit at Fatima, Portugal, Saturday, May 13, 2017. Pope Francis added two Portuguese shepherd children to the roster of Catholic saints Saturday, honoring young siblings whose reported visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the Portuguese farm town of Fatima into one of the world's most important Catholic shrines. (Tiziana Fabi/Pool Photo via AP)
Catholics in Portugal converge in a shrine in Fatima for a visit by Pope Francis.