At Mass on the solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima for the centenary of the apparitions at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima today, Pope Francis proclaimed Blessed Jacinta and Francisco Marto saints.

He reminded the faithful that godlessness “risks leading to hell” but that Mary came to remind us that “God’s light dwells within us and protects us.” He said we can take the shepherd children “as our examples” whom the Virgin Mary “introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore him.”

“She enveloped them in the mantle of Light that God had given her,” he said.

The Vatican said an estimated 500,000 faithful attended today's Mass.

The Holy Father made the remarks in his homily which he gave after the rite of canonization. Here below is the full text:

“[There] appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the sun”. So the seer of Patmos tells us in the Book of Revelation (12:1), adding that she was about to give birth to a son. Then, in the Gospel, we hear Jesus say to his disciple, “Here is your mother” (Jn 19:27). We have a Mother! “So beautiful a Lady”, as the seers of Fatima said to one another as they returned home on that blessed day of 13 March a hundred years ago. That evening, Jacinta could not restrain herself and told the secret to her mother: “Today I saw Our Lady”. They had seen the Mother of Heaven. Many others sought to share that vision, but… they did not see her. The Virgin Mother did not come here so that we could see her. We will have all eternity for that, provided, of course, that we go to heaven.

Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures. Such a life – frequently proposed and imposed – risks leading to hell. Mary came to remind us that God’s light dwells within us and protects us, for, as we heard in the first reading, “the child [of the woman] was snatched away and taken to God” (Rev 12:5). In Lucia’s account, the three chosen children found themselves surrounded by God’s light as it radiated from Our Lady. She enveloped them in the mantle of Light that God had given her. According to the belief and experience of many pilgrims, if not of all, Fatima is more than anything this mantle of Light that protects us, here as in almost no other place on earth. We need but take refuge under the protection of the Virgin Mary and to ask her, as the Salve Regina teaches: “show unto us… Jesus”.

Dear pilgrims, we have a Mother. Clinging to her like children, we live in the hope that rests on Jesus. As we heard in the second reading, “those who receive the abundance of the grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:17). When Jesus ascended to heaven, he brought to the Heavenly Father our humanity, which he assumed in the womb of the Virgin Mary and will never forsake. Like an anchor, let us fix our hope on that humanity, seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father (cf. Eph 2:6). May this hope guide our lives! It is a hope that sustains us always, to our dying breath.

Confirmed in this hope, we have gathered here to give thanks for the countless graces bestowed over these past hundred years. All of them passed beneath the mantle of light that Our Lady has spread over the four corners of the earth, beginning with this land of Portugal, so rich in hope. We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore him. That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering. God’s presence became constant in their lives, as is evident from their insistent prayers for sinners and their desire to remain ever near “the hidden Jesus” in the tabernacle.

In her Memoirs (III, 6), Sister Lucia quotes Jacinta who had just been granted a vision: “Do you not see all those streets, all those paths and fields full of people crying out for food, yet have nothing to eat? And the Holy Father in a church, praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary? And all those people praying with him?” Thank you, brothers and sisters, for being here with me! I could not fail to come here to venerate the Virgin Mary and to entrust to her all her sons and daughters. Under her mantle they are not lost; from her embrace will come the hope and the peace that they require, and that I implore for all my brothers and sisters in baptism and in our human family, especially the sick and the disabled, prisoners and the unemployed, the poor and the abandoned. Dear brothers and sisters, let us pray to God with the hope that others will hear us; and let us speak to others with the certainty that God will help us.

Indeed, God created us to be a source of hope for others, a true and attainable hope, in accordance with each person’s state of life. In “asking” and “demanding” of each of us the fulfillment of the duties of our proper state (Letters of Sister Lucia, 28 February 1943), God effects a general mobilization against the indifference that chills the heart and worsens our myopia. We do not want to be a stillborn hope! Life can survive only because of the generosity of other lives. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24). The Lord, who always goes before us, said this and did this. Whenever we experience the cross, he has already experienced it before us. We do not mount the cross to find Jesus. Instead it was he who, in his self-abasement, descended even to the cross, in order to find us, to dispel the darkness of evil within us, and to bring us back to the light.

With Mary’s protection, may we be for our world sentinels of the dawn, contemplating the true face of Jesus the Saviour, resplendent at Easter. Thus may we rediscover the young and beautiful face of the Church, which shines forth when she is missionary, welcoming, free, faithful, poor in means and rich in love.</s>FÁTIMA, Portugal: Two young shepherds who had visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago in Fatima, a Portuguese site now a global draw for pilgrims, were declared saints on Saturday by Pope Francis.

Catholic faithful from all over the world cheered, filling a giant, 400,000-capacity, esplanade that faces the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima, some of them crying—with many more watching the canonization from adjacent streets on giant screens.

“We declare the blissful Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto saints,” the Argentine pontiff said in front of the white basilica where the siblings are buried, two giant portraits of the little shepherds hanging in the background.

“We register them on the list of saints, declaring that they must be venerated as such by the Church.”

The canonization took place on the 100th anniversary of the day when Jacinta, then aged seven, her brother Francisco, nine, and their cousin Lucia, 10, first reportedly saw the Virgin Mary on the spot where the sanctuary was built.

She is said to have appeared six times between May and October 1917 to the three impoverished, barely-literate shepherds, and apparently shared three prophesies with the trio at a period marked by the ravages of World War I.

These reportedly included a warning of a second conflict.

Francisco died in 1919 and his sister Jacinta the following year in the Spanish Influenza epidemic that swept through Europe at the end of the war.

Their cousin Lucia lived on until 2005, becoming a nun and meeting several popes including the late John Paul II.

A process that could lead to her also becoming a saint has been opened.

Pope John Paul II was possibly the most devoted to Fatima, attributing his narrow escape from an assassination attempt at St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981—the anniversary of the first reported apparition—to the intervention of the Virgin Mary.

He beatified Jacinta and Francisco in 2000 following decades of debate over the events at Fatima and their meaning.

They were canonized Saturday after the Church officially attributed two miracles to the pair—a necessary step to become a saint.

Wheelchair-bound Maria Emilia Santos said she regained the ability to walk on February 20, 1989, the anniversary of Jacinta’s death, after praying to her.

And the parents of a Brazilian boy say he healed at lightning speed after falling more than six meters from a window in 2013, after they prayed to the late Jacinta and Francisco for help.

“The doctors, including non-believers, weren’t able to explain this recovery,” his father Joao Batista told reporters in Fatima on Thursday.

Luisa Pacheco, a 48-year-old seamstress from the northern region of Porto, said she had spent the night in her car to see the ceremony.

“They’re our little shepherds, it means everything to us.”

Talk of apparitions and miracles outside of those described in the Old and New Testaments does not sit comfortably with everyone in the Church.

At the time of the reported apparitions, local authorities considered the child shepherds to be troublemakers, throwing them briefly in jail before they were released under public pressure.

The alleged apparitions, seen only by the trio, were followed by strange phenomena on October 13, 1917, when some 70,000 onlookers waiting for a sign of the Virgin are said to have seen the sun dancing in the sky.

The reported apparitions have been officially recognized by the Catholic church since 1930.

But generally, the recognition of visions or miracles follow a long and cautious process, so as not to risk the Church’s credibility.

The Vatican, for instance, has yet to recognize the reported continuous apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the Bosnian town of Medjugorje since 1981.

Jacinta and Francisco have joined the ranks of recognized saints such as Mother Teresa. AFP</s>(FATIMA, Portugal) — 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.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were on hand, many of whom had spent days at Fatima in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.

Francisco and Jacinta, aged 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them here while they grazed their sheep. They said she confided in them three secrets — foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope — and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion away from sin.

At the time, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.

"Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures," Francis said in his homily. "Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell."

He urged Catholics today to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes. The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they didn't recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognized the apparitions as authentic in 1930.

"We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God's light and taught to adore him," he said. "That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering."

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe's Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn't start until after her 2005 death.

The Martos now become the youngest-ever saints who didn't die as martyrs.

At the end of the Mass, Francis was to offer a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing. Many toss wax body parts — hands, hearts, livers and limbs — into a giant fire pit at the shrine as an offering.

In Fatima for the occasion were Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yurie, of Brazil. The medically inexplicable healing of their son, Lucas, was the "miracle" needed for the Marto siblings to be declared saints.

The boy, aged 5 at the time, had fallen 6.5 meters (21 feet) from a window in 2013 and suffered such severe head trauma that his doctors said he would be severely mentally disabled or in a vegetative state if he even survived. The boy not only survived but has no signs of any after-effects.

In 2000, St. John Paul II beatified the Marto siblings during a Mass at Fatima and used the occasion of the new millennium to reveal the third "secret" that the children reported they had received from the Madonna. The text, written by Lucia, had been kept in a sealed envelope inside the Vatican for decades, with no pope daring to reveal it because of its terrifying contents: a "bishop dressed in white" — the pope — on his knees at the foot of a cross, killed in a hail of bullets and arrows, along with other bishops, priests and various lay Catholics.

The message featured an angel crying out "penance, penance, penance!"

The impending canonization of the children had led to speculation that a fourth "secret" remained, but the Vatican has insisted there are no more secrets related to the Fatima revelations.</s>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.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were on hand, many of whom had spent days at Fatima in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.

“It is amazing, it is like an answer to prayer because I felt that always they would be canonized,” said Agnes Walsh from Killarney, Ireland. She said she prayed to Francisco Marto for 20 years, hoping her four daughters would meet “nice boys like Francisco.” “The four of them have met boys that are just beautiful I couldn't ask for better, so he has answered all my prayers,” she said.

Francisco and Jacinta, ages 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them here while they grazed their sheep. They said she confided in them three secrets — foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope — and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion away from sin.

At the time, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.

“Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures,” Francis said in his homily. “Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell.”

He urged Catholics today to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes. The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they didn't recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognized the apparitions as authentic in 1930.

“We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God's light and taught to adore him,” he said. “That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering.”

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe's Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn't start until after her 2005 death.

The Martos now become the youngest-ever saints who didn't die as martyrs.

At the end of the Mass, Francis was to offer a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing. Many toss wax body parts — hands, hearts, livers and limbs — into a giant fire pit at the shrine as an offering.

In Fatima for the occasion were Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yurie, of Brazil. The medically inexplicable healing of their son, Lucas, was the “miracle” needed for the Marto siblings to be declared saints.

The boy, age 5 at the time, had fallen 21 feet from a window in 2013 and suffered such severe head trauma that his doctors said he would be severely mentally disabled or in a vegetative state if he even survived. The boy not only survived but has no signs of any after-effects.

In 2000, St. John Paul II beatified the Marto siblings during a Mass at Fatima and used the occasion of the new millennium to reveal the third “secret” that the children reported they had received from the Madonna. The text, written by Lucia, had been kept in a sealed envelope inside the Vatican for decades, with no pope daring to reveal it because of its terrifying contents: a “bishop dressed in white” — the pope — on his knees at the foot of a cross, killed in a hail of bullets and arrows, along with other bishops, priests and various lay Catholics.

The message featured an angel crying out “penance, penance, penance!”

The impending canonization of the children had led to speculation that a fourth “secret” remained, but the Vatican has insisted there are no more secrets related to the Fatima revelations.

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First overseas foray for Trump will take him to sensitive turf: Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican</s>FATIMA, Portugal — 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.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. A half-million people watched in the vast square in front of the shrine’s basilica, the Vatican said, citing Portuguese authorities. Many had spent days at Fatima in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.

“It is amazing, it is like an answer to prayer because I felt that always they would be canonized,” said Agnes Walsh from Killarney, Ireland. She said she prayed to Francisco Marto for 20 years, hoping her four daughters would meet “nice boys like Francisco.” “The four of them have met boys that are just beautiful I couldn’t ask for better, so he has answered all my prayers,” she said.

Francisco and Jacinta, aged 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them here while they grazed their sheep. They said she confided in them three secrets — foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope — and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion away from sin.

At the time, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.

“Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures,” Francis said in his homily. “Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell.”

He urged Catholics today to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes. The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they didn’t recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognized the apparitions as authentic in 1930.

“We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore him,” he said. “That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering.”

The Martos are now the youngest-ever saints who didn’t die as martyrs.

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe’s Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn’t start until after her 2005 death.

At the end of the Mass, Francis was to offer a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing. Many toss wax body parts — hands, hearts, livers and limbs — into a giant fire pit at the shrine as an offering.

Participating in the offertory procession Saturday were Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yurie, of Brazil. They were with their son, Lucas, whose medically inexplicable healing was the “miracle” needed for the Marto siblings to be declared saints.

The boy, aged 5 at the time, had fallen 6.5 meters (21 feet) from a window in 2013 and suffered such severe head trauma that his doctors said he would be severely mentally disabled or in a vegetative state if he even survived. The boy not only survived but has no signs of any after-effects.

“We thank God for Lucas’ cure and we know in all faith from our heart that this miracle was obtained with the help of the little shepherd children Francisco and Jacinta,” Baptista told reporters earlier as the family broke their silence to reveal details of the case.

In 2000, St. John Paul II beatified the Marto siblings during a Mass at Fatima and used the occasion of the new millennium to reveal the third “secret” that the children reported they had received from the Madonna. The text, written by Lucia, had been kept in a sealed envelope inside the Vatican for decades, with no pope daring to reveal it because of its terrifying contents: a “bishop dressed in white” — the pope — on his knees at the foot of a cross, killed in a hail of bullets and arrows, along with other bishops, priests and various lay Catholics.

The message featured an angel crying out “penance, penance, penance!”

The impending canonization of the children had led to speculation that a fourth “secret” remained, but the Vatican has insisted there are no more secrets related to the Fatima revelations.</s>Pope Francis has added two Portuguese shepherd children to the roster of Catholic saints at an open air Mass in Fatima.

The young siblings’ visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago turned the sleepy farm town into one of the world’s most important Catholic shrines.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass on Saturday marking the centenary of their visions.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were on hand, many of whom had spent days at Fatima in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna.

They clapped in admiration after the pope recited the rite declaring the Martos saints.

The siblings and their cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13 1917 the Virgin Mary appeared to them while they grazed their sheep.

They said she confided in them three secrets – foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope – and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion away from sin.

At the time, Europe was in the throes of the First World War and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.

“Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures,” Francis said in his homily. “Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell.”

He urged Catholics today to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes.

The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they did not recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognised the apparitions as authentic in 1930.

“We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore him,” he said. “That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering.”

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe’s Spanish flu pandemic.

Lucia is on track for possible beatification but her process could not start until after her 2005 death. The Martos now become the youngest ever saints who did not die as martyrs.

At the end of the Mass, Francis offered a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing. Many toss wax body parts - hands, hearts, livers and limbs - into a giant fire pit at the shrine as an offering.</s>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.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. A half-million people watched in the vast square in front of the shrine's basilica, the Vatican said, citing Portuguese authorities. Many had spent days at Fatima in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.

"It is amazing, it is like an answer to prayer because I felt that always they would be canonized," said Agnes Walsh from Killarney, Ireland. She said she prayed to Francisco Marto for 20 years, hoping her four daughters would meet "nice boys like Francisco." ''The four of them have met boys that are just beautiful I couldn't ask for better, so he has answered all my prayers," she said.

Francisco and Jacinta, aged 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them here while they grazed their sheep. They said she confided in them three secrets — foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope — and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion away from sin.

At the time, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.

"Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures," Francis said in his homily. "Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell."

He urged Catholics today to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes. The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they didn't recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognized the apparitions as authentic in 1930.

"We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God's light and taught to adore him," he said. "That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering."

The Martos are now the youngest-ever saints who didn't die as martyrs.

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe's Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn't start until after her 2005 death.

At the end of the Mass, Francis was to offer a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing. Many toss wax body parts — hands, hearts, livers and limbs — into a giant fire pit at the shrine as an offering.

Participating in the offertory procession Saturday were Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yurie, of Brazil. They were with their son, Lucas, whose medically inexplicable healing was the "miracle" needed for the Marto siblings to be declared saints.

The boy, aged 5 at the time, had fallen 6.5 meters (21 feet) from a window in 2013 and suffered such severe head trauma that his doctors said he would be severely mentally disabled or in a vegetative state if he even survived. The boy not only survived but has no signs of any after-effects.

"We thank God for Lucas' cure and we know in all faith from our heart that this miracle was obtained with the help of the little shepherd children Francisco and Jacinta," Baptista told reporters earlier as the family broke their silence to reveal details of the case.

In 2000, St. John Paul II beatified the Marto siblings during a Mass at Fatima and used the occasion of the new millennium to reveal the third "secret" that the children reported they had received from the Madonna. The text, written by Lucia, had been kept in a sealed envelope inside the Vatican for decades, with no pope daring to reveal it because of its terrifying contents: a "bishop dressed in white" — the pope — on his knees at the foot of a cross, killed in a hail of bullets and arrows, along with other bishops, priests and various lay Catholics.

The message featured an angel crying out "penance, penance, penance!"

The impending canonization of the children had led to speculation that a fourth "secret" remained, but the Vatican has insisted there are no more secrets related to the Fatima revelations.</s>FATIMA, Portugal — 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.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. A half-million people watched in the vast square in front of the shrine’s basilica, the Vatican said, citing Portuguese authorities. Many had spent days at Fatima in quiet prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.

“It is amazing, it is like an answer to prayer because I felt that always they would be canonized,” said Agnes Walsh from Killarney, Ireland. She said she prayed to Francisco Marto for 20 years, hoping her four daughters would meet “nice boys like Francisco.” “The four of them have met boys that are just beautiful I couldn’t ask for better, so he has answered all my prayers,” she said.

Francisco and Jacinta, aged 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them here while they grazed their sheep. They said she confided in them three secrets — foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope — and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion away from sin.

At the time, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.

“Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures,” Francis said in his homily. “Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell.”

He urged Catholics today to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes. The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they didn’t recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognized the apparitions as authentic in 1930.

“We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore him,” he said. “That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering.”

The Martos are now the youngest-ever saints who didn’t die as martyrs.

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe’s Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn’t start until after her 2005 death.

At the end of the Mass, Francis was to offer a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing. Many toss wax body parts — hands, hearts, livers and limbs — into a giant fire pit at the shrine as an offering.

Participating in the offertory procession Saturday were Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yurie, of Brazil. They were with their son, Lucas, whose medically inexplicable healing was the “miracle” needed for the Marto siblings to be declared saints.

The boy, aged 5 at the time, had fallen about 21 feet from a window in 2013 and suffered such severe head trauma that his doctors said he would be severely mentally disabled or in a vegetative state if he even survived. The boy not only survived but has no signs of any after-effects.

“We thank God for Lucas’ cure and we know in all faith from our heart that this miracle was obtained with the help of the little shepherd children Francisco and Jacinta,” Baptista told reporters earlier as the family broke their silence to reveal details of the case.

In 2000, St. John Paul II beatified the Marto siblings during a Mass at Fatima and used the occasion of the new millennium to reveal the third “secret” that the children reported they had received from the Madonna. The text, written by Lucia, had been kept in a sealed envelope inside the Vatican for decades, with no pope daring to reveal it because of its terrifying contents: a “bishop dressed in white” — the pope — on his knees at the foot of a cross, killed in a hail of bullets and arrows, along with other bishops, priests and various lay Catholics.

The message featured an angel crying out “penance, penance, penance!”

The impending canonization of the children had led to speculation that a fourth “secret” remained, but the Vatican has insisted there are no more secrets related to the Fatima revelations.</s>Pope to make pilgrimage to the Portuguese town for the centenary of the Virgin Mary’s ‘apparition’, writes Barry Hatton.

Three shepherd children in Portugal were jailed and threatened with being boiled alive when they claimed 100 years ago that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them. The Catholic Church doubted them, too.

But the children’s visions would strengthen the faith of Portugal’s persecuted Catholics and make the small farming town of Fatima one of the world’s foremost pilgrimage sites. It has 6m visitors a year.

Now, two of three are about to become the Catholic Church’s youngest saints who did not die as martyrs. Today, Pope Francis plans to observe the centenary of their visions by canonising Francisco and Jacinta Marto when he makes his first pilgrimage to Fatima.

Francis will also likely seek to make Fatima’s message of peace and prayer relevant to today, church officials say. According to church lore, the Virgin Mary urged penance, sacrifice, and turning away from sin during her appearances to the children.

“At Fatima, the Pope could make an appeal to humanity that ‘if you don’t change your criteria, be it political or economic, the world will suffer’,” said Monsignor Carlos Azevedo, who led the Church commission that compiled the 15 volumes of documentation about the Fatima phenomenon.

Jacinta was seven years old, and Francisco nine, when they first witnessed the apparitions on May 13, 1917, along with their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia dos Santos. While the Marto siblings died two years later during the Spanish flu pandemic that followed the First World War, Lucia became a Carmelite nun and died in 2005, aged 97. Efforts are underway to beatify her, too, but couldn’t begin until after she had died.

According to Dos Santos’ written accounts, the Virgin Mary appeared to the three children six times in 1917, in a field near Fatima where they grazed their sheep. The visits culminated in October with the ‘Miracle of the Sun,’ when others in Fatima reported seeing the sun spinning in the sky. For believers, it was proof that the apparitions were authentic.

Three months after the first reported vision, with news of their claims spreading, local administrative officials placed the children in separate cells and attempted, over three days, to coerce them into recanting. They were told they would be fried in olive oil if they continued with their lies.

“Authorities said it was a prank,” said Francisco Marto, 78, whose father was Jacinta and Francisco’s older brother.

Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, the retired head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, said the children’s steadfast faith, and refusal to disavow their visions, made them worthy of sainthood. Himself Portuguese, Cardinal Martins pushed through the Martos’ beatification in 2000, and will travel with the Pope to see them canonised.

“Before, we couldn’t even talk about the beatification of children in the history of the Church, because the principle prevailed that they didn’t yet have the skills to exercise the heroic level of Christian virtues” required as a first step, said Cardinal Martins.

Portuguese history helps explain the authorities’ initial hostility to the children’s story. The country was proclaimed a republic after the 1910 assassination of King Carlos I, and the first republican governments in Lisbon were determined to curb the Catholic Church’s influence. Religious teaching at schools was banned, and many bishops went into exile.

Portugal also had entered the First World War in 1916. Food shortages brought widespread hardship, and people yearned for spiritual sustenance. The Fatima apparitions coincided with that need.

“It was a strong moment of an eruption of the supernatural, in that difficult moment,” said Msgr Azevedo, now a Vatican official.

A nun waits in the rain for the arrival of Pope Francis in the Sanctuary of Fatima yesterday. Picture: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty

The Virgin purportedly revealed three secrets to the children, containing apocalyptic warnings that seemed to foreshadow the Second World War and the rise of communism. The contents of the secrets went undisclosed for many years, and the third secret wasn’t revealed until 2000 — a foretelling of the May 13, 1981 assassination attempt on St John Paul II in St Peter’s Square.

The mystery furthered Fatima’s appeal, even as the government tried to curb its popularity.

In 1921, with crowds numbering in the tens of thousands turning up on apparition anniversaries, the government tried in vain to outlaw large-scale religious gatherings. After the Church recognised the apparitions as authentic in 1930, people flocked in greater numbers to the site of the visions. Eventually, Church-friendly governments assumed power, the anti-clerical laws were rescinded, and Portugal re-emerged as the mostly Catholic country that it is today.

Francisco, the 78-year-old nephew of the future saints, runs a souvenir store across the road from the tiny stone house where the Marto family lived, in the secluded village of Aljustrel, about 2km outside Fatima. He still remembers his grandfather sitting on the stone stoop and telling stories about his children to pilgrims visiting the shrine.

The old family house is well-preserved, with dry-stone walls, bare timber roofs, small windows, and ill-fitting wooden doors. Some of the nine Marto children — Francisco and Jacinta had seven siblings — had to sleep in the barn with the farm animals. Only four would make it to adulthood.

The children’s parents didn’t seek out celebrity and were reluctant centres of attention.

“Life didn’t change much. They kept on farming,” Francisco said. His father, though, did get a construction job at the Fatima basilica, where the three seers are entombed.

The shrine, with its basilica overlooking a vast square, is now the economic lifeblood of this otherwise unremarkable town.

Stores selling souvenirs — statues of the Virgin Mary, rosaries, even wax limbs — line the streets, while hotels, restaurants, and cafes rely on a steady parade of tourists and pilgrims. One million of them are expected for Pope Francis’s visit.

Many come to toss wax limbs into a huge fire pit as they pray for healings. The shrine’s Church of the Holy Trinity, dedicated in 2007, can seat 8,633 people.

“Everyone used to be poor and humble” in the town, said Antonio Vieira, 79, and another nephew of the new saints. “Who’d have guessed that Fatima would turn out like this?”</s>FATIMA, Portugal >> 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.

Francis proclaimed Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints at the start of Mass marking the centenary of their visions. A half-million people watched in the vast square in front of the shrine’s basilica, the Vatican said, citing Portuguese authorities. Many had spent days at Fatima in prayer, reciting rosaries before a statue of the Madonna. They clapped as soon as Francis read the proclamation aloud.

“It is amazing. It’s like an answer to prayer, because I felt that always they would be canonized,” said Agnes Walsh from Killarney, Ireland. She said she prayed to Francisco Marto for 20 years, hoping her four daughters would meet “nice boys like Francisco.”

“The four of them have met boys that are just beautiful. I couldn’t ask for better, so he has answered all my prayers,” she said.

The pontiff left Fatima on Saturday afternoon after a stay of less than 24 hours. From his popemobile he saluted thousands of people lining the streets who cheered, waved flags and shouted “Viva o Papa!”

Francisco and Jacinta, aged 9 and 7, and their 10-year-old cousin, Lucia, reported that on March 13, 1917, the Virgin Mary made the first of a half-dozen appearances to them while they grazed their sheep. They said she confided in them three secrets — foretelling apocalyptic visions of hell, war, communism and the death of a pope — and urged them to pray for peace and a conversion from sin.

At the time, Europe was in the throes of World War I, and the Portuguese church was suffering under anti-clerical laws from the republican government that had forced many bishops and priests into exile.

“Our Lady foretold, and warned us about, a way of life that is godless and indeed profanes God in his creatures,” Francis said in his homily. “Such a life, frequently proposed and imposed, risks leading to hell.”

He urged Catholics today to use the example of the Marto siblings and draw strength from God, even when adversity strikes. The children had been threatened by local civil authorities with death by boiling oil if they didn’t recant their story. But they held fast and eventually the church recognized the apparitions as authentic in 1930.

“We can take as our examples Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta, whom the Virgin Mary introduced into the immense ocean of God’s light and taught to adore him,” he said. “That was the source of their strength in overcoming opposition and suffering.”

The Martos are now the youngest-ever saints who didn’t die as martyrs.

Before the Mass, Francis prayed at the tombs of each of the Fatima visionaries. The Marto siblings died two years after the visions during Europe’s Spanish flu pandemic. Lucia is on track for possible beatification, but her process couldn’t start until after her 2005 death.

At the end of the Mass, Francis offered a special greeting to the many faithful who flock to Fatima in hopes of healing.

Participating in the offertory procession Saturday were Joao Baptista and his wife, Lucila Yurie, of Brazil. They were with their son, Lucas, whose medically inexplicable healing was the “miracle” needed for the Marto siblings to be declared saints. Lucas and the pope embraced.

The boy, aged 5 at the time, had fallen 6.5 meters (21 feet) from a window in 2013 and suffered severe head trauma. His doctors said he would be severely mentally disabled or in a vegetative state if he even survived. The boy not only survived but has no signs of any after-effects.

“We thank God for Lucas’ cure. We know in all faith from our heart that this miracle was obtained with the help of the little shepherd children Francisco and Jacinta,” Baptista told reporters earlier.

In 2000, Pope John Paul II beatified the Marto siblings during a Mass at Fatima and used the occasion of the new millennium to reveal the third “secret” that the children reported they had received from the Madonna. The text, written by Lucia, had been kept in a sealed envelope inside the Vatican for decades, with no pope daring to reveal it because of its terrifying contents: a “bishop dressed in white” — the pope — on his knees at the foot of a cross, killed in a hail of bullets and arrows, along with other bishops, priests and various lay Catholics.

The message featured an angel crying out “Penance, penance, penance!”

John Paul II, now St. John Paul, credited the Virgin Mary with saving his life in an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981 — the same date of the first Fatima vision. One of the bullets fired at him rests in the crown of the statue of the Virgin at the Fatima shrine.

The impending canonization of the children had led to speculation that a fourth “secret” remained, but the Vatican says there are no more secrets related to the Fatima revelations.
Pope Francis canonizes Jacinta and Francisco Marto, two of the three Fátima children who reported seeing the Virgin Mary in the spring and summer of 1917. The Martos, who died during the post-World War I international influenza pandemic, are the Catholic Church's youngest saints who did not die as martyrs. The other child, Lúcia de Jesus dos Santos, survived until the year 2005, when she was 97 years old.