The visiting Pope's dates have been confirmed for next year as Pope Francis pays a two day visit to Fátima on the centenary of the date when three children claimed they saw an image of the Virgin Mary above an olive tree.
Pope Francis will visit Portugal's magnet for religious tourists on May 12th and 13th, 2017, appearing at the traditional midnight mass on the 12th - a prelude to the anniversary of the first sighting of the Virgin Mary. The first apparition was May 13, but a midnight Mass and a candlelight procession on th 12th marks the start of the celebrations.
Francis will be the fourth pope to visit Fátima, 150 kilometres north of Lisbon. The last papal visit was Benedict XVI in 2010, who also visited Lisbon and Oporto.
Fatima draws around six million visitors a year but next year will be blessed with 'the Pope effect', increasing numbers as a result of the Roman Pontiff's visit.
The story of Fátima is that three Portuguese children claimed the Virgin Mary appeared to them six times in 1917 and told them three secrets: the end of World War I and the start of World War II, and the rise and fall of Soviet communism. The third secret remained so until 2000 when the Vatican finally revealed that it was a prediction of the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in Rome. The shooting in St Peter's Square was on May 13, and Pope John Paul credited the Virgin Mary of Fátima with saving his life.
Two of the cousins, Francisco and Jacinto Marto, died of pneumonia at 9 and 11.
The third, Lúcia Marto, became a nun and died in 2005 at the age of 97. She had been blind and deaf and ailing for some years prior to this and died at the Carmelite convent of Santa Teresa in Coimbra, where she had lived since 1948.
On the day of her funeral, Pope John Paul II and the future Pope Benedict XVI both said that she would go to Heaven. February 15, 2005, was declared a day of national mourning in Portugal.
