Pope Francis made a whirlwind visit in front of 200,000 faithful on Saturday morning to Fatima, an emblematic Marian shrine in central Portugal, before returning immediately to Lisbon where he will preside over the vigil of World Youth Days (WYD). Contrary to what was planned, the pope improvised almost all of his first speech, without reading his text, and skipped the second, not evoking the themes expected for this stage, such as the war in Ukraine and the search for peace, which he had already spoken about on Wednesday. The Vatican spokesman told AFP that the Pope had already improvised one of his speeches the day before, due to “discomfort with vision”, but that on Saturday it had “a choice” of Francois.
At Fatima, the sovereign pontiff thus reaffirmed his message in favor of a Church open “to all, without exception”. “The Church has no doors, for all to enter,” he said. On board his “Papamobile”, Jorge Bergoglio indulged in a long walkabout on the esplanade which surrounds the small chapel marking the place where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to three children in 1917. Blessing and kissing many infants, the pope appeared smiling and blessed the faithful massed along the barriers for a long time before reciting the rosary with young sick and disabled people, but also six prisoners.
“Connected”
A few minutes earlier, the sovereign pontiff had flown over the vast esplanade of the sanctuary aboard a helicopter, in a sky reddened and obscured by smoke and ash caused by a forest fire a hundred kilometers away. “I can’t wait to see the pope, who for me represents hope,” said Cristina Gomes, a 55-year-old Portuguese woman wearing a fluorescent green reflective vest shortly before. Coming from the suburbs of Lisbon, 130 km further south, she spent the night there to make sure to see him more closely. “We are very happy to find the pope” especially since he “is not in super good health”, confided to AFP Sibylle Cavalier, a 19-year-old student from the south of France.
It is here that the Virgin Mary would have appeared to three little shepherds six times in 1917, and would have entrusted them with three secrets, one of which concerns Russia. “We are united, people are connected through music and prayer, we don’t need to speak the same language,” said Lucia Marinho, a 14-year-old Portuguese girl who traveled four hours to “live this experience”, even if she does not call herself a practitioner. After spending about two hours there, the pope left by helicopter for Lisbon by helicopter, where he arrived around 10:45 GMT.
Rock-star welcome
He had previously traveled to Fatima in 2017 to canonize two of the shepherds there on the centenary of what would be their first vision. Jorge Bergoglio arrived in Portugal on Wednesday to meet the Catholic youth of the world, gathered in Lisbon for a week of festive, cultural and spiritual meetings. Since the beginning of his visit, the longest of a pope in this Iberian country, he has already addressed many topics, such as ecology, social networks, the war in Ukraine, or child crime within the Church. .
On Thursday and Friday, up to 800,000 faithful flooded the streets of Lisbon before massing in a park overlooking the city center to offer him a rock-star welcome, according to figures from the authorities. According to the organizers, they could be a million on Saturday evening, during the vigil which will be held at the gates of Lisbon, in a vast park laid out for the occasion on the site of a former landfill located on the edge of the Tagus estuary. .
With six million visitors expected this year, Fatima is one of the most visited Marian shrines in the world, like that of Lourdes, in France. Without the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Portuguese sanctuary this year returned to levels of attendance before the health crisis, with more than 200,000 people present during the great annual pilgrimage on May 13.