Pope John Paul later placed one of the bullets that nearly killed him in the crown of the statue of Fatima. Dos Santos was said by believers to have received prophecies from the Virgin about a vision of hell and the outbreak of World War II. The apparitions took place the same year as the Russian Revolution. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Politics Covid U. News World Opinion Business. Share this —. Follow NBC News. Vatican sources said her death had shocked the pontiff just as he was recovering from his recent illness.
Portuguese churchmen doubted the reported apparitions for years after Lucia and the other children reported them. But Vatican recognition of the visions in , declaring them to be "worthy of belief" - and of prophecies Lucia said the Virgin Mary had made to her - turned Fatima into one of Catholicism's most revered pilgrimage destinations, with visits from Catholics making it Portugal's third most popular tourist attraction. The two other little shepherds, cousins of Lucia, both died while still children, in the influenza pandemic of , and were eventually beatified by the Pope in during a visit to the Fatima shrine.
She was 10 when she and her younger cousins, brother and sister Francisco and Jacinta Marto, were tending the family's sheep on May 13 a date now commemorated by Catholics as the Day of Fatima. They said the Virgin Mary appeared to them on an oak tree, telling them to return to the same spot on the same day, the 13th, of every month. They did so, Lucia later recorded, until October 13 that year, after which the vision no longer appeared. On every day of the 13th until then, the three children told their parents and priests, the Virgin reappeared, although only Lucia heard her voice.
She later wrote down the so-called three secrets of Fatima, the first two of which were revealed by the Catholic church after they appeared to have come true. The first secret was that Lucia's two cousins would die soon, which they did within three years of what became known as the miracle of Fatima. The second secret appeared to predict the end of the first world war, the Bolshevik revolution and its effect on the Christian faith, and the start of the second world war.
Lucia quoted the Virgin Mary as saying, "Russia will spread its errors around the world, promoting wars and persecution of the church," though she said later that, being a child, she had assumed at the time that "Russia" was "a woman, a bad woman". The third prophecy had the Virgin Mary speaking of "a bishop dressed in white", who would "fall to the ground as though dead under gunfire".
It was kept secret by the Vatican throughout the 20th century, officials being fearful that it might encourage an attack on church leaders, including the Pope. Only in did the Vatican reveal this third prophecy - rather conveniently, according to lesser believers - suggesting that it referred to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II by Mehmet Ali Agca in St Peter's Square in
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