FATIMA, Portugal: Pope Francis arrived in Portugal Friday to join hundreds of thousands of expectant pilgrims in Fatima, the holy site where child shepherds had visions of the Virgin Mary 100 years ago. The Argentine pontiff landed at a military base north of Lisbon to wild applause some 40 km away in Fatima where Catholic faithful watched the arrival of his plane live on giant screens.
"This trip is special, it's a trip of prayer and a meeting with God and the Holy Mother of God," he told reporters on the plane, whose pilots put up a small Portuguese flag outside the cockpit on landing, followed by that of the Vatican. After holding talks with Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Pope Francis was due to fly to Fatima by helicopter to meet the crowds.
'Freedom for Venezuela'
There, pilgrims from countries as varied as China, Venezuela and East Timor filled a giant, white esplanade that faces the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima in a display of fervour... with a dose of politics mixed in. "Virgin of Fatima, I ask you for freedom for Venezuela," read a message printed onto a flag carried by a pilgrim, competing with other banners above the crowd of faithful that filled the 400,000-capacity esplanade.
"We are going to pray to Fatima and Pope Francis so that they can intervene for a peaceful solution for Venezuela," said Jose Ornelas, a 59-year-old librarian who came all the way from Caracas, which along with other cities has been wracked by deadly anti-regime protests. "We are living in a violent spiral with so much hate and so much helplessness."
Fatima has become a major holy site since the Virgin is said to have appeared six times between May and October 1917 to three impoverished, barely-literate children - Jacinta, 7, Francisco, 9, and their cousin Lucia, 10. She apparently shared three major prophecies with them at a time marked by the ravages of World War I and persecution of the Church in a relatively new Portuguese republic.
These reportedly included a warning of a second war. Today - the 100th anniversary of the first reported apparition - Pope Francis will canonize Jacinta and Francisco, who have officially been credited with two miracles. One of these apparently took place in 2013, when a five-year-old Brazilian boy called Lucas recovered at lightning speed after he fell more than six metres from a window, smashing his skull.
All-nighter
Many pilgrims trekked for days on foot to the central Portuguese town - some finishing the last few metres on their knees. Others staked out a prime spot next to the railings marking off the route where Pope Francis will ride his "Popemobile" later yesterday. Carolina Palacios, a 48-year-old civil servant from Paraguay, said she and her fellow group members had taken turns sitting on fold-up chairs through the night to make sure no one took their spot. "We came and went. We stood guard just like soldiers," she joked. - AFP