2023-08-05 04:50:00
Pope Francis makes a quick trip to the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in central Portugal on Saturday morning, before returning to Lisbon for a vigil preceding the final mass of World Youth Day (WYD).
Expected in Fatima at 08:00 GMT, the sovereign pontiff, who will go there by helicopter, will stay there for two hours to recite the rosary with young sick and disabled people and to deliver a speech there.
To the rhythm of drums, songs accompanied by the guitar and waving flags in the colors of their countries, hundreds of pilgrims flocked from Friday afternoon to the vast esplanade surrounding the small chapel marking the place where, according to Catholic tradition , the Virgin Mary appeared to three children in 1917.
“We are very happy to find the pope” especially since he “is not in super good health”, confides to AFP Sibylle Cavalier, a 19-year-old student from the south of France.
Fatima, located 130 km north of Lisbon, “is for me one of the Marian shrines where you have to go at least once in your life. As it is WYD, we take advantage of it”, adds Anne-Béatrice Casse, a 18-year-old Frenchwoman, wearing a cap with the inscription in English “I love Jesus”.
The Virgin Mary would have appeared there to three little shepherds six times in 1917, and would have entrusted them with three secrets, one of which concerns Russia.
The Portuguese authorities, who expect a large influx with in particular the arrival of many Portuguese from the north of the country, reinforced security measures around the site on Friday.
“We expect the sanctuary to be full, or even that their number exceeds its capacity”, estimated at 270,000 people, said Friday the spokesperson for the gendarmerie, Mafalda Almeida, during a press conference.
“The Pope Moves the Crowds”
“To see all these young people is wonderful. The pope moves the crowds,” rejoices Susana Marino, a 48-year-old psychologist from Porto (north) who wanted to be present for the occasion.
On May 13, 2017, some 500,000 pilgrims visited Fatima when the pope canonized two of the shepherds on the centenary of what would be their first vision.
Alongside the pilgrims, many volunteers from all over the world are also mobilized to welcome the faithful, such as Gloria Ntakirutinka, 26, from Rwanda.
“I wanted to serve, to make myself useful, for God and my Christian community”, explains the young woman who is delighted to note on this occasion that “faith is universal and colorless”.
Pope Francis, 86, arrived in Portugal on Wednesday to meet global Catholic youth gathered in Lisbon for a week of festive, cultural and spiritual gatherings.
Since the beginning of his visit, the longest of a pope in this Iberian country, Jorge Bergoglio has already addressed many topics, such as ecology, social networks, the war in Ukraine, or pedocrime 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.
05/08/2023 04:49:35 – Fatima (Portugal) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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