Posted on 02/14/2005 12:42:05 PM PST by nickcarraway
LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal has declared Tuesday a day of mourning and politicians have cut back election campaigning to mark the death of Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, the last of three children who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary at Fatima.
Dos Santos, who as a child in 1917 described visions which, decades later, the Catholic Church said foretold the attempt to kill Pope John Paul in 1981, died aged 97 on Sunday at her Carmelite convent in Coimbra, 150 km (95 miles) north of Lisbon.
She is to be buried at the convent on Tuesday and her remains will be transferred in a year to nearby Fatima, one of Catholicism's major pilgrimage sites.
Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes late on Sunday declared Tuesday a day of national mourning.
"I believe that Sister Lucia is a great figure in the recent history of Portugal," Santana Lopes said in remarks carried on TSF radio. A spokesman said he might attend the funeral.
Portugal holds snap elections on Sunday but Santana Lopes' centre-right Social Democrats and their coalition partner the rightist Popular Party suspended their campaigns on Monday and Tuesday because of the death.
The opposition Socialists, who are well ahead in opinion polls, said they would scale back their campaign activities.
Dos Santos was said by believers to be the main recipient of prophecies from the Virgin about key 20th century events. The first part of the prophecies saw a vision of hell, the second predicted the outbreak of World War Two.
The Vatican interpreted a third part of the visions as foretelling the attempt to kill the Pope and Communism's persecution of Christianity.
The Church kept the details secret for decades until they was revealed during the Pope's visit to Fatima in 2000.
The other two children, dos Santos' cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, died in 1919 and 1920. The two were beatified, the last step to sainthood, in 2000.
Rest in peace, Sister Lucia.
RIP
Wasn't there some controversy over this? It turned out the third secret was nothing earth shattering- so why all the hush-hush for so many years?
It seems an unlikely reason to keep secret for so long. Sorry, but I think we were purposely misled about #3.
I wondered if #3 was 9-11??
I'm glad to see that next year,Sister Lucia will be buried in Fatima,with her two little cousins. I can almost see the home-coming she got,not only from her mother and father,but from Jacinto and Francisco. RIP.
Rumors were always that it was about nuclear war, I don't think 9/11 was bad enough for what they used to say it was. Either that or a massive meteor strike.
Problem is by now there's no way on Earth to know what she really said. It's a shame, no need to keep these mysteries.
Not true. And why would "we" be "purposely" misled? Sorry if I misjudged your comments but I for one,as a Roman Catholic am sick and tired of the lies and half-truths being put out by anti-Catholics.
The "third secret was written down by Sister Lucia, the only survivor among the three children to whom the Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima in 1917. Sister Lucia-- now a Carmelite nun-- wrote down the text in 1944, at the request of the local bishop. The following is the full text of the "third secret" in its original translation:
"I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.
"After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: "Penance, Penance, Penance!"
"And we saw in an immense light that is God: "something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it" a Bishop dressed in White "we had the impression that it was the Holy Father."
"Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way;
"having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions.
"Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspergilium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God."
I am very impressed that Portugal has declared this a day of mourning. Thanks for posting this.
There are several websites that put forth the theory that two envelopes that were taken to Rome when the Third vision was taken there. The one published and a smaller one. Read the threads from yesterday. As with all conspiracy theories some of it is rather interesting.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=fatima
She has led a saintly life for many years. God rest her soul.
Although perhaps it shouldn't be, this is a political event of a sort. The apparition of Our Lady at Fatima happened at a time when Portuguese socialists (read Communists) were threatening to take over the country and persecute Christians, much as they did in Spain during the Civil War.
Among its other effect, Fatima seems to have staved off the worst excesses of socialism in Portugal. I haven't followed the current election, but given what recently happened in Spain after the train bombings it will be interesting to see how this election turns out.
If the Church decided that revealing the secret was not in it's best interest (public opinion, money, alliances), yes, it would mislead.
sw
Pray for us St Lucia. Thank you for all of your hard work and prayers for us here on Earth.
When you read the third secret it seems to me that it is still in the future. It speaks about several people being killed, not just the Pope. It also talks about them being killed by soldiers which is plural and points to more than one assassin. Who knows maybe what it is referring to is full out religious war with Islam. That makes more sense than the interpretation about the Papal assassination attempt.
Ping
I had not heard that she had passed on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.