Timeline of the apparitions

On May 13, 1917, three young shepherds—Francisco Marto, 9, his sister Jacinta, 7, and their cousin Lucia dos Santos, 10—returned home with their flock of sheep after a day of tending them. They told their skeptical parents that a beautiful lady had appeared to them while they were out with the sheep. She asked them to pray the Rosary daily and to return on the 13th of each month.

On June 13, the children returned to the spot where they had seen "the beautiful lady." When questioned, they said the lady had asked them to pray the Rosary daily, entrusted them with a secret, and asked them to return on July 13.

On July 13, "the beautiful lady" again asked the children to pray the Rosary daily in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to achieve world peace and the end of the war. She entrusted them with a secret and told them that on October 13, she would reveal her name and perform a miracle so that everyone would believe.

On August 13, the children could not go to the apparition site as they had been detained. After numerous interrogations to make them confess their "lie," the children were released on August 16. On August 19, they saw "the beautiful lady" once again. She continued to ask them to pray the Rosary daily and to "pray and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because there are none to sacrifice and pray for them."

On September 13, accompanied by nearly 25,000 people, the children saw the lady who advised them to continue praying the Rosary to end the war and promised to return on October 13.

On October 13, between 50,000 and 70,000 people gathered to witness the great miracle announced by the lady on July 13. At noon, Lucia shouted to the crowd: "Look at the sun!" and the onlookers distinctly saw the sun "dance" in the sky. This phenomenon, later called "the dance of the sun," lasted about 10 minutes. It was Mary's last appearance to the three children.

Francisco and Jacinta Marto died of the Spanish flu in 1919 and 1920, respectively. They were beatified on May 13, 2000, by St. John Paul II. Lucia Dos Santos, who became a Carmelite nun in Coimbra - where she died in 2005 - was declared Venerable by the Church in 2023.

Message and secrets

Beyond the secrets entrusted to the children, Mary's message emphasized the need to meditate on the mysteries of Christ's life (recitation of the Rosary) and pray for world peace and for sinners.

During the third apparition, the Virgin revealed a message to the children and asked them not to disclose it yet. This message consisted of three parts and would only be revealed several years after the events.

The first two secrets were officially published in 1941. The first was a vision of hell, symbolizing the outbreak of World War II. The second secret concerned Russia and its consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. John Paul II decided to reveal the third "Secret of Fatima" in 2000 during the transition to the third millennium.

Fatima and the popes

Pope Pius XII was ordained a bishop on May 13, 1917, the day of the first apparition. He saw this as a prophetic sign throughout his life. The Italian pope corresponded with Lucia, the only surviving visionary, and was impressed by the revelations of the Virgin Mary.

For the 50th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions, St. Paul VI visited Fatima on May 13, 1967, for an unprecedented 17-hour visit under the banner of peace in the Church and the world, attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

St. John Paul II believed that it was thanks to Mary that he survived an assassination attempt on May 13, 1981, during a general audience. "It was a motherly hand that guided the path of the bullet, and the dying pope stopped at death's threshold," he would later write. John Paul II requested that the bullet be encased in the golden crown of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. He visited Fatima three times in 1982, 1991, and 2000.

At the request of John Paul II, it fell to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to make the "third secret of Fatima" public. In his press statement on June 26, 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger said that the vision of Fatima was not meant to show a "film of an irrevocably fixed future" but rather "to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction." In 2010, Cardinal Ratzinger, who succeeded John Paul as Pope Benedict XVI, made a pilgrimage to Fatima.

For the 100th anniversary of the apparitions, Pope Francis made a pilgrimage to Cova da Iria in 2017, where he canonized the two young visionaries, Francisco and Jacinta Marto.