Pope To Visit Fatima

PORTUGAL 11-14 May 2010 Pope Benedict XVI visits Fatima shrine

Pope Benedict XVI holds open air masses for capacity crowds in Lisbon and Porto, and visits the Marian shrine of Fatima to celebrate the anniversary of the day in 1917 when the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three shepherd children there. While in Portugal he could announce plans to canonize Sister Lucia dos Santos, one of the three children, who died in 2005 at the age of 97. He could scold the Socialist government for legalizing abortion and gay marriage.

On the 13th of each month from May to Oct 1917, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to Lúcia,10, and to her cousins Jacinta, 7, and Francisco Marto, 9, in the fields outside the village of Aljustrel near Fatima. Jacinta and Francisco died in 1919, victims of the Spanish flu. All three have been beatified, the first step to sainthood.