The Vatican announced Pope Francis had approved the promotion of the Fatima visionary Sister Lucia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos Thursday (June 22) from "Servant of God" to "Venerable."
The Carmelite nun was one of three shepherd children from the town of Fatima, Portugal, who allegedly saw the Virgin Mary in a series of monthly apparitions in 1917, culminating in a spectacular "Miracle of the Sun" witnessed by tens of thousands of people on October 13 of that year.
Her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto died shortly after the apparitions due to the Spanish flu pandemic. The Marto siblings were beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000 and were canonized by Pope Francis in 2017. Both ceremonies were held at the shrine marking the apparition site in Fatima.
Aside from Sister Lucia, four other Servants of God were promoted as Venerables.
From Shepherdess to Nun
After the death of her cousins, Lucia entered the Institute of the Sisters of St. Dorothy or the Dorotheans. According to her records, she claimed to have been visited by Jesus and the Virgin Mary multiple times during all stages of her life as a nun. Sr. Lucia made her perpetual vows for the Dorotheans in 1934.
Several of the Virgin Mary's requests to Lucia included the promotion of the practice of praying a devotion to Mary for five first Saturdays in a row, making acts of reparation for the sins of the world, and the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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Prophetess of Doomsday
During the July 1917 apparition, the Virgin Mary apparently entrusted the three children with three secrets regarding the fate of the world and the souls in it. The first two corresponded to the Virgin Mary's requests to practice the first five Saturday devotions and the consecration of Russia.
Between 1935 and 1941, Sr. Lucia divulged the first two secrets in writing upon the request of a local Portuguese bishop, José Alves Correia da Silvia of Leiria.
Later on, the third secret was allegedly written in 1944 and sent to Rome. It contained a prophecy that Catholic clergy and religious would be persecuted in the future, from the Pope down to the bishops, priests, and religious. The document was only opened for the first time in 1960.
The interpretation of the third secret remains unknown, but many believe it was about the Apocalypse. However, one of the more popular interpretations connected the third secret to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, the 64th anniversary of the Virgin Mary's first apparition in Fatima.
As an act of thanksgiving for surviving the attempt, John Paul added one of the bullets that struck him to the ornate crown of the Virgin Mary's image in Fatima. He also approved the publication of the third secret in 2000.
After transcribing the three secrets, Sr. Lucia transitioned from the Dorotheans to the convent of the Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCD) in Coimbra, where she made her profession in 1949.
Since the Carmelites were under a strict law of silence, she was bound to remain silent about the apparitions from that point forward. This has led some Catholics to believe in conspiracy theories that the Catholic Church was covering up the Fatima apparitions and silencing Lucia.
Sr. Lucia was able to visit Fatima multiple times during her lifetime, including four papal pilgrimages by Popes Paul VI (1967) and John Paul II (1982, 1991, 2000).
She died on February 13, 2005, within the walls of the Coimbra convent at the age of 97. Pope John Paul II, who was a devotee of the Virgin Mary's apparition in Fatima, died in April that same year in Rome.
Road to Sainthood
Sister Lucia's cause for canonization was announced by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, three years after her death, instead of the mandatory five-year waiting time according to canon law. Benedict decided to waive the waiting time for her case.
She was promoted to "Servant of God" in 2017 by Pope Francis.
According to the Vatican's degree of promotion, the distinction between Lucia's life and the apparitions was "difficult" as she was "always kept hidden, protected, [and] guarded" due to her affiliation with the cloistered Carmelites.
"One can see in her all the difficulty of keeping together the exceptionality of the events of which she was a spectator and the ordinariness of a monastic life like that of Carmel," the decree added.
The title of "Venerable" in the Catholic Church is the second of four major steps in the process of sainthood. In order for Sr. Lucia to be beatified, the Holy See must confirm one miracle attributed to her and another one in order to be made a full saint. By practice, medical miracles are the cases being recognized by the Vatican.
In the case of martyrs, the miracle requirement in the beatification process is waived upon papal confirmation that a person indeed died a martyr's death.
In addition, Pope Francis was scheduled to visit Fatima in August when he traveled to Portugal for World Youth Day.
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