The parents of missing British four-year-old Madeleine McCann attended a special church service on Saturday to mark the 100th day since her disappearance.Four-year-old Madeleine McCann has been missing for 100 days.
Gerry and Kate McCann said prayers at the mass in the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve region of southern Portugal.
Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, disappeared on May 3 during a holiday with her parents at the Mark Warner Ocean Club holiday resort in the area.
Ahead of the church service, Sheena Rawcliffe, managing director of The Resident newspaper, one of the main English language newspapers in the Algarve, told the BBC: "In any other circumstance, you would expect this to be a royal wedding -- there are so many film crews and press cameras here."
"It's just terribly sad to think that we are here 100 days on with no sighting of little Madeleine and their (her) parents must be distraught."
Despite all the publicity, so far only one suspect has emerged, Briton Robert Murat, while sightings and reported breakthroughs have come to nothing or proved to be hoaxes.
Rawcliffe believed locals would view the service as a way of uniting with the expatriate community to pray for the safe return of Madeleine and other missing children.
The McCanns launched "Don't You Forget about Me", a channel on video-sharing Web site YouTube to help trace missing children, to mark 100 days without their daughter.
Rawcliffe said she believed criticism over the McCanns behavior and their desire to remain in Praia da Luz would resurface.
"You have to accept that the public is fickle, the public wants answers to some of the questions that still haven't been answered and meanwhile those poor people have to go through this torment every day," she said.
While the British media has remained supportive of the family, other journalists and some members of the public have been more critical.
They have questioned why the couple had left their children alone, and suggested that their behavior since has not been what people would expect.
The couple met Pope Benedict during a general audience at the Vatican following their daughter's disappearance and ahead of Saturday's service, the family's priest in Leicestershire said their faith had helped the couple remain strong.
Father Keith Tomlinson told Sky News: "They have been well supported by faith, I have no doubt about that."
"We are still full of faith and hope."
News that traces of blood had been found in the apartment has prompted Portuguese media to report that police suspected Madeleine might have been murdered there.
Britain's Daily Express newspaper reported on Friday that the lawyer acting for Murat said locals wanted "these bloody McCanns" to return to Britain.
But the McCanns said they would not be "bullied" into leaving the resort where their daughter disappeared.
"We still strongly want to do what we believe is the right thing ... what's the right thing for Madeleine, what's the right thing for us and that is to stay," said Kate McCann on Friday.
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