Last year more than 240,000
fewer devotees attended mass at the Sanctuary of Fátima than the year
before, giving continuation to dwindling attendances that were first
noted in 2007.
The number of pilgrims
participating in processions also fell by around 55,000 people, from
some 3.151 million in 2009 to 3.096 million last year.
Statistics from the Sanctuary were released this week in Fátima.
When
questioned why the number of faithful visiting the Sanctuary fell last
year, a year in which Pope Benedict XVI visited the holy site, the
Sanctuary’s rector Father Virgílio Antunes said it could be because of
the economic crisis.
“Taking into account the
difficulties that people are having to live with, mainly economic ones, I
think that it is normal that people cannot come to Fátima as often as
they did during other periods”, he said, adding he believes “people will
come in the future, when the economic situation is different.”
Other
contributing factors, in the rector’s opinion, are “the costs of fuel
and tolls and spending on food in Fátima, which for a family on a small
budget is a lot.”
Father Antunes described the
Pope’s visit to Fátima in May last year as being of “enormous importance
to the church, to the world, to Fátima, and to the way Fátima is seen
by the world.”
“Fátima, in May, reached the four corners of the world in a very positive way”, he said.
During
2010 some 3,916 foreign and Portuguese groups visited Fátima (596,322
people in total) on an organised excursion, which in the rector’s
opinion is “the cheapest way to travel”, as the visitors share buses.
The
Spanish are the most common foreign visitors to Portugal’s holiest
city, with 34,117 Spaniards visiting last year in groups, followed by
Italians (30,185 visitors), 12,746 Polish visitors, and 5,680 North
American visitors.