Pope Francis has asked the Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal
José Policarpo, if he can consecrate his pontificate to Our Lady of
Fatima.
The cardinal himself confirmed this, in his introduction to the
181st general assembly of the Portuguese Bishops' Conference.
At the end of his opening speech, Policarpo said: “Pope Francis asked
me twice whether he could consecrate his new ministry to Our Lady of
Fatima. It is a mandate I can carry out in prayer and silence. But it
would be nice if the whole bishop's conference joined in to fulfil this
request. May Mary guide us in our work and in fulfilling Pope Francis'
request.”
The Popes have always had close ties with Fatima.
When
Eugenio Pacelli, who was consecrated bishop in the Sistine Chapel on the
very day of the first apparition (13 May 1917), became Pope, he wanted
the text on the third secret to be kept in the Vatican.
In 1950, just
before the Assumption of Mary dogma was proclaimed, he said he had been
present when the miracle of the sun in the Vatican gardens took place,
the same miracle witnessed in October 1917 by those who flocked to
witness Mary's apparition to the three shepherd children at Fatima.
Pius
XII saw the phenomenon as divine confirmation of the dogma he was about
to proclaim and in a handwritten note, described how he had repeatedly
seen the sun rotate around itself. John XXIII was the first to read the
secret in 1959 and told his collaborators in the Secretariat of State
and the former Holy Office, but in the end decided not to publish it.
Paul VI went to Fatima on a pilgrimage on the occasion of the fiftieth
anniversary of the apparitions. The then Patriarch of Venice, Albino
Luciani, interviewed Fatima seer, Sister Lucia, less than a year before
he was elected Pope.
But it was during John Paul II's papacy that the secret
of Fatima was fulfilled: the attempt on Wojtyla's life took place on 13
May 1981 and he attributed his rescue to Mary.
In May 2000 it was John
Paul II who revealed the content of the third secret to the world.
The
(not binding) interpretation he gave was that the Pope who was attacked
to death in the vision experienced by the shepherd children, was him.
Benedict XVI who had written a theological comment on the secret when he
was still a cardinal, followed in his predecessor's footsteps and went
to Fatima in May 2010.
Answering journalists' questions, on the flight
to Portugal, he confirmed that the secret of Fatima is still valid
today and that the prophesy could apply not only to the Church's
struggle against the Eastern totalitarian regimes but the paedophilia
scandal as well.