IMAGE: CNS/Junno Arocho Esteves
By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Recent popes have had a special
affection for Our Lady of Fatima, but no pope’s connection can match that of
St. John Paul II.
“We cannot
forget that he was saved by Our Lady of Fatima from the assassination attempt
here in St. Peter’s. This is fundamental and central. It is never
forgotten,” Portuguese Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, former
prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, told Catholic News Service
March 29.
Mehmet Ali Agca, a
Turk, shot Pope John Paul at close range as the pope was greeting a crowd in
St. Peter’s Square on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, May 13, 1981.
Two bullets pierced
the pope’s abdomen, but no major organs were struck; a bullet had missed his
heart and aorta by a few inches.
St. John Paul would
later say, “It was
a mother’s hand that guided the bullet’s path.”
That miracle, the
cardinal said, is key in “understanding well Pope John Paul’s devotion to
Our Lady of Fatima.”
Given the date of
the assassination attempt,
the pope specifically credited Our Lady of Fatima with his miraculous survival
and recovery. Several months later, he visited the site of the apparitions, the first of three visits he
would make as pope to Fatima.
For St. John Paul, Cardinal Saraiva Martins
said, “Our Lady of Fatima was everything,” and his three visits to the Portuguese town were those
of a grateful son to the mother who saved his life.
“I still
remember — I’ll never forget it — when he arrived at the little chapel of the apparitions
where (the statue of) Our Lady of Fatima was,” Cardinal Saraiva Martins recalled.
St. John Paul was holding one of the bullets that
had struck him and slowly approached the statue, finally placing the bullet in
her crown, he said. “It is still in the crown today. I witnessed these
gestures, how he expressed his devotion to Our Lady. He would just walk closer
and closer to Our Lady and would repeat: ‘You saved me, you saved me.'”
As the prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes from
1998 to 2008, Cardinal
Saraiva Martins also oversaw the process leading to the beatification by
St. John Paul of Jacinta and Francisco Marto, two of the three young shepherd
children, who saw Mary at Fatima.
The cardinal also shared a personal friendship with the
third seer, Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, who died in 2005.
It was Cardinal Saraiva Martins who, two years after Sister
Lucia’s death, urged Pope Benedict XVI to waive the five-year waiting period
before her sainthood cause could be opened.
“The pope was very kind. He said, ‘Yes, you know more
about this than I do. We will do as you say,'” the cardinal recalled.
Pope Benedict, the cardinal added, was a “great
devotee” of Our Lady of Fatima, even before his election to the papacy.
Interviewed
in his apartment near St. Peter’s Square, Cardinal Saraiva Martins grabbed a
copy of part of the interview then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did in 1985 with Vittorio Messori, an Italian journalist.
“Before becoming pope, he said: ‘A stern warning has
been launched from that place … a summons to the seriousness of life, of
history, to the perils that threaten humanity,'” the cardinal read.
The
special papal bond with Our Lady of Fatima continues today with Pope Francis,
who as archbishop of Buenos Aires, was a frequent visitor to a shrine in the
Argentine city devoted to her, Cardinal Saraiva Martins said. Pope
Francis will visit Fatima May 12-13 to mark the 100th anniversary of the
apparitions.
The cardinal recalled Pope Francis’ “beautiful”
words to Portuguese-speaking
pilgrims on May 13, 2015, the 98th anniversary of the apparition: “Entrust
to her all that you are, all that you have, and in that way you will be able to become an
instrument of the mercy and tenderness of God to your family, neighbors and
friends.”
“This an
example of the words of Pope Francis, so he is a great devotee of Fatima,”
the cardinal said. “And for this reason, he will go to Fatima. For him, it will be an extraordinary
day in which he will fulfill this great desire that has been expressed in so
many ways.”
Devotion to Our
Lady of Fatima is emblematic of the popes of the last century who have
“always recognized” the relevance of Mary’s message, particularly its
emphasis on faith, conversion, hope and peace, the cardinal said.
“Today we need faith, to be closer to God and our
brothers and sisters — not hate each other — we need hope and we need
peace,” Cardinal Saraiva Martins said. “In short, the message of
Fatima given 100 years ago is of extreme relevance.”
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