Fátima, Portugal in the context of "Tourism in Portugal"

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⭐ Core Definition: Fátima, Portugal

Fátima (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈfatimɐ] ) is a city in the municipality of Ourém and district of Santarém in the Oeste e Vale do Tejo Region of Portugal, with 71.29 km of area and 13,212 inhabitants (2021). The homonymous civil parish encompasses several villages and localities of which the city of Fátima is the largest.

The civil parish has been permanently associated with Our Lady of Fátima, a series of 1917 Marian apparitions that were purportedly witnessed by three local shepherd children at the Cova da Iria. The Catholic Church later recognized these events as "worthy of belief". A small chapel was built at the site of the apparition in 1919, and a statue of Mary installed. The chapel and statue have since been enclosed within the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima, a shrine complex containing two minor basilicas. Associated facilities for pilgrims, including a hotel and medical centre, have also been built over the decades within and around the Sanctuary. The city has become an important international destination for religious tourists, receiving between 6 and 8 million pilgrims yearly.

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👉 Fátima, Portugal in the context of Tourism in Portugal

Tourism in Portugal serves millions of international and domestic tourists. Tourists visit to see cities, historic landmarks, enjoy beaches, or religious sites. As of 2024, Portugal had 29 million international visitors. In addition, there were 22,9 million trips made by Portuguese residents including overnight stays at local hotels.The most popular destinations are Lisbon, Porto, the Algarve, the Portuguese Riviera, Madeira, Sintra, Óbidos, Nazaré, Fátima, Braga, Guimarães and Coimbra. The most popular with internationals were Lisbon region, the Algarve, the West and Tagus Valley region (Óbidos, Nazaré, Fátima), Northern Portugal (Porto, Braga and Guimarães) and Coimbra. National tourists prefer the Algarve and Northern Portugal, followed by Central region of Portugal.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of Our Lady of Fátima

Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora de Fátima, pronounced [ˈnɔsɐ sɨˈɲɔɾɐ ðɨ ˈfatimɐ]; formally known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fátima) is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions reported in 1917 by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. José Alves Correia da Silva, Bishop of Leiria, declared the events worthy of belief on 13 October 1930.

Pope Pius XII granted a pontifical decree of canonical coronation via the papal bull Celeberrima solemnia towards the venerated image on 25 April 1946. The designated papal legate, Cardinal Benedetto Aloisi Masella, carried out the coronation on 13 May 1946, now permanently enshrined at the Chapel of the Apparitions of Fátima. The same Roman Pontiff also raised the Sanctuary of Fátima to the status of a minor basilica by the apostolic letter Luce superna on 11 November 1954.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of List of pastoral visits of Pope Paul VI

The list of pastoral visits of Pope Paul VI details the travels of the first pope to leave Italy since 1809, representing the first ever papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the first papal visit to Africa, Asia, North America, Oceania, and South America. Pope Paul VI visited six continents, and was the most-travelled pope in history to that time, earning the nickname "the Pilgrim Pope". With his travels he opened new avenues for the papacy, which were continued by his successors Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. He traveled to Jordan and Israel in 1964 where he met with Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I in Jerusalem which led to rescinding the excommunications of the Great Schism, which took place in 1054. The Pope also traveled to the Eucharistic Congresses in Bombay, India and Bogotá, Colombia. The first papal visit to the United States occurred on 4 October 1965, when Paul VI visited New York City to address the United Nations at the invitation of Secretary-General U Thant. During that visit, the Pope first stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral where some 55,000 people lined the streets to greet him, met with President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Waldorf Astoria, addressed the United Nations General Assembly, celebrated Mass at Yankee Stadium, and viewed Michelangelo's Pieta at the New York World's Fair in Queens. Fifty years after the first apparition of Our Lady of Fátima, he visited the shrine in Fátima, Portugal in 1967. He undertook a pastoral visit to Africa in 1969. After a 1970 trip to several Asian and Pacific nations, he made no additional international trips. He died on August 6, 1978.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of Cova da Iria

Cova da Iria is a quarter in the city and civil parish of Fátima, in Portugal. Most of the reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three shepherd children from the town took place here in 1917.

This neighborhood is considered a high income area of the city as it hosts numerous attractions, convents, hotels, and pilgrims’ hostels, and other tourist facilities. It is near the Aljustrel and Valinhos, two sites also associated with the visions.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of Sister Lúcia

Lúcia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos, OCD, (28 March 1907 – 13 February 2005) also known as Lúcia of Fátima and by her religious name Maria Lúcia of Jesus and of the Immaculate Heart, was a Discalced Carmelite from Portugal. Sister Lúcia and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto claimed to have witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima in 1917. Her beatification process was opened in 2017. In 2023, she was declared venerable.

Born in 1907 to landowning peasants on the outskirts of Fátima, Portugal, Lúcia came to prominence in 1917 as the oldest of the three child seers of the apparitions Our Lady of Fátima. This involved her and her two cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, claiming to see the Virgin Mary in six apparitions. These apparitions sparked major interest, concluding with what is called the Miracle of the Sun being witnessed by tens of thousands in October of that year.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of Francisco and Jacinta Marto

Francisco de Jesus Marto (11 June 1908 – 4 April 1919) and Jacinta de Jesus Marto (5 March 1910 – 20 February 1920) were siblings from Aljustrel, a small hamlet near Fátima, Portugal, who, with their cousin Lúcia dos Santos (1907–2005), reportedly witnessed three apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916, and several apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria in 1917. The title Our Lady of Fátima was given to the Virgin Mary as a result, and the Sanctuary of Fátima became a major centre of global Catholic pilgrimage.

The two Marto children were solemnly canonized by Pope Francis at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima, in Portugal, on 13 May 2017, the centennial of the first Apparition of Our Lady of Fátima. They are the youngest Catholic saints, with Jacinta being the youngest saint who did not die a martyr.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of Roman Catholic Diocese of Leiria

The Diocese of Leiria–Fátima (Latin: Dioecesis Leiriensis–Fatimensis) is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic church in Portugal. It is suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Patriarchate of Lisbon.

The main church of the episcopal see is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Conception, in Leiria. It also has two minor basilicas, both in Fátima: the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary and the Basilica of the Holy Trinity, and also a World Heritage Site: the Monastery of Saint Mary of the Victory, in Batalha, as a decommissioned former Cathedral (now ruined): Church of Our Lady of Pena.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of Sanctuary of Fátima

The Sanctuary of Fátima (Portuguese: Santuário de Fátima), or Shrine of Fátima, also known as Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese: Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima), is a group of Catholic Church religious buildings and structures located in Cova da Iria, in the civil parish and city of Fátima, in the municipality of Ourém, in Portugal.

In addition to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary (Portuguese: Basílica de Nossa Senhora do Rosário), the shrine consists of the Chapel of the Lausperene (Portuguese: Capela do Lausperene), a great oak tree (near which the 1917 Marian apparitions occurred), a monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Portuguese: Monumento ao Sagrado Coração de Jesus) and the Chapel of the Apparitions (Portuguese: Capelinha das Aparições), where three children, Lúcia Santos and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, said they were first visited by the Virgin Mary. In addition, several other structures and monuments were built in the intervening years to commemorate the events.

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Fátima, Portugal in the context of Fátima prayers

The Fátima prayers (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈfatimɐ]) are a collection of seven Catholic prayers associated with the 1917 Marian apparitions at Fátima, Portugal. Of the seven prayers, reportedly, the first two were taught to the three child visionaries by the Angel of Peace in 1916, the next three were taught to them by Our Lady of Fátima herself during the course of the apparitions, and the final two were taught to Lúcia de Jesus Rosa dos Santos (the eldest and last survivor of the three) in 1931 by Jesus Christ when she was already a nun. Of the seven prayers, the rosary decade prayer is the best-known and the most widely recited. For each prayer below, an English translation is given alongside the Portuguese original.

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