Children who had ‘visions’ at Fatima to be canonised

Pope to make pilgrimage to the Portuguese town for the centenary of the Virgin Mary’s ‘apparition’, writes Barry Hatton.

Three shepherd children in Portugal were jailed and threatened with being boiled alive when they claimed 100 years ago that the Virgin Mary had appeared to them. The Catholic Church doubted them, too.

But the children’s visions would strengthen the faith of Portugal’s persecuted Catholics and make the small farming town of Fatima one of the world’s foremost pilgrimage sites. It has 6m visitors a year.