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Why is Friday, May 12th, a public holiday?

popefrancisPortugal's government decided to give public sector employees the day off on Friday, May 12th to mark the Pope’s arrival in the country in preparation for Saturday and Sunday’s celebrations in Fátima. The visit marks the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1917, witnessed by three children.

The controversial extra day’s holiday has not gone down well with some, pointing out that the celebrations are on Saturday and question why there should be a day off on the preceding Friday.

Casting aside this grumble, Portugal will welcome Pope Francis who is to canonise two of the three shepherd children, Jacinta and Francisco de Jesus Marto, to mark the centenary of the ‘apparitions’ in Cova da Iria. The canonisation follows Pope Francis’ official recognition of the so-called ‘Miracle of the Sun.'

During his official visit to Portugal, Pope Francis has meetings scheduled with the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Prime Minister, António Costa.

The 80-year-old Francis is the 266th and current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and the fourth Pope to visit Fátima, after Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Of the children, Francisco Marto, born in 1908 and the second youngest of the Fátima seers, died in 1919, a victim of the 1918 influenza pandemic that swept through Europe.

Originally buried with little ceremony in the cemetery of the local parish church, his remains were exhumed in 1935 and transferred to a tomb in Fátima shrine. His remains again were exhumed in 1951.

Jacinta Marto, the youngest of the visionaries at seven-years-old, fell seriously ill in 1919 and suffered considerably before dying in February the following year, ten days after an operation in Lisbon's Dona Estafánia Hospital. Buried in Vila Nova de Ourém, her remains were exhumed in 1935 and again in 1951.

Lúcia de Jesus Santos, the principle visionary then aged ten, died in 2002 at the age of 95. Her funeral Mass at the cathedral of Coimbra was presided over by the city's bishop, Most Reverend Antonio Cleto.

The process of beatifying and canonising Sister Lúcia has been speeded up, as it was for such luminaries as Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II.

All three of the Fátima seers now rest together in the basilica in the Fátima sanctuary, which will welcome hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world this centenary year.

 

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kbnMm91qFq4/WNTxaePSclI/AAAAAAAAEX4/VZf0PRHwmukc6CfOdgfbWIAsMlMLd5P9ACLcB/s400/fatima-800x463.jpg

 

https://www.ewtn.com/fatima/images/image-gallery/gallery-4.jpg

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Comments  

+3 #5 Mike Towl 2017-05-13 07:25
PeteMcC is dead right, I'm not a Papist. I, like most other ex-pat devotees of the ADN, am a realist. Big difference!
0 #4 chez 2017-05-12 16:18
Public sector workers and politicians alike are a disgrace, with most public offices opening at 9am and closing at 4pm plus an hour for lunch they must be the only workers in the EU working a six hour day and only for five days a week.
0 #3 Hamilton 2017-05-12 10:07
Why then is the significance of 'being Christian' so traduced in Portugal? Being a good neighbour and doing unto others only what you want them to do to you. Trustworthy and Helpful to All.

The news item elsewhere on water board mismanagement and corruption is significant in that it shows yet again how many levels and types of public servants, politicians, lawyers, business owners and all were knowingly cheating the system. Gaining great profit from public finances - almost all from the EU. And how many more observed passively, unsupported by Portuguese laws and so allowing these fraudsters to carry on for decades.

The recent obliteration of the main parties in France will pass unnoticed in Portugal. Since 1974, behind whatever Portuguese lawmakers are apparently fronting and 'in power' both nationally and locally, lies the oligarchs and their extended families and collaborators. Has anyone done research into these links and lived long enough to publish it?
-5 #2 PeteMcC 2017-05-12 10:03
Quoting Mike Towl:
You couldn't make it up. What next, a day off next Ronaldo gets a hat trick?
Your'e a miserable git Towl - and clearly not a papist. Let the public servants and government all dance and sing in the streets today, noone will notice any drop in service levels.
+7 #1 Mike Towl 2017-05-12 07:25
You couldn't make it up. What next, a day off next Ronaldo gets a hat trick?

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