Miracle of the Sun
The Miracle of the Sun, also known as the Miracle of Fátima, is a series of events reported to have occurred miraculously on 13 October 1917, attended by a large crowd who had gathered in Fátima, Portugal, in response to a prophecy made by three shepherd children, Lúcia Santos and Francisco and Jacinta Marto. The prophecy was that the Virgin Mary would appear and perform miracles on that date. Newspapers published testimony from witnesses who said that they had seen extraordinary solar activity, such as the Sun appearing to "dance" or zig-zag in the sky, advance towards the Earth, or emit multicolored light and radiant colors. According to these reports, the event lasted approximately ten minutes.
The local bishop opened a canonical investigation of the event in November 1917, to review witness accounts and assess whether the alleged private revelations from Mary were compatible with Catholic theology. The local priest conducting the investigation was particularly convinced by the concurring testimony of extraordinary solar phenomena from secular reporters, government officials, and other skeptics in attendance. Bishop José da Silva declared the miracle "worthy of belief" on 13 October 1930, permitting "officially the cult of Our Lady of Fatima" within the Catholic Church.
At a gathering on 13 October 1951 at Fátima, the papal legate, Cardinal Federico Tedeschini, told the million people attending that on 30 October, 31 October, 1 November, and 8 November 1950, Pope Pius XII himself witnessed the miracle of the Sun from the Vatican gardens. The early and enduring interest in the miracle and related prophecies has had a significant impact on the devotional practices of many Catholics.
There has been much analysis of the event from critical sociological and scientific perspectives. According to critics, the eyewitness testimony was actually a collection of inconsistent and contradictory accounts. Proposed alternative explanations include witnesses being deceived by their senses due to prolonged staring at the Sun and then seeing something unusual as expected.
Background
In the spring of 1916, three Catholic shepherd children near Fátima reported visions of an angel. Beginning in May 1917, they also experienced apparitions of the Virgin Mary, whom they called the Lady of the Rosary. The children claimed the Lady prophesied that prayer would bring an end to the Great War, and that on 13 October that year, she would reveal her identity and perform a miracle "so that all may believe." Newspapers reported the prophecies, and many pilgrims began visiting the area. The children's accounts were deeply controversial, drawing intense criticism from both local secular and religious authorities. A provisional administrator briefly took the children into custody, believing the prophecies were politically motivated in opposition to the officially secular First Portuguese Republic established in 1910.The event
Various claims have been made regarding the events that transpired. Many witnesses reported that after a period of rain, the dark clouds parted, revealing the Sun as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was described as being significantly duller than usual, casting multicolored lights across the landscape, the people, and the surrounding clouds. The Sun was then reported to have careened towards the Earth before zig-zagging back to its normal position. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became "suddenly and completely dry, as well as the wet and muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling". Not all witnesses reported seeing the Sun "dance". Some people only saw the radiant colors. A number of people saw nothing. According to some estimates, the total crowd of observers was made up of about 70,000 people, while other sources state that there were 50,000 witnesses.Skeptic Brian Dunning commented on an image commonly mistaken for a photograph of the Sun taken at Fatima: "An old black and white photograph of the actual sun miracle event shows a lot of dark rain clouds behind some trees and the sun poking through. There is certainly nothing in the photograph that looks unusual, but of course a photograph is static. Whatever the crowd saw was not interesting enough to be noticeable in a photograph". The photograph, originally published in 1951 by L'Osservatore Romano was subsequently determined to have been taken approximately eight years later in a different Portugal town of a different solar phenomenon. The misattributed image, however, continues to circulate on the internet.
The three children who originally claimed to have seen Our Lady of Fátima also reported seeing a panorama of visions, including those of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and Saint Joseph blessing the people. In the fourth edition of her memoirs, written in 1941, Lúcia said that on the occasion of their third visit to the Cova da Iria, on 13 July 1917, she asked the Lady to tell them who she was, and to perform a miracle so that everyone would believe. The Lady told her that they should continue to come to the Cova each month until October, when the requested miracle would occur.
De Marchi accounts
Descriptions of the events reported at Fátima were collected by Father John De Marchi, an Italian Catholic priest and researcher. De Marchi spent seven years in Fátima, from 1943 to 1950, conducting research and interviewing the principals at length. In The Immaculate Heart, De Marchi reported that, "heir ranks included believers and non-believers, pious old ladies and scoffing young men. Hundreds, from these mixed categories, have given formal testimony. Reports do vary; impressions are in minor details confused, but none to our knowledge has directly denied the visible prodigy of the sun."De Marchi authored several books on the subject, such as The True Story of Fátima. They include a number of witness descriptions:
- "The sun, at one moment surrounded with scarlet flame, at another aureoled in yellow and deep purple, seemed to be in an exceedingly swift and whirling movement, at times appearing to be loosened from the sky and to be approaching the earth, strongly radiating heat." — Domingos Pinto Coelho, writing for the Catholic newspaper Ordem.
- "The silver sun, enveloped in the same gauzy grey light, was seen to whirl and turn in the circle of broken clouds people wept and prayed with uncovered heads, in the presence of a miracle they had awaited. The seconds seemed like hours, so vivid were they." — Reporter for the Lisbon newspaper O Dia.
- "The sun's disc did not remain immobile. This was not the sparkling of a heavenly body, for it spun round on itself in a mad whirl when suddenly a clamor was heard from all the people. The sun, whirling, seemed to loosen itself from the firmament and advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was terrible." — De Marchi attributes this description to Almeida Garrett, Professor of Natural Sciences at Coimbra University. Theologian Father Stanley L. Jaki wrote that it was actually given by José Almeida Garrett, a young lawyer, and is often mistakenly attributed to his father, a professor of natural sciences at the University of Coimbra, named Gonçalo de Almeida Garrett.
- "As if like a bolt from the blue, the clouds were wrenched apart, and the sun at its zenith appeared in all its splendor. It began to revolve vertiginously on its axis, like the most magnificent firewheel that could be imagined, taking on all the colors of the rainbow and sending forth multicolored flashes of light, producing the most astounding effect. This sublime and incomparable spectacle, which was repeated three distinct times, lasted for about ten minutes. The immense multitude, overcome by the evidence of such a tremendous prodigy, threw themselves on their knees." — Manuel Nunes Formigão, a professor at the seminary at Santarém, and a priest.
- "I feel incapable of describing what I saw. I looked fixedly at the sun, which seemed pale and did not hurt my eyes. Looking like a ball of snow, revolving on itself, it suddenly seemed to come down in a zig-zag, menacing the earth. Terrified, I ran and hid myself among the people, who were weeping and expecting the end of the world at any moment." — Rev. Joaquim Lourenço, describing his boyhood experience in Alburitel, from Fátima.
- "On that day of October 13, 1917, without remembering the predictions of the children, I was enchanted by a remarkable spectacle in the sky of a kind I had never seen before. I saw it from this veranda" — Portuguese poet Afonso Lopes Vieira.
Catholic Church recognition
The event was declared of "supernatural character" by the Catholic Church in 1930. A shrine was built near the site in Fátima, which has been attended by thousands of faithful.Pope Pius XII approved the "Fatima apparitions" in 1940. Four times during the week that he declared the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, Pope Pius XII claimed to have witnessed the same "Miracle of the Sun". At 4:00p.m. on 30 October 1950, during a walk in the Vatican gardens, he arrived at the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and began to see the miracle. He described himself in handwritten notes as "awestruck." He saw the same miracle on 31 October, again on 1 November and then again on 8 November. He wrote that on other days at about the same time he tried to see if he could observe the Miracle of the Sun, but was unable to. He confided this information to a number of Vatican cardinals, to Sr. Pascalina Lehnert and finally to handwritten notes that were later placed on display at the Vatican.
In March of 2017, Pope Francis approved the recognition of a miracle involving two of the children involved in the Fátima event, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, which paved the way for their canonization in May that same year. The third seer, Lúcia Santos, was given the title Servant of God the same year, and declared venerable on June 22, 2023 by Pope Francis.