Chapter 1
How It Began
    At the time of this publication in 1966 one of the children who saw Our Lady of Fatima, still popularly known as Lucia and still favored to see Our Lady from time to time, was in a convent in Portugal.  The author spoke to her.  Everything written here is based upon his personal research and two earlier books (The author was about to write a new book to summarize the story of Fatima. Russia Will Be Converted, which had become a bestseller, was fifteen years in print and his later book, Meet The Witnesses, was almost solely about the miracle of the sun.  He decided that what might be most appreciated in this age of fast reading and little time would be the heart of both books.) which were widely read, translated into Portuguese, and gone over by many experts on Fatima, including the Bishops of Fatima.
    So what you are about to read is a rigidly authentic account of the most extraordinary story of the twentieth century.  The author begins with Lucia's own description of what happened.
    A description of our visit with "Lucia" (now Sister Mary of the Immaculate Heart, O. D. C.) will follow later, but here is the first extraordinary event she remembers:
    In the Spring of 1915, in pastureland owned by her father, she and her cousins and another child saw something which floated in the air.  They described it as white, very bright, but none of the children had any idea of what it was though it seemed to have a human outline.  When they told the story in their various families they were severely ridiculed.  They soon wished it had never happened.
    Some time afterwards just Lucia and Francisco and Jacinta were in a cave near Fatima.  They had been watching the sheep when rain began to fall.  They had taken shelter in sight of the flock and after the rain stopped, they remained in the cave to eat their lunch, said their traditional noon-day Rosary, and began to play jacks.  They had hardly began to play when they heard a great wind.  As they looked up in surprise at the suddenness of the whirling air they saw their first real vision.
    There, above the bending trees, they saw a bright light appearing from the east.  As they watched, it came closer and closer until . . . as they became accustomed to the light . . . they saw that it was the form of a young man.  "Transparent," Lucia said, "and more brilliant than a crystal pierced by the rays of the sun."
    Coming near, the lighted figure said, "Fear not!  I am the Angel of Peace.  Pray with me!"
    As the young man knelt and bowed to the ground, the children awesomely followed suit.  They found themselves repeating with the Angel:  (It is thought by many that this Angel who appeared to the children in 1915 might have been Saint Michael, whom God has often sent as a messenger, and who is called "The angel of Peace and Warriror Against Hell".  He is mentioned in the Apocalypse as the one who will kill the dragon after those days when men shall see "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon beneath her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." [Apoc. 12:1].)
    "My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee, I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee."
    This prayer, word for word, was repeated three times.  "We felt the presence of God so intensely," Lucia later said, "that we dared not speak even to each other.  The next day we still felt that atmosphere of Divine presence.  Only very gradually did it diminsh.  None of us thought of speaking to anyone about it.  It was so intimate that it was not easy to utter a single word about it."
    We have not and we will not go into details about the children's personal reactions, but we will single out essentials and try to probe their meaning.  In this instance it is noteworthy that the six great apparitions of the "Lady in Light" were to be of such world-importance that the little visionaries were prepared in advance to see Her and so transmit Her message.  And of course those who have any acquaintance with mystical phenomena are not at all surprised that these children, rather than adults, should have been selected for such an honor . . . first because of their innocence, and second because . . . like the twelve Apostles . . . they could not be considered to have manufactured the amazing and consistent story for which they were later willing to die.
    Some time after this appearance of the "Angel of Peace," when the seriousness had long since passed, they were playing by the well behind Lucis's house when suddenly they saw a similar vision.
    "What are you doing?" the vision asked.  "Pray! Pray much!  The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have merciful designs on you.  Offer prayers and make sacrifices to the Most High."
    "How must we sacrifice?"  Lucia asked.
    "With all your power offer a sacrifice as an act of reparation for the sinners by whom He is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners.  Thus draw peace upon your country. . . . Above all accept and endure with submission the suffering which the Lord will send you."
  From  that day, although they kept these experiences to themselves, the children began to give up little pleasures and to make sacrifices for the sinners of the world.  They remembered especially to pray as the first angelic vision had taught them, repeating often:  "My God, I believe, adore, hope and love Thee!  I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee!"
    Finally, just about six months before the appearance of the "Lady in Light," the Angel appeared the third time.  It was in the cave where the children had taken refuge from noonday heat and were in the act of saying the prayer: "I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee!"  It was his final and most memorable appearance.
    Suddenly standing before them in blinding light, the Angel held in his hands a Chalice and a Host.  Leaving the Host and the Chalice suspended in the air, the Angel fell to the ground and said three times: "Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly.  I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood , Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrilegess, and indifferences, whereby He is offended.  And through the Infinite Merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners."
    Then, after their recital of the same words, the Angel rose, took the Chalice and the Host, and communicated the three children saying:
    "Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men.  Repair their crimes and console your God."
    Then towards noon, on May 13th, 1917, the three children, instructed by the Angelic Visions, were playing in the Cova da Iria, near the Village of Fatima, beside the grazing flock.
    The Cova da Iria is a great hollow of ground.  In English, the name means literally "Hollow of Irene."  Tradition is that the name was derived from a saintly hermit, named Irene, who centuries before had dwelt in that arid and lonely place high in the Serra Aire mountains.  Today, three things are noted of the spot: First, that it is a natural ampitheater capable of holding one million persons at one time; (as occured May 13, 1946.) second, that it for centuries bore the name "Irene", which means "Peace"; third, that over this ground Blessed Nun' Alvarez, the Portuguese George Washington, won the final battle of independence, under the aegis of the Blessed Virgin, five hundred years before.  But agriculturally it was so poor that it belonged to one of Portugal's poorest families, and sheep scrounged in its powdery, arid soil for food.
    The children had said an abbreviated Rosary and began to play house building.  In the quiet, abandoned waste, Francisco was the Builder, and Jacinta and Lucia carried stones for him.
    Today, on that very spot stands one of the most magnificent Basilicas erected in modern days . . . the outside steps alone being capable of holding eight thousand people.  It was there, from that spot, that the apparitions of the "Lady in Light" began.
    There was a flash of light.
    None of the children had seen lighting at high noon on a clear, sunny day.  They felt a certain awe and fear.  After a moment, Lucia said:
    "We'd better get the sheep and take them home.  There must be a storm coming from behind the hills."
    Quickly they rounded the flock, and began to hurry down through the Cova towards the rutted road to Fatima.  As they hastened along, the light flashed again.  More frightened, they began to run when, over a little tree, (about three feet high.) they saw a beautiful lady . . . all in light.
    The children stopped, frozen in their tracks, and stared at her "indescribable beauty".
    Finally Lucia spoke.
    "Where do you come from?" she asked awesomely.
    "I am from Heaven," the Vision replied.
    Telling the children to come to that same place six times at the same hour on the same day of the month, the Vision added: "Then I will tell you who I am and what I want. Afterwards I will come a third time."
    Lucia wanted to know if she would go to Heaven, and also Francisco and Jacinta.
    "You will come to Heaven," the Vision answered, but of Francisco she said: "He will have to say many Rosaries."
    Then she continued:
    "Do you wish to offer yourselves to God to endure all the sufferings that He may please to send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and to ask the conversion of sinners?"
    The children, through Lucia, said they did.
    "Then you will have much to suffer," the Vision said, "But the grace of God will be your comfort.
    Saying this, the Vision opened her hands and great rays of light streamed forth as pictured on the 'Miraculous Medal'.  In these rays of light, the children seemed to see themselves in God, (to repeat Lucia's own explanation.) and instictively they cried out: "Oh Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, My God, I love Thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament."
    Finally the vision told them: "Say the Rosary every day to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war."
    When the vision had gone, the children felt light and joyous.  That is how they described the difference between this experience and the appearance of the Angel.   For a long moment they were unable to speak.
    Three things are particularly notable in the messages thus far:
    First, emphasis was laid by the Angel on the essential act of worshipping the Most Holy Trinity:  Adoration, faith, hope and love.
    Second, the means specified are prayer (words for which the Angel supplied.) acts of sacrifice and reparation, especially by submission to daily trials, and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.
    Third, this was to be somehow linked with extraordinary aid from the Blessed Virgin.  In each appearance were mentioned,  "The Hearts of Jesus and Mary," and the children placed particular significance on the rays emanating from the hands of "Lady in Light" in which they saw themselves in God.
    In that light, notice well, the children saw themselves in God.  They were transported with joy . . . and they instinctively cried our: "O Most Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, My God, I love Thee in the most Blessed Sacrament!"
    If it is indeed the Blessed Virgin whom God was sending to Fatima, and if God now wished in a special way to renew devotion to her, would it not be in order that the same light which enveloped the children (revealing them in God.) might shine to all the world . . . illuminating the minds of men to cry out in a transport of world peace and joy: "O Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, My God, I love Thee"?

Chapter II
More Visions
    On June 13th, the lady appeared to the children again.  By that time many people had heard of the first vision,  although the children had tried to keep it a secret, and several onlookers gathered at the Cova on June 13.  She told the children that many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.  She said that Francisco and Jacinta would soon go to Heaven, but that Lucia would have to stay on earth to make the fullness of the Fatima Message known.
    The Lady from Heaven told the children, "I want you to continue saying the Rosary every day.  And after each one of the mysteries, my children, I want you to pray in this way: O My Jesus, forgive us and deliver us from the fire of hell.  Take all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need."
    ". . . Jesus wishes you to  make me known and loved on earth.  He wishes also for you to establish Devotion in the world to My Immaculate Heart."
    The children were shown a heart encircled with piercing thorns.  And they understood clearly that this was the Immaculate Heart of Mary that called for reparation from men for all the sins that have sorrowed our Savior and His Mother.
    On July 13, 1917 Our Lady made her third appearance. "I want you to come here on the thirteenth day of next month," were the Lady's first words to Lucia'a question: "What do you want of me?"
    "Continue to say the five decades of the Roasry a day in Honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war.  She alone will be able to help."
    Lucia wanted the Lady to perform some wonder so that the people would know she was real.
    "In October I will tell you who I am and what I wish, and I will perform a miracle that everyone will have to believe."
"Sacrifice yourselves for sinners and say many times, especially when you make some sacrifice: O JESUS IT IS FOR YOUR LOVE, FOR THE CONVERSION OF SINNERS AND IN REPRATION FOR THE SINS COMMITED AGAINST THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY."

    Again great light emanated from her hands, but this time it seemed to pierce through the earth and there the children saw a horrible vision, so awful that they were unable to describe it.  "Had she not been there," Jacinta said later, "I would have died of fright."
    "You see hell," the Vision said, "where the souls of poor sinners go.  To save them God wishes to establish in the world the Devotion to my Immaculate Heart.  If they do what I will tell you, many souls will be saved, and there will be peace.  The war is going to end.
    "But if they do not stop offending God, another and worse war will break out in the reign of the next Pope.  When you will see a strange light illuminating the night you will know that it is a sign which God gives you that he is going to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, hunger, persecution of the Church and of the Holy Father.
    "To forestall this I shall come to ask the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the first Saturday.    "If they heed my request, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she shall spread her errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecution of the Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have musth to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. But in the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, she will be converted and an era of peace will be conceded to humanity.  "In Portugal the Dogma of Faith will be kept always.
    "Do not tell this to anyone . . . "  the Vision concluded.

    On August 13th, 1917, while the Communist revolution in Russia was seething to a boil, some fifteen thousand people gathered in a hollow near the village of Fatima, Portugal.
    It was a clear day.  The large crowd would easily see the three children stand before the little oak tree and talk to a visitor from another world.
    Some in the crowd were saying the Rosary.  A story spread that it was all a trick of the devil . . . that there was an extinct volcano nearby and that these "supernatural" things were caused by the devil to get pious people together so that the volcano could erupt and destroy them.  This brought smiles to the faces of most who heard it.  All wanted to see the children . . .  to watch them talking with something from the other world.
    Where were they?  It was almost noon . . . time for the vision.  Had anyone seen the children?
    A great murmur began to make its way through the crowd.  The children were not there
    Arturo dos Santos, atheist revolutionary and "Administrator"  of that area of Portugal, had arrested them.
    Dos Santos was one of several dozen practical atheists who had come to power in Portugal in the 1910 Revolution which followed the words of Lenin:
    "Our revolution is international.  We shall begin in Russia and on the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal.) and then close across Europe."
    To know any typical Communist leader is to know Arturo dos Santos:  A mysterious blend of sympathy and ruthlessness.  You could never be sure about what he believed, but only as to why he believed it: What served the state was good . . . and the enlightened few, free of the opiate of Religion, should decide what was good for the state.
    The arrest of the children had not been easy.  It had taken the form of a kidnapping.
    Shortly before noon, that fateful August 13th, the impressive Artuto dos Santos stopped in front of a poor little house in the parish of Fatima where hundreds of people were crowding towards the door.
    Leaving his automobile, Santos made his way through the quickly parting throng and demanded to see Mr. Marto.
    Marto was the father of two of the children: Francis, aged nine, and Jacinta, aged seven.  The third child, Lucia, ten years of age, was Marto's niece.
    "I've come to see the vision from Heaven myself."
    Santos spoke to Marto with that blend of sympathy and coldness which made it difficult to know whether he wanted to be sheep or wolf in sheep's clothing.  "Where are the children?"
    They had not come in from their daily chore of grazing the sheep.
    "You'd better call them," Santos exclaimed impatiently, glancing about with such nervousness that Mr. Marto sensed something wrong.  "Seeing is believing, as Thomas said," Santos added.  "We will take them to the Cova in my car."
    "They don't have to be called," Mr. Marto said matter-of-factly.  "They know when they have to bring in the sheep and get ready."
    The words had hardly been spoken when the sudden raising of voices outside the cottage made it obvious that the children were coming.  As soon as they entered, the Administrator repeated that he had come to see for himself and would take them to the Cova in his open car.  "Hurry now," he said, "it will be much faster this way."
    The children were frightened.
    "There's no need to take them in the car," Senhor Marto said with his usual courage.  "Walking, they will get there just the same."
    The unwillinguess of the children, backed by the bluntness of the parent of the two youngest, made the Administrator think that greater insistence might betray him.  Quickly remembering the intimidated Priest in the Fatima parish, he said:
    "Well, you all go along and stop at the rectory in Fatima as I want to ask the children some questions."  This time there was imperiousness in his voice.  With a stern look at Senhor Marto, he wheeled from the room followed by his several henchmen.
    Mr. Marto's courage had gone the limit, and when the children left the cottage they went directly to the parish rectory to which the Adminiatrator had preceded them.  They saw the Administrator standing with the parish Priest on the little balcony under the second-story window.
    "Send up the first!" snapped the mighty Arturo Santos.
    "Which one is the first?" Senhor Marto prodded the eldest of the three frightened children.
    Mr. Marto felt a certain confidence in the presence of the Priest and the crowd of sympathetic people.  After all, what harm could come of questions?  Already there had been so many! Had not the "Lady" ot the vision told the children that they would have much to suffer because of her?
    As Lucia entered the house, the Administrator and Pastor disappeared from the balcony, and Lucia met them in the Pastor's office.
    "Who taught you to say the things that you are going about saying?"  asked the Pastor, who wished to show the Administrator once and for all that he (the Pastor of Fatima.) nor only did not believe, but wanted to help put a stop to, the inventions of the wayward child.
    "The Lady whom I saw at the Cova da Iria told us," Lucia answered.
    "Anyone who goes about telling such wicked lies," thundered the Priest, "will be judged and will go to Hell if they are not true.  More and more people are being tricked and deceived by you!"
    "If one who lies goes to Hell," Lucia answered, "then I will not go to Hell for I do not lie.  I tell only what I have seen and what the Lady said to me.  The crowd goes there only because the people want to go.  We don't call anyone."
    "Have you said that the Lady confided a secret to you?"
    "Yes."
    "What is that secret?" demanded the Priest.
    "I cannot tell it," the little girl replied but, as though strengthened by a wisdom beyond her years, she added: "If Your Reverence wants to know the secret I shall ask the Lady and, if She gives me permission, I will tell you."
    Now Santos, who had not at all suspected the intimidated Churchman of complicity in the matter but who was merely anxious to see that the children did not get to the Cova da Iria where thousands of people were waiting that very morning, shut off the idea of Lucia asking the Lady for permission to tell the secret.
    "But these are supernatural matters!" he expostulated, with an air of finality and authority.
    Then, instead of summoning the other two children, he said:  "That's enough."
    Taking Lucia downstairs, where Senhor Marto and the other two children were waiting, he said: "You may go . . . or, better still, let's all go.  It's getting late."
    In the interim, his car had been brought to the door . . . right up to the step . . . so that it was impossible to leave the rectory without deliberately avoiding the car door.  In a moment, still mentioning that it was late and they would have to hurry to get to the Cova da Iria on time (as was true.) he handed the children into the open auto . . . Francisco in front and the two girls in back.
    "It was so quick that for the moment I was stunned," Mr. Marto said later.  "The car roared off in the direction of the Cova da Iria, and then I suddenly wondered why I had worried at all.  But upon reaching the road the car turned and streamed off toward Ourem.  It was all so well planned! . . . Nothing could be done."
    In the car Lucia spoke first in a slightly frightened, timid voice: "This is not the way to the Cova da Iria."
    "We are going to see the Pastor at Ourem," lied the Administrator, "we will get his advice, too."
    People hurrying along the road were slowing the car.  Suddenly some persons who had been to the Cova da Iria before recognized the children and read the fright in their little faces.  The cry ran along the road that Dictator Santos was kidnapping the children.  As the Administrator snapped a command to speed, some stones flew at him from a shouting, angry mass.  Quickly he covered the children with a blanket to prevent them from being recognized and as he whirled down the road to safety he gloated in his success.
    Telling a lie was not merely easy for Santos, as anyone acquainted with the principles of the atheist revolution understands. In his eyes it was right.  Anything which he deemed expedient to the state (and it made little difference that he and the state were one.) was morally right. Deliberate deception is the Communists' most used . . . and often quite skillfully used . . . weapon.  Whether that lie be in a solemn treaty among nations, or merely the "framing" of individuals deemed dangerous to "the state," makes no difference.  Lies are the hard nails with which they find it easy to pierce the susceptible hands and feet of Truth.
    For a moment, consider the parallel between what was happening on that road to Ourem and what is happening now.
    Dozens of famous instances in the modern story of Russian-Communist aggression fly to mind, but none more clearly than the conviction of Archbishop Stepinac in Yugoslavia, or of Cardinal Mindszenty in Hungary.
    Cardinal Mindszenty was the sixteenth Bishop to have disappeared into a Red prison since the "end" of World War II. And his case was particularly famous because Hungary had been close to the West; in a free election, after the war, it had voted overwhelmingly (83%) against Communism even though occupied by Russian Troops!  After the Communist coup d'etatin Hungary, the few atheist rulers were afraid to strike against the Cardinal because of the sympathy of the People. The majority of Hungarians revered him as a saintly Prelate who lived simply and spoke fearlessly in the cause of truth as they all understood the Truth.
    When command came from Moscow for the liguidationn of the Cardinal, the Hungarian Communists found it impossible to carry out several plans to kill the Cardinal "accidentally."  Knowing of similar happenings in otheries, those around the Cardinal took precautions. (See Reader's Digest, Nov., 1949, and Soul Magazine, Jan., 1950.)
    So the lie was used with more fervor than before . . . in the hope that even though the people were too well informed to believe the lies . . . they might at least get a vague idea that the Cardinal was not as perfect as they thought.  Finally, when enough of this had been done, the Cardinal was imprisoned, there was a lighting trial, and the lie was forced from the tortured Cardinal's own lips with such perfection that his torture was not evident.  Those who knew the Cardinal knew the lie.  But little by little, thousands of people came to wonder . . . and the force of the lie spread simply because it was advertised more than the truth.  Sides were taken . . . for and against Cardinal Mindszednty . . . in bar-room conversations and in mass demonstrations in many cities.
    Such is the tremendous perfection of the propaganda technique used by International Communism.  Such is the power of their nails for the Christian Body.
    Thus Arturo Santos had kidnapped the three children of Fatima by a lie, he had comforted them by a lie, and he exulted in the success of his lies.
    People were going to Fatima, to the Cova da Iria, to watch three children communicate with Heaven.  But they would see nothing!  Mysterious clouds and lights at the Cova da Iria indeed!  He would prove that the only realities of the earth are the realities of the strong . . . of those daring enough to use lies and which makes a man weak, so that simple lies can reduce him to nothing; Religion is therefore truly the opiate of the people.
    With such a philosophy, Lenin rightly said: "Our First enemy is Religion."
    Arriving in Ourem, Santos hurried the children into his own house and locked them in a room.  His astute mind had devised a way to make the final destruction of the "Fatima Story" easy.
    First, nothing would happen at the Cova da Iria when the children weren't there, and then he would issue bulletins (they were already written.)  pointing out that it was all a hoax, that he had found it out in time.  The fact that nothing happened at the Cova when the children wer absent would be proof.
    Second, he would actually get the children to retract their story without even asking them to deny the visions! He would make them tell the so-called secret.  Once they had told that, he would force them to admit that the giver of the secret was not from Heaven . . . because, if so, they would not have gone against Heaven in telling it!
    It is noteworthy that in using this intelligent ruse Arturo Santos showed a profound understanding of the Religious mind.
    By the time the children had been discharged from the car and taken into the house, they were thoroughly frightened.
    "You won't leave here until you tell me the secret," Santos said, locking them in a room and glaring ferociously.
    "If they kill us," trembled Jacinta, (only seven years old.)  for the consolation of the other two, (Lucia, aged ten, and Francisco, aged nine.)  "it won't make any difference because we shall go straight to Heaven."
    Back at Fatima the Administrator's first purpose in kidnapping the children was about to be put to the test.  It was noon . . . the usual time for the visions.  The crowd estimated at fifteen thousand had just realized that the children were not there.  Some new arrivals excitedly testified that they had seen the children in the automobile with Santos wheeling along the road to Ourem.  Yes there was no doubt.  Some from Fatima had seen the children enter the car, and they would have been at the Cova well before this.  "The children have been stolen by the wicked Santos!"  became a cry through a stunned crowd . . . leaving seething anger rolling up from seven years of Religious persecution in its wake.
    "We will go," one man shouted, brandishing a heavy stick, "and free them."
    Scattered through the crowd were government agents.  Everyone knew that.  No man in Portugal felt himself entirely safe, as one was taught to spy against the other.  Their very  presence there in the Cova da Iria showed that they did not care about the things the government press had been saying about the children and the "visions." And unarmed, they were quite helpless like the some fifteen to twenty million prisoners in the forced-labor and concentration camps of Russia.
    Arturo Santos wanted the crowd to see the futility of prayers.  Christ had not come down from the cross.  He wanted the people to realize that this Fatima affair was a Church hoax, or at best an outcropping of superstition.  With the children gone, Arturo Santos relied on the belief that nothing would happen in the Cova da Iria.
    But Arturo Santos was wrong.
    Within that very hour, the stupified Santos had electrifying news from the Cova da Iria.
    As tht crowd milled about, wondering what to do, thunder rolled suddenly from the clear sky . . . above the cries and noise of people.  The heavenly roar struck the crowd to instant silence, as though a great giant suddenly catching its breath, and then cries of fear broke out louder than ever:  "We will be killed!  It is the end!  We are all going to die!"
   As panic began to spread, again there was a sudden silence . . . a sudden united gasp.
    A white cloud was seen to move through the air and descend to the top of the little tree before which the children had knelt the three previous times.  An eyewitness says:
    "Just after the thunder and lightning we all noticed a little cloud, very white, as though made of light, which came down and rested over the holm oak.  It stayed a few minutes, then rose towards the heavens and disappeared.  Looking about, we noticed a strange sight. . . . Everyone's face, and all the landscape, glowed . . . rose, red, blue, all the colors of the rainbow.  The trees seemed to have no branches or leaves but were all covered with color: every leaf seemed to be rather a flower.  The ground appeared to in little squares, each one a different color.  Our clothes, everything seemed transformed into the colors of the rainbow."
    Continuing the account of what thousands of people universally and simultaneously testified to have seen, this witness to whom the present writer spoke continues:
    "When the signs disappeared the people seemed to realize that the Lady had come from Heaven and, not finding the children, had returned.  A tremendous resentment seemed to replace their awe.  Most of them started towards the village,crying out loudly against Arturo Santos, against the Priest, against anyone they thought might have had anything to do with the arrest of the children."
    Most of the crowd, it is to be remembered, had been for seven years subjected to a very effective and violent vilification of Religion.  Somewhat like the people of Russia today, they had been without instruction and spiritual guidance and had therefore quite naturally assimilated some of the pagan doctrine of "Might is right."  To them, as to Saint Peter who drew his sword and struck at one of the soldiers who seized his Lord, bloodshed seemed in order.  As they began marching toward Leiria, their mob sense of justice-through-blood blotted out the incredible experience in the Cova.
    But the truly Christian among them knew that even if the pastor and the administrator had perpetrated injustices, such things were to be left to God . . . the God Who had so awesomely demonstrated His power in the Cova da Iria.  Senhor Marto cried:  "Be calm! Be calm!  Whoever deserves punishment . . . will he not get it from God?  Have we not seen that this is from above?"
    His virtue triumphed.  A bloodthirsty but inherently Christian mob suddenly came to its senses, and once again God heard the prayer "Not our will, but Thine be done" . . . and Arturo Santos could relax.  Stupid virtue had won, and he was safe.  And he would make those children retract if he had to threaten them with death!
    Back in Fatima, the poor parish Priest knew that he had . . . by the barest margin . . . escaped death.  And he knew, too, that this matter could not longer be thought the invention of publicity-minded children . . . because so many thousands, in the absence of the children, had seen wonders in the Cova da Iria . . . people who together could not have been deceived.  The next day, in complete turnabout from his subservience to the Administrator, he issued a formal statement to the newspapaers:
    "The rumor that I was an accomplice to the sudden kidnapping of the children . . . I repel as an unjust and insidious calumny.  The Administrator did not confide the secret of his intentions to me. . . .
    "And if it was providential, for such it was, that the authority succeeded in taking the children away furtively and without resistance, it is no less providential that the anger of the crowd, excited by this devilish rumor, was dispelled.   Otherwise this day the parish would have been mourning the Pastor.  Certainly it was through the intercession of the Virgin Mother that he is now alive. . . .
    "The authority wanted the children to reveal a secret that they have told to no one."  Thousands of witnesses testify (from the events of yesterday.)  that the children were not necessary for the Queen of Angels to manifest the Power of God.  They all testify to the extraordinary occurrences which have now deeply rooted their belief in a case so marvelous and sublime."
    One would think that Arturo Santos, with all his astuteness, would perceive that something was happening at Fatima which was not "run of the mill."  It looked as though this was one of the rare times in History when "Christ was going to come down from the Cross or, should we rather say . . . that the twentieth century was about to see the stone begin to roll back from a Christian tomb guarded by the guns of militant atheism?  Thunder from Heaven, a light descending from the sky, strange lights . . . all seen by thousands of people . . . seemed apocalyptical.  The Crucifixion had been going fine, and as some scientist in England has said . . . echoing Karl Marx . . . the days of Religion seemed numbered.
But now . . . ?
    Somehow, Arturo Santos did not see.

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