"Pilgrims Flock To Virgin Ghost Site"

Pilgrims flock to Virgin ghost site

From correspondents in Lisbon

May 14, 2007 12:00

UP to a half million Christian pilgrims flooded the town of Fatima in central Portugal on the weekend to attend the 90th anniversary of the Virgin Mary's supposed apparition to three shepherd children.

Among the faithful from 26 countries were some 30,000 who had covered hundreds of kilometres on foot, and many were in a state of exhaustion, authorities said.

“People aren't eating, not drinking, and in the end they feel bad,” civilian guard Joaquim Chambel said.

One 80-year-old Spanish man died last night while participating in the pilgrimage, and more than 500 had to be treated for fatigue.

The Portuguese press said it was the biggest turn-out in Fatima, located 130km north of Lisbon, since 2000, when the late pope John Paul II addressed pilgrims.

John Paul had claimed that the Virgin of Fatima saved his life after he was shot and wounded by a Turkish gunman in Saint Peter's Square in 1981.

His successor, Benedict XVI, was on a trip to Brazil and could not attend the event this year.

Angelo Sodano, dean of the college of cardinals, presided over the mass yesterday at the town's basilica and vast esplanade, in which he called for Europe to recover its faith.

“Europe has fallen into the temptation of forgetting this faith which was its force for centuries,” he said.

“A hidden apostasy is underway in our countries of which we cannot but be aware,” he said, complaining that “many are those stepping away from the house of our Father”.

Sodano called on those gathered to pray to the mother of Jesus Christ to stop Christianity's decline.

According to Roman Catholic belief, the Virgin Mary appeared to three young cousins in apparitions in 1917 in a grotto near Fatima.

The shrine now attracts millions of people every year.

Many believers visiting the site traditionally ask the Virgin Mary for favours or assistance.

Some were seen exhorting the mother of Jesus Christ while crossing the basilica's esplanade on their knees.

Some prayed for success in exams, others for victory for their football teams.

Several held pictures of a three-year-old British girl, Madeleine McCann, who went missing earlier this month in the south of the country.

"Pills"

AFP Photo: Devotees queue to get Brother Galvao's "pills" at Brother Galvao's Monastery, 26 April 2007

SAO PAULO (AFP) - Day after day, cloistered Catholic nuns at a Sao Paulo monastery roll up thousands of tiny prayer scrolls credited with the miraculous powers of an 18th-century monk the pope will elevate to sainthood in this Brazilian city on Friday.

Outside the Monastery of Light, supplicants line up under a scorching sun convinced the "Galvao pills" will cure them of disease, infertility or abject poverty.

"My six-year-old girl suffers from leukemia, but I'm sure the pills of Friar Galvao, our saint, will cure her," said Conceicao Antunes.

Like many others, Antunes, a 35-year-old domestic worker, has spent hours waiting for her turn to receive her snippet of printed rice paper.

Next in line, is Henrique da Silva, a seemingly well-off 18-year-old, who is confident the long-deceased monk will ensure he passes his university admission exams.

Thousands of Brazilians believe they have been cured of diseases doctors often thought incurable, thanks to the intervention of Antonio de Sant'Ana Galvao.

When he is canonized by Pope Benedict XVI at a mass in Sao Paulo this week, Galvao will become first native-born saint in Brazil, the world's largest Roman Catholic country.

The Church hopes the move will help reverse major inroads that evangelical faiths have made not only in Brazil, but also across Latin America, which is home to almost half the world's population of 1.1 billion Catholics.

Galvao, who lived from 1739 to 1822, founded monasteries and convents throughout Brazil, including the Monastery of Light.

He was beatified -- the step before canonization -- by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

During the beatification homily, John Paul II said Galvao "fulfilled his religious consecration by dedicating himself with love and devotion to the afflicted, the suffering and the slaves of his era in Brazil."

But to the faithful, the 18th-century priest is best known for what many believe are his healing powers.

The Vatican recognized two of the miracles attributed to Galvao, a requirement for sainthood. In 1990, a four-year-old girl recovered from what was considered incurable hepatitis, and in 1999 a mother and child survived a high-risk birth in what the Vatican called a "scientifically inexplicable" case.

The girl and the woman had both swallowed Galvao's miracle pills, which contain a short prayer to the Virgin Mary.

"The Church recommends that people go to the doctor and only take the pill when they are terminally ill," said Sister Claudia of the Monastery of Light.

"But people take them for daily problems," she said.

Records at the Monastery of Light show 8,057 cases in which supplicants' prayers to Galvao have been answered since the priest was beatified.

"Devotion increased since he was beatified," said Sister Claudia. "And now that he will be declared a saint the number of followers will grow, and not just because of the pills," she said.

The Miraculos Staircase

Architects will tell you it should have crashed the moment someone set foot on it. Scientists will say it defies the law of gravity. Lumber specialists disagree on the type of wood used. Carpenters said it was impossible in such a small space. The church is silent. But the Sisters of Loretto know. It was miracle.

It all began over 100 years ago. The Sisters of Loretto, brought to Santa Fe by Bishop Lamy to teach the people, needed a school and a chapel. Mexian carpenters completed the school and then plans were made build a chapel.

Because Bishop Lamy was from France, he wanted the Sisters to have a chapel designed in the same style as the Sainte Chapelle in Paris.

French and Italians masons went to work on the chapel, and although there were some financial worries, the chapel progressed without difficulty and with the aid of prayers by the Sisters to Joseph, the carpenter saint.

It wasn't until the very last stage, that the terrible design error was revealed. There was no way to get from the chapel to the choir loft, which was exceptionally high, and there was no room for ordinary stairs to be built.

Many carpenters were called upon, but they all shook their heads, saying a stairway require much more space than was available, and suggested two alternatives; use a ladder or tear the whole thing down and start over.

But the Sisters, being women of God, were not discouraged. Once again they called upon St. Joseph with a novena, and on the tenth day an old gray-haired man, carrying only a toolbox, appeared on a donkey, and asked if he could build the staircase. The Sisters, ecstatic and grateful, gave their consent.

Inside the old man's toolbox was only a hammer, a saw and a T square. It took him eight months to complete the beautiful and sturdy spiral staircase using NO NAILS and NO CENTER SUPPORT.

He had done it in a very small space, making two complete 360 turns with mysteriously perfect (how did he do it with the tools he had?) curves, and using pegs to hold the 33 steps together. Knowing they had been blessed, the Sisters gave thanks, but when they went to pay the carpenter, he had disappeared, and when they went to the lumber company, no one knew of any purchase, nor did they carry the type of the wood that was used on the staircase.

The church, is cautious about spreading rumors of supernatural intervention, but the Sisters know that the miracle staicase is an answer to their novena to St. Joseph. Some even think the gray-haired man on the donkey was St. Joseph himself.

Recent findings to this story have caused contoversy. After learning that "hermit rancher" known as Francois-Jean Rochas, had died, leaving behind an array of sophisticated carpentry tools, Mary Jean Cook, an amateur historian, began digging around for his death notice.

She found it in the January 6, 1896 issue of the Santa Fe New Mexican.

The notice said that Rochas murdered body had been found in a remote cabin, and that he been favorably known in Santa Fe as "as expert in wood" and had "built the handsome staircase in the Loretto Chapel..."

If you visit the Chapel, you will not hear this story. Authorities find fault with Ms. Cook's theory on a technicality. First of all, she is an amateur.

Secondly, she has written a book about the staircase and states that her findings are 'absolute'. Professional historians take issue with the definitive statement, saying if she would agree to using the word 'probable' they would support her discovery. Ms. Cook refused.

How did the legend begin? Speculation says that the Sisters may have started it in response to questions from students. It became a true icon years later, when the story appeared in Ripley's Believe it or Not.

Miracle or legend? Does it matter? The staircase is an astonishing creation - extraordinary for the time and miraculous for the timing.......