As is well known, apparitions and private revelations are not an object of Catholic faith. It is not obligatory to believe in them, and because of that, it is also not heretical to deny them. But when the Church, after long and mature deliberation, has declared as "worthy for belief" a specific apparition or private revelation, frankly it would be ridiculous, rash, and reckless to insist on continuing to deny it without any foundation. Such [declaration] has occurred, for example, with the factual revelations by the Lord to Saint Juliana of Mount Cornillon, which provided the origin to the institution of the most solemn feast of Corpus Christi by Holy Church; those revelations to Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque regarding the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and those of Lourdes and Fatima related precisely to the most holy Rosary. [...]
The history of Lourdes repeats itself, in its fundamental lines, in the 20th century in Cova da Iria, three kilometers from the small town of Fatima, Portugal, to three little shepherds: Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta. The first apparition took place on the 13th of May, 1917. On the 13th of October of the same year, her name was given to them: "I am Our Lady of the Rosary." It was at that place of more than 60,000 people that she produced the spectacular miracle of the sun.
The message of Fatima, similar to that of Lourdes, centers on the necessity of doing penance and the recitation of the Rosary. The Church declares the apparitions of Fatima as worthy of belief.
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Source: Fr. Antonio Royo Marín, La Virgen María, trans. by R. Grablin (Madrid, Spain: BAC, 1996), 460-461.
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