LISBON - Thousands of pilgrims, many on foot and some even shuffling along on their knees, converged on the Catholic shrine of Fatima yesterday for the 80th anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary to three Portuguese shepherd children.
The shrine, one of the world's most hallowed sites for Roman Catholics, marks the spot where the Virgin is believed to have appeared to the children at midday on May 13th, 1917, and again for the next five months. Among leading church figures expected at Fatima, 130 km north of Lisbon, was the 1996 Nobel Peace laureate, Dr Carlos Ximenes Belo.