Miracle of the Sun

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.

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.

[1] 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.

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.

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.

[21] 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.

[22] In The Immaculate Heart (1952), De Marchi reported that, "[t]heir ranks (those present on 13 October) included believers and non-believers, pious old ladies and scoffing young men.

Four times during the week that he declared the dogma of the Assumption of Mary (33 years after the actual event said to have occurred in Fátima), Pope Pius XII claimed to have witnessed the same "Miracle of the Sun".

According to the children's accounts, Mary, referred to as the "Lady of Fátima", promised them she would perform a miracle to show people they were telling the truth, and so caused the crowds to see the Sun make "incredible" movements in the sky.

[36] Various theologians and apologetic scientists have discussed the limits of scientific explanations for the event and proposed possible mechanisms through which divine intervention caused the solar phenomenon.

[citation needed] Fr Andrew Pinsent, research director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at Oxford University, states that "a scientific perspective does not rule out miracles, and the event at Fatima is, in the view of many, particularly credible."

He states that a usual prejudice involves a lack of understanding of the scope of scientific laws, which merely describe how natural systems behave isolated from free agents.

[37] Theologian, physicist, and priest Stanley L. Jaki, concurs, concluding that by divine intervention, a coordinated interplay of natural meteorological events, an enhancement of air lens with ice crystals, was made to occur at the exact time predicted, and this is the essence of the miracle.

Meanwhile, the ice crystals in it acted as so many means of refraction for the sun's rays... Only one observer, a lawyer, stated three decades later that the path of descent and ascent was elliptical with small circles superimposed on it.

[39] De Marchi believed related miraculous phenomena, such as the Sun's effect on standing water from heavy rains that immediately preceded the event, to be genuine.

According to De Marchi, "...engineers that have studied the case reckoned that an incredible amount of energy would have been necessary to dry up those pools of water that had formed on the field in a few minutes as it was reported by witnesses.

De Marchi concludes that "given the indubitable reference to God, and the general context of the story, it seems that we must attribute to Him alone the most obvious and colossal miracle of history.

"[40] Leo Madigan, a former psychiatric nurse and local journalist at Fátima in the late 20th century, also dismisses suggestions from critics of mass hypnosis, and believes that astonishment, fear, exaltation and the spiritual nature of the phenomenon explain any inconsistency of witnesses descriptions.

McClure remarks that perception and memory becoming uncertain during an incomprehensible event is not surprising, but that the contradictions in the accounts must raise some doubts towards the objective nature of what was seen.

The witness Joaquim Gregório Tavares, who was present at Fátima on 13 October, states, "We must declare that, although we admit the possibility of some miraculous fact, we were there while having in mind conversations we had earlier with cool-headed persons who were anticipating some changes of colour in the Sun".

[50] This is likely because in the months of July, August and September people at Fátima claimed the Sun's light dimmed and the sky became dark enough for stars to become visible.

She also states that on the morning of October 13, "the people of Alburitel were darkening bits of glass by exposing them to candle-smoke so that they might watch the Sun, with no harm to their eyes.

[7] Shortly after the miracle, the Catholic lawyer named Coelho said in his article that a few days later, he saw the exact same motions and colour changes in the Sun as he did on 13 October.

Other possibilities include an alteration in the density of the passing clouds, causing the sun's image to alternately brighten and dim and so seem to advance and recede, and dust or moisture droplets in the atmosphere refracting the sunlight and thus imparting a variety of colors".