World Youth Day: Portuguese-Americans to Renew Ancestral Faith in Fatima
When Katrina Pacheco first learned that the Virgin Mary had appeared in 1917 to three children in Fatima, Portugal, the story stirred a desire to imitate their courage under fire.
“They were vulnerable — they were poor, and they were children, but they followed Mary’s call to share her message of faith and peace,” Pacheco, 23, who works as a phlebotomist at a local hospital, told the Register.
“Those kids were so brave and had so much courage, even as they were called liars by people in their town. It made me feel that I could make a difference; I could be a saint, too,” she added.
Fatima’s invitation to holiness was part of the air Pacheco breathed as a Portuguese-American student attending Espirito Santo Catholic School in Fall River, Massachusetts, where stories about Fatima and Marian processions marking the May 13 feast day of the first apparition were woven into the fabric of community life.
The grandchild of Portuguese immigrants who clung to their faith in their adopted land, Pacheco was deeply moved that the Virgin Mary had appeared in the land of her ancestors, making the story of the three children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, “very personal.”
Now as a young adult who will join the Diocese of Fall River’s upcoming pilgrimage to World Youth Day Aug. 1-6 in Lisbon, Portugal, the Massachusetts native will be able to visit the shrine at Fatima for the first time and ponder anew the miraculous events that continue to reverberate in her own faith journey.
Indeed, Pacheco enrolled in the pilgrimage at the very time that many young cradle Catholics in the United States are drifting away from the faith, or actively rejecting its countercultural teachings on hot-button issues like abortion and gender identity. Thus, the decision by a young adult to take part in the 2023 event, and embrace the opportunity to strengthen her relationship with the Lord and his Mother Mary, holds greater significance today perhaps than at any time since Pope St. John Paul II announced the first World Youth Day in 1986.
