Fatima, Francis’ supplication to Mary. Bergoglio talks about himself using the same words of the Third Secret. He implores for peace and “world concord among all peoples”.

"I gaze at your robe of light and, as a bishop robed in white, I call to mind all those who, robed in the splendour of their baptism, desire to live in God and tell the mysteries of Christ in order to obtain peace." Francis is absorbed in prayer before the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, in front of the Chapel of the apparitions of the Fatima sanctuary. And while reciting the supplication addressed to the Virgin he uses the expression contained in the text of the Third Secret of Fatima to define himself: "bishop dressed in white". As known, twenty-five years after the vision received on July 13, 1917, Lucia spoke of a "bishop dressed in white" who suffered martyrdom along with many other Christians, claiming to have had the presentiment of it being "the Holy Father".

In the prayer, intertwined by the song of Marian invocations, Francis presented himself as a "pilgrim of peace" and added, “I implore for the world concord among all peoples." The Pope has asked the Madonna to look at "the sorrows of the human family, as they mourn and weep in this valley of tears " "Let us follow," Bergoglio continued, "the example of the blessed Francis and blessed Jacinta, and of those who devote themselves to proclaiming the Gospel. Thus we will follow all paths and everywhere make our pilgrim way; we will tear down all walls and cross every frontier, as we go out to every periphery, to make known God’s justice and peace."

"We will be in the joy of the Gospel," he concluded, "we will be the Church dressed in white, the whiteness washed in the blood of the Lamb, blood that today too is shed in the wars tearing our world apart." The invocation of peace and the memory of the blood shed by the victims of the wars is therefore present since the first public act in the sanctuary, where tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered.

Francis arrived by helicopter to the sanctuary from the Monte Real military air base, and was welcomed by tens of thousands of faithful who waited for the papa-mobile passage to greet him and in some cases to cast flower petals. Although the weather forecasts were not the best, when the Pope arrived to the shrine, the sky was clear. He laid white flowers at the foot of the statue and stood for a long time to pray standing in front of the Marian effigy, followed with emotion by all the faithful. Nestled in the statue’s crown is the bullet extracted from the body of John Paul II after the assassination attempt of May 13, 1981. A deep silence fell on the esplanade home of the Cova da Iria, the natural basin where the three seer shepherds took the flocks to pasture.