Artur Santos

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Artur de Oliveira Santos was the mayor of Ourém, in which the town of Fátima was located, during the time of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima to three young shepherd children in 1917.

[edit] Career

Although he had little formal education, he was made the editor the local gazette, Ouriense, in which he displayed his anti-monarchical and anti-religious opinions. He was elected in his 20's to the Masonic Lodge of Leiria,[1] and then founded a separate Lodge at Vila Nova de Ourém, his native village. Shortly after that he was made mayor or administrator of the county. He possessed the corollary titles of President of the Town Hall and Judge Substitute of Comarca, and was, at the time of the apparitions, the most influential man in his region[2]

[edit] Role in the Fátima Apparitions

Santos was known for his hostility towards the alleged apparitions, and repeatedly sent law enforcement officials to seek to impede public access to the site. He went so far as to intercept the three seers themselves and to jail them to prevent them from arriving for one of the scheduled apparitions[3] and later threatened the children with being boiled in oil unless they revealed to him the secret which the children had reported receiving from the Lady.[4]

In his later years, he professed to be a Christian, but denied going to Mass or Confession. He would not talk about having put the three seers in prison. Although stripped of political offices in his later years, he would talk of the relative fame he once possessed, and would take pride in his assertion that he was known all over the world, "and in Russia, too".[5]

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ "At twenty-six he joined the Grand Orient Masonic Lodge at Leiria." OPPOSITION TO FATIMA (Part I), The Fatima Crusader, Issue 7 Page 12, Spring 1981
  2. ^ p 87, The Immaculate Heart, Farrar, Straus, and Young, New York, John De Marchi, 1952
  3. ^ "The children were kidnapped on the morning of the 13th by the Mayor of Vila Nova de Ourém, Artur Santos." The Apparitions at Fatima, Theotokos Catholic Books
  4. ^ The Immaculate Heart, Farrar, Straus, and Young, New York, John De Marchi, 1952, p96-100
  5. ^ Joseph Pelletier "The Sun Danced at Fatima", Doubleday, New York (1983),p226)