Mural exhibition evoking one hundred years of the official journal of the Shrine of Fatima is inaugurated

Mural exhibition evoking one hundred years of the official journal of the Shrine of Fatima is inaugurated

The exhibition will be on display during this pastoral year on the billboards of the avenues of the Prayer Area.

In the context of the centennial of the official newspaper of the Shrine: Voz da Fátima (Voice of Fatima), a mural exhibition was inaugurated this afternoon. Alongside the avenues of the Prayer Area, the billboards display the first pages of the first year edition of the publication, as well as the most emblematic pages and the most relevant issues that span the 100 years of this monthly newspaper, which mirrors the growth of the Shrine of Fatima itself.

In the 24 panels of the exhibition, historical curiosities that were shared in the newspaper that, on October 13, 2022, will publish its centennial number, are also recalled, along with the most emblematic moments.

“Throughout 100 years, the newspaper Voz da Fátima has given voice to many voices and has been at the service of a greater cause which is the spreading of the worship of Our Lady of Fatima. (...) Whoever looks at the first pages of its first year of existence will feel transported to the beginnings of the Fatima phenomenon. Whoever looks at the first pages of its long life will see the most important events of Fatima, of the Church, of the country and also of the world”, one reads in the introductory panel of the mural exhibition, which will be on display during the present pastoral year, in the space that runs along the Prayer Area between the High Cross and the Rectory building and the avenue that extends from the top of the Area to the Little Chapel of the Apparitions.

Each panel has a hyperlink and a QR code, which is read by an app on the mobile device, directing to the edition shown on the panel, in digital format.

In the exhibition, the great moments of the century of the monthly publication are presented in major themes: the owners, directors and administrators who coordinated the publication; the progression of the newspaper's circulation; the aesthetic evolution of the headline; the supplements and foreign editions that accompanied it; the relationship between the publication and the Movement of the Message of Fatima and other associations of the faithful; advertising; the graces and cures published in the newspaper; the editorials and the various rubrics; the prominent information regarding the great pilgrimages; the presence of music; the growth in the number of subscribers and the references to the Popes and the worship of Our Lady.

“The visitor to this exhibition will have access to what we considered fundamental to understand this newspaper as an instrument for the promotion of Fatima which, from the very first hour, also serves to give credibility to what is happening in Cova da Iria”, says Marco Daniel Duarte, Director of the Department of Studies of the Shrine of Fatima.

The official newspaper of the Shrine, Voz da Fátima, is published monthly since October 13, 1922. The commemoration of the newspaper centennial, which began on October 13, 2021, will run until October 13, 2022, when the newspaper turns 100 years old. In addition to the mural exhibition, inaugurated today, other initiatives are on the agenda as part of this commemoration.