ROME: Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ukraine in a ceremony on Friday (Saturday in Manila) that harked back to a century-old apocalyptic prophecy about peace and Russia that was sparked by purported visions of the Virgin Mary to three peasant children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917.
Francis invited bishops, priests and ordinary faithful around the world to join him in the consecration prayer, which opened with Francis entering St. Peter's Basilica before an estimated 3,500 people and concluded with Francis sitting alone before a statue of the Madonna. There, he solemnly asked forgiveness that humanity had "forgotten the lessons learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two World Wars."
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