Apparitions from heaven???

[abaris]

It wouldn't take much to make those kids believe in what they were being told... Rural Portugal was pretty much pastoral - no sophistication of any kind... Very religious to begin with, so, by default, gullible.

That's why I even draw the skeptics into question. I guess it would have been hard to find any skeptic in rural Portugal at that time. Or any rural part of Europe for that matter.

The children? Well, who says they said what they're supposed to have said at the time in question? I guess Fatima was as piss poor a region before the grand "miracle" as many of the other regions where miracles supposedly happened. Not anymore, I guess. Same as Lourdes.