In the early 1960s, as colonial empires crumbled worldwide, Portugal under the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar waged a bloody war in its African territories. Isolated on the international stage, Europe’s longest-lasting regime was the image of a backward country, tormented by the memory of a greatness lost forever.
The Instrumentalization of Fatima
In this context, Salazar transformed an event of profound religious and universal symbolic significance into a communication operation serving the regime: the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Fatima. To give this event an international dimension, the dictator invited Pope Paul VI to preside over the commemorative ceremonies.
The strategy had a double objective: to conceal the horrors of the colonial war and to reconcile the close ties between the Portuguese dictatorship and the Holy See. Fatima, which since 1917 had been a symbol of faith and hope for millions of Catholics, thus became a political instrument to legitimize an increasingly questioned regime.
An Anti-Communist Message
The title of the episode, «Fatima: An Anti-Communist Miracle?», suggests that the Marian apparitions were interpreted by the Salazarist regime as a spiritual bulwark against the advance of communism, at a time when the Cold War polarized the world. Popular devotion to the Virgin of Fatima, which included the praying of the rosary and the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was skillfully exploited to reinforce the regime’s anti-communist narrative.
The RTP documentary analyzes how the dictatorship manipulated religious fervor to divert attention from colonial repression and present Portugal as a bastion of Christendom against Marxist atheism. The invitation to Pope Paul VI, who ultimately did not attend, was an attempt to obtain Vatican endorsement for a policy that was already causing thousands of deaths in Africa.
This episode is part of a nine-chapter series exploring the complex relationships between religion, politics, and power in contemporary Portuguese history. The investigation reveals how an event of faith can be distorted to serve partisan interests, and how the Catholic Church, at times, found itself caught in uncomfortable alliances with authoritarian regimes.
Original source: www.rtp.pt (published August 15, 2025)
