Bryce & Damon in Europe
by Pertinax Carrus
Chapter 2, Portugal
Airports
The flight on which Bryce and Damon departed Lincoln left on time at 10:28 a.m. It was only the beginning of a long trek. There is no way to travel by air and still be comfortable, unless one has a private plane. Bryce had been tempted at one time to insist on first class accommodations, but his mother joined with Damon to nix that idea. They were, after all, supposed to be students, and ought at least to give some outward show of student modes of travel. Even first class was only marginally comfortable anyway. Besides, it would make Damon feel better to fly tourist class, for, even though he accepted that Bryce (or his family) would pay for the trip, he still was not reconciled to accepting too much for himself.
There was a layover in Chicago, during which Bryce and Damon had lunch, but did not attempt to contact Damon’s family. Once again, Damon mailed his nephew Nathan a postcard. They arrived at Concourse C at Newark’s international airport at 4:14 p.m., and had almost four hours to while away before their international flight left. Bryce had done a little research, and found that there were many more restaurants and other outlets in Concourse C than in Concourse B, from which international flights left, so they stayed where they arrived for several hours, including having dinner at one of the many restaurants. At least their luggage would be transferred automatically, so, even though they would have to go through airport security again when transferring from one concourse to the other, they would not have to be burdened with all their goods.
The international flight left at 8:10 p.m. on TAP Portugal, originally founded as Transportes Aéreos Portugueses in 1945, but now a victim of the modern mania for naming companies things which do not identify their function. It would, of course, be an overnight flight. That in itself was a cause of wonder by Damon. About an hour after takeoff they were served another meal. Bryce should have known better, but with four hours to fill, eating at the airport seemed like a good idea. In the Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, people tend to eat their evening meal quite late by American standards. After the meal, there was an in-flight movie. By the time that was over, it was nearly 10:00 Lincoln time, and the plane was dimmed for a few hours of sleep. It was only a few hours, because about an hour and a half before landing they were awakened for breakfast. They would land at 8:20 a.m. Lisbon time, which would be 1:20 a.m. Central Daylight Time in Lincoln. That would discombobulate Damon for the next few hours, and confuse him for the next few days.
At the Lisbon airport they were scheduled to pick up a rental car, which would be theirs until they arrived at the end of their adventure in Rome a month and a half later. They chose a Ford Focus Wagon as a fairly fuel efficient vehicle which still had the room for all their luggage. Unfortunately, Bryce was not an efficient packer, and always seemed to end up with at least one more piece of luggage than he should. Both Bryce and Damon were authorized to drive the vehicle, and they intended to take turns so that neither of them would get too tired while driving. With luggage collected and auto rented, they were ready to begin exploring Portugal.
Belém
As it was too early to check into their hotel, Bryce and Damon drove to Belém, downstream on the Tagus River from central Lisbon, to visit the renowned Hieronymite Monastery, called in Portugese Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. The structure was begun in 1501 to celebrate the return of Vasco da Gama from his successful voyage around Africa to India, inaugurating the most significant and affluent period in Portugese history. It was located there in Belém as that was the site of the Ermida do Restelo, the chapel where da Gama and his crew prayed before setting out on their voyage. It took most of the sixteenth century to complete.
Admission to the church is free, so the guys took in that marvelous and impressive structure first. It is in the Manueline style, named for King Manuel the Fortunate, who reigned from 1495 to 1521 when Portugal was becoming a major world power, and Lisbon a major world economic center. This is a very elaborate style, with lots of decoration. In the church are the tombs of Vasco da Gama, the great explorer, and Luis de Camöes, the national poet of Portugal. Bryce purchased tickets to allow them to visit the cloister, which was most impressive, and also Belém Tower, located a little more than half a mile further downstream, at the mouth of the Tagus.
Belém Tower was constructed between 1515 and 1519 as a defensive work at the mouth of the river on which Lisbon sits. At that time, the feared enemy were Moslems from North Africa, but later it would be Dutch and English privateers. Sculpted on the west façade is a rhinoceros, to commemorate the arrival of the first such beast in 1513. In the course of their explorations, Bryce learned that Belém is a local variation meaning Bethlehem. Every part of the Christian West had such a popular variation, it seems, like Bedlam in London.
On the way back, they stopped at the Monument to the Discoverers, erected in 1960 to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator, the great patron of exploration (and great-uncle of King Manuel the Fortunate). In the form of the prow of a ship, the monument had figures representing all the great discoverers of Portugal’s greatest age, led by the Prince.
All this led to a discussion of the role of Portugal in discovery and the Atlantic world. Bryce and Damon found a sidewalk café, where they had lunch, and where they carried on a good part of the conversation, which began back in the monastery.
“I might be wrong, but I seem to remember from one of my black history classes in high school that the Portuguese were involved in the Atlantic slave trade,” Damon proposed.
“No, you’re right. Just as with everyone else, the record of the Portuguese is a mixed one. They did some really marvelous things, but they were also heavily involved in the slave trade,” Bryce admitted.
“Why was that?” Damon questioned.
“Well, Portugal, like Spain, had her medieval history and character formed by centuries of contact, both peaceful and warlike, with the Moslem world, where slavery was a part of everyday life. Under the influence of Christianity, slavery had almost disappeared from most of Christian Europe long before the fifteenth century. It was the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, who made arbitrary killing of a slave a crime, whereas before in Roman law the slave owner could do whatever he pleased with his slaves. It was the Western Christian Emperor Charlemagne who prohibited the slave trade. Throughout the West, enslaving another Christian was forbidden by law. But slavery lingered on in these lands bordering Islam. As the Portuguese pushed farther and farther south along the African coast during the fifteenth century, they found slavery already well established there, but those slaves who were sold out of their local West African region were sent north, across the Sahara, to the Moslem world. It seemed like good business sense to get in on that commerce, so the Portuguese began to enter the slave trade,” Bryce explained.
“That doesn’t account for the Atlantic slave trade. I learned that this was the most inhumane aspect of the slave trade,” Damon asserted.
“Well, right around the time Vasco da Gama was rounding the tip of South Africa and making his way to India, Columbus made his voyage across the Atlantic, and both the Spanish and the Portuguese became involved in the discovery and exploration of the Americas. Portugal ended up with Brazil, where they speak Portuguese today, not Spanish. Both the Portuguese and the Spanish colonies were heavily dependent on slave labor, economically speaking, just as were the later English colonies. In Brazil, it was the sugar industry which absorbed most of the labor. So, to meet the labor demands, the Portuguese began importing slaves from Africa, where, as I said, the slave trade was already centuries old. It was the voyage across the ocean which was the roughest part. We crossed the Atlantic in just a few hours, really, but it took them weeks and weeks. With a cargo of hostile slaves, the slave traders became hardened to human suffering. It has been said many times that slavery debased the slave owners as much as the slaves themselves, and I think that’s especially true of the slave traders. I make no apologies for the slave trade. It was a terrible thing, fueled primarily by greed and the early capitalist system. The Dutch were worse than the Portuguese, but the Portuguese were bad enough, and among the last to give it up.” Bryce shook his head at the viciousness of humanity.
“You said the Portuguese had a mixed record. So far, all I know about is negative. What were some of the positive things?” Damon asked.
“Well, they were adventuresome navigators, who pushed the boundaries of human knowledge further than ever before in the realm of geography. It was the Portuguese who explored the entire western coast of Africa, from the Moslem world at Morocco to the Cape of Good Hope, named by the Portuguese sailor Bartolomeu Diaz, at the southern extremity of Africa, and then Vasco da Gama made that epoch making voyage to India in 1498, creating new trade routes and expanding knowledge in that area as well. For the first time in centuries, Christian Europe had access to the commerce of the East without going through the Moslem world, and essentially paying about double the later cost of goods. This set off an economic expansion which more or less fueled the entire history of the West since then. It was the most important economic development until the Industrial Revolution, anyway. And the initial contacts were welcomed by both Europeans and Africans. Slaves were not the only, or even the most important commerce at the beginning. It was gold, ivory, and pepper which first attracted the Portuguese,” Bryce further explained.
“Anything else?” Damon asked.
“Well, for me there is. The Portuguese sent missionaries to the peoples they encountered along these trade routes. Not only in Brazil, but in Africa and Asia as well. In 1483 the Portuguese reached the mouth of the Congo River, and within a few years were sending missionaries to the Kingdom of Congo, located in what is northern Angola and parts of Congo today. King Mani Nzinga was baptized as John, and his successor Nzinga Mbemba became Affonso. About half the population of Angola today is Catholic. To me, saving a soul is more important than commercial activity, the one motivated by love, the other by greed,” Bryce declared.
“And just how do you know all this?” Damon asked, looking askance at his partner.
Bryce grinned. “I kind of figured you’d bring up the slave trade business while we were here, so I spent some time prepping before we left. Now that that’s taken care of, we can enjoy our visit.”
Lisbon
The two young men piled into their rented vehicle, and made their way into downtown Lisbon, to the impressive Avenida da Liberadade, with its tree lined broad lanes of traffic separated by a green median. There, at number 127, they located their hotel, the Sofitel Lisbon Liberadade. Sofitel is a chain of hotels originating in Europe in 1964 and now found around the globe. This was definitely not a place where poor students would be staying, generally speaking, but Martha Winslow insisted on a good, comfortable place for the beginning of their adventures, even if it were not the most luxurious in Lisbon. Here, as elsewhere on their route, they had reserved a double room, which they were able to check into that afternoon. It was quite comfortable, with a view of the avenue below.
Not much farther along the avenue, they encountered a statue of the Marquis de Pombal. Bryce explained that he was the chief minister of King Joseph of Portugal during the middle portions of the eighteenth century, who carried out a series of important political and economic reforms. He was noted for his swift response to the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Pombal is considered a representative of the Enlightenment, and among other things, was the first Catholic head of government to suppress the Jesuits in his territories. He was chief minister for over a quarter century.
“I thought you Catholics all loved the Jesuits,” Damon said.
“Nope,” Bryce replied, “but we’ll leave that topic until later. In a few days we’ll be at the ancestral homes of the two most important Jesuits, St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier. That might be a better place to have that conversation.”
“Whatever you say,” Damon conceded.
They wandered the area, finding both shopping venues and green spaces, along with significant monuments. A block or so from Pombal was a monument to the Portuguese troops who died in World War I, one of our most forgotten allies. They also found a wonderful sidewalk restaurant and had another meal. After the confusion of the overseas flight and all the time changes, they were not sure what to call this meal, but it seemed to be getting late in the day, and they were exhausted. So they ate, then retired to their hotel. On their first night in Europe, they felt it almost required that they make love, but the fact was they were so exhausted that it was far from one of their better efforts.
Both Bryce and Damon slept well, not waking until late the next morning. At least, they told themselves, they were over jet lag, or whatever had overcome them the evening before. They breakfasted at the hotel, then checked out. Before noon, they made one more stop in Lisbon, which was at the cathedral. It was a fortress-like structure, solid and not very aesthetic. Bryce mentioned that at the time it was built, hostile Moslems controlled the area right across the river, so it did, indeed, function as a fortress. Nearby is a chapel on the site of the birthplace of St. Anthony of Padua. He is “of Padua” only because he died there, and the guys would visit his church there later. Soon they were on the road, heading north to Fatima.
Fatima
It was a distance of 78.2 miles from downtown Lisbon to downtown (if such a thing existed) Fatima. Most of the way, they were on Route A1. In Fatima, on the Rua Francisco Marto, they located the Hotel Cinquentenario, where they had reservations for the next night. Fatima is important only because of the appearance of Our Lady to three shepherd children there in 1917. Francisco Marto, for whom the street on which their hotel rested is named, was one of the three shepherds.
Only a short walk from their hotel was the great complex of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima. The first impression is of great open space, as there is a huge plaza, about three times the size of a football field, separating the old basilica from the new assembly hall, called Holy Trinity Chapel, where ceremonies are held in bad weather. Bryce led Damon to the basilica, a large church with outstretched arms welcoming the pilgrim. As one approaches, one can see a statue of the shepherds and inside are their tombs to the right and left of the high altar. In a side chapel there was a Mass beginning, celebrated by an Irish priest, so they stayed for the entire Mass. Bryce gave Damon a brief account of the story, but in the (inescapable) gift shop he also purchased a booklet which gave a more thorough account of the events of 1917, and the lives of the three children.
The events which made Fatima a world pilgrimage site actually began in 1916, during the slaughter of World War I, and at a time when a strongly anti-clerical regime was in power in Portugal. Three times that year an angel appeared to three little shepherd children, telling them that they would receive a visit from Our Lady. The first visit was on a rocky hillside called Loca de Cabeço, near the village of Aljustrel where the children lived. They later described the angel as “a young man about fourteen or fifteen years old, whiter than snow, transparent as crystal when the sun shines through it, and of great beauty.” He identified himself as “the Angel of Peace,” and told them to pray with him this prayer: “My God I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you. I ask pardon of you for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love you.” These three visitations in 1916 prepared the children for what was to come the following year.
The children in question were Lucia dos Santos, nine years old in 1916, youngest of the seven children of Antonio and Maria Rosa, and cousin of the other two children. She herself was especially fond of children. It was she who always spoke with the Angel and with Our Lady. Lucia was the only one who lived a full life. Then came Francisco Marto, the eight year old son of Manuel and Olimpia. He loved playing games, making music on his flute, and dancing. During the apparitions, he could see everything, but hear nothing that was said. Francisco’s sister was Jacinta Marto, just six when it all began. Of an especially sensitive disposition, she both saw and heard, but took no part in the conversations with the visitors.
On Sunday, 13 May 1917, after Mass the three children set out with their lunches to tend the sheep in a field about a mile and a half from their village of Aljustrel. They saw what they thought was lightening, and decided they should go home. On the way, a lady dressed in white and more brilliant than the sun appeared to them. The lady asked the children to come to that spot each month for six months. She told them to pray the rosary in reparation for the sins of the world, and that they would have much to suffer. When Jacinta revealed what had happened to her mother, it set off a period when others scoffed at them and did not believe them.
On 13 June about fifty people were present for the second apparition. It was then that the lady promised to take Francisco and Jacinta to heaven soon. By July there was considerable opposition to the story told by the children. When Lucia presented a list of petitions from others, Our Lady replied that they themselves must pray. It was at this apparition that the children were given a terrifying vision of hell. Then she told the children that the war would end soon, but if people did not cease offending God, a worse one would break out. She also predicted that Russia would spread her errors to others and persecute the Church. It is interesting to note that the Communist takeover in Russia had not yet occurred.
The press, dominated by anti-clerical elements (nothing new there), criticized the public officials for failing to stop the “farce” taking place at Cova de Iria, the field where the apparitions took place, and where the present Sanctuary is located. In response, a leading local official kidnaped the children on 13 August and subjected them to severe questioning, threatening torture and death, but they refused to deny what had happened. They were kept imprisoned until the appointed date for the next apparition had passed. Released, they received the promised visitation on 19 August instead. On 13 September about 25,000 people gathered to witness the next apparition, but opposition continued, even in the small village of Aljustrel. The local priest wanted them to tell the world it was all “a made-up story.”
On 13 October the last of the six apparitions took place, with a crowd of 70,000 in attendance, including not only believers but scoffers and detractors, including many members of the press. It rained, soaking the crowd. Lucia’s mother was almost hysterical, believing they would be killed by hostile unbelievers. When Our Lady appeared, she told Lucia that she wanted a church built there under the title Our Lady of the Rosary. She agreed to honor some of the requests Lucia presented on behalf of others, but rejected others as coming from those who had not repented of their sins. As Our Lady ascended, Lucia cried out, “Look at the sun!” The sun seemed to tremble in the sky, then began to make all kinds of movements, described by Jacinta’s father as “dancing.” It seemed that the sun would fall on the crowd, and people panicked, thinking they were doomed, but then the sun peacefully returned to its usual place. The only result was that all those who had been soaked by the earlier rain were now completely dry.
In 1919 Francisco succumbed to a late visitation of the great influenza epidemic of 1918, dying at home after suffering much. His sister Jacinta also fell ill, but was subjected to one doctor and one hospital after another, finally dying alone in a hospital room in 1920 of tuberculosis. Lucia joined a monastery and lived until 2005. She was present at Fatima on 13 May 2000 when Pope John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta, the step closest to canonization as recognized saints of the Church. Jacinta is the youngest non-martyr to be so honored by the Church
After reading all this, Damon was impressed, but still not convinced. He asked Bryce, “Do you believe all this?”
“Yes,” Bryce replied simply.
“But ... the sun dancing and all? How can that be?” Damon objected.
“I don’t know,” Bryce answered. “Obviously, the sun did not actually leave its place in the solar system, but that was the way people here experienced it. Seventy thousand of them. That’s a better witness list than just about anything else you can mention.”
They passed the Chapel of the Apparitions, located on the site of the apparitions of 1917. Passing out of the shrine area, they were met with dozens of shops selling items associated with the apparitions. Entering one, Bryce purchased a copy of the photograph taken of the three children on 13 July 1917. The kids looked very serious. There were statues of Our Lady in the pose known as Our Lady of Fatima. Bryce turned away, and left the shop.
“Aren’t you going to buy a statue?” Damon asked.
“No. I don’t really like this image of Our Lady. The original over in the chapel is better than most of the copies in these shops, but even there it’s too saccharine, too much like the whole overblown sentimentality of late nineteenth century Romanticism. I can’t help but think of that image as ‘the Simpering Madonna.’ When we get to Lourdes, I’ll show you what I think is a better way of picturing Our Lady. You probably noticed some of the pilgrims making their way across the open area on their knees, too. That kind of devotion doesn’t appeal to me either. If some people find it satisfying, that’s fine, but it’s not for me.”
That evening, after an excellent dinner, the two returned to the shrine area. There was a candlelight procession of about five thousand people praying the rosary, which took place after dark. There was a group from Australia in front of them in the procession, and behind them a young couple from Poland. Damon commented on the crowd. “We’re fortunate that this is June fourth,” Bryce told Damon as they made their way around the large square. “On May thirteenth there were about a million people here. Then it was really crowded.”
That night, Damon was restless, tossing and turning and keeping his partner awake. Finally, he got up and sat in a chair, staring out the window for several hours.
The next day, after checking out of the hotel, they drove the short distance to the village of Aljustrel. There, they visited the homes of the three children. At the Marto home there was a nephew of the children presiding over the scene, and at the dos Santos home a niece of Lucia. Both were old at this time of course, and the nephew did not remember the children who died so young, but the niece definitely remembered her Aunt Lucia, who was alive until only five years ago. The homes were modest village homes, now owned by the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima and open to the public.
Back in the car, the two young men took off, leaving Fatima for the nearly five hour drive to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.