Late last week, the Vatican confirmed that a second miracle for Blesseds Jacinta and Francisco Marto, the little shepherd-seers of Fatima who died during the Spanish Flu Pandemic, has now been approved. It seems likely that Pope Francis will canonise them personally on May 13, when he will be at Fatima to commemorate the centenary of the apparitions.
This is welcome news, though hardly a surprise. After all, the Church's formal process of canonisation does not move its subjects into heaven. It simply proclaims - infallibly, it is traditionally believed - that they have been there all along. This ecclesiastical "confirmation hearing" is important: among much else, it functions as a kind of "Chartered Intercessors" kitemark.
