Last year more than 240,000 fewer devotees attended mass at the Sanctuary of Fátima than the year before, giving continuation to dwindling attendances that were first noted in 2007.
The number of pilgrims participating in processions also fell by around 55,000 people, from some 3.151 million in 2009 to 3.096 million last year.
Statistics from the Sanctuary were released this week in Fátima.
When questioned why the number of faithful visiting the Sanctuary fell last year, a year in which Pope Benedict XVI visited the holy site, the Sanctuary’s rector Father Virgílio Antunes said it could be because of the economic crisis.
“Taking into account the difficulties that people are having to live with, mainly economic ones, I think that it is normal that people cannot come to Fátima as often as they did during other periods”, he said, adding he believes “people will come in the future, when the economic situation is different.”
Other contributing factors, in the rector’s opinion, are “the costs of fuel and tolls and spending on food in Fátima, which for a family on a small budget is a lot.”
Father Antunes described the Pope’s visit to Fátima in May last year as being of “enormous importance to the church, to the world, to Fátima, and to the way Fátima is seen by the world.”
“Fátima, in May, reached the four corners of the world in a very positive way”, he said.
During 2010 some 3,916 foreign and Portuguese groups visited Fátima (596,322 people in total) on an organised excursion, which in the rector’s opinion is “the cheapest way to travel”, as the visitors share buses.
The Spanish are the most common foreign visitors to Portugal’s holiest city, with 34,117 Spaniards visiting last year in groups, followed by Italians (30,185 visitors), 12,746 Polish visitors, and 5,680 North American visitors.
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