The Crown of Our Lady of Fátima, and the Bullet Set Inside It

A kilogram of donated gold, 2,679 stones given by the women of Portugal — and, set beneath the orb, a bullet fired in Saint Peter’s Square on the anniversary of the first apparition.

On the head of the statue of Our Lady of Fátima that stands in the Chapel of the Apparitions there is a crown of gold, weighing just over a kilogram, set with more than 2,600 precious stones. It was given by the women of Portugal in 1946.

Set into that crown, beneath the orb, there is a bullet.

Both facts are true, and the second one is the reason people remember the first. This is the story of how Our Lady of Fátima came to be crowned, and how a piece of ammunition fired in Rome in 1981 ended up in a crown made in Lisbon thirty-five years earlier.

Why is Our Lady of Fátima crowned?

The crowning of a Marian image is not decoration. It is a formal act, with a rite of its own, by which the Church publicly acknowledges Mary as Queen — a title that follows from her Son being King, and which the Church celebrates on 22 August, the octave day of the Assumption.

Behind the title is a simple line of reasoning. If Christ is King, then his mother is the mother of the King. In the royal households of the ancient Near East — the world of the Books of Kings — it was not the wife of the king who held rank at court but his mother, the gebirah, the Great Lady, who sat at his right hand and brought petitions to him. The Church has read Mary's queenship in exactly that key: not as power of her own, but as access to her Son's.

The crown of 1946: a nation's thanksgiving

Portugal did not enter the Second World War. Surrounded by a continent at war, the country came through the years 1939–45 without invasion — and a great many Portuguese Catholics attributed that to the intercession of Our Lady of Fátima, to whom the bishops had consecrated the nation in 1931 and again in 1938.

The thanksgiving took a concrete form. Portuguese women were asked to donate jewellery and gold; the response filled the workshops of the Lisbon goldsmiths Leitão & Irmão. The crown they produced weighs 1.2 kilograms, is made of gold and silver, and carries some 2,679 stones — diamonds, emeralds, rubies, amethysts and pearls, all of them given.

On 13 May 1946, in front of a vast crowd at the Cova da Iria, Cardinal Benedetto Aloisi Masella, sent as papal legate by Pope Pius XII, placed the crown on the statue. The statue itself had been carved in 1920 by José Ferreira Thedim, to specifications given by Lúcia.

Why the crown is usually not on the statue

Pilgrims are often surprised to see the image in the Capelinha wearing a simpler crown. The 1946 crown is kept in the Sanctuary's treasury and is placed on the statue for the great pilgrimages — 13 May and 13 October chief among them. What visitors see on ordinary days is a second, lighter crown.

The bullet: 13 May 1981

On 13 May 1981 — the anniversary of the first apparition — Pope John Paul II was crossing Saint Peter's Square in an open car when Mehmet Ali Ağca fired on him at close range. One bullet passed through the Pope's abdomen. He lost roughly three-quarters of his blood and very nearly died.

He was convinced that he had been saved by Our Lady of Fátima, and said so with a sentence that has become famous:

"One hand fired, and another hand guided the bullet."

A year later, on 13 May 1982, he travelled to Fátima to give thanks. He brought the bullet that had been removed from his body — the one recovered from the papal vehicle — and gave it to the Sanctuary.

The Bishop of Leiria-Fátima had it set into the crown, in the opening beneath the orb at the crown's summit. It fitted the space exactly, without any adjustment.

So the crown that a nation gave in thanksgiving for being spared a war now carries, at its highest point, the metal of an attempt on a Pope's life on the anniversary of the day she first appeared. Whatever one makes of it, it is one of the most extraordinary objects in modern Catholicism.

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The Queenship of Mary: 22 August

The feast of the Queenship of Mary was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1954, at the close of a Marian Year, and was originally kept on 31 May. The reform of the calendar after the Second Vatican Council moved it to 22 August — the octave day of the Assumption — and the logic of the move is worth noticing.

Assumption and Queenship are one movement in two steps: she is taken up on the fifteenth, and crowned on the twenty-second. It is the fourth and fifth Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, given eight days apart in the calendar.

If you pray the Rosary, 22 August is the natural day for the Glorious Mysteries — and the fifth decade, the Coronation, is the one the feast exists to hold. Our guide to praying the Rosary sets out the mysteries by day.

Crowns, orbs and what the symbols mean

• The crown — queenship; twelve stars in Marian iconography, after Revelation 12.
• The orb — the world placed under her intercession; on the Fátima crown, the orb sits above the band and beneath the cross.
• The cross above the orb — that her queenship derives entirely from her Son's.
• The stones — in the 1946 crown, each one donated; the crown is a record of thousands of individual acts of thanksgiving rather than a single commission.

Keeping the Queenship at home

The domestic custom attached to Marian crowning is the May crowning, familiar to anyone who grew up in a parish with a statue and a ring of flowers. There is no reason it belongs only to May. On 22 August, a wreath or a few flowers set at the foot of an image at home is the whole of the tradition, and children take to it immediately.

Many families also mark the day with a decade for the intention John Paul II carried to Fátima in 1982 — for the protection of the Church, and in thanksgiving.

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Frequently asked questions

Is there really a bullet in the crown of Our Lady of Fátima?

Yes. The bullet that struck Pope John Paul II during the assassination attempt of 13 May 1981 was given by him to the Sanctuary of Fátima on 13 May 1982 and was set into the crown of the statue, in the opening beneath the orb. It fitted the space without adjustment.

Who crowned Our Lady of Fátima?

Cardinal Benedetto Aloisi Masella, as papal legate of Pope Pius XII, crowned the statue at the Cova da Iria on 13 May 1946.

Why was the crown given?

It was a national thanksgiving for Portugal being spared the Second World War. Portuguese women donated jewellery and gold, and the Lisbon goldsmiths Leitão & Irmão made the crown — 1.2 kg of gold and silver set with some 2,679 donated stones.

What did John Paul II say about the assassination attempt?

He attributed his survival to Our Lady of Fátima, saying that "one hand fired, and another hand guided the bullet." The attempt took place on 13 May, the anniversary of the first apparition.

When is the feast of the Queenship of Mary?

22 August, the octave day of the Assumption. It was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1954 and moved to its present date in the reform of the calendar after the Second Vatican Council.

Can you see the 1946 crown at Fátima?

The original crown is kept in the Sanctuary treasury and is placed on the statue for the major pilgrimages, chiefly 13 May and 13 October. On other days the image wears a lighter crown.