Fatima faithful pray for Madeleine

By Carlos Pontes

FATIMA, Portugal (Reuters) - Up to half a million pilgrims on Sunday attended the Sanctuary of Fatima to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the first appearance of the Virgin Mary there and many of them prayed for a kidnapped British girl.

The turnout at the Fatima sanctuary, about 150 (93 miles) north of the capital Lisbon, was the highest since Pope John Paul II visited the shrine in 1982, church officials said.

Some pilgrims to the shrine, one of the holiest in Catholicism, carried pictures of the English girl with the word "missing" and prayed to the Virgin Mary to intervene to help find her alive. Madeleine McCann, who turned four on Saturday, disappeared from her bed at an Algarve resort 10 days ago.

"Today makes precisely 90 years since the first apparition here in Cova da Iria and we want to ask Mary to show once more her maternal solicitude towards the men and women of our time," said Cardinal Angelo Solano, representing the Vatican at Fatima.

Sanctuary officials said John Paul's death, the naming of his successor, and the death in February of the last of the three children who claimed to have seen the Virgin at Fatima, had reinvigorated the faithful.

About 3.5 million people flock to the shrine every year.

One of the children who reported to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary later became a nun and is said to have foretold the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. The late pontiff placed one of the bullets that nearly killed him in the crown of the statue of Fatima.

The photos of Madeleine carried by many of the pilgrims on Sunday appealed for prayers to Fatima and the three shepherd children for her safe return.