Fr. Mariano Pinho, S.J "Fatima Jesuit"

The consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, accomplished by Pope Pius XII on October 31, 1942, was the result of the requests, not of Sr. Lucy, but of another Portuguese woman, Alexandra da Costa, known by the name of Alexandrina of Portugal, who was born in Balasar, a village situated between the cities of Porto and Braga, on March 30, 1904, a Good Friday. At the age of 14, in order to defend herself against the perverse intentions of three men who had entered the house where she was in the company of two other girls, she jumped out of a window 12 feet high, and as a result of the fall suffered damage to her spinal column that immobilized her in a painful martyrdom that lasted until her death on October 13, 1955. It was to this victim that our Lord gave the order to obtain from the Pope the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The first request dates from July 31, 1935, and Alexandrina, who was already a voluntary victim of the Eucharist, offered herself as well as "victim for the consecration of the world to our little Mother in Heaven." Our Lord having urged her to obtain this consecration for more than a year, finally her spiritual director, Fr. Mariano Pinho, S.J., transmitted this request for the consecration of the world on September 11, 1936, to His Holiness Pope Pius XI by the intermediary of his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pacelli. The Holy See then ordered the Apostolic Nunciature of Lisbon to initiate an inquiry into the matter. On July 11, 1937, the Provincial of the Jesuits wrote to the Nuncio, relating to him the conclusion of the investigation:

On the basis of the information gathered, it is not possible to doubt the sincerity or the virtue of the young woman. But since she does not show any outward sign that can prove the divine origin of the locutions that she says she hears, the possibility of illusion still remains.

It was Fr. Pinho who was charged with preaching the spiritual retreat to the Portuguese bishops at Fatima in June 1938; at the end of the retreat, the bishops wrote a collective letter to Pope Pius XI:

Read the letter and the rest of the story (here)