October is dedicated to the rosary — and the month includes the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Now, a local paper just north of New York City is writing about the rosary and, specifically, the anniversary of a modern Marian event:

Ninety years ago tomorrow, tens of thousands of people in the town of Fatima, Portugal, are said to have witnessed a miracle.

The sun, many believe, danced in the sky, just as the Virgin Mary promised it would.

It was on Oct. 13, 1917, that three shepherd children from Fatima are believed to have received a sixth and final vision of Mary – a series of apparitions that have gripped the Roman Catholic world ever since.

To commemorate the anniversary, close to 2,500 Catholic groups across the country, including more than a dozen in the Lower Hudson Valley, plan to hold public rosary rallies tomorrow.

Their goals are simple and precise: to recite the rosary and pray for world peace and a more moral culture, as believers say Mary requested 90 years ago.

“The purpose is to pray for an end to problems in our country,” said Francesco A. Mastracchio of White Plains. He and his wife, Diane, will lead 9 a.m. prayers at the city’s Tibbets Park, where some 200 people from surrounding parishes are expected to gather.

“The rosary is a prayer that the young generations have neglected,” said Mastracchio, 40, who works for the White Plains Parking Department. “Less and less people do it. Everyone has rosary beads on their rear-view mirror, but this is a chance to take them down and put them to use.”

For believers, the Fatima legend is among the most significant apparitions of Mary, along with her appearance to the Mexican peasant Juan Diego in 1531 and numerous visions in Lourdes, France, in 1858.

In Fatima, the Virgin Mary is believed to have told the three children that all people must pray and repent in order to bring about world peace. She also promised the miracle of the sun.

A traditional Catholic group called the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property organized tomorrow’s “Public Square Rosary Campaign” to work toward Mary’s goals.

“The idea was to sort of imitate what happened with the apparition, to do something very public, a high-profile manifestation of our devotion to the Blessed Mother,” said John Horvat, vice president of the Spring Grove, Pa.-based group.

Public rallies will take place outside several state capitols, across from the White House, outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and in all 50 states.

“America needs help bringing God back to the country, and that’s what the rosary is about,” said Cathleen E. Dragos, 78, a retiree from Sparkill who will lead a noon rally across the street from the Thorpe Village housing complex there.

Asked where the help will come from, Dragos said:

“What do you mean? The Blessed Mother will help us through the intercession of Jesus.”

It is a strong desire among Marian devotees, who tend to be more conservative or traditional Catholics, that American culture be purified by the removal of practices they consider to be immoral.

“We’re doing it publicly to raise awareness of the problems we have in society,” said Mary Maher, 44, of Brewster. “When we turn to faith, it can alleviate those problems in some way – immorality, abortion, homosexuality, abuse toward each other. With public demonstrations, maybe people will pay attention.”

Maher, a self-described “home-schooling mom,” and her husband, Kevin, are organizing a noon rally outside Immaculate Conception Church in Sleepy Hollow, where they are part of a group that gathers there weekly for a Latin Mass.

Catholic adoration of Mary and belief in Marian apparitions represent a strong cultural divide between Catholics and most other Christians. Thousands of Catholics make pilgrimages each year to Fatima, Lourdes and Mexico City, among other sites.

The growing influence in the United States of Hispanic Catholics, who have a strong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe – the apparition of the Virgin Mary said to have appeared to Juan Diego – could strengthen Marian devotion in the wider Catholic community.

The Vatican has deemed the Fatima apparitions to be worthy of belief since 1930. A half-dozen popes have supported the apparitions – with Pope John Paul II even saying that the Virgin Mary, in the so-called “third secret of Fatima,” predicted the 1981 attempt on his life.

But Catholics are not required to believe in the apparitions.

William Dinges, a professor of theology and religious studies at Catholic University in Washington, said it’s very difficult to measure Catholic interest in a particular devotion.

“In general, research shows that Catholics relate to the Virgin Mary as an important and distinct marker of Catholic identity,” he said. “Their actual participation in Marian devotional practices, however, is more limited.”

Marian devotion in the Diocese of Brooklyn — where the bishop has chosen as his episcopal motto the phrase “Behold Your Mother” — remains very strong.

Sunday, at my parish, we will pray a “Living Rosary” with 60 people, each person representing a bead and reciting aloud the prayers.