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A devastating fire at three Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes chapels in France badly damaged the famous healing shrine last weekend.
The blaze that burned through Saturday night until the early hours of Sunday morning destroyed three of the seven “Chapels of Light” that were added to the Marian shrine in 2018.
No one was injured.
The chapels are located on the right bank of the Gave de Pau just across from the famous healing pools. They were designed as a place where pilgrims could light candles and pray.
“A large candle, perhaps adorned with a paper, probably caught fire because of the wind and ignited the wooden frame,” says Lourdes sanctuary spokesman, Vincent Neymon.
An internal investigation into the fire has begun, although early indications suggest it was an accident.
“We are ruling out any deliberate attack,” Neymon says.
He says surveillance camera footage and reports from the night time security guards both rule out immediate signs of intrusion.
The fire was quickly brought under control, but material damage was considerable.
The cost of rebuilding the damaged chapels and replacing the destroyed equipment used to transport candles is estimated at “at least 1.5 million euros” out of an annual budget of 30 million.
The fire hit hard at the sanctuary’s main economic resource: donations for candles (4,000 of which could burn at the chapels at the same time) make up nearly 40 percent of its budget.
“This is another blow to the sanctuary of Lourdes which did not need this,” tweeted the shrine’s rector Bishop Olivier Ribadeau Dumas.
Lourdes is already suffering from two difficult years after it closed temporarily for the first time in its history because of the Covid lockdown.
Although it reopened to the public in February 2022, the number of pilgrims remains half of what it was in 2019.
The shrine continues the online donation system it set up during lockdown for people who could not travel to express their faith and to compensate for the drop in attendance.
Virtual pilgrims fill out a form and make a payment on the Lourdes website, indicating that they want a candle lit in their name or a rose placed before Our Lady’s statue in the famous grotto on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Four Chapels of Light remain open to the public.
While waiting for the other three to be rebuilt by the end of the year, the sanctuary plans to replace the old burners and build a new, temporary structure.
Pilgrims will need to leave the larger candles with those responsible for lighting them at the Lourdes chapels.
They will light them themselves and burn them later, at times when there are fewer people.
Making it possible for pilgrims to complete their journey by lighting a candle and thus reproducing the actions of St Bernadette Soubirous, is “very important to satisfy people’s piety”, Neymon says.
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