There are many kinds of apparitions and visions, but Marian ones predominate in the Catholic Church.

The last major Vatican document addressing the topic is the "Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy," issued in 2001.

It quotes a line from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which sums up the church's stance with admirable clarity: "Throughout the ages, there have been so-called private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith" (No. 67).

In other words, you do not have to believe in Marian apparitions to be a good Catholic.

But I do.

I've never had a problem believing in them.

My general approach is: If God could create the universe ex nihilo and raise his Son from the dead, then having Mary appear from time to time, and even being the occasion for some miracles, seems easy by comparison.

That statement may sound flip.

But it is entirely serious.

It is surely within God's power to enable these things to happen.

So, I am always amazed when people say, "God wouldn't possibly do that." Oh, really?

I also say this as someone who has visited three major Marian shrines, which have deeply moved me: Lourdes, Fátima and Knock.

The stories of the visionaries and what I experienced in those places go a long way to convince me of the veracity of the apparitions.

There is also a striking sameness among most Marian apparitions (at least these three) that reminds me of the sameness that one finds as a spiritual director who listens for God's voice.

As St Ignatius Loyola says in his Spiritual Exercises, there is a certain quality to God's voice that one can recognize.

Likewise, in these apparitions.

Three stories

I know Lourdes best, having been there several times on pilgrimages with the Order of Malta over the years. Continue reading

• James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author, editor at large at America and founder of Outreach.

The show's producers were informed by mail that it was being excluded from a "pass culture" scheme that allows teachers to take groups to cultural events for free, for not respecting the principle of laïcité, a complex republican tenet often translated as "secularism".

Roberto Ciurleo, a co-producer of the show Bernadette de Lourdes, described the decision as "brutal and senseless" and said the production team would contest it.

"Our show is a historical reconstruction in the form of a police investigation, drawn from the official records … it tells the story of Bernadette's interrogations," Ciurleo said.

"There is no apparition of the Virgin Mary in the grotto." He added: "The director is an atheist, as are the songwriters." Read more

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.

"Lourdes needs the world, and the world needs Lourdes," said Monsignor Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The online pilgrimage, entitled "Lourdes United", will take place on 16 July.

It will include a 15-hour live session, in different languages, with Masses, processions, rosaries and other prayers.

The 16 July is a significant date at the shrine - it is the anniversary of the last Marian apparition recorded in Lourdes.

Lourdes United will bring together all those who "from every corner of the world, see Lourdes as a beacon of faith, commitment, sharing and hope."

"The world is facing an unprecedented economic and social crisis, combined with a strong desire to find meaning in everything that has happened so far," a press statement says.

"The fraternity, generosity and hope that the Shrine has brought with it for 162 years has never been so essential."

"Hundreds of thousands of messages, cries for help, cries of suffering, but also testimonies of hope continue to reach Lourdes, hearts beating with prayer."

The event's website says Lourdes without pilgrims is a Lourdes "without resources to carry out its mission, to maintain the entire site, to guarantee its durability and the jobs of its 320 employees."

Reports suggest the entire Lourdes area is struggling, as have become the central industry in this small town. With only 14,300 inhabitants, it has the second largest hotel capacity in France after Paris, with 22,000 beds.

The pandemic forced the shrine to close for more than two months, and had a negative flow-on effect on the small town's hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.

The plan is for people to feel as if they're physically present at the site, organisers says.

They are presenting this as the first world-wide online pilgrimage, where virtual visitors can buy candles and bottles to store holy water. Visitors will also be able to make donations to help with the maintenance of the site.

Lourdes has been a place of pilgrimage for over 160 years, since 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous said she saw the Mother of God in a series of apparitions.

Soubirous said she was told a spring would appear where she saw the Virgin seven times, and that the water would help heal people. The water appeared.

An estimated 200 million people have visited the shrine and the "Domain," as the surrounding area is known.

The full pilgrimage programme will be broadcast via TV, radio and social media. It will include testimonials from priests, members of religious orders, lay people, doctors, journalists, politicians, believers and non-believers, who will share what Lourdes means to them.

There will also be speakers on solidarity, fraternity, commitment and volunteering, in between prayer sessions and live music.

Source

• Crux Now
• Image: The Catholic Weekly

Pierre Aurignac, a local prosecutor, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the town has had a "statistical explosion" of pickpocketing. So far this year, he said, there have been 274 accounts of pickpocketing, whereas 117 incidents were recorded during the first nine months of 2018.

Most reported robberies occur in the streets near the shrine, where religious shops sell items such as rosaries, icons, statues, and Lourdes water.

"The pickpockets are highly organised professionals," said Philippe Subercaze, a city official in charge of security. Read more

"With regard to the international phenomenology, they are very similar," Hoser says.

"These [Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje] are certainly the three greatest pilgrimage sites. Here [at Medjugorje] we have two and a half million pilgrims a year."

Hoser's comparison of Medjugorje with Lourdes and Fatima has raised hopes that official confirmation of Medjugorje as may be possible.

"Lourdes is a great shrine based on the dogmatical truth about the Immaculate Conception and it tells us about the identity of the Mother of God, Hoser says.

"Fatima gives us a look at the contemporary history of the world, the current as well as the future."

Medjugorje's most important characteristic is "the power of grace" he says.

Between these three sites, Hoser says "there is a kind of spiritual solidarity and bondage."

"The power of grace that is felt here, the power of God's words here proclaimed, make us witnesses to many radical transformations that are happening here.

Hoser notes Medjugorje has become "the confessional of the world" .

It offers 35 confessionals with priests hearing confessions in seven different languages, with "a constant line of penitents at all hours."

Many priests say the confessions make them believe there's a supernatural grace in Medjugorje.

In regard to the apparitions of Our Lady some citizens have allegedly experienced over the past 30 years since they were children, Hoser says the Church's position continues to be "let's wait and see."

"In general terms, the message of peace that emerges from the Medjugorje phenomenon is always valid," he says.

Source

• Crux Now
• Total Croatia News
• Image: kirche-und-leben.de

Bishop Moth jumped from a plane at 15,000 feet to raise money to take ailing pilgrims to Lourdes. Continue reading

In tribute to Beltrame, President Emmanuel Macron made reference to Joan of Arc, members of the French resistance and others who had died for the country.

Beltrame, who was a devout Catholic, had volunteered to take the place of a female hostage being held by the suspected Islamist gunman Radouane Lakdim.

The 25-year old gunman had already killed three people.

"It [his heroic sacrifice] was the gesture of a soldier and a Christian. They were both totally combined in his life and you cannot separate one from the other," his widow Marielle said.

She said Beltrame was "profoundly attached to what he called the ‘gendarmerie family' for which he didn't count the hours, or his engagement.

"He knew how to unite his men, to give them their momentum, to enable them to give the best of themselves.

"He was motivated by very high moral values, the values of service, generosity, giving oneself, abnegation."

According to news reports, Beltrame and his family were not regular Mass attendees when he was a child.

He is said to have gradually returned to the faith after joining an international military pilgrimage to Lourdes in 2006.

After experiencing "a personal encounter with Christ" at the age of 33, he joined a catechumenal programme in his parish near Paris.

Baptised as a child, he made his first communion and was confirmed in 2009.

"I was always astonished at official ceremonies because he did not hesitate to take communion even though he was in uniform," said parish priest Father Marie-Bernard Seigneur.

Seigneur remembers Beltrame as a discreet Christian who attended Mass on Sundays or Saturday evening at a local retreat centre and often visited church to pray during the day.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• The Guardian
• La Croix
• La Croix
• Image: Washington Post

For half her 68 years, Sister Bernadette Moriau had suffered from acute sciatic nerve trouble, making it hard for her to walk.

She recovered suddenly in 2008 after a trip to Lourdes.

Moriau says a few days after her return from Lourdes she felt an overwhelming sense of well-being.

She removed a brace and straightened her foot that had been twisted sideways for years and began to walk normally.

"I heard a voice saying 'remove the apparatus'.

"In an act of faith I took it off. And to my great surprise when I took away the brace and splints, my foot was straightened out and I could move without feeling any pain.

Moriau insists she is "not a star" but just a "little sister" glad to be able to walk freely again.

Her miraculous healing is the 70th event formally recognised as an act of divine intervention at Lourdes.

Source

• Reuters
• Daily Mail
• Image:Daily Mail

Bishop Jacques Benoit-Gonin declared the cure of a Catholic nun who was an invalid for nearly four decades and recovered after making a pilgrimage to Lourdes a miracle.

It was the 70th miraculous recovery attributed to divine intervention in Lourdes.

Benoit-Gonin of the Beauvais diocese north of Paris proclaimed the miracle 10 years after Bernadette Moriau, now 79, went to Lourdes. Read more

The prefect of the Pyrénées region, Beatrice Lagarde, says the authorities even considered cancelling the Mass and procession next Monday, which is normally attended by 25,000 people. Read more

1. Watching his parents pray when he was a child and when life was hard for them. We must never underestimate the power of example - often much more powerful than argument.

2. Accompanying the sick at Lourdes. I have done this too, so recognise the importance of immersing oneself in a Catholic culture, where the sick and infirm are loved and celebrated, especially when in one's ordinary circumstances of life euthanasia is constantly being promoted as the sensible "choice".

3. Visiting Auschwitz and recognising that atheism has no explanation for evil. I have not done this, though I have visited a smaller Nazi transit camp in Holland, which was grim in its own way. The sheer scale of Auschwitz is what horrifies visitors i.e. the sheer scale of the human capacity for evil.

4. The memory of his father's stories of meeting an Australian priest, Fr Marsden, who was chaplain to the Australian troops forced to work on the Thailand railway in World War II. Interestingly, I had also heard of this priest, when reading the short memoir by the late Fr Hugh Thwaites SJ, describing his time as a prisoner of war of the Japanese. Then a young man, not yet a Catholic, Fr Thwaites was struck by the quiet heroism of Fr Marsden, who never failed to lift the spirits of the men under his spiritual charge, whatever the appalling circumstances they endured. Continue reading

• Francis Phillips reviews books for the Catholic Herald.

According to an AFP report, a flyer was put out by Tarbes et Lourdes diocese touting a "couples weekend".

"Come to Lourdes to say I love you," the flyer stated.

It featured the silhouettes of a man and a woman holding hands.

The AFP report stated the French "sanctuary's treasurer" Thierry Castillo insisted that the invitation is "open to all kinds of couples - married, not married, homosexual . . . ".

He noted however, that unmarried couples, straight or gay, could not expect the blessing of the Catholic Church.

As of late Friday, around 100 couples had made online reservations for the Valentine's weekend, the diocese's communications director David Torchala told AFP.

But the spokesman added that none of the couples were gay.

"We'll see who turns up. The goal is not to know who they are, the idea is to welcome all couples so that they entrust their love to the Lord. It's a prayer for couples" to be led Tarbes et Lourdes diocese's Bishop Nicolas Brouwet, Mr Torchala said.

"This initiative aims to extend God's love to all. It's a first," he said.

Mr Torchala noted that "Operation St Valentines" fits in with the theme of the Jubilee Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis.

But the spokesman said couples cannot expect a "nuptial blessing" or "ecclesiastical act".

A recent study concluding that Lourdes's souvenir shops and hotels are "doing steadily worse".

The study found that arrivals decreased by about a quarter between 2009 and 2014.

Tourism director Pascale Fourticq said the town plans to reorient its strategy to appeal to wealthier visitors.

In October, Lourdes will host a fair for tour operators to generate interest in higher-end stays.

But mayor Josette Bourdeu does not want to sacrifice its identity.

"The sick (seeking healing) must remain the city's DNA," she said.

Sources

• AFP
• The Telegraph
• Image: Hotel Angelic

An association, which has the support of several of the saint's descendants, want her body to be returned from a chapel in Nevers in Burgundy.

The association argues that the number of Sisters of Charity of Nevers is dwindling, and soon only lay people will run the chapel where St Bernadette's remains lie.

But opponents say Bernadette made it clear she did not want to return to Lourdes after leaving in 1866, because she was attracting too much attention from pilgrims and the media.

She died in Nevers in 1879.

Continue reading

Danila Castelli, a wife and mother, had experienced a spontaneous and severe blood pressure hypertensive crisis, as well as other serious health problems for which she underwent a hysterectomy, an annexectomy and a partial pancreatectomy.

When she came out of the baths she said she experienced an extraordinary feeling of wellbeing. After five meetings (in 1989, 1992, 1994, 1997 and 2010) the Lourdes medical bureau certified she had been cured.

Continue reading

As hundreds of pilgrims were evacuated from nearby hotels, officials used sandbags and other barriers to minimise damage to the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to St Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

About six million pilgrims visit Lourdes annually, many to bathe in the grotto's normally tranquil spring waters and pray for healing at its altar, which had to be restored after it was damaged by flash floods in October last year.

The spokesman for the Lourdes pilgrimage complex, Mathias Terrier, said waters reached a height of 1.5 metres in the grotto.

The website for the pilgrimage complex, which includes several buildings and a sanctuary nestled beneath a rocky hillside, carried a dramatic rundown of the rising waters.

Masses were gradually cancelled, Associated Press reported. One by one, entrances to the sanctuary were cordoned off. The live video feed of the grotto went down. Then the electricity was cut off, and then phones.

"A vision of the apocalypse in the Sainte Bernadette Church, where the big movable partition is threatening to fall. The water has risen above the stairs of the choir," read one announcement.

"We need more reinforcements in the area to face these floods, which are really exceptional," said Interior Minister Manuel Valls while visiting Lourdes. He said days of sustained rains and sudden snowmelt made the flooding worse, and left some villages isolated.

Two people in the region were reported to have drowned in the floods.

Sources:

Associated Press

Reuters

Image: Midi-Pyrenees

As the waters receded to reveal thick carpets of mud, serious damage to the sanctuaries became apparent, but they were due to gradually start reopening from Monday morning.

However the Massabielle cave, where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous in 1858, remained flooded Sunday, with debris including wood, candles and branches floating on the surface.

More than 450 pilgrims were evacuated from flooded hotels Saturday. Continue reading

Hundreds of pilgrims who had come to visit the famous grotto where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to a peasant girl in 1858 had to be evacuated after heavy flooding hit the area on Saturday, Agence France Presse reported.

Work to clear 20 centimetres of mud on the esplanade in front of the grotto continued on Monday. Pilgrims were told that they would have to wait until Tuesday for the grotto to reopen.

The AFP report, however, said visitors from Canada, Japan and the Philippines were able to take part in processions and visit the newly reopened Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and the Rosary Basilica.

Pope Benedict XVI evoked the flooding at a special Vatican mass on Sunday, when he named seven new saints, saying: "Let us turn to the Virgin Mary with a thought for Lourdes, the victim of flash floods which inundated the grotto where the Madonna had appeared."

Thierry Castillo, the custodian of the sanctuaries, said: "There have been floods in the past but this one has caused the most damage in the last 30 years."

"We have serious damages, which will run into hundreds of thousands of euros," Castillo said.

Several areas in the town were inundated on Saturday as the river Gave de Pau burst its banks.

Buses ferried guests from all the hotels in the lower town to a conference centre and a sports complex. Two campsites were evacuated and several roads closed .

The body supervising the sanctuaries said a hydro-electricity unit providing power to the shrines had been badly damaged, as well as two pedestrian walkways at the side of the river.

Many visitors voiced disappointment. "I hope I will be able to pray at the grotto before I leave," said Laura Generini, a Florentine. Others were undaunted and said they would return in spring.

Sources

• Agence France Presse
• AFP/France 24
• Image: AFP/Getty/Capital Bay