Every year, 6 million pilgrims descend upon the town of Lourdes. Explore how the town’s history and developments in the Catholic Church made it so popular.

Lourdes Eucharistic Procession. Lawrence OP. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

In 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, purportedly saw visions of the Virgin Mary by a spring in Lourdes, a tiny French town in a remote corner of the Pyrenees Mountains. It was almost unbelievable that the Virgin Mary decided to reveal herself to Soubirous, a poverty-stricken, sickly, illiterate girl. The town was immediately thrown into upheaval, with some questioning the veracity of the apparitions and others trying to see the sight themselves. Nobody else besides Soubirous ever saw the apparitions. But the spring besides the Grotto where she saw the apparitions was later revealed to have healing powers. The town was put on the map, and pilgrimages started soon after, continuing to this day.

The story of how Lourdes became so popular is intricately linked to the developments in the Catholic Church. After the horrors of the French Revolution, Catholics found solace in miracles, pilgrimages and processions. The 19th century was an era of Catholic revival, with an increase in devotion to the Virgin Mary. In 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, meaning Mary was preserved from original sin. The appearance of Mary just four years after that proclamation threw the town into great excitement. The apparitions at Lourdes and the subsequent pilgrimages fit into the pattern of Catholic revival of the time.

That century also saw the consolidation of papal power in Rome. Papal authority became more prominent as Catholics became increasingly loyal to Rome. While there were other alleged Marian apparitions reported in the 19th century, Lourdes became the most famous because it had the Vatican stamp of approval. Pope Pius IX declared Lourdes an official pilgrimage site in 1876, demonstrating the increasingly tight link of remote villages to Rome.

The pilgrimages to Lourdes also reflect the expanding reach of the globalizing Catholic Church. Pilgrims going to Lourdes were not limited to Europeans; they came from all over the world. According to John T. McGreevy, a Bengali journalist made the trip to Lourdes and found “infallible proof” of God. Vietnamese soldiers in France during World War I toured Lourdes soon after their arrival. The diverse group of people who visit Lourdes show that the Catholic Church has become a transnational institution.

Not only did the diverse array of visitors reflect the globalization of the Catholic Church, but the export of Lourdes to places around the world proved the same. Not long after people first became fascinated with Lourdes, aspects of Lourdes diffused to the home countries of visitors. The result was the creation of numerous replicas of Lourdes Grottos around the world, from the Vatican Gardens to Northern Indiana to Aruba.

Today, Lourdes is a vibrant community—much more than the sleepy village of 1858—that attracts 6 million visitors annually from around the world. But tradition is still observed. Catholic Masses take place daily in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, and processions are still a common occurrence. People bathe in the water from the springs, hoping for a miraculous healing. Despite the global reach of the village of Lourdes, it still manages to preserve the Catholicism that brought it to fame.

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Bryan Fok

Bryan is currently a History and Global Affairs major at the University of Notre Dame. He aims to apply the notion of Integral Human Development as a framework for analyzing global issues. He enjoys hiking and visiting national parks.

An independent commission found that for the last 70 years, hundreds of thousands of children were abused by clergy in France, and the church was ill-equipped to respond to and prevent abuse.

“Notre Dame, Paris.” Gary Campbell-Hall. CC BY 2.0

The Independent Commission on Abuse in the Church (CIASE) was published after an extensive three-year investigation. The report found that over 200,000 minors were abused by clergy members of the Catholic Church in France alone from 1950 to the present day. Furthermore, the commission estimated that, including laypersons who were employed by the church, such as staff in Catholic schools, the number of victims rose to 330,000 over the years.

The report also found that while family or friends in France perpetrated the highest rate of sexual violence against minors, the Catholic Church is the second environment with the highest prevalence of sexual violence. The report estimates that the number of perpetrators ranges from 2900 to 3200. While this number may seem low for the number of victims, the commission notes that “scientific research shows that a sexual predator can effectively assault a great number of victims, especially predators of male children- as is overwhelming the case in the Catholic Church.” The Vatican released a statement that the Pope learned of the report’s staggering findings with “sorrow.” Pope Francis stated, “I would like to express to the victims my sadness… my sorrow for the trauma that they have suffered. And also my shame” in response to the report’s findings.

The report found that the Catholic Church did little to prevent the abuse over the last 70 years, stating, “The Catholic Church’s attitude has evolved over time but it has remained too focused on the protection of the institution, for a long time with no regard to the victims.” Furthermore, the commission found that from 1950 to 1970, the church was focused on avoiding scandal and often saved aggressors by silencing victims. The report found that while the institution did not accept the violence, it was too focused on preserving the institution and did not know how to prevent or address the abuse. The commission urges the Church to not just move on from past abuse, stating: “ It is not enough for the Church to claim awareness, albeit too late in the day.” CIASE also said that the church needed to recognize the abuse, and take responsibility and begin a process of compensation.

The report also addresses canon law, finding that victims have “no place” in the law that was unprepared to deal with sexual violence. The report also cited deviations in catholicism where priests are almost elevated to saint status. The over-emphasization of obedience and purity could lead to environments that perpetuate sexual violence.

The CIASE report is not the first of its kind, but change within the Church seems to be slow. The head of the inquiry, Jean-Marc Sauvé, told reporters that until the 2000s’ the church had shown “deep, total and even cruel indifference" towards the victims of sexual abuse.

Dana is a recent graduate from Tufts University with a degree in English. While at Tufts she enjoyed working on a campus literary magazine and reading as much as possible. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she loves to explore and learn new things.