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Paris, Apr 29, 2008 / 12:37 pm (CNA).- The Bishops’ Conference of France has officially announced that Pope Benedict XVI will travel to France for the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that took place in Lourdes. The trip, which is scheduled for September 12-15, 2008, will begin with a greeting by French officials after which the Holy Father will head to the College des Bernardins where he will address the “world of culture.”  Then the Pope will pray vespers at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  Following the prayer service, he will address young people gathered at the Cathedral.  On...

EMMITSBURG, Md. — Police have arrested two men they say vandalized the Grotto of Lourdes at Mount St. Mary’s University. Police estimated the damage at about $1,500. The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that Timothy A. Hines, 20, of Silver Spring, Md.; and Jesse R. Huston, 20, of Derwood, Md., were arrested early Sunday. Both are charged with malicious destruction of property over $500, malicious destruction of property under $500, trespassing and defacing religious property, police said. Police said the men entered the Grotto of Lourdes and allegedly damaged a large cross and several glass jars...

A rib belonging to a 19th-century French shepherd girl was on Monday brought to the Vatican at the start of 150th anniversary celebrations of her visions of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France. The relic was conveyed in a solemn procession up the main thoroughfare between Rome's Tiber River and Saint Peter's Basilica, escorted by about 15 Italian police mounted on white horses. According to Catholic tradition, Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, then 14, 18 times in 1858 in the southwestern French village of Lourdes on the slopes of the Pyrenees mountains. The "little shepherd girl," who became a nun,...

The Pope dwelt both on this First Sunday of the Lenten journey, and this weekend's 150th anniversary of the first apparition at Lourdes at today's Angelus. Translation in full: Dear brothers and sisters! Last Wednesday, with fasting and the rite of Ashes, we've entered into Lent. But what does it mean to "enter into Lent"? It means to begin a time of particular commitment in the spiritual combat that places us against the evil present in the world, in each one of us and around us. It's, so to say, looking evil in the face and fighting against its...

INDULGENCE-LOURDES Dec-5-2007 (500 words) With photo posted Nov. 28. xxxi Pope OKs plenary indulgence for Lourdes' 150th anniversary By Carol GlatzCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- To mark the 150th anniversary of Mary's appearance to St. Bernadette Soubirous near Lourdes, France, Pope Benedict XVI authorized a special indulgence to encourage renewed holiness. Catholics can receive a plenary indulgence for taking part in any public or private devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, said U.S. Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican court dealing with indulgences and matters of conscience. As Christians strive to become more...

Lourdes is a massive Roman Catholic pilgrimage site with more hotels than any other French city, except Paris. It reminded me of my father's attic - small, overcrowded, fusty, and so stuffed full of junk that the minute I entered I used to panic, desperate to get out again. So, when I arrived at my very tired-looking hotel, which appeared to be perfumed by the socks of last season's pilgrims and saw its lobby, packed full of gaudy Virgin Mary memorabilia, you will forgive me when the words "Good God!" escaped my lips, and not in any laudatory way. When...

Where pilgrims seek healing: the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes at the entrance to the Grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes, France reuters EIGHT Church of England bishops are together planning to make an unprecedented group pilgrimage to the Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes on the 150th anniversary of the reported appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St Bernadette.Since the early 1970s, Anglican bishops have visited the shrine in the foothills of the French Pyrenees at the rate of about one or two a year, but now, for the first time, the Society of Mary, one of the...

Pope Benedict XVI is offering relief from purgatory to Roman Catholics who travel to Lourdes over the next year, the Vatican said yesterday. Pilgrims to the shrine in south-west France will receive "plenary indulgences" from the Pontiff, which the Church says reduce the time spent being "washed" of sin after death. The indulgences will be available from this weekend until Dec 8, 2008. The Church teaches that people who do not go directly to heaven must spend time in purgatory, where they can be purified of residual sin. It is the latest initiative to get more pilgrims to the shrine,...

LOURDES, France -- In 1985, Dutch teenager Marcel Roeg fell off his moped and into the darkness. The smart-aleck jock would never again play goalie, ride a scooter or dance with his girlfriend Marissa. The accident left him brain-damaged and blind.  Since that day, Mr. Roeg has spent most of his time in a home for the handicapped, harboring a dream. In the dream, he goes to Lourdes to visit the famous place where in 1858 a 14-year-old peasant girl claimed to see the Virgin Mary. There, he is healed. He rides a motorcycle again. And he is no longer...

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy: Pope Benedict XVI hopes to visit New York and Lourdes, France, in 2008, and also plans to deliver an important speech to diplomats during his upcoming trip to Vienna, the Vatican spokesman said Sunday.The Rev. Federico Lombardi did not specify what the speech would cover during the pope's Sept. 7-9 trip to Austria. Lombardi said Benedict would deliver an "internationally important" speech to diplomats accredited to Vienna-based international organizations.He said early plans are under way for a papal trip to the shrine at Lourdes, to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparition of the Madonna."We also...

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) – Church officials have called for more clergy to work at France's Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, after a sharp rise in visitors wanting to make confessions. "Several priests have already asked to come, but we need more for the coming jubilee year," said Father Yvon Peschet, who is in charge of the shrine's Reconciliation Chapel. "It's especially with French-speaking clergy that we really need reinforcements now. But there's a shortage in the dioceses now, and it isn't easy for them to take time off for pastoral work down here." Father Peschet said July 12 that...

Church probes Lourdes cure An almost totally paralysed 60-year-old Italian woman has been instantly cured of her illness in Lourdes this week.And as the amazing and moving story of Giulia Mongelli Tofani emerged, she has  announced that she is totally convinced that a prayer to the Blessed Lady was the reason for her incredible recovery.  'I am overjoyed, most happy, Our Lady of Lourdes has cured me,' said Giulia, who prior to her visit was almost completely helpless and had to be spoon fed by her family. 'When I came to Lourdes I was full of anguish, now I feel...

I was doing a Wikipedia search on Our Lady of Lourdes and I came across this website. I didn't realize the 150th anniversary was coming up and that there was a large event planned for it and, as far as I know, not many other people have heard of it either. This would be a wonderful pilgrimage opportunity for Church groups. I am thinking about going, and I'll probably take my mother along as well. Check out the website, they even have a live feed! What do you think?

Today the French bishops opened a meeting at Lourdes, and in his capacity as president of the episcopal conference, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard made the opening speech. In the course of his address, Cardinal Ricard used the word peur (fear) 11 times, and confiance (confidence, trust) 15 times. He was urging his brother bishops not to panic. Why would the French bishops be inclined toward panic? - Because their parish churches are empty, their seminaries emptier, and Catholic parents aren't bothering to bring their children for Baptism? No. - Because divorce, abortion, fornication, and sodomy are rife; and momentum is building...

For millions of pilgrims, a visit to Lourdes to take its miraculous healing waters is an intensely spiritual experience. Since Bernadette Soubirous witnessed the first of 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary almost 150 years ago, the shrine has become a place of quiet contemplation and religious devotion. Hail Mary or Bloody Mary? Lourdes is home to tacky gift shops and numerous bars and clubs But now the town's peace is being shattered by thousands of British tourists whose behaviour has become so bad that officials have brought in riot police. The decision to deploy officers from the notorious...

PARIS, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) - More than a third of French people believe in miracles, according to a poll to appear on Thursday, just days before a major annual pilgrimage to the Lourdes sanctuary in southwestern France. Thirty-five percent of respondents to the poll, carried out by TNS-Sofres for the French Roman Catholic magazine The Pilgrim, said they believed in miracles, though they used different definitions for the word. One third of believers defined a miracle as "a phenomenon for which there is no explanation", another third said it was "a happy and unexpected event" while only eight percent...

Saint Bernadette of Lourdes A Sermon by Msgr. Ronald A. Knox, preached February, 1934. ABOUT three thousand years ago, a man stood, thrilled with religious awe, on the slopes of Mount Sinai 'in Arabia. He was a shepherd, feeding on those barren pastures the flocks of his father-in-law; his attention had been aroused, at a distance, by the unwanted sight of a fire in the desert scrub. And now that he had drawn nearer, he saw that this was not merely something beyond the ordinary, but something beyond nature itself; the bush before which he stood burned continually, but was not...

WHEN is a miracle not a miracle? Lourdes, the French town and religious resort whose spring water is believed by many people to possess healing properties, is considering a change in the rules to allow more cures to be put down to divine intervention, writes Matthew Campbell. The Catholic Church has recognised only a few dozen miracle healings since Lourdes began attracting pilgrims after the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared to a 14-year-old shepherdess called Bernadette in 1858. Worryingly, however, the number of cures has been declining, even as the number of pilgrims has risen. In its infancy,...

February 11, 2006 Saturday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time Psalm: Saturday 9 Reading I1 Kgs 12:26-32; 13:33-34 Jeroboam thought to himself:“The kingdom will return to David’s house.If now this people go up to offer sacrificesin the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem,the hearts of this people will return to their master,Rehoboam, king of Judah,and they will kill me.”After taking counsel, the king made two calves of goldand said to the people:“You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough.Here is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”And he put one in Bethel,...

Novena toOur Lady of Lourdes PrayerBe blessed, O most pure Virgin, for having vouchsafed to manifest your shining with life, sweetness and beauty, in the Grotto of Lourdes, saying to the child, St. Bernadette: "I am the Immaculate Conception." A thousand times we congratulate you upon your Immaculate Conception. And now, O ever Immaculate Virgin, Mother of mercy, Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, you know our wants, our troubles, our sufferings deign to cast upon us a look of mercy. By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes, you were pleased to make it...