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She created a look that defined a generation, has served as a muse to Jean Paul Gaultier and starred in campaigns by designers including Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabanna. Now Madonna, 51, is set to design her own clothing range - for children. Not content with singing, modelling and acting, the diva is keen to turn her hand to designing. With help from daughter Lourdes,13, the queen of pop is collaborating with U.S. based Iconix Brand Group to create new venture MG Icon. The first collection, 'Material Girl', available at 200 Macy stores and online, will comprise of back-to-school...

The grotto at Lourdes where the Blessed Mother appeared to St. Bernadette Turin, Italy, Aug 25, 2009 / 12:03 am (CNA).- A woman who suffered from a severe nerve disease now no longer uses her wheelchair and has even gone for a run, after she visited to Lourdes earlier in August. The woman credits the baths at Lourdes for the ‘gift’ of her improved health.Antonia Raco, 50, had been in a wheelchair for four years because of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. She made a trip to the shrine at Lourdes on August 5.''Ever...

SNIPPET: "In March, La Nueva Cuba, an online newspaper, reported that “Russian personnel has been in Cuba for several months working on modernizing SIGINT operations in the old Lourdes surveillance and monitoring facility.” The Web site said the supposed renovation was: …part of a project of rearming and modernization of Russian armed forces and the goal of completion by 2011. The new operations could include military sections dedicated to hacking or computer systems espionage with a capacity to neutralize U.S. military networks… Then last week, an opinion piece appeared in Miami Herald. The headline: Cuba capable of waging a cyberwar....

The Allure of Lourdes Written by John Horvat    Friday, July 31, 2009 A Place of Violent ContrastMy first impression of Lourdes was that it is a place of dramatic contrast, born of violence and extremes. I found it unexpectedly dramatic. The rocky foothills of the Pyrenees are filled with abrupt cliffs, mysterious caves and scraggly brush. The River Gave rapidly flows with violent intensity. While praying at the Grotto, it was not uncommon to feel sudden gusts of strong winds that added to the sense that something different and important was happening there. The intensely hot sun of...

A disturbing case in France. A French woman who thought that she was possessed by the Devil has murdered her elderly mother with a crucifix. The killing took place in the Catholic site of pilgrimage Lourdes, in the French Pyrenees. French media reported the case on Wednesday. ‘I had visions in a dream. I saw that I was the Devil,’ said the 34-year old woman to police officers after her arrest. Her apartment in Lourdes was replete with crucifixes. She killed her 81-year old mother with one of the crucifixes and a lamp. After the murder on Monday evening she...

A woman who thought she was the devil killed her elderly mother with a crucifix and other objects in the French Catholic pilgrimage town Lourdes, officials and press reports said Wednesday. ... The Depeche du Midi newspaper said she had grabbed one of the many crucifixes adorning their apartment in the southwestern town and used it along with other objects to beat her mother to death overnight Monday. The paper said she had told police: "I had visions in a dream. I saw that I was the devil, that I was evil." ...

A pilgrim prays at the foot of a statue of Mary at the sanctuary in Lourdes Feb. 10, the eve of the 150th anniversary of Mary's first appearance to St. Bernadette. (CNS/Nancy Wiechec) A lede like the one The Associated Press published yesterday — “An international doctors’ panel appointed by the Roman Catholic Church says it’s getting out of the ‘miracles’ business at Lourdes” — might raise some eyebrows.  But relax, oh faithful believers in the miraculous healing powers of the spring waters of Lourdes. The doctors never really dubbed a cure a miracle. They are the first step in a long process.Last February while in...

LOURDES, France, SEPT. 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Devotion to the Virgin Mary has an essential role in ecumenical dialogue and the journey to full and visible unity among Christians, says the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.Cardinal Walter Kasper affirmed this Wednesday when he presided over an ecumenical celebration in Lourdes, where Anglicans and Catholics had joined on pilgrimage. Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury gave the homily at the event. The pilgrimage began at the Anglican shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in England. "Lourdes is known for its miracles," Cardinal Kasper said. "Who would have imagined,...

LONDON (CNS) -- Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, England, has come under fire for his homily during a pilgrimage to the Marian sanctuaries in Lourdes, France. Archbishop Williams, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said in a homily during a Sept. 24 international Mass at Lourdes that when Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 "she came at first as an anonymous figure, a beautiful lady, a mysterious thing, not yet identified as the Lord's spotless mother. "And Bernadette -- uneducated, uninstructed in doctrine -- leaped with joy, recognizing that here was life, here was healing," he said....

On the Message of Lourdes "There Is No True Love Without Suffering" VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 17, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave today at the general audience held in the Paul VI Hall, during which he evaluated his Sept. 12-15 apostolic trip to Paris and Lourdes. * * * Dear Brothers and Sisters, Today's meeting gives me the opportunity to review again the moments of the pastoral visit that I made in recent days to France; a visit that culminated with the pilgrimage to Lourdes on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the...

Pope delivers anti-euthanasia message at Lourdes The Associated Press LOURDES, France | People must accept death at “the hour chosen by God,” Pope Benedict XVI told ailing pilgrims Monday in an anti-euthanasia message at Lourdes, the shrine that draws the desperate, sick and dying. At the chilly open-air service outside the sanctuary reputed for its curative spring water, some faithful lay on gurneys, tucked into quilts and comforters. The 81-year-old pontiff administered the sacrament of the sick to 10 people, most in wheelchairs, anointing their foreheads and palms with oil. While several European countries permit euthanasia, the Vatican vehemently maintains...

LOURDES, France, SEPT. 15, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The only thing that separates a saint from a sinner is that a saint looks less at himself and more at Christ and his love, says the Pope. The Pope offered a commentary on the Eucharist on Sunday night at the conclusion of the Eucharistic procession in the prairie at the Marian shrine in Lourdes. The Holy Father visited Lourdes this weekend to participate in the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there. He returned to Rome today."Let us accept; may you accept to offer yourselves to him who has given...

Following today's Mass on the Prairie of Lourdes, B16 led a Eucharistic procession along the grounds... and gave the following meditation: Lord Jesus, You are here!And you, my brothers, my sisters, my friends,You are here, with me, in his presence!Lord, two thousand years ago, you willingly mounted the infamous Cross in order then to rise again and to remain for ever with us, your brothers and sisters.And you, my brothers, my sisters, my friends,You willingly allow him to embrace you. We contemplate him.We adore him.We love him. We seek to grow in love for him. We contemplate him who,...

On this day when the Church’s liturgy celebrates the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Gospel you have just heard reminds us of the meaning of this great mystery: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that men might be saved (cf. Jn 3:16). The Son of God became vulnerable, assuming the condition of a slave, obedient even to death, death on a cross (cf. Phil 2:8). By his Cross we are saved. The instrument of torture which, on Good Friday, manifested God’s judgement on the world, has become a source of...

Longtime readers of AmP will know that it first carved a small nitch for itself in the Catholic blogosphere by providing complete coverage of Pope Benedict's journies (most extensively during his U.S. visit). While the range of topics that AmP follows has diversified since then, papal trip coverage remains a core mission of this little enterprise, by which it strives to help communicate our Holy Father's teaching and witness beyond the geography of his journey to the worldwide audience he is always courting and addressing. He may be in france, but he is talking to all of us. While...

VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 10, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI will pray at the feet of Our Lady of Lourdes for the Church, the sick and for peace in the world when he visits the Marian shrine this weekend. The Pope said this at the end of today's general audience in a message directed to the people of France. The Pope will travel Friday-Monday to Paris and Lourdes. His visit to the Marian shrine takes place in the context of the 150th anniversary of apparitions of Our Lady to Bernadette Soubirous."I go as a messenger of peace and fraternity," he said in...

Vatican City, Sep 5, 2008 / 09:50 am (CNA).- This morning the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff published a list of celebrations that Pope Benedict will preside over through the month of November.Among the notable celebrations are: the visit to Lourdes for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions there, the opening of the Synod of Bishops on the Bible, and the canonization of four blesseds.The full schedule is as follows: SEPTEMBER Sunday 7: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Pastoral visit to Cagliari, Italy. Friday 12 - Monday 15: Pastoral visit to France for the occasion of the...

Lourdes, Aug 11, 2008 / 01:59 pm (CNA).- A Spanish man said this week that the pilgrimage he took in 2003 to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes was the beginning point of his conversion and the basis for a new book on his testimony.Fifty one year-old Antonio Escobedo Garcia’s book “What Joy!” recounts that after suffering a “a grave lesion in the lumbar zone” of his back, a friend invited him to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes. “I agreed not because I thought I was going to be cured, but because I just wanted to get out and...

The treasurer of the Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes was yesterday at the centre of a major fraud inquiry. Father Raymond Zambelli, 65, rector of the site of 66 recognised miracles, has been asked to explain how at least £350,000 raised for the sick and dying ended up in his account. More than six million pilgrims visit the town in south-west France every year, many of them donating huge amounts of money to its upkeep. Police confirmed that an inquiry into the ' misappropriation of funds' had been launched, looking at several individuals including a priest. Much of the money...

The great Auschwitz martyr, St. Maximilian Kolbe (d. 1941), during the 1920’s, translated from the original French into Polish the official depositions given to both state and Church officials by Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary of Lourdes, France. Between the dates of February 11th and July 16th, 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette claimed to have seen, a total of eighteen times, “a lady wearing a lovely white dress with a bright belt” who had on each of her feet “a pale yellow rose, the same color as her rosary beads.” Following strict investigations, these sightings were approved by the Church as apparitions of...