Pope Leo Heads to Lourdes: What to Know About One of Catholicism’s Most Famous Pilgrimage Sites – WTOP News
- On Saturday, Pope Leo XIV arrives at Tarbes airport for a four-day apostolic journey to France, marking the first official papal state visit to the country in 18 years.
- Leo will meet seven sexual abuse survivors during the visit, addressing a crisis highlighted by a 2021 report estimating 330,000 children were abused by French church personnel over 70 years.
- Church officials are covering mosaics by former Jesuit artist Marko Ivan Rupnik at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, who faces an ongoing Vatican trial for alleged abuse.
- Surging demand for accommodation has triggered extreme prices, with some hoteliers charging more than $2,300 per night during Leo's visit to the pilgrimage site.
- Renowned as the fourth most visited Catholic pilgrimage site globally, Lourdes remains central to believers since the Catholic Church officially validated 72 miraculous healings following Bernadette Soubirous's visions in 1862.
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Pope Leo XIV prayed for “wise and generous rulers” for France during his visit to the shrine of Lourdes. In the Grotto of Massabielle, the spiritual heart of the pilgrimage complex, he entrusted the country to the protection of the Virgin Mary. “We pray for rulers who are ready for self-sacrifice, capable of meeting challenges and willing to serve the common good,” the pope said in his prayer. His message comes as preparations for the next presi…
Our Sunday Visitor
The Catholic SunPope Leo prays for the sick and suffering in the Lourdes grotto in France
LOURDES, France (OSV News) — In the Marian shrine of Lourdes, Pope Leo XIV prayed for the sick and the suffering and drank from healing spring water in the grotto where the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858. “Our Lady of Lourdes, the Immaculate Conception, in this blessed place you spoke with such gentleness and tenderness to St. Bernadette, a humble daughter of the French people, to convey to the world a radiant message of prayer,…
They are still thousands to wait for him in front of the Shrine of Lourdes for a new moment of recollection. Leo XIV landed near this high place of pilgrimage. Saturday night, the pope will go to this cave where, in the nineteenth century, Bernadette Soubirous would have seen the Virgin Mary on eighteen occasions. After the two spectacular days spent in Paris, marked by strong times at Notre-Dame and on the Champs-Élysées, a brand new stage begi…
Arriving on Saturday night in Bigorre after his day in Paris, Léon XIV went on a papamobile tour before going to the cave and commune for the first time. He will celebrate a great mass this Sunday
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