Notre-Dame de Lourdes

In the Department of Hautes Pyrenées, France, is far-famed for the pilgrimage of

which it is a centre and for the extraordinary events that have occurred and still

occur there.

History

The pilgrimage of Lourdes is founded on the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin to a

poor, fourteen-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubiroux. The first apparition occurred

11 February, 1858. There were eighteen in all; the last took place 16 July, of the

same year. Bernadette often fell into an ecstasy. The mysterious vision she saw

in the hollow of the rock Massabielle was that of a young and beautiful lady.

"Lovelier than I have ever seen" said the child. But the girl was the only one who

saw the vision, although sometimes many stood there with her. Now and then

the apparition spoke to the seer who also was the only one who heard the voice.

Thus, she one day told her to drink of a mysterious fountain, in the grotto itself,

the existence of which was unknown, and of which there was no sign, but which

immediately gushed forth. On another occasion the apparition bade Bernadette

go and tell the priests she wished a chapel to be built on the spot and

processions to be made to the grotto. At first the clergy were incredulous. It was

only four years later, in 1862, that the bishop of the diocese declared the faithful

"justified in believing the reality of the apparition". A basilica was built upon the

rock of Massabielle by M. Peyramale, the parish priest. In 1873 the great

"national" French pilgrimages were inaugurated. Three years later the basilica

was consecrated and the statue solemnly crowned. In 1883 the foundation stone

of another church was laid, as the first was no longer large enough. It was built at

the foot of the basilica and was consecrated in 1901 and called the Church of the

Rosary. Pope Leo XIII authorized a special office and a Mass, in commemoration

of the apparition, and in 1907 Pius X extended the observance of this feast to the

entire Church; it is now observed on 11 February.

Never has a sanctuary attracted such throngs. At the end of the year 1908, when

the fiftieth anniversary of the apparition was celebrated, although the record really

only began from 1867, 5297 pilgrimages had been registered and these had

brought 4,919,000 pilgrims. Individual pilgrims are more numerous by far than

those who come in groups. To their number must be added the visitors who do

not come as pilgrims, but who are attracted by a religious feeling or sometimes

merely by the desire to see this far-famed spot. The Company of the Chemins de

Fer du Midi estimates that the Lourdes station receives over one million travellers

per annum. Every nation in the world furnishes its contingent. Out of the total of

pilgrimages given above, four hundred and sixty-four came from countries other

than France. They are sent by the United States, Germany, Belgium, Austria,

Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Italy, England, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, Bolivia, etc.

The bishops lead the way. At the end of the year of the fiftieth anniversary, 2013

prelates, including 546 archbishops, 10 primates, 19 patriarchs, 69 cardinals,

had made the pilgrimage to Lourdes. But more remarkable still than the crowd of

pilgrims is the series of wonderful occurrences which take place under the

protection of the celebrated sanctuary. Passing over spiritual cures, which more

often than not escape human observance, we shall confine ourselves to bodily

diseases. The writer of this article has recorded every recovery, whether partial or

complete, and in the first half-century of the shrine's existence he has counted

3962. Notwithstanding very careful statistics which give the names and surnames

of the patients who have recovered, the date of the cure, the name of the

disease, and generally that of the physician who had charge of the case, there

are inevitably doubtful or mistaken cases, attributable, as a rule, to the excited

fancy of the afflicted one and which time soon dispels. But it is only right to note:

first, that these unavoidable errors regard only secondary cases which have not

like the others been the object of special study; it must also be noted that the

number of cases is equalled and exceeded by actual cures which are not put on

record. The afflicted who have recovered are not obliged to present themselves

and half of them do not present themselves, at the Bureau des Constatations

Médicales at Lourdes, and it is from this bureau's official reports that the list of

cures is drawn up.

The estimate that about 4000 cures have been obtained at Lourdes within the

first fifty years of the pilgrimage is undoubtedly considerably less than the actual

number. The Bureau des Constatations stands near the shrine, and there are

recorded and checked the certificates of maladies and also the certificates of

cure; it is free to all physicians, whatever their nationality or religious belief.

Consequently, on an average, from two to three hundred physicians annual visit

this marvellous clinic. As to the nature of the diseases which are cured, nervous

disorders so frequently mentioned, do not furnish even the fourteenth part of the

whole; 278 have been counted, out of a total of 3962. The present writer has

published the number of cases of each disease or infirmity, among them

tuberculosis, tumours, sores, cancers, deafness, blindness, etc. The "Annales

des Sciences Physiques", a sceptical review whose chief editor is Doctor Ch.

Richet, Professor at the Medical Faculty of Paris, said in the course of a long

article, apropos of this faithful study: "On reading it, unprejudiced minds cannot

but be convinced that the facts stated are authentic."

Their Cause

There exists no natural cause capable of producing the cures witnessed at

Lourdes which dispense an unbiassed mind from tracing them back to the

particular agency of God. Those who refused to believe in a miraculous

intervention sought at first the scientific interpretation of the occurrences in the

chemical composition of the water of the Grotto. But it was then declared by an

eminent chemist officially appointed to make the analysis and his statement has

since been corroborated, that the water contains no curative properties of a

natural character. Then the incredulous said, perhaps it operates through its

temperature, or the results obtained at Lourdes may be accounted for by the

bathing in cold water. However, every one knows that hydrotherapy is practised

elsewhere than at Lourdes, and that it does not work the miracle of curing every

kind of disease, from cancers to troubles which bring on blindness. Besides,

many ailing ones are cured without ever bathing in the basins of the Grotto; this

decides the question. Therefore, those who deny supernatural intervention

attribute the wonderful results seen at Lourdes to two other causes. The first is

suggestion. To this we answer unhesitatingly that suggestion is radically

powerless to furnish the hoped-for explanation. Omitting nervous or functional

diseases, since they are in the minority among those registered as cured at the

Medical Office of the Grotto, and the fact we are now establishing does not

require them to be taken into account, we may confine our attention to organic

diseases. Can suggestion be used efficaciously in diseases of this nature? The

most learned and daring of the suggestionists of the present day, Bernheim, a

Jew, head of the famous school of Nancy, the more advanced rival of the Ecole

de la Salpétrière, answers in the negative in twenty passages of the book in

which he has recorded the result of his observations: "Hypnotisme, Suggestion,

Psychotherapie" (Paris, 1903, 2nd edition). Studying this work, we find also that

in the very cases where suggestion has a chance of success, as in certain

functional diseases, it requires the co-operation of time, it cures slowly and

progressively, while the complete cures of Lourdes are instantaneous. Therefore

curative suggestion is no explanation. It is not suggestion that operates at

Lourdes; the cause which cures acts differently and is infinitely more powerful.

There remains the last resource of having recourse to some unknown law and of

saying, for instance, "How do we know that some natural force of which we are

still ignorant does not operate the marvellous cures which are attributed directly

to God?" How do we know? In the first place, if a law of this nature did exist, the

pilgrims of Lourdes would not be cognizant of it any more than the rest of

mankind; neither would they know any better than others how to set it in motion.

Why should this law operate for them and not for others? Is it because they deny

its existence and the others believe in it? Moreover, not only there does not

exist, but there cannot exist, and consequently will never exist, a natural law

producing instantaneously the generation of tissues affected with lesion, that is

to say, the cure of an organic disease. Why so? Because any growth and

consequently any restoration of the tissues of the organism is accomplished --

and this is a scientific fact -- by the increase and growth of the protoplasms and

cells which compose every living body. Every existing protoplasm comes from

some former protoplasm, and that from a previous one and so on, back to the

very beginning; these generation (the fact is self-evident) are necessarily

successive, that is, they require the co-operation of time. Therefore, in order that

a natural force should be able to operate a sudden cure in an organic disease,

the essential basis of life as it is in the present creation would have to be

overthrown; nature as we know it would have to be destroyed and another created

on a different plan. Therefore, the hypothesis of unknown forces of nature cannot

be brought forward to explain the instantaneous cures of Lourdes. It is logically

untenable. As a matter of fact, no natural cause, known or unknown, is sufficient

to account for the marvellous cures witnessed at the foot of the celebrated rock

where the Virgin Immaculate deigned to appear. They can only be from the

intervention of God.

LASSERRE, Notre-Dame de Lourdes; BOISSARIE, L'oeuvre de Lourdes; BERTRIN, Histoire critique

des événements de Lourdes, apparitions et guérisons (Paris, 1909), tr. GIBBS; IDEM, Un miracle

d'aujourd'hui avec une radiographie (Paris, 1909).

Georges Bertrin

Transcribed by Victoria Theresa Scarlett

Dedicated to Lucille Chapman Jonas (1913-1995)

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org