About 15,000 pilgrims gathered at Lourdes Catholic Cathedral on Sunday evening for the Feast of the Assumption. From all ages and backgrounds, they marched with torches to the glory of the Virgin Mary, chanting and reciting repeatedly.”I salute you Marie“. Hundreds of patients in wheelchairs preceded the crowd.
This year, 1.6 million believers are expected in Marian Shrine, one of the first places of pilgrimage for Catholics in the world. Coming from Portugal, Edith Antunes, 67, and Maria Silva, 58, said they “feelingbeing there for the first time, especially since they haven’t been able to go to the Portuguese shrine of Fatima since the start of health restrictions due to Covid.
These health restrictions have significantly reduced the number of pilgrims arriving in Lourdes since 2020. After falling from 3.5 million pilgrims a year before the pandemic, that number fell to 800,000 in 2020 and then to 1.6 million in 2021. They are expected to be this many this year, says AFP director of communication of the sanctuary, Davit Torchala.
Sanctum sanctorum
The shrine, which has a budget of around 30 million euros a year and is financed only by donations from the faithful, has yet to place three quarters of its 320 employees on part-time unemployment between September and June. The shrine stillconvalescentaccording to Davit Torchala.
On Sunday, some 4,000 participants were among those taking part in the national pilgrimage, the largest for French Catholics, held around August 15 each year.
Since its creation in 1873, the national pilgrimage has celebrated the ascension of Mary, the mother of Christ, into heaven, a belief that had already existed for centuries when Pope Pius XII established the Assumption as dogma in 1950.
Source: Le Figaro
