Thousands of Catholic pilgrims celebrate Lourdes' 150th anniversary
Last updated at 16:23pm on 11th February 2008Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=513686&in_page_id=1811
More than 50,000 Lourdes prilgrims celebrated the shrine's 150th anniversary today with a mass said by 800 priests.
It was in the French town on February 11, 1858, that 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous claimed to see the first of 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
Since then there have been 67 recognised miracles attributed to the site in the foothills of the Pyrénées
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Anniversary: 800 priests gather around the shrine at Lourdes 150 years after the first vision
Today a special mass was said to the gathering faithful by 30 bishops and 800 priests in several languages, including German, Polish and English.
As a result of Saint Bernadette's reported visions, Lourdes has become one of the most popular pilgrimage destinations in the world.
An average of 5 million visitors a year, many of them coming in the hopes of being cured of a variety of ailments.
Although it has a population of only about 15,000, the town contains the second-largest number of hotels of any French city, behind only Paris.
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Crowded: 50,000 people attanded the mass said in honour of the celebrations
Some 8 million visitors are expected to stream into Lourdes this year to take part in the celebrations commemorating the anniversary of Saint Bernadette's visions.
Pope Benedict XVI is expected to travel to Lourdes later in the year, probably in September.
However, concerns are regularly expressed that such commercialism is at odds with Lourdes's religious significance, with some dubbing it "God's Disneyland".
But Philippe Bianco, head of the Lourdes souvenir sellers' union, believes this commercialism is extremely important to the town.
"Everything needs to be paid for in the modern world and Lourdes is no exception," he said.
"This does not make it any less of a holy place, as the number of pilgrims due this year shows."
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