City Profile: Lourdes
If pilgrimage was the conceiver of travel, then Lourdes is its immaculate conception; though just how immaculate is a question that leaves little to the imagination. A hideous example of religious exploitation that recalls Chaucer’s slimy Pardoner, Lourdes attracts over seven million visitors yearly hoping to be cured of suffering of some kind. Whilst it is both possible and important to remain tolerant of the beliefs of others, the generally observant will remark the profuse and pervasive display of religious kitsch that saturates the otherwise pretty winding and undulating paths of this mountainside village.
Briefly inhabited by the English in the 14th century, Lourdes was a fairly average village going about its everyday agricultural life until Bernadette Soubirous, the daughter of a poor local miller, had the first of eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Since then, in a performance pertinently worthy of and befitting the age of a man like Michael Jackson, the town has become the most visited place in the South of France, hosting the second largest number of hotels after Paris. Lined with shop after shop pushing religious action figures, the principal street leads to the ostentatious double Basilique du Rosaire et de l’Immaculée Conception, easily confused with Disneyland Palace, that houses several chapels which serve mass in numerous different languages. The art that adorns the interior walls and striking dome is a melange of beauty and beastly, with rich colours and textures often displayed in cartoonish attempts at iconography. The ambiance is however peaceful with all the potential to be very moving, just not in broad daylight.
Nearby there lies another huge, underground and very post-War basilica which can hold up to twenty thousand people. Built in 1958, on the centenary anniversary of the visions, the construction highly resembles an indoor car park with vast concrete pillars forming arches over a central altar, and hanging between each, banners showing the faces of holy figures throughout the centuries. During high season, the basilica serves its proper purpose when mass is held here with enormous attendance.
Hiding behind the main basilica is the focus of the pilgrim’s path; the Grotte de Massabielle, a dark cave creeping out from the hill with a marble statue up in the right corner to show where the vision appeared. Pilgrims queue to tour the cave, stroking the wall with their left hand. Either side are numerous taps for filling souvenir bottles with the holy spring water. Monks will usually be milling around in ivory habits ready to take you in to one of the confession booths that stand upright aside the river and guard the black and craggy rock protrusions quietly forming the base of the showy monstrosity above.
The only blessing in half-disguise is the dark château, precariously perched on a rocky outcrop and looming with the air of ominous judgement over the legoland below. The castle was once used as a state prison and now accommodates an interesting museum on Pyrenean culture. A 5€ pass permits roaming at liberty (the best kind of roaming) around a dampened and neglected fortress, which imposes a more haunted and unearthly feeling than the main attractions. It is a building that was never designed to be visited, and so retains that sense of secrecy; a private exchange of voyeurism between the place and the tourist.
Lourdes the village has prostituted itself for the lascivious greed of commerce. Modernity or human nature has sucked the deeper meaning from the visions of a little girl all those years ago and is a stubborn representation of the interchangeability of politics and organised religion. The positive qualities of faith: hope, generosity, empathy have been trampled on by a long and unceasing history of mercenary propaganda, manipulation and political control that has always been dripping in money. The residential parts of Lourdes are straining against the bow of an economic crisis whilst the upkeep of the basilicas and grotto is being successfully maintained. The sentiment of hypocrisy is stifling, and the wholly incongruous concept of a Virgin Mary adorned plastic tree trunk is the sad yet ideal image to summarise the bitter end of the pilgrim’s path.
Briefly inhabited by the English in the 14th century, Lourdes was a fairly average village going about its everyday agricultural life until Bernadette Soubirous, the daughter of a poor local miller, had the first of eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Since then, in a performance pertinently worthy of and befitting the age of a man like Michael Jackson, the town has become the most visited place in the South of France, hosting the second largest number of hotels after Paris. Lined with shop after shop pushing religious action figures, the principal street leads to the ostentatious double Basilique du Rosaire et de l’Immaculée Conception, easily confused with Disneyland Palace, that houses several chapels which serve mass in numerous different languages. The art that adorns the interior walls and striking dome is a melange of beauty and beastly, with rich colours and textures often displayed in cartoonish attempts at iconography. The ambiance is however peaceful with all the potential to be very moving, just not in broad daylight.
Nearby there lies another huge, underground and very post-War basilica which can hold up to twenty thousand people. Built in 1958, on the centenary anniversary of the visions, the construction highly resembles an indoor car park with vast concrete pillars forming arches over a central altar, and hanging between each, banners showing the faces of holy figures throughout the centuries. During high season, the basilica serves its proper purpose when mass is held here with enormous attendance.
Hiding behind the main basilica is the focus of the pilgrim’s path; the Grotte de Massabielle, a dark cave creeping out from the hill with a marble statue up in the right corner to show where the vision appeared. Pilgrims queue to tour the cave, stroking the wall with their left hand. Either side are numerous taps for filling souvenir bottles with the holy spring water. Monks will usually be milling around in ivory habits ready to take you in to one of the confession booths that stand upright aside the river and guard the black and craggy rock protrusions quietly forming the base of the showy monstrosity above.
The only blessing in half-disguise is the dark château, precariously perched on a rocky outcrop and looming with the air of ominous judgement over the legoland below. The castle was once used as a state prison and now accommodates an interesting museum on Pyrenean culture. A 5€ pass permits roaming at liberty (the best kind of roaming) around a dampened and neglected fortress, which imposes a more haunted and unearthly feeling than the main attractions. It is a building that was never designed to be visited, and so retains that sense of secrecy; a private exchange of voyeurism between the place and the tourist.
Lourdes the village has prostituted itself for the lascivious greed of commerce. Modernity or human nature has sucked the deeper meaning from the visions of a little girl all those years ago and is a stubborn representation of the interchangeability of politics and organised religion. The positive qualities of faith: hope, generosity, empathy have been trampled on by a long and unceasing history of mercenary propaganda, manipulation and political control that has always been dripping in money. The residential parts of Lourdes are straining against the bow of an economic crisis whilst the upkeep of the basilicas and grotto is being successfully maintained. The sentiment of hypocrisy is stifling, and the wholly incongruous concept of a Virgin Mary adorned plastic tree trunk is the sad yet ideal image to summarise the bitter end of the pilgrim’s path.