Lourdes Girds for Pope Leo XIV as Abuse Shadow Hangs Over Visit

Thousands of pilgrims filled the sanctuary at Lourdes on Friday, kneeling in the Grotto of the Apparition, lighting candles, running their hands along its walls and filling bottles from the spring, as the town prepared for Pope Leo XIV's arrival on Saturday.

Lourdes lies in the foothills of the Pyrenees. According to the Catholic Church, in 1858 a shepherdess named Bernadette Soubirous saw a "Lady dressed in white" in the grotto, and reported the vision 17 times that year. On the 16th occasion, she asked the figure who she was and received the reply, "I am the Immaculate Conception." The Church later declared the grotto a Marian sanctuary, and has officially credited Our Lady of Lourdes with 72 cases of miraculous recovery.

The site now draws millions of pilgrims annually, many of them seriously ill and seeking relief from waters they believe to be healing. The sick bathe in pools near the grotto fed by the spring.

Among those gathered was Carmel Hughes, who travelled from Ireland with a group of more than 350 Carmelites from across the country. She described Lourdes as "a piece of heaven," saying visitors come seeking answers, forgiveness, compassion and respect, and that her group was there looking for hope and peace.

Giovanna Cubeddu, seated in a wheelchair outside the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, said the pope has a soft spot for the sick, and that seeing so many people assembled gave her a sense of closeness and brotherhood. Giovanna Giannone, a volunteer from Abruzzo, Italy, who assists the sick, said it was a joy to see the pope, describing the work of her fellow volunteers as unpaid service to those in need.

Bishop Emeritus Alain Castet of Vendée said the gathering was, for many Catholics, above all a family meeting — one that embraces differences and offers hope, helping the faithful look to the future together.

Pope Leo follows in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who visited Lourdes twice, in 1983 and again in 2004 on his final trip, and Pope Benedict XVI, who came in 2008.

The visit is shadowed by the issue of sexual abuse in the Church. Mosaics by Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, a former Jesuit priest and internationally known religious artist, surround the entrance to the Basilica of the Rosary; he is on trial at the Vatican, accused by numerous women of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuse. The bishop of Lourdes decided to cover the mosaics before the pope's visit out of respect for the victims.

The Vatican has said the pope will meet seven survivors of sexual abuse while in Lourdes, without providing details. An independent report in 2021 estimated that hundreds of thousands of children in France had been sexually abused over the preceding 70 years.

Beyond the sanctuary, souvenir shops around Lourdes display rosaries, snow globes bearing the pope's image and small statues of Bernadette, while plastic bottles shaped like the Virgin Mary are sold for pilgrims to carry water. At the Orleans Café, waiter Alain Luberriaga, who arrived in Lourdes at 25 and once sang for passersby on the street, has become known for his rendition of "Ave Maria" — a performance that earned him an invitation to sing in the grotto in 2018 during the Mont D'Armes pilgrimage.