PROCLAIMED SAINT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 940, 9 December 1933, Page 1

PROCLAIMED SAINT.

Peasant Girl of Lourdes, Who Saw Vision. CEREMONY AT ST PETER S United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received December 9. 11.30 a.m.) VATICAN CITY. December $ Following a Consistory Bernadette Soubirous vas proclaimed a saint at the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to-day, which date was selected because the shepherdess had visions of the Immaculate Conception at the grotto of Lourdes in 1858, at the time of the feast. Hundreds of pilgrims arrived to witness the imposing ceremony at St Peter’s, in which the Pope, Cardinals and leaders of the Church participated. In the Roman Catholic world it is believed that the Virgin Mary revealed herself repeatedly to a little peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in a grotto at Lourdes. Lourdes, lying at the foot of the Pyrenees, consists of two divisions, the old town and the new, the latter owing its growth entirely to the visions of Bernadette. Following the authentication of the visions by a commission of inquiry appointed by the Bishop of Tarbes and the authorisation by the Pope of the cult of Our Lady ftf Lourdes, the new city has sprung up, with its centre the basilica, the Church of the Rosary and the grotto. A statue of the Virgin stands on a rock projecting above the grotto, the walls of which are covered with the crutches of those who have gone to the healing spring and departed cured. Multitudes of pilgrims from all parts of the world, not all of them Roman Catholics, have visited Lourdes, and it is estimated that 600,000 pilgrims visit the town each year.