Lourdes

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A place of healing?

In previous parts of this section we have tended to concentrate on the personalities who have become well known as a result of their alleged powers of spiritual healing.

Any account of faith healing, however, would not be complete without an examination of the places where many people claim to have been cured of debilitating illnesses after visiting the supposed place of healing.

Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzogovina, the Portuguese village of Fatima, and Knock in the Irish Republic are regarded as nothing less than holy shrines by thousands of people (Catholics and non-Catholics alike) who make their annual pilgrimage to these places.

It is Lourdes, however, a small town in the French Pyrenees, which, more than any other shrine has become synonymous with faith healing. We will examine how Lourdes became the place of worship that it is today, and whether any authenticity can be attached to the many recorded cases of miracle cures.