A Pilgrim Among Pilgrims

In brief

Pope Leo XIV will visit the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France on September 26 during his apostolic trip to the country. This visit marks the first time a pope has traveled to the shrine in eighteen years.

The sanctuary, located in a small village in the French Pyrenees, is known for its hospitality toward the elderly, the disabled, and the ill. It is a major site of Marian devotion where more than five million pilgrims visit annually, often seeking physical or spiritual healing.

The site gained recognition following reports by Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen-year-old girl who saw a woman in white at the grotto of Massabielle in 1858. During eighteen encounters between February and July of that year, the woman invited Bernadette to pray the rosary and drink from a spring.