Pope Set for Pilgrimage to Citadel of 'Life and Hope'

(04 Sept 08 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI will be in France from 12 to 15 September to mark the 150^th anniversary of the Marian Apparitions in Lourdes. Ahead of the papal pilgrimage a special conference on Marian Apparitions opened Thursday in Lourdes.
Pope Benedict’s first pontifical visit to France in September will be the highlight of celebrations for thousands of pilgrims who this year have travelled to the tiny grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It was there 150 years ago that Virgin appeared to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous and where the Virgin pronounced the words “I am the immaculate conception”.
Fr. Martin Moran, Lourdes Chaplain for English speaking pilgrims: “If you remember from the story of the apparitions the Lady as Bernadette called her, didn’t speak for the first few apparitions and then Bernadette was asked by her parish priest to ask the Lady to tell her who she is. She said in the local dialect ‘I am the immaculate conception’ and that was just a short time after that dogma had been pronounced by the Pope, so it is very closely linked to the dogma and it gave affirmation and confirmation to the apparitions here in Lourdes”.

In his Angelus marking the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption in August, Pope Benedict looked ahead to his first French trip leaving little doubt the Lourdes, the first among Marian Shrines, is the gaol of his pilgrimage: "From Heaven, especially at difficult times of trial, the Virgin continues to always look after her children, that Jesus himself had entrusted to her before he died on the cross. How many stories of her maternal solicitude does not find us by visiting shrines dedicated to her! I think especially at this time of the unique world citadel of life and hope that is Lourdes. "
Before his arrival at the Sanctuary, Pope Benedict will be in the capital Paris, where he will meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy and with representatives from the world of culture at the renowned Collège des Bernardins.
Saturday evening he will travel to Lourdes, entering the sanctuary through St Michael’s Gate to make his way to the grotto of Our Lady, for a moment of prayer, in the footsteps of his predecessor John Paul II, the last of whose many papal voyages was to this very Marian Shrine in 2004 to mark the 150^th anniversary of the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception.