Piracy in Piety

The celebrated shrine at Lourdes is the No. 1 pilgrimage center in Christendom, but the town of Lourdes exploits the shrine's fame with a brazen tastelessness that is alarming French churchmen. Chief offenders are the dealers in pious objects. In Lourdes, a Pyrenees town of only 16,000 inhabitants but more than 600 hotels, some 580 of the total 710 businesses deal solely in these gimmicky souvenirs of St. Bernadette Soubirous. Samples: neckties that glow at night with Bernadette's image, washable plastic Virgins in every size, corkscrews in the shape of Bernadette adoring the Virgin, fountain pens with peep-show Virgins in place of the usual naked woman, three-minute hourglasses embossed with Bernadette telling the Virgin how to time eggs.

Blessed Candy. Even the waters that flow from taps in the Grotto are exploited. "Go drink at the fountain and there wash yourself," Bernadette is said to have admonished after reporting that the Virgin had appeared to her in the Grotto. Merchants have not forgotten a word of it: they sell plastic bottles artfully shaped like Bernadette or the Virgin for carrying off the water, Bernadette-imprinted soap for washing in it. Other "water" items: perfume, throat lozenges, cakes and candy advertised as "made from water blessed by the Holy Father." One ad agency is talking of hiring an airplane to skywrite ads for its clients' products directly above the shrine.

Ever since his installation in 1947, Bishop Pierre Marie Theas of Tarbes and Lourdes has battled Lourdes' trashy commercialism. "I am not the bishop of Babylon," he said. He removed hundreds of crutches that once littered the Grotto and restored much of the cave's original rocky austerity. Last week Bishop Theas struck hard at the exploiters of the Grotto's waters. His edict: "In no manner must it be commercialized. The Grotto water is foredestined to be drunk and to be washed in. It can be so used at Lourdes or at home, but always with religious respect."

No Collusion. But outside the shrine's gates, the bishop has no power. "He is not master of the situation," admitted Father Emile Gabel, secretary of Lourdes International Information Center, and added that despite constant allegations in the anticlerical press that the church gets a rake-off from Lourdes merchants, "there is absolutely no collusion between the bishop and the city." (The church's only income from the shrine: $500,000 yearly from Grotto collection boxes and sale of religious books, all used to maintain the buildings.) As for the pious objects, "we cannot suppress bad taste," said Father Gabel. "But we will advise against them, trusting that Lourdes businessmen, like film producers in America, will see the error of their ways."

Lourdes hucksters gave no sign that they saw any such error. In this centennial year, pilgrims are expected to spend more than $190 million on pious objects. Even the smallest shop near the shrine is estimated to be worth almost $200,000 to its owner. Lourdes has now even put hinges on its street signs to reroute traffic through a different area of town every two weeks so as to give each merchant an equal crack at the pilgrims.

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