Following the reports that Our Lady of Lourdes had appeared to Bernadette Soubirous on a total of eighteen occasions, Lourdes has developed into a major place of Roman Catholic pilgrimage and of alleged miraculous healings. The 150th Jubilee of the first apparition took place on 11 February 2008 with an outdoor mass attended by approximately 45,000 pilgrims.
Some 8 million visitors streamed into Lourdes to take part in the celebrations commemorating the anniversary of Saint Bernadette’s visions. However, concerns are regularly expressed that such commercialism is at odds with Lourdes’s religious significance, with some dubbing it “God’s Disneyland”. With about 270 hotels, Lourdes has the second greatest number of hotels per square kilometre in France after Paris.
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1010.C27.01
M8+ 28Cron