Part of saint's thigh-bone to visit Shrewsbury in major religious devotional event
A visit of religious relics to Shropshire later this year will be a significant event for all Christians not just Catholics, said a diocese coordinator.
The visit of a relic taken from the thigh bone of St Bernadette of Lourdes is set to be one of the most significant devotional events at Shrewsbury Cathedral in the last 10 years and ranks second only to a papal visit, a spokesperson said.
Miss Barbara Davies, the coordinator for new evangelisation at the Diocese of Shrewsbury, said: "The Bishop of Shrewsbury, Mark Davies has said that 'Many pilgrims have journeyed to Lourdes over the years to pray alongside St Bernadette, and now it seems Lourdes is coming to us by the visit of the relics.”
Miss Davies said it wouldn't just be a visit for Catholics but one for Christians as a whole. The visit of the relic to the Shrewsbury diocese may take place over two days but the details are yet to be agreed by the bishops who welcomed a tour of England and Wales which was proposed by the Shrine of Lourdes.
Miss Davies said it would be the first such visit since a St John Vianney’s relic came in 2012.
But because of veneration held for St Bernadette of Lourdes, it is more comparable with the visit of relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux in 2009. Then more than 500,000 people came to venerate them.
"It has greater significance because over the last two years a visit to Lourdes has not been possible because of the pandemic," said Miss Davies who added that veneration of relics was not compulsory. They are set to be welcomed to Liverpool before heading off on tour of the country.
The Diocese of Shrewsbury covers the parts of Merseyside south of the River Mersey, the southern parts of Greater Manchester, parts of Derbyshire, the counties of New Cheshire – apart from parts of Warrington and Widnes – and the whole of Shropshire.
Miss Davies said the visit would take in a "large church" in the north of the sprawling diocese, as well as coming to Shropshire's county town.
St Bernadette, an uneducated and poverty-stricken French girl, is one of the most widely known and revered saints in the world due to the many miraculous healings attributed to her. In 1858 she said she received a series of visions of the Virgin Mary.
She was made a saint on December 8, 1933 and next year will be the 90th anniversary of her canonisation.
