Water racket! 160 years of profiteering in Lourdes

Yesterday (Sunday) marked an important day in the Roman Catholic diary as it was the 160th anniversary of the alleged appearance of Mary in the French town of Lourdes.

Known by Roman Catholic worshippers as ‘Our Lady of Lourdes’, the mother of Jesus allegedly appeared to an illiterate, sickly 14 year old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, on 11th February 1858.

She was the only person who saw the apparition, despite being with both her sister and a neighbour at the time of her supposed discovery.

‘Mary’, Bernadette claimed, was “a tiny maiden” and about 12 years old. She was wearing a white robe with a blue sash around her waist, an outfit which is remarkably similar to that of the Roman Catholic order of the Children of Mary.

‘Mary’ kindly appeared to Bernadette alone over a period of months in 1858 and on one such occasion instructed her to dig through the mud near the cave which was her favoured apparition point. As Bernadette dug, she discovered a stream, which began to flow more clearly. The holy water of Lourdes had been discovered!

On examination, the water was found to be drinkable, but had no peculiar properties to make it special.

However, the alleged instruction from ‘Our Lady of Lourdes’ to Bernadette Soubirous to drink and wash in the water led to a flood (pardon the pun) of visitors seeking healing.

At first, the local Roman Catholic Church was sceptical but, realising the money making potential of the incident, in early 1860 declared the apparitions to be genuine, although there was absolutely no way of verifying the claims.

Today, Lourdes is a big money industry, worth in the region of €270 million to the local economy. In France, only Paris has more hotel beds than a remote town in the foothills of the Pyrenees with a population of around 17,000.

Millions of people make the pilgrimage annually, seeking healing for all manner of conditions. Since 1858, the Roman Catholic Church has ‘authenticated’ just 67 miracle cures (the frequency of which has decreased significantly over the years as medical treatment has advanced). Out of around 250 million estimated visitors over the years, that gives a success rate of 1 in every 3.7 million.

If you were advised to travel to the south west of France to see a doctor who ‘cures’ 1 out of every 3.7 million patients, and spend a fortune doing so, what would your response be?

The Roman Catholic Church exists to exert control and make money. It tells its devotees that salvation can be purchased. You can spend less time in the fictional Purgatory if your family pumps more money into the coffers. The Protestant Reformation was in part prompted by the sale of indulgences to the public, where their sins were forgiven… for a price.

And what of Bernadette Soubirous and her family? The magical healing powers were of little assistance to them. Bernadette died at the age of 35 due to chronic asthma, while two of her siblings and her mother passed away within five years of the Roman Catholic Church declaring her sightings of ‘Mary’ to have been genuine.

Mary worship is an utterly unbiblical concept. It is a Roman creation, a myth, a blasphemy.

Roman Catholic worshippers are instructed to pray to Mary to intercede on their behalf with Jesus. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”. Mary doesn’t come into the equation in any way, shape or form.

We are told by the Roman Catholic Church that Mary died a virgin, but the Bible says, when Jesus visited Nazareth, where he spent his years on earth prior to his ministry, in Matthew 13:55-56 that his former neighbours pointed to the brothers and sisters he had in Nazareth as cause to doubt his divinity. They said: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?”

Adoration of Mary is a Papal lie and corruption of the Word of God. Yet Protestant churches are rushing in to chum about with these “evil men and seducers” (2 Timothy 3:13) who are propagating deception and ushering untold millions into hell.

I wonder if Rev Charles McMullen, Presbyterian moderator elect who can’t wait to meet the Pope will point out the blasphemy of Mary worship when he has his little chit chat with “that man of sin”.

We implore you, if you are connected with any Protestant churches which are linking up with Rome, to break the chains and to share this with Roman Catholics to try to pluck them as brands from the burning.

Acts 4:12: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”