Mary Dejevsky admits she made a "disgracefully hurried circuit" of Jasna Gora's main basilica during a recent visit ("With a little help from Our Lady, perhaps", 21 November).
But her bizarre claim that hardly anyone was around in Poland's national sanctuary makes one wonder whether she was in the right place.
According to Church statistics (published each January), the shrine was visited in 2014 by 3.6 millions pilgrims, a rise of 100,000 over the previous year, while over 2.4 million Holy Communions were dispensed during 69,450 Masses at Jasna's Gora's various altars, accompanied by 6,720 homilies and 35,000 hours of confessions.
Perhaps she was there during the Polish election or on All Soul's Day, when 97 per cent of the entire population, according to official data, still attends church or pays cemetery visits.
Are the Poles "following the Irish" into some "quieter expression of faith? I hardly think so.
Jonathan Luxmoore, Warsaw, Poland
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