Lourdes reports shortage of sick pilgrims for volunteers to help

Though the rising number of volunteers could be an opportunity to invite even more patients to Lourdes, organisers now have to canvas parishes for sick and elderly ready to make the journey.

The Marian shrine at Lourdes now has more young people wanting to push wheelchairs around than frail pilgrims to sit in them.

For the hundredth anniversary pilgrimage of the Archdiocese of Paris’ pilgrimage at Holy Week, there are almost twice as many volunteers signed up than patients. Some disappointed youths will be turned away.

At the summer height of the pilgrimage season in southwest France, the ratio can go up to three volunteers to every pilgrim.

Officials at Lourdes blame this partly on the Covid pandemic, which they say left many older people wary of crowds and preferring single hotel rooms over the dormitories in which Lourdes traditionally housed pilgrims.

The sanctuary has also seen an increase in the numbers of young people volunteering to help. “They come looking for a powerful experience to give meaning to their daily lives, which often lack any,” said Fr Stéphane Gravereau, head of pilgrimages for the Archdiocese of Paris.

Though organisers say the rising number of volunteers could be an opportunity to invite even more patients to Lourdes, they now have to actively canvas parishes for seniors ready to make the journey to keep up falling number of pilgrims,

“We have also called numerous nursing homes to see if any residents would be willing,” Astrid Lalanne, a doctor helping organise the Paris  pilgrimage, told La Vie magazine.

Apart from hesitance lingering from the pandemic, practical hurdles to traditional Lourdes pilgrimages have grown. More frail seniors have powered wheelchairs, which take up more space in the specially-reserved trains used at peak times.

A week’s pilgrimage from northern cities to Lourdes in the south west, including tiring travel days there and back, requires extra preparations from understaffed nursing home personnel. There is also a danger of losing state funds for care if a patient is absent from a home for more than five days.

Originally designed for invalids, Lourdes also welcomes a growing number of pilgrims who don’t need help walking but have failing mental health.

The growing number of young volunteers sometimes arrive with little religious knowledge. The rector of the sanctuary, Fr Michel Daubanes, said the offered possibilities because Lourdes is “a wonderful gateway to the faith”.

Later in the summer, Lourdes will also host the eightieth anniversary of Pax Christi International, the Catholic peace movement, on 18-20 July.

It was in Lourdes that the first “international Pax Christi congress” was held in July 1948, bringing together 10,000 people from 26 nations. In July 1949, 25,000 pilgrims from 34 nations gathered again in Lourdes. Pax Christi France still maintains a presence at the shrine.

Pax Christi was founded by French Catholics in 1945 to promote reconciliation with the German people after the Second World War. This summer’s gathering will be “a time of meeting and sharing, of commemoration and thanksgiving for all Pax Christi International members,

friends and supporters”, the organisation said, describing Lourdes “a place of hope, and our shared experiences will be a source of hope for all”.

Archbishop Philippe Ballot of Metz, the president of Pax Christi France, will preside over the programme.

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