| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Therion Ware" |
| Date: |
27 Jan 2007 02:16:22 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Lourdes Syndrome...! |
Town of miracles and tatty souvenirs failed to save Briton's dying
daughter
Angelique Chrisafis in Lourdes
Saturday January 27, 2007
The Guardian
Like millions who travel to the small pilgrimage town of Lourdes in
the foothills of the Pyrenees, Irene Kearney believed in miracles.
But her conviction that sprinklings of holy water from the town's
saintly grotto would cure her daughter's brain tumour came to an end
last week when police discovered she had kept her daughter's corpse
hidden in a bedroom for four months, telling her 11-year-old
granddaughter simply "don't go into mummy's room, she's tired".
The French town was in shock last night at the story of a British
woman who so believed in the healing powers of the spot where the
Virgin Mary was said to have first appeared to a local girl in 1858
that she moved there permanently to devote herself to prayer.
Irene Kearney, 77, rented a house in Lourdes for five years from 2001.
The devout Catholic, who was born in Liverpool to an Irish family,
refused all conventional medicine for herself and her 46-year-old
daughter Marian. She appeared to have suffered from a form of "Lourdes
syndrome", believing that the mere fact of living in the south-western
French town would somehow end the cancer and soothe the pain in her
life.
Each year more than 6 million pilgrims come to Catholicism's most
famous shrine at Lourdes, sometimes described as a Disneyland of God
for its kitsch tourist shops selling neon Virgin Marys and fast food
shops like the Immaculate Conception ice-cream parlour.
In around 148 years there have been only 66 official miraculous
recoveries. The Kearneys were among the 38,000 British people who
visit Lourdes each year, greeted by places like the London Pub and
English-speaking tourist shops.
Emma attended the local French school from the age of six. But the
women spoke no French and couldn't communicate with neighbours. The
family had satellite TV and received parcels of English food.
"Recently some couples in the close complained of a strong smell
permeating the street; we thought it was a cat," said one neighbour, a
literature student. She said Irene Kearney still took her
granddaughter, now 11, to school in the mornings, collecting her at
lunch and taking her back in the afternoon. "She was polite and kept
to herself."
A teacher raised the alarm after the little girl was withdrawn and did
not talk about her family as all the other children did after
Christmas. When the police arrived at the door Mrs Kearney was
relieved the pretence was over.
"I found it strange this year at Christmas when she didn't give me her
traditional box of chocolates, but I thought maybe she was saving
money," said Lucienne, 80, a retired school bursar from Paris who
lived next door.
"On the first day of the September school term I saw the sick lady
waving goodbye to her daughter out of her bedroom window. I assumed
she was still alive until the police came."
The local state prosecutor Gerard Aldige said Irene Kearney was "a
mystic who was convinced a miracle would occur in Lourdes", and he
would bring no charges.
At the local Parish church one volunteer remembered her as "solitary".
She had occasionally attended mass but preferred the Virgin Mary's
grotto and the great basilica at the 52-hectare Sanctuary pilgrimage
site.
"There's a Lourdes syndrome," sighed the parish priest Father Bernard
Saint-Voirin. "A person might think if they come here everything will
be easy, the place will somehow look after them and everything will be
fixed. But that's not possible: this is a town like any other."
At the sanctuary, blanketed in snow, Patrick Theiller sat in his
office where a large cross hung over the examination table. As head of
the Lourdes medical bureau he investigates the claims of miracle cures
made by around 52 people each year. Only a dozen or so cases merit
investigation, and like everything at Lourdes, doctors and medical
treatment is crucial. Every sick pilgrim on official group tours must
be accompanied by a doctor and the shrine is against shunning
conventional medicine.
He was shocked by the case. "This is a normal town. There aren't
permanent miracles happening here - that's a wrong interpretation of
the place," he said. "Not everything is easy here, it's not magic. The
truth is heaven doesn't exist on earth."
--
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
attrib: Pauline Réage.
http://www.city-of-dis.com/p_q.asp?I1=69597&I2=69121
The begining...
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| User: "Don Martin" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Lourdes Syndrome...! |
27 Jan 2007 09:25:54 AM |
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On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:16:22 +0000, Therion Ware
<autodelete@city-of-dis.com> wrote:
Town of miracles and tatty souvenirs failed to save Briton's dying
daughter
This reminds me of an old joke. Covered in plaster casts, limbs in
various traction devices, a number of IVs running a number of fluids
through various tubes into his body, an elderly Jew lies in a hospital
bed. He is being visited by a lawyer, who says, "Mr. Cohen, to avoid
trial, the company I represent is prepared to offer you a settlement
of $5 million. However, I must warn you that this is based on your
claim that you shall never be able to walk again. Rest assured that
you shall be watched and watched closely. Should you ever take a
single step, you chall be charged with fraud and named in lawsuits to
recover this money. Do you agree to these conditions?"
"Certainly! I have one arm free: where do I sign?
"You _do_ understand the conditions?"
"Believe me, I not only understand them, I am prepared for them."
"How can you do that?"
"As soon as this check clears, a crew of EMTs will take me out of the
hospital, bed, tubes, traction, and all and into a private ambulance.
We shall drive to the airport, where I shall be moved into a waiting
private plane for a flight to France. There, a team of French EMTs
will put me into a French private ambulance to drive me to Lourdes,
and THEN, bubbie, are you going to see a MIRACLE!"
Through a jaundiced eye darkly--rheum with a view.
The Squeeky Wheel
http://home.comcast.net/~drdonmartin/
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