Lourdes
Town in the French Pyrenees, in the diocese of Tarbes. In 1858 Bernadette Soubirous reported apparitions in the grotto of Massabielle beside it, and the bishop authorized devotion there in 1862.
The bishop of Tarbes, in whose diocese Lourdes lay, judged in 1862 that Mary had appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in the grotto of Massabielle, near the town, in 1858. He authorized in his diocese the devotion to Our Lady of the Grotto of Lourdes and announced that a sanctuary would be built on the ground of the grotto, which had become the property of the bishops of Tarbes (Bishop Laurence of Tarbes, Mandement of 18 January 1862, arts. 1–3, p. 408). See the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
What happened here
- 8 December 1854, firm dateThe Dogma of the Immaculate Conception
On 8 December 1854 Pius IX defines that Mary was preserved from all stain of original sin from the first instant of her conception, a point long disputed among Latin theologians. Orthodox and Old Catholic statements reject the definition, and Anglicans record difficulty with it.