| The Archbishop of Canterbury this week preached at an international mass in Lourdes, in the French Pyrenees, as part of the 150th-anniversary celebrations of St Bernadette’s visions of the Virgin Mary.
Dr Williams was taking part in a pilgrimage of bishops, clergy, and laity from the Church of England, including the Suffragan Bishop in Europe, the Rt Revd David Hamid, which was organised by the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham and the Society of Mary.
In his sermon on Wednesday, Dr Williams compared St Bernadette’s visions in 1858 to Mary’s visit to Elizabeth in Luke’s Gospel, when the baby leapt in Elizabeth’s womb. “Mary appears to us here as the first missionary, ‘the first messenger of the gospel’ as Bishop Perrier of Lourdes has called her: the first human being to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to another, and she does it simply by carrying Christ within her.”
The eucharist was celebrated by Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
The Archbishop’s visit to the shrine was criticised by the Revd Jeremy Brooks from the Protestant Truth Society, who described Dr Williams as behaving like a “papal puppet. . . All true Protestants will be appalled. Lourdes represents everything about Roman Catholicism that the Protestant Reformation rejected.”
Should the Archbishop of Canterbury have visited Lourdes? Vote here |
back to News
previous story
|
next story 
%231%23.jpg)
.gif "Caris Magazine for girls aged 11 to 16 © site")
%231%23.gif "Wordl Vision Sponsor a child Nov to Dec campaign © site")