Consuming Visions
Check out my latest book review for America. It's on a very good book about the history of the Lourdes Shrine:
Defying Devotional Debasement
Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine
By Suzanne K. Kaufman
Cornell Univ. Press. 280p $34.95
One of the most enduring images I have of my visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1999 is the proliferation of religious goods booths, selling every conceivable souvenir or item of devotion, which one must pass in order to reach the shrine itself. I remember being troubled at being subjected to this unabashed consumer spectacle as a forced final step in my religious pilgrimage. I wondered whether, if Jesus were there, he’d be angrily overturning the tables. . .
Read the rest.
posted by Mark Mossa, SJ at 6:52 PM
1 Comments:
There have been only 66 official proclamations of miracles at Lourdes.
Over 6,500 individuals have reported cures.
2,500 of these have been deemed truly remarkable.
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