Sacred Journey on PBS: Lourdes

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Our host at dinner tonight saw it and was VERY impressed with the Military Pilgrimage segment. He raved about it all night, I wish I had seen it.
 
Thanks for posting this!! Just scheduled Lourdes and Jerusalem on the dvr. Can’t wait to see Lourdes!
 
The show was interesting; I wasn’t aware of of the annual Veterans / Military Service pilgrimage gathering at Lourdes.

The only part I didn’t care for was the complaint lodged by the one soldier about the religious bric a brac shops located in the town of Lourdes and that somehow the selling and buying of these goods offended him.

PBS has presented the same sentiment in other TV programs they produce; on their travel series, “Globetrekker”, they made a program on Portugal and the travel host complained about the same type of shops when they visited Fatima.

Honestly, I don’t know what the big deal is.

A pilgrimage center is one of the few locations where the faithful gather in one spot in considerable numbers who may be interested in these type of goods for sale and thus provides a place to open a market or shop for religious themed bric a brac. This commerce also helps the local economy, provides jobs, and supplies a demand for religious goods.

Our society has commercialized (and secularized) Christmas to the maximum and Easter to a somewhat lesser extent and Thanksgiving as well in more recent years and I hear no moral outrage from the Media at all about that happening.

In case you missed the show and the others in the Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler series, you can watch them here.

The programs are presented from a secular view point; the Host said he “believes in science”; he is interested in religion from a sociological aspect.

Mr. Feiler did a previous series for PBS some years ago about places located in the Old Testament (WALKING THE BIBLE) but I missed the programs.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/sacredjourneys/content/home/
 
Dwyer said:
The show was interesting; I wasn’t aware of of the annual Veterans / Military Service pilgrimage gathering at Lourdes.

The only part I didn’t care for was the complaint lodged by the one soldier about the religious bric a brac shops located in the town of Lourdes and that somehow the selling and buying of these goods somehow offended him.

PBS has presented the same sentiment in other TV programs they produce; on their travel series, “Globetrekker”, they made a program on Portugal and the travel host complained about the same type of shops when they visited Fatima.

Honestly, I don’t know what the big deal is.

A pilgrimage center is one of the few locations where the faithful gather in one spot in considerable numbers who may be interested in these type of goods for sale and thus provides a place to open a market or shop for religious themed bric a brac. This commerce also helps the local economy, provides jobs, and supplies a demand for religious goods.

Our society has commercialized (and secularized) Christmas to the maximum and Easter to a somewhat lesser extent and Thanksgiving as well in more recent years and I hear no moral complaints from the Media at all about that happening.

In case you missed the show and the others in the Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler series, you can watch them here.

The program is presented from a secular view point; the Host said he “believes in science” but he seems to be interested in religion from a sociological aspect.

Mr. Feiler did a previous series for PBS some years ago about places located in the Old Testament (WALKING THE BIBLE) but I missed the programs.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/sacredjourneys/content/home/
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I know how that guy feels:
Our farm in Ireland is minutes from Knock, and there are all kinds of shacks full of cheap bric a brac for sale nearby, that have nothing to do with Knock. Joe hates it. He feels it cheapens the place. The parish priest doesn’t shoo them away, because they are run by mostly “Travellers” (gypsies) and he doesn’t want to hassle with them, and allows them to meet out a meager living in this way. 🤷 there is a lovely gift shop run by the Shrine though.
 
pianistclare said:
I know how that guy feels:
Our farm in Ireland is minutes from Knock, and there are all kinds of shacks full of cheap bric a brac for sale nearby, that have nothing to do with Knock. Joe hates it. He feels it cheapens the place. The parish priest doesn’t shoo them away, because they are run by mostly “Travellers” (gypsies) and he doesn’t want to hassle with them, and allows them to meet out a meager living in this way. 🤷 there is a lovely gift shop run by the Shrine though.
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I don’t see anything morally wrong with people selling statues, Holy Water bottles, religious items, etc. to pilgrims.

I think that sort of “looking down your nose” at that kind of trade and commerce comes from the secular media who, for whatever reason, think and propound that one shouldn’t sell religious items, many I think because they don’t want people to buy this sort of stuff.

There’s nothing morally wrong if merchants want to sell religious themed items and people want to buy them and their stores or stands are located near a religious center.

Throughout Europe there are Christmas Markets set up in front of Cathedrals, especially in Germany and Austria.

All that is going on is trade; I can’t see anything wrong with that from either a Catholic moral perspective or any perspective.
 
Dwyer said:
I don’t see anything morally wrong with people selling statues, Holy Water bottles, religious items, etc. to pilgrims.

I think that sort of “looking down your nose” at that kind of trade and commerce comes from the secular media who, for whatever reason, think and propound that one shouldn’t sell religious items, many I think because they don’t want people to buy this sort of stuff.

There’s nothing morally wrong with it if merchants want to sell religious themed items and people want to buy them and their stores or stands are located near a religious center.

Throughout Europe there Christmas Markets set up in front of Cathedrals.

All that is going on is trade; I can’t see anything wrong with that from a Catholic moral perspective.
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He’s not talking about selling religious ware per se…he’s talking about selling JUNK that people will peddle as religious items. A big difference. People make pilgrimages and then get fleeced. That’s what he’s referring to.
 
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