Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Diary – 13 August 2004

Lourdes is much like a village in the Harry Potter books

issue 14 August 2004

The Pope is going to Lourdes at the weekend. But he has made it clear in advance that he is not going for a cure, even though he has Parkinson’s disease and for several years now has looked as if he might die at any moment. Rather, he is going to the world’s most famous Marian shrine ‘to praise God for his gifts’ (God’s, that is, not his own).

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