I had read two book about Bernadette, one about her life and one about a present day journalist on a work tour of Lourdes to discover what is going on there, constructed along the lines one has come to expect from most well constructed such works - events that can be called miracles or coincidences, keeping all readers (and for films, viewers) pleased with their interpretation while keeping the author (or producer etc in case of film) out of trouble with everyone.
Life of Bernadette, the peasant girl who had visions and discovered the miraculous spring at Lourdes, is interesting for more than interest in her. She was young and innocent and pure, and so was able to perceive a vision from above directly, hear the vision and have conversations too. The then church authorities immediately went against her, suspicious of anyone with an access to Divine outside the approved channel of authority, and she suffered much including a possibility of fate such as Joan D'Arc. This she was saved, fortunately. In exchange the church had monopoly over the spring - and the town's facilities - at Lourdes.
It is interesting that she went through so much trouble due to her visions even after she found the miraculous springs, only because of a dogma that normal persons could not access heavens above and an authority, a central fixed one at that, had to certify all miracles - and now the same authority monopolises access to Lourdes, where one can only go by applying and permission from the said authority, Rome - and this continues in the so called secular nation of France, where anyone in an attire or cultural symbol other than traditional to France is likely to be treated worse than criminals (one presumes criminals get a trial, while a decent person of another culture, someone perfectly innocent too, is treated abominably) even in civil places such as airports - or even a so called French cultural centre in another country, and this is even true about people of the said other country entering the French centre in their own towns.
Such is the hubris of French culture and pride thereof, with the false badge of secular attached to cover a slave of Roman domination visible under a thin veil. Of course, when asked about secularity of certain laws a French visitor to another nation with a greater ancient tradition takes refuge in tradition of France, while the French centre silently but very unmistakably discriminates against the local traditions (and this is about those traditions that are other than any discrimination or worse against any part of humanity, for all that) and anyone supporting them to any visible extent thereby encouraging and perpetrating not only a colonial mindset but also a blatant hypocrisy.
Of course, anyone familiar with the colonial times of the empires is aware of how British kept the local cultures as they were, when it suited them - which it did quite often in that it kept the colonial power held up with help of local powers - while French attempted to impose French values, culture, et al , with little facsimile of a regard for another culture. This today continues in the French cultural centres across the globe, regardless of the country hosting those centres, regardless in more than one way.
Anyone from US (or UK) visiting France knows about the attitude in matter of short time of course, but then again there is another side. On the other hand one has met such friendly behaviour and unexpected gracious behaviour there too that one never loses the impression of charm and beauty. The secular, the sincere, the true of France is forever at war with the authoritarian, the controlling, the imposing. One hopes the better side wins, ever.
