Lourdes - Madonnas, Masses, Money

Lourdes – the spiritual shopping center of the Pyrenees. Without the miller's daughter Bernadette and her visions in 1858, it would simply be a sleepy little town. Instead: four million pilgrims per year, waiting in a traffic jam of their own hopes.

The Grotto of Massabielle? A holy assembly line: candles in, prayers out, water in canisters. Over 70 recognized "miraculous cures"—a hit rate that would make any pharmacy blush.

The basilica rises above the town like a stone Disneyland of piety, multi-story, multi-domed, as if it were architecturally meant to exert pressure on the heavens. And all around: souvenir shops as far as the eye can see—everything from plastic Madonnas to canisters for the "holy water" that is pumped from the mountain in a surprisingly profane manner. Here, faith becomes currency, and every euro rings like a "Hail Mary" in the cash register.

Lourdes is less a place of miracles than a machine that presses hope into hard currency – and does so quite successfully.