Lourdes, healing, and the witness of Cardinal George

In January, I was privileged to make my first pilgrimage to Lourdes. My time there was filled with many spiritual gifts, great and small graces for which I continue to offer thanks to God and Our Lady. There were situations in my life for which I knew I would ask for healing.

And there were other situations that were manifested in prayer upon which I believe Our Lady was drawing my attention. Of course, it was my joy as a pilgrim to bring many other special intentions I brought to the feet of Our Lady on behalf of friends and family.

Among the graces I believe that I received at Lourdes was the opportunity to reflect upon the themes of suffering and healing. Pondering the life of St. Bernadette and how the apparitions affected her life left a mark upon my heart and has borne many fruits. I gained new insights into the perplexing mystery of suffering, which I am convinced Our Lady can assist us in ensuring with purpose.

The opportunity I was given at Lourdes is new to me, perhaps, but is part of the spiritual experience of Catholics and non-Catholics the world over. It is a truly sacred place of vulnerability, a place where the heart can be opened and exposed in new, profound ways. It is a place where past hurts and sufferings can be laid at the feet of Our Lady, as we beg that her prayers help transform them into something life-giving and restorative, as was the case with Christ’s blood that soaked her feet as it fell to the ground at Calvary. It is a place where the Immaculate One visited to beg us to repent, convert and find Christ anew. It is a place where saints and sinners gather to seek blessings of grace and strength as we endeavor to follow Christ and share in carrying his cross.

All of this weighed heavily upon me and still does. But it all seemed to be contradicted and mocked with the central artistic features at the shrine completed by once-excommunicated, former Jesuit priest Marko Rupnik, who, by all accounts, is a notorious predator and abuser.

How can those aware of his sins and crimes open themselves to the vulnerability required of suffering and healing? With such artwork at the shrine, how does its important spiritual work not find itself compromised and weakened? How can those coming to Lourdes to seek healing from abuse and grace to carry the cross of its effects find there a place of authenticity and integrity? How can any pilgrims seeking healing and grace believe that the shrine is carrying out Our Lady’s desires when such an icon of perversion, scandal, and abuse remains before their eyes as they enter the sanctuary?

My prayer and contemplation during my time at Lourdes often turned to the late archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I.—the subject of my recent book Glorifying Christ. Three lessons from Cardinal George’s own life and ministry as a bishop resonated in my heart and mind regarding the fate of Rupnik’s art on the Lourdes’ shrine’s facade.

First, Cardinal George lived a life of suffering. He lived with the effects of polio after it left him disabled at age 13. He even faced rejection from the priesthood because of that disability. It was no easy task, but he persevered to profess vows and serve as a priest as a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The last ten years of his life were occupied with bladder cancer and its effects, another great cross for him. A key lesson for me from his episcopal ministry—which sheds light on how he had a heart for those who suffer and great personal love for the Church—was taught in a 2008 pilgrimage he made to Lourdes.

Despite his own weak stamina and poor health, itself a lifelong struggle, he did not go to Lourdes as a pilgrim, firstly praying for himself. He went for others. But, more specifically, as he stated just before his departure for Lourdes that year, he wrote that he’d be asking Mary to bring healing to “the lives of those who have been sexually abused and for the healing of the wound to the Church that such abuse has inflicted.” Of course, as a bishop, Cardinal George saw the effects of the crisis on the Church up-close. He knew how it compromised our credibility and our mission. He knew Lourdes, as a place of healing, was a fitting place to bring this prayer.

Second, Cardinal George’s first visit to Lourdes was about a decade earlier, in 1996, after receiving the pallium in Rome. He went to Lourdes “to ask the Blessed Mother for health sufficient to do a good job” as the newly appointed archbishop of Portland, Oregon. Upon his return, he reflected on the visit with his flock and noted the importance of the following:

The most beautiful part of the ceremony for me was the procession of the sick with the Blessed Sacrament in the afternoon. Hundreds of people on stretchers and in wheelchairs go ahead of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; immediately behind the Blessed Sacrament walk the bishops who are present that day. Isn’t that the way it should be everywhere? The sick lead the way and the bishops follow them and the Lord.

It seems to me this is a key lesson from Cardinal George’s own pastoral wisdom that can benefit the entire Church. And especially so in these times. As victims-survivors of abuse are crying out the world over for true reforms in the wake of the clergy abuse crisis, as artwork remains in churches from people such as Rupnik, are those who are keeping it in place truly following the sick, the abused, the suffering, the hurting? Taking a cue from Cardinal George, isn’t the calling of shepherds to take a cue from the suffering?

Finally, I think of Cardinal George’s pastoral care for victim-survivors of abuse. In 2019, four years after George’s death, an international summit on clergy sexual abuse was held at the Vatican in the wake of another wave of scandals and cover-ups. To open the gathering, five survivors of abuse were invited to share their experiences with the 190 participants, including Pope Francis. In the historic and important testimonies offered by survivors to key members of the hierarchy, George was the only bishop mentioned by name, held up as a model of leadership amid the sex scandals plaguing the Church. The survivor from the United States stated:

One of my finest memories of Francis Cardinal George is when he spoke about the difficulties of fellow priests who have abused, and I considered those words, coming from a man in his position, even though they must be really hard for him to say, they were the right and proper thing to say.

I thought that was leadership at the time, and I think it’s leadership now. And I thought if he could put himself out there, and lead by example, then I could put myself out there and I think other survivors and other Catholics and faithful people can put themselves out there, to work for resolution, and work for healing, and work for a better Church.

So we respond to leadership, we look to our bishops for leadership, I would ask the bishops to show leadership.

I think that Cardinal George’s exercise of episcopal leadership can be instructive here. He was a key player in ensuring the Holy See permitted the so-called “zero tolerance” of clergy abuse in the United States. Perhaps more appropriate to consider here, Cardinal George was keenly aware of how victim-survivors of abuse can find it difficult to even enter a church building. He supported and dedicated the first-ever prayer garden for survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the United States, laying a model for many other dioceses in America and abroad to support survivors.

I pray that Cardinal George’s leadership and wisdom can inspire those who are leaders at the churches and shrines that hold Rupnik’s artwork to make the decision that it should no longer hold a place in sacred places of pilgrimage and worship.