Rome Letter: This summer, I pulled off a notable hat-trick. I bought myself three biros, complete with the Madonna, from the three Marian shrines of Fatima in Portugal, Lourdes in France and Loreto in Italy.
For those of you who tend to envisage travel in terms of white water rafting in Colorado, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or cycling in the foothills of the Andes, visiting a Marian shrine probably does not figure on your "must-do" list. Indeed, were it not for the professional assignment, ghoulishly known in the trade as "Popewatch", I would not have notched up my memorable hat-trick.
All three biros, as you might expect, are of the bright and garish variety; my favourite is the one from Fatima in which the Madonna glides up and down, set against the background of a radiant halo.
For many of you, no doubt, the biros and all the other trinkets and mementos (statutes of Our Lady, medallions, mugs, plates, key rings, rosary beads etc) associated with the shrines are nothing more than the confirmation of your worst suspicions.
For the non-believer, they represent the squalid, honky-tonk commercialisation of a phenomenon that, at the best of times, sounds like an unlikely story. Can anyone seriously believe that lightning flashed and that a "lady brighter than the sun" stopped by to sit in a tree and have a chat with three peasant children near Fatima in May 1917? Did Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes, again a peasant girl of little education, really have 18 visitations from the BVM (no, not a motor car, rather the Blessed Virgin Mary,) back in 1858? Or, can we be sure that a noble family called Angeli (which also means angels in Italian) oversaw the transportation of three walls of the House of Mary (Santa Casa) from Nazareth to Ancona, and thence to Loreto, in 1294?
These "tall stories", ridiculous to some, are a matter of intense faith to others. Like them or loath them, the Marian shrines of Fatima, Lourdes and Loreto (and many others around the world) are alive and well and doing their very own business.
Curiously though, and in defiance of the obvious prejudices, Fatima, Lourdes and Loreto are all very special places. It is hard to resist the atmosphere generated at all three shrines, if only because of the obviously sincere belief many of the pilgrims bring with them.
When Pope John Paul II drops by, as he did at Lourdes three weeks ago and at Loreto last weekend, there is a special buzz in the air. (For the correspondent, mind you, there is a special hassle, given that stringent papal security measures, massive security force deployment and the presence of 250,000-odd pilgrims tends to present a logistical nightmare when it comes to basic issues such as getting a taxi, bus or train on your way in or out).
At both Loreto and Lourdes, there was a tangible energy in the air, prompted not just by the "sense of occasion" but also by the presence of huge numbers of cheerful and helpful young people. Furthermore, both the followers of Azione Cattolica at Loreto and the various French youth movements (les cathos, as they call themselves) at Lourdes tend to look more Woodstock than Notre Dame de Paris.
Having grown up in an era and a community where ladies wore hats and men shirts and ties to church, it comes as a major surprise to find that the kids who cheerfully chant "Giovanni! Paolo! Secondo!" or "Jean! Paul! Deux!" football fan style, are also dressed in shorts and even shorter T-shirts, with plenty of belly on view. In Lourdes, too, the youth impact is not limited to papal visits since since youth volunteers work there (on a short-term basis) all year round.
Lourdes, Fatima and Loreto are all set apart by the sight of the sick and the elderly being helped around as they go about the matter of prayer and worship.
Lourdes, for example, must be about the only town in the world where wheelchair traffic takes precedence over every other form of transport. In other times and places, you might call it good vibes or even solidarnosc (solidarity).
The shrines, too, offer some remarkable sights as the pilgrims go about their devotions, be it the candlelight procession to the grotto in Lourdes or the vision of penitent pilgrims struggling across the great courtyard in Fatima on their knees.
Lourdes and Loreto, furthermore, are helped by the fact that they are both set in splendid locations, with the Pyrenees acting as the backdrop at Lourdes and the Adriatic at Loreto.
The basic point about the shrines is that there is an air of spirituality about them that is hard to deny, notwithstanding trinkets and biros.
Even for those who do not belief in the Christian message, let alone participate in the Marian cult, perhaps this is no bad thing.