Bernadette Soubirous

Also known as Bernadeta Sobirós, Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, Bernadeta Sobiros, Bernadette of Lourdes, Saint Bernadette

French saint (1844–1879)

AI overview

Bernadette Soubirous was a French peasant girl who, in 1858, reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in her hometown of Lourdes, which led to the establishment of a major Catholic pilgrimage site. She was canonized as a saint in 1933, and her story remains significant in Catholic devotion and has attracted millions of visitors seeking spiritual healing to the shrine at Lourdes.

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Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Gender: female
Citizenship: France
Place of birth: Lourdes
Place of death: Nevers
Occupation: nun
Languages spoken: French
Religion: Catholic Church
Image: Bernadette Soubirous.jpg
Religious order: Sisters of Charity of Nevers

Show 10 more facts

Commons category: Bernadette Soubirous
cause of death: tuberculosis
date of death: 1879-04-16
date of birth: 1844-01-07
feast day: April 16
medical condition: tuberculosis
manner of death: natural causes
name in native language: Bernadette Soubirous
lifestyle: mysticism
place of burial: Nièvre

Sources (2)

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Encyclopedic overview

Bernadette Soubirous, SCN (/ˌbɜːrnəˈdɛt ˌsuːbiˈruː/; French: [bɛʁnadɛt subiʁu]; Occitan: Bernadeta Sobirós [beɾnaˈðetɔ suβiˈɾus]; 7 January 1844 – 16 April 1879), also known as Bernadette of Lourdes (religious name Marie-Bernarde), was a miller's daughter from Lourdes (Lorda in Occitan), in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées in France, and is best known for experiencing apparitions of a "young lady" who asked for a chapel to be built at the nearby cave-grotto. These apparitions occurred between 11 February and 16 July 1858, and the young lady who appeared to her identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception".

After a canonical investigation, Soubirous's reports were eventually declared "worthy of belief" on 18 February 1862, and the Marian apparition became known as Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1866, Soubirous joined the Sisters of Charity of Nevers at their convent in Nevers where she spent the last years of her life. Her body is said by the Catholic Church to remain internally incorrupt. The grotto where the apparitions occurred became a major pilgrimage site and Marian shrine known as the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, attracting around five million pilgrims of all denominations each year.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bernadette Soubirous” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.