“We judge that the Immaculate Mary, Mother of God, really appeared lo Bernadette Soubirous on 11th February 1858 and following days, eighteen times in the Grotto of Massabielle, near the city of Lourdes; that this Apparition possesses all the characteristics of truth and that the faithful may believe in it with certainty.”
Based on the work of the Commission of Inquiry which he set up in 1858 and which was “responsible for ascertaining the authenticity and the nature of the events which took place”, and taking into account Bernadette’s testimony of and the cures effected with water from Lourdes, the Bishop of Tarbes officially recognised the apparitions, authorised worship, and invited the building of a shrine by appealing to the generosity of donors.
It is from this seminal text, an extract of which is engraved in marble in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, that worship would be organised and pilgrimages would develop.
