Relics of St Bernadette to visit the UK in 2022

The relics of Saint Bernadette will travel from the Upper Basilica in Lourdes to every Catholic Cathedral in the UK in 2022.

The Catholic Bishops Conference has announced that each dioceses will host the relics, a bone from her thigh, for two days on a yet to be announced date next year. 

The remains of Saint Bernadette are preserved in a shrine in the town of Nevers, 700 kilometers north of Lourdes. Bernadette joined a convent in Nevers in 1880 to escape the attention of pilgrims. 

Canon Christopher Thomas, the general secretary of the CBCEW, made the announcement at the end of the bishops plenary meeting last week, the first face to face meeting of bishops conference since the pandemic. He likened it to the visit of the relics of Saint Thèrése of Lisieux to Britain in 2009. 

The invitation to host the relics was issued by the Shrine of Lourdes to the Bishops of England and Wales and will “remind British Catholics of the importance of pilgrimage in our lives” Canon Thomas continued.