Of the dozen or so sites where the Church accepts that Mary, the Mother of God, has appeared in visions, I have been to three – two as a tourist and one as a pilgrim. In 1988, on a road trip through Portugal with my older brother, we stopped off at Fatima. It was deserted: the huge space in front of the basilica like a stage awaiting a performance. Earlier, I had been to Lourdes, again as a tourist, on a day trip with a fellow Catholic. It poured with rain. The streets were empty. A few bedraggled shopkeepers stood by their stalls selling pious souvenirs. There was little sense of the sacred. My companion later became a Carmelite nun.