Does a boom in pilgrimages signal a religious revival? That’s doubtful
Above the northern French town of Lisieux, a vast white basilica rises on a sweeping, tree-lined promontory. In the cavernous Byzantine-style interior, the shrine of St Thérèse of Lisieux is illuminated by a maze of candles, overlooked by columns and vaulted mosaics.
When the cross-shaped basilica was completed in 1954, three decades after the youthful St Thérèse’s canonisation by Pope Pius XI, much of Lisieux still lay in ruins from fighting which followed the nearby D-Day landings.
