All the wealth flowed to the former: the Fathers
of the Grotto coined money, financed hotels and candle shops, and sold
the water of the source, although a clause of their agreement with the
municipality expressly prohibited them from carrying on any commercial
pursuits.
The whole region began to rot and fester; the triumph of the Grotto had
brought about such a passion for lucre, such a burning, feverish desire
to possess and enjoy, that extraordinary perversion set in, growing worse
and worse each day, and changing Bernadette's peaceful Bethlehem into a
perfect Sodom or Gomorrah. Father Sempe had ensured the triumph of his
Divinity by spreading human abominations all around and wrecking
thousands of souls. Gigantic buildings rose from the ground, five or six
millions of francs had already been expended, everything being sacrificed
to the stern determination to leave the poor parish out in the cold and
keep the entire plunder for self and friends. Those costly, colossal
gradient ways had only been erected in order to avoid compliance with the
Virgin's express desire that the faithful should come to the Grotto in
procession. For to go down from the Basilica by the incline on the left,
and climb up to it again by the incline on the right, could certainly not
be called going to the Grotto in procession: it was simply so much
revolving in a circle. However, the Fathers cared little about that; they
had succeeded in compelling people to start from their premises and
return to them, in order that they might be the sole proprietors of the
affair, the opulent farmers who garnered the whole harvest.
Pages:
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460