Qui est mon prochain? La construction du lien social dans les activités des Hospitalités de Lourdes

Abstract

This article examines two important aspects of the hospital movement which assisted the pilgrimages of the sick at Lourdes, the Hospitalités of Notre-Dame du Salut at Lourdes, and the diocesan Hospitalités. It looks at their rôle in the reorganisation of diocesan communities, and in the creation of an image of the church of France as a union of its dioceses with the universal church; it also examines their search for a solution to an ethical problem, namely that of dealing with the lives of other people and the meaning of the concept of being ‘available’. What was their response to this problem, which derived from their situation of being a centre of pilgrimage where unknown people meet each other and where these unknown people have to find the appropriate relations for dealing with other people with whom they had hitherto no relations. This process is an interesting problem for study in a contemporary ethical perspective, in which there is much talk of the loss of natural bonds between people.