{"id":6371,"date":"2006-08-22T00:47:43","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T00:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/about-those-brits.html"},"modified":"2006-08-22T00:47:43","modified_gmt":"2006-08-22T00:47:43","slug":"about-those-brits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/about-those-brits.html","title":{"rendered":"About those Brits…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some take exception:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

A report in this weekend\u2019s Sunday Telegraph, suggested that British pilgrims were getting so out of hand that French riot police needed to be drafted in to curb the late night excesses of young pilgrims, adding that drunkenness and lewd behaviour from Brits were becoming an increasing problem.<\/p>\n

However, Westminster Diocesan Pilgrimage Youth Director Bernard Lavery reacted angrily to the article saying that the article didn’t paint the true picture of pilgrimages to Lourdes.<\/p>\n

"There is a popular myth that a combination of young Brits, bars and rock music will automatically lead to drunken and loutish behaviour," he said.<\/p>\n

"It is, after all, the picture which is reported in the media on a regular basis. To suggest that young people could gather in significant numbers with access to bars and rock music and especially in a foreign country and not create mayhem is, to many, unbelievable."<\/p>\n

The Director of Tangney Tours John Tangney, who has overseen pilgrimages of over 10,000 British pilgrims to Lourdes this summer, also found the article wide of the mark.<\/p>\n

"We take British Pilgrims to Lourdes from all parts of the UK and in the July\/August Period carried some 10,000 people, a large number being young persons," said Mr Tangney.<\/p>\n

"We have close links with the local authorities and are quickly advised if it\u2019s needed that our clients are causing disturbance or offence.  I can categorically state that we have not received any complaint or even comment regarding our young clients behaviour.  This is not to say that on occasion a few drinks too many will be taken but never to an extent as is described in the article.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other Lourdes news: this week, gypsies:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

The 50th pilgrimage of gypsies to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes is taking place through Friday with the participation of some 7,000 people. <\/p>\n

The "children of the wind" arrived in Mary’s city in some 1,300 caravans. <\/p>\n

The first pilgrimage of this type took place Aug. 31-Sept. 3, 1957, as an initiative of the gypsies’ national chaplains in France, assisted by the Nazarene Sisters of Charles de Foucauld. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some take exception: A report in this weekend\u2019s Sunday Telegraph, suggested that British pilgrims were getting so out of hand that French riot police needed to be drafted in to curb the late night excesses of young pilgrims, adding that drunkenness and lewd behaviour from Brits were becoming an increasing problem. However, Westminster Diocesan Pilgrimage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAbout those Brits... - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/about-those-brits.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"About those Brits... - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some take exception: A report in this weekend\u2019s Sunday Telegraph, suggested that British pilgrims were getting so out of hand that French riot police needed to be drafted in to curb the late night excesses of young pilgrims, adding that drunkenness and lewd behaviour from Brits were becoming an increasing problem. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}