Nobody Beats the House: On Tarasteix and Lourdes

He made the bells toll.

The image remains vivid: cramped into a wooden belltower, students and other visitors wedged around me, and the bells clanging rambunctiously overhead. Never mind the sound; the noise churned the bones, surged upward into the teeth, and then poured into the hairs on your forearms.

More than any of that, though, was the glee tattooed across the elderly priest’s face. He did this, he told us, and then told us again. He did this.

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When I planned this summer’s walk, practicality shaped the broad brushstrokes. It has been a while, for various reasons, so revisiting the Norte, Inglés, Mar were priorities. I had the time and capacity to do more, though, so passion and curiosity charted the opening and closing stages. Ever since my first visit, Lourdes and the Abbey of Tarasteix have held prominence in my memory, so I was hungry to return. Conversely, my first foray on the Camino Aragonés, many years past, was deeply unsatisfying–rushed and wet, and really rather miserable. I wanted a mulligan. And finally, I’ve somehow missed out on Portuguese Caminos entirely to this point, so I wanted to dip my toe in those waters, ending the summer stroll with a quick jaunt south to Porto.

I’ve rehashed the… uneven start to my walk elsewhere, so no need to rub my nose further in the embarrassment. Enough to say that I set out from Auch on the GR653, the Voie d’Arles, heading westward, “sleeping” first in Barran (featuring a church with a twisted spire to rival Saint-Come-d’Olt’s) and then Marciac (its church displaying a wonderfully colorful portal, complemented by pilgrim accommodation in a stone tower). The next morning, Maubourguet offered an optimal breakfast stopping point, and soon after I veered south on the GR101–the bridge that would deliver me to Tarasteix.

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“Do you want lunch?”

Father Mercier, the elderly priest, sat outside the abbey’s back entrance, smoking with three old women. We quickly sorted out that one spoke Spanish, so we flipped to that and worked through the pleasantries.

“No, thank you.”

I don’t think the priest ever stood up. He lost interest as first the conversation, and then the woman and I, both moved on. She escorted me through the arched entrance into the dark hallway, shuffling forward before gesturing to the right, towards a cavernous, dimly-lit room.

“They’re eating right now.”

Squinting, I could see a handful of people gathered around the far table. I demurred once again, far more motivated by a shower than a meal. She shrugged, led me to the stairs, and then paused suddenly, swaying as though she were on the verge of fainting. After a couple deep breaths, though, she guided me upstairs, opening the door to my room, and just as briskly closing it behind me. I would not see her again.

My room was actually three interconnected rooms, two with beds, and the third a small bathroom. The floor was dusty, dirty even. Cobwebs lined the corners of the ceiling, while a coven of flies circled the lone lightbulb overhead. The cleanest-looking duvet had a handful of mouse droppings lining the seams. I shook them off, then flipped the duvet, wondering all the while how many pilgrims had pulled the same maneuver. The bathroom was bleak, but functional, stained more by age than filth. What more can one strive for? None of the outlets worked.

My memories from years earlier largely neglected the rooms, so vivid were the other elements of the abbey as if to block out anything more. It certainly wasn’t the Ritz, but my impression at the time was of a place on the rise–scruffy and rough around the edges, for sure, but somehow quirky and quaint and an underdog, all rolled into one.

This time, though… if you were to tell me that the rooms hadn’t been formally cleaned since our last visit, and that the furnishings remained the same as well… I think I might believe you. Maybe neglect isn’t the right word, but the room smacked of time’s unnoticed passage.

And to be clear, these aren’t complaints. I cleaned myself up, washed my clothes, and ultimately slept well enough. If a mouse popped in overnight, it was courteous enough to leave me and my pack alone–or to at least conceal its misadventures. Even the flies were content to remain high overhead.

Sometimes, the saddest realization you can have when returning to a place of cherished memories is to discover that the world moved on in your absence, that change marched irrevocably forward. Maybe it’s worse, though, to discover that time passed and nothing changed at all.

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We brought the party with us. Before packing any expectations for my second visit, I should have fully acknowledged that. Very few pilgrims walk out here. So anytime we roll into town with a group of a dozen Americans, including a bunch of high schoolers, we shift the dynamic. And fortuitously enough, on that day we coincided with a group of French students as well. Nothing was normal about our visit.
Father Mercier was in high spirits, telling the abbey’s story to anyone who would hear it, inviting the French group’s priest to deliver mass, and then running us all on a tour of his beloved gardens and belltower. This “holy desert,” an oasis carved out of the woods, was abandoned back to nature for 120 years, all but forgotten. And then, almost single-handedly, Father Mercier resurrected it over the course of four decades. Few parts of today’s abbey don’t bear his fingerprints–even the large stained glass windows in the chapel are his handiwork.

On this visit, though, I was alone. The women who had accompanied the priest when I arrived drove off. Father Mercier was nowhere to be found. I strolled the dark hallways, listening to my own footfalls. Before long, I emerged in the courtyard, sitting on the stone benches and staring at the fish flitting around beneath me. Settling into the silence, I recognized that this visit would be different, and that would be fine. My eyes drifted up to the belltower, just as a motor roared to life behind me. The gardener was setting to work, mowing the lawn in the courtyard. I padded back into the dark interior.

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The priest told me when I arrived that mass would be held at 7pm, so I dutifully headed to the chapel at 6:55. By 7:05, though, I remained the sole occupant. It’s pretty fair to conclude that I misunderstood something in French, so I took to the dark halls once more. The dining room was empty. The whole first floor seemed vacant. I popped back into the chapel. Still empty. As I left, though, I turned the corner and practically ran headfirst into Father Mercier, who was carrying gardening shears.

Mass would start soon, he said. The work in the garden has just run a bit long. But then he kept talking, and even if I couldn’t understand most of the words, I could recognize the tone: despair. This was a conversation about money. He was no longer associated with the Catholic Church, he said, and what seemed clear was that this had closed off some longer-running revenue sources. He needed me to pay up front, for a set amount, instead of opting for a donation-based approach as he had in the past. One could imagine a situation in which these conditions would constitute a menacing, unnerving experience, sharp blades and all. Instead, I just felt saddened, and a little shaken for him. Something had gone terribly wrong.

I found the answers–some of them, at least–on the abbey’s website, days later. One posting railed against commentary published on Riposte Catholique about Father Mercier’s efforts. The publication went way back, accusing him of installing himself in the abbey in 1977 without the authorization of his bishop in Djibouti. It denounced Tarasteix as a “false abbey.” It charged Father Mercier with pocketing funds for personal use. Father Mercier rebutted each of these claims, his indignation coursing even through the Google Translation of these responses.

Feelings of persecution culminated in Father Mercier’s departure from the Catholic Church on March 11, 2021. He moved at that point to the “Little Church,” which is “part of the Conference of Syriac Orthodox Non-Chalcedonian Churches.” He insists that the latter is not schismatic, but rather has a long history of dialogue with the Big Church. I confess I’d never heard of it.

But it seems to have been the lone escape hatch available to a man who felt increasingly besieged by enemies. “In truth I did not wish to leave the Catholic Church,” Mercier wrote in his response on the website. “Calumny forced me to do so, to save the abbey of Tarasteix: this place has a spiritual vocation, and must not fall into the hands of men with greedy hearts. I remain a priest of the Catholic Church in the bottom of my heart, because no earthly jurisdiction can undo what God has done, no one whatsoever can dissolve the spiritual value of the priesthood.”

Or, to put it more bluntly and bleakly: “I don’t know why these people want to destroy my reputation. However, I am not naive: today I am an old and worn-out priest; vultures circle around the abbey of Tarasteix, which, thanks to our constant care, has acquired a very significant real estate value.”
It’s not personal; it’s business.

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Mass started around 7:30pm. When Father Mercier initiated the rite, I was the whole audience. Mercifully, one of the Tarasteix staffers popped in a few minutes later, sitting against the back wall. The priest promptly interrupted his sermon to send the man out of the room; he returned moments later with a lighter, which he used to spark the candles on the altar.

Some athletes play to their competition, performing at an elite level in big games, but then bringing little to the table when facing basement-dwellers. Father Mercier delivered a mass to the level of his meager audience on this occasion; to call it “going through the motions” would be kind. He muttered each statement in monotone, delivering his lines in the most perfunctory manner possible. In fairness, it was clear the years wore heavily upon him. Periodically, his speech was interrupted by a hacking cough that seemed to rip through the full length of his body. Each time he knelt, I cringed in agony, watching the strain this placed upon his aged frame. Most distracting of all, though, the priest’s phone rang multiple times, and despite having it positioned alongside his Bible, he let it ring each time, all the way through. Maybe he was waiting for a call from his lawyer.
Whatever its limitations, I have to admire his devotion. It would have been eminently reasonable to not celebrate mass for an audience of one American who could neither understand nor appreciate the service. And yet it also felt like a habit stripped of belief, like an actor who has lost complete contact with his character’s motivation.

Mass concluded and we went to dinner.

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After dinner, as darkness fell, I came to terms with the fact that there would be no tour of the garden this time, and certainly no visit to the belltower. I slipped back into my room, confirmed that the duvet remained clean enough, and flopped down.

How does it feel when there’s good reason to fear that your life’s work won’t outlive you? Would it have been easier to create nothing, than to achieve something remarkable only to watch its imminent collapse unfold in your final days?

The bell tolled, unwitnessed. I rolled over.

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I walked to Lourdes the next day. Like everything else, it’s not the same as it was, pre-COVID. While crowds circled the shrine, bought “official” water containers and candles, strolled the main arterials east and south of the complex, it still smacked of relative emptiness, like a once raucous beach at low tide in the early morning. The subterranean basilica was largely unnecessary. The upper sanctuary had merely a trickle of visitors. Instead of the roving bands of caregivers and mobility-restricted folks that I recalled from before, the population seemed to be mostly composed of tourists. And a substantial number of store fronts are shuttered, even on the busiest of roads.

Most consequentially for Lourdes, the baths remain closed.

When 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous stumbled across a grotto here in 1858, heard a lady’s voice instruct her to ““Go and drink from the spring and wash yourself there,” and then proceeded to scoop the muddy ground to her lips to imbibe it as best she could, she unwittingly ignited a religious explosion. While healing springs and spas were certainly commonplace at the time–even in the region, there were ample competitors as Lourdes emerged–the Church ultimately recognized the curative powers of the waters of Lourdes as being genuinely miraculous. To this day, it has officially recognized 69 such healings as Miraculous, capital M.

For that reason, those with terminal or otherwise incurable illnesses and medical conditions have long been drawn to Lourdes, both to drink the water from the spring and also to bathe in its waters, just as Bernadette was instructed to do.

Say one thing for Lourdes: it does not inspire ambivalence. In my case, on that first visit, I found myself swinging wildly between extremes. At times, I was angry. How dare they peddle this nonsense to the absolute most vulnerable, coaxing people in despair and hopelessness to endure the rigors of travel en route to their inevitable dead end? Just to sell designer water bottles? And yet, within minutes, not hours, I would rebut myself. Where else, other than Lourdes, are the ill and infirm held in such prominence, given pride of place in every context, instead of sequestered behind closed doors, out of sight, out of mind? Is it exploitative and crass or inspirational and uplifting? A testament to faith and goodness, or callousness and greed?

I still don’t know. What I do know, though, is that Lourdes will rebound. The baths will reopen, in time. The believers will return. It’s too big to fail.

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As for Bernadette Soubirous? I suppose she’s not the only saint who can claim a life hard lived. Before she ever entered that grotto, she had endured deep poverty, lived in a one-time jail cell, and suffered cholera. After her miraculous experience, Bernadette was confronted with accusations of insanity, protestations of disbelief, and extensive interrogations by Church and town officials. Even recognition brought little comfort. Within eight years, she withdrew into a religious community. She died young, at the age of 35.

Perhaps it’s too neat and tidy to link Father Mercier and Bernadette, to distill them down simplistically to transformative individuals ultimately shunted aside by the institution. Maybe Father Mercier should take a different lesson–that individual triumphs are glorious but fleeting, and to persist they require a larger coalition, and that ultimately the endurance of the faith is the dream worth pursuing.

Will Tarasteix be reabsorbed somehow into the larger Church? Or will it be reclaimed by the wilderness? In the years to come, will pilgrims find an open bed, a luxury hotel, or a ruin and a myth?

My experience in Tarasteix and Lourdes couldn’t have been more different this time than my first time, but one thing remained consistent: weeks later, I can’t stop thinking about Tarasteix and Lourdes.