Bishop believes two million may visit relics of St Therese

The Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey, has said that as many as two million people may take part in events related to the visit of relics of St Ther ese of Lisieux to Ireland.

In Ferns "the turnout far exceeded our expectations. We estimate that more than 75,000 took part in the event. If these numbers are repeated in other dioceses - and I can see no reason why they won't be - we will have to revise our figures for the visit upwards from one million to close to twice that number."

In a pastoral letter to mark the visit he said he had "no explanation to offer for it (the crowds) other than to suggest the great hunger for the spiritual in so many hearts".

" `Decency' and `wholesomeness' are two words that come to mind in trying to describe the visit. There was no hysteria. If any miracles were sought, they were sought in the great and profound silence that prevailed," he said.

Those who worried that the visit was "some kind of going backwards to discover `an old time religion' need have no concern," he said. "They should be convinced that love is never backward but urges us forever forward.

"In a similar way, those Catholics who are rightly sensitive to the feelings of fellow Christians of other traditions, and who fear that this visit will not help ecumenism on this island, should comfort themselves with the truth that the greatest of all ecumenism is an ecumenism of the heart, an ecumenism of love of which Christ spoke on the last night of his life and for which he was to die on the morrow. Where there is love, all that divides will be overcome. Where there is no love, the slightest disagreement will become a stumbling block to unity," he said.

Among lessons to be learned from the response to the visit was a need to look "at how the role of the imagination in our post Vatican II liturgies has been neglected", he said.

The relics arrived in the Dublin archdiocese last Saturday and will be visiting Carmelite institutions there until May 16th, when they go to Mullingar. Today they will be at the Carmelite monastery on Roebuck Road, Dublin 14. Tomorrow they can be seen at the chapel of St James's Hospital. Next Monday they will be at the Pro-Cathedral and in Mountjoy on May 4th.