As Europe slowly but steadily re-opens after coronavirus closures, Catholics across the continent are being allowed back to Mass. However, organized groups of pilgrims in large numbers are still a long way off, leading the famed Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes to organize an online pilgrimage and crowd funding drive to try to make up a $9 million deficit.

“Lourdes needs the world, and the world needs Lourdes,” said Monsignor Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France.

“Lourdes United” took place on July 16, and it included a 15-hour live session, in different languages, with Masses, proce-ssions, rosaries and other prayers. The date was significant: It’s the anniversary of the last Marian apparition recorded in Lourdes.

While the Vatican has approved devotion to the apparition and installed a feast day to Our Lady of Lourdes, it and other apparitions still are considered “private revelations” and thus not mandatory for Catholic belief.