OLD LOURDES ALTAR GONE TO ROME

POPE JOHN has told Bishop Theas of Lourdes that the old altar from the grotto where the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Bernadette is being placed in the replica of the Lourdes cave in the Vatican gardens
The altar, an elaborate white Gothic piece, had been the altar of the grotto for nearly 75 years. Bishop Theas had it removed just prior to the opening in February, 1958, of the centenary of Our Lady's apparitions at Lourdes. He replaced it with a starkly plain table of dark polished marble— part of a plan to restore the original simplicity of the cave. Pope John has now written to thank the Bishop for giving him the old altar. He recalled that his three immediate predecessors in the papacy and he himself had offered Mass at the altar when it was at Lourdes.