TMasses were said last week near the mouth of the immense Pierre St. Martin cavern high up in the Pyrenees.
On Thursday. Mass was offered for the success of the expedition, which hoped to find a suitable way out for many millions of gallons of water which would supply electricity for a large area.
Oe the Feast of Our Lady's Assumption, Mass was offered in memory of Marcel Loubens, the French spelxologist who was killed. there just a year ago when his harness broke during the 1.000-ft. descent. His body still lies in the cavern.
But on Tuesday it was reported that three leaders of the new combined French and Spanish expedition were temporarily trapped 1,500 ft. below ground when the steel hauling cable jammed.
One of them was Norbert Casteret, probably one of the world's foremost "pot-holers," who was there when last year's tragedy occurred.
Both Loubens and Casteret attended another Mass not many miles from St. Martin a few years ago. On April 15. 1945, Mass was said in a cavern at the foot of the Esparros pot-hole, and a porcelain statue of Our Lady was enthroned on a stalagmite and named "Our Lady of the Chasms."
The Pierre St. Martin caverns are in the diocese of the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, who has another grotto in his keeping—at Lourdes,