Saint Bernadette’s Relics Tour in the United States: Everything You Need to Know

When the relics of Saint Bernadette Soubirous travel, something remarkable happens. Quietly, without fanfare, thousands of people gather — in cathedral naves, hospital chapels, school auditoriums — to be in the presence of the remains of a 19th-century French peasant girl. The United States has been one of the most significant destinations for these tours, and the response has consistently exceeded all expectations.

What are the relics?

The primary relics of Saint Bernadette are her body, preserved in a glass reliquary in the Chapel of Saint Gildard in Nevers, France, where she lived and died as a nun. Secondary relics — fragments of bone, pieces of her clothing, or objects she touched — travel internationally as part of organized pilgrimages. These are what typically tour the United States.

The US relics tours

Saint Bernadette's relics have toured the United States on several occasions, drawing hundreds of thousands of pilgrims across multiple cities. The tours are organized by the Diocese of Nevers in partnership with American dioceses, and typically visit cathedrals, shrines, and Catholic institutions across the country over a period of weeks.

During these tours, parishes open their doors for extended hours. People line up for hours — sometimes overnight — to venerate the relics. Many are sick. Many are grieving. Many are simply searching. The atmosphere at these events is consistently described as one of the most moving experiences participants have ever had in a church setting.

Why do people come?

The veneration of relics is one of the oldest practices in Christianity — rooted in the belief that the bodies of saints retain a spiritual presence that can serve as a point of contact with the divine. For many pilgrims, touching or praying before the relics of Saint Bernadette is a way of connecting with her story of faith, simplicity, and suffering.

For others, it is simply a moment of stillness in a loud world.

The connection to the musical

Bernadette, the Musical was created in the same spirit — to bring Bernadette's story to people who might never travel to Lourdes or Nevers. To let her life speak again, in music and light, to a new generation.