Pancheraccia, Campitello… these places where the Virgin Mary appeared in Corsica
The Beautiful Lady of Pancheraccia
Pancheraccia, a village dominating the eastern Corsican plain about a hundred kilometers south of Bastia, attracts several hundred pilgrims each year on September 7 and 8, for the celebration of the Nativity of Mary. Tradition relates that in the 18th century, a child of around twelve years old, Innocenza, who went to collect wood in the bush with her mother, got lost. Frightened, thirsty, she starts to cry. It is then that a Beautiful Lady appears to him and makes a spring spring from a rock.
– Drink, and go tell the people of the village to come and build a chapel here.
– But no one will believe me, replies Innocenza.
The Beautiful Lady then draws an indelible sign of the cross on her hand and tells her that she will come for her within the year. The young girl died a few months later, and the villagers built the chapel. Numerous ex-votos cover the facade of the building, attesting to the graces received by the pilgrims.
The apparitions of Campitello (1899 – 1909)
The village of Campitello, higher in the mountain, about forty kilometers south of Bastia, would also have been the scene of numerous apparitions of the Virgin between 1899 and 1909. On June 26, 1899, Madeleine Parsi, known as Lelléna, and Perpétue Lorenzi , two teenage girls, go to glean wood in the forest. The apparition, preceded by extraordinarily melodious songs, hands clasped, silent is shrouded in great clarity.
Apparitions continued almost every day for a few months, especially in the evening. Other seers, in addition to the two young girls, also testify to visions. The subjects in ecstasy show astonishing abilities, according to a tradition reported by the historian of Marian apparitions Joachim Boufflet: “they carry with one hand crosses of planks weighing around twenty kilos, lift and move enormous rocks to open the passage to pilgrims…”.
The bishop of Ajaccio sent an observer, but did not comment on the events. Excerpts from the report of the man commissioned by the bishop and the priest of Campitello were published in La Revue mariale du diocese de Lyon between 1906 and 1907. An oratory and a cross mark the memory of the apparitions. Madeleine Parsi, who became a nun, was buried on a hill, facing the rock of the apparitions.
