Photo of the Day

The determination of otherwise intelligent people to ignore obvious truths, and create and perpetuate “miraculous” events never ceases to amaze me. I’m sure it played well to an audience of ignorant peasants back in the late 1800′s – after all there had to be some means of extracting money from the dirt-poor bastards and the rich land-owners keen to guarantee a good seat in heaven – but this is 2013 for goodness sake.

This is the least mysterious staircase in the world, in that there’s not the slightest bit of genuine mystery about it.

This comment from the same web page as Lucia disingenuously points us to, in fact debunks the whole ridiculous fairy tale.

“As appealing as the story is of St. Joseph “miraculously” building the Loretto staircase for the good Sisters, it isn’t true. Based on years of extensive research, the truth is the carpenter was Francois-Jean Rochas, a member of ‘les compagnons’ a guild of celibate and secretive craftsmen. And he was far from saintly. Reclusive and irascible, he ended up dead in his Dog Creek cabin, either by suicide or assassination. The chapel’s contractor, Quintus Monier, named Rochas as the builder of the stairs. An 1881 entry into the sisters’ logbook indicates Rochas was paid $150 “for wood.” There are receipts for payment to Rochas for work done. Originally the staircase had no railing – it was added later for safety reasons. The story of the “miracle” was created and perpetuated by the good Sisters to answer those astounded by this engineering marvel who found it impossible to believe a mere mortal could have built it.”

There, I fixed it for you. Now if you want to draw attention away from those badly behaved priests, you need to stop inventing and perpetuating fairy stories as a decoy – they just make you look silly.