Roman Catholic Marian Churches - Apparition-based Marian Churches

Apparition-based Marian Churches

Marian apparitions have resulted in the construction of major Marian churches. Some of the very largest Roman Catholic Marian churches in the world did not start based on a decisions made by informed theologians in Rome but based on the statements of young and less-than-sophisticated people about their religious experiences on remote (and often unheard of) hilltops.

There are remarkable similarities in the accounts of the reported visions which have led to the construction of the churches. Two cases in point are the largest Marian churches in Mexico and France, based on the reported Marian apparitions to Saint Juan Diego in Cerro del Tepeyac, (Guadalupe) Mexico in 1531 and Saint Bernadette Soubirous as a child in Lourdes in 1858. Both saints reported visions in which a miraculous lady on a hill asked them to request that the local priests build a chapel at that site of the vision. Both visions had a reference to roses and led to very large churches being built at the sites. Like Our Lady of Lourdes in France, Our Lady of Guadalupe is a major Catholic symbol in Mexico. And like the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe complex is one of the largest and most visited Catholic churches in the Americas.

Three Portuguese children, Lúcia dos Santos, Jacinta Marto and Francisco Marto were equally young and without much education when they reported the apparition of Our Lady of Fátima in 1917. The local administrator initially jailed the children and threatened that he would boil them one by one in a pot of oil. Yet, eventually with millions of followers and Roman Catholic believers, the reported visions at Fatima gathered respect and Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI voiced their acceptance of the supernatural origin of the Fátima, Portugal, events. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima is now a major Marian church in Europe.

The Shrine of Nostra Signora della Guardia in Genoa, Italy has a similar story. In 1490 a peasant Benedetto Pareto reported that the Virgin Mary had asked him to build a chapel on a mountain. Pareto reported that he replied that he was only a poor man and would not be able to do that, but he was told by the Virgin: "Do not be afraid!". After falling from a tree, Pareto changed his mind and built a small wooden room that was eventually enlarged to the present shrine.

And the trend has continued. The only approval for a Marian apparition in the 21st century was granted to the reported visions of Jesus and Mary by Benoite Rencurel in Saint-Étienne-le-Laus in France from 1664 to 1718. The approval was granted by the Holy See in May 2008. Again, in this case, a young Benoite Rencurel (who could not read or write) reported that a lady in white appeared to her on a remote mountain top in Saint-Étienne-le-Laus and asked her for a church to be built there.