Family Rosary Crusade - Diocesan Rosary Rallies

Diocesan Rosary Rallies

From London, Ontario in Canada, the Diocesan Family Rosary Crusade started with the gathering of pledges from families to commit to the daily prayer of the Rosary as a family unit. Endless preaching in various parishes was made and a Rosary rally, multitudes of families gathered together to pray the Rosary were held in individual parishes. The first large scale rally occurred in Saskatchewan, Canada, at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, then under the authority of the Benedictine's of St. Peter's Abbey, and with the blessings and participation of all the Bishops of Saskatchewan, where 12,000 attended the rally on September 26, 1948.

In 1947, the Diocese of London, Ontario, pioneered the diocesan crusades. From pulpits, classrooms, the media, giant rallies and house-to-house visitations, families came to know who Mary is and about the saving power of the Rosary. At the rallies, the outpouring of people was a measure of their hunger for the message. The multitudes reached the hundreds of thousands. In Manila in the Philippines, a million people came together to pray the Rosary. It happened again and again: in Bogotá, Bombay, Johannesburg, Madrid, New York, San Francisco, Nairobi.

Unprecedented were the endorsements and encouragement given to the crusades by several popes and the Second Vatican Council. In 1987, Pope John Paul II said, "May the Rosary once more become the accustomed prayer of ... the Christian family."