Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle

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Exterior view of the sanctuary
Mosaic depicting Our Lady of San Juan del Valle

The Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle ( English Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle , Spanish Basílica de Nuestra Señora de San Juan del Valle ) is a Roman Catholic national shrine in San Juan in southern Texas , United States . The minor basilica of the Brownsville diocese was consecrated in 1980. The sanctuary is visited by a million pilgrims annually.

history

The new pastor, Jose Maria Azpiazu OMI, began promoting the devotion to Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos in 1949. He commissioned an artist in Mexico's Guadalajara , a copy of the statue of the Virgin Mary to make, in the Cathedral of San Juan de los Lagos is worshiped. He placed the finished statue in the San Juan Chapel.

In 1954 a new church was built with a sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin of San Juan. On October 23, 1970, a low-flying plane crashed into the shrine and exploded. The church was destroyed with the exception of the tower, which is still standing. The damage was estimated at $ 1.5 million. Pastor Patricio Dominguez OMI and the sacristan Pedro Rodriguez saved the statue of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle. A diocesan priest, Rev. Ron Anderson, saved the Holy of Holies from the fire.

Brownsville Bishop John Joseph Fitzpatrick separated the sanctuary from the parish. It was planned to build a parish church on the site of the former sanctuary and build a larger sanctuary north on the same property. The groundbreaking ceremony for the new sanctuary took place on November 27, 1976. Humberto Cardinal Medeiros of Boston celebrated the consecration together with Bishop Fitzpatrick and an estimated crowd of 50,000 people on April 19, 1980.

The Way of the Cross in front of the church was erected with 30 life-size bronze statues by the Italian Edmund Rabanser on a path about one kilometer long and consecrated on October 16, 1993. The mural, Jesus presents his Mother , on the outside wall of the sanctuary, was blessed on February 2, 1995. The shrine itself was declared a national shrine by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on March 24, 1998. Pope John Paul II granted the church the rank of minor basilica on June 12, 1999.

Web links

Commons : Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle on gcatholic.org
  2. ↑ a b history of the Shrine (English)
  3. ↑ Manuel A. Vásquez, Marie F. Marquardt: Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas . 2003, p. 255 ( full text in Google Book Search).
  4. ↑ Stations of the Cross (English)

Coordinates: 26 ° 11 ′ 54.6 "  N , 98 ° 9 ′ 27.4"  W.