Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham
The Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham ( English Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham ), also known as the Slipper Chapel or the Chapel of Saint Catherine of Alexandria , is a Roman Catholic church in Barsham, Norfolk , England . The monument bears the title of a minor basilica and a national catholic shrine .
history
When the Slipper Chapel was built in 1340, Walsingham was the second most important pilgrimage in England after Canterbury . It was the last station before Walsingham. From 1538, after the English Reformation, King Henry VIII , the chapel was no longer used and was temporarily used as an almshouse, forge, cowshed and barn. In 1863 the chapel was rediscovered by the local and wealthy Charlotte Pearson Boyd (1837-1906). She had previously converted to Catholicism. She bought the building from the farm owner in 1896, restored it, and then donated it to Downside Abbey for Catholic use. On February 6, 1897, the chapel was rebuilt as a sanctuary to display the image for public veneration through papal memorial from Pope Leo XIII. to approve. It was restored by Thomas Garner in 1904, including the new west gable with its windows. Garner also built the listed rectory . The furnishings such as the altar and reredos were made in 1934 by Lillian Dagless.
On the Feast of the Assumption , August 15, 1934, the Bishop of Northampton, Laurence Youens, celebrated the first public mass in the Slipper Chapel in four hundred years, and two days later Cardinal Francis Bourne presided over a national pilgrimage of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales and more than 10,000 people to the sanctuary. From that date it became a national Catholic shrine. The slipper chapel features a stone statue of the Virgin Mary carved by Marcel Barbeau . The statue was brought to Wembley for the Pope's visit , where it was blessed by Pope John Paul II on May 29, 1982.
Today, the complex around the basilica includes a reconciliation chapel, built in 1982, which can accommodate up to 350 people for services and can be opened to the pilgrimage area for larger ceremonies, as well as a bookshop and a tea house.
Appreciation
The Virgin Mary statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was made at the instigation of Pope Pius XII. crowned on August 15, 1954 by his Nuncio Gerald Patrick O'Hara . In 1959, the chapel was given a Grade I listed building. Pope Francis elevated the church as the center of the sanctuary to the status of a minor basilica on December 27, 2015 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b THE SLIPPER CHAPEL at historicengland.org.uk
- ↑ National Shrine Basilica of Our Lady at gcatholic.org
Coordinates: 52 ° 52 ′ 51.6 ″ N , 0 ° 51 ′ 11.3 ″ E