The geography of Marian shrines in the United States: A preliminary comparison with Western Europe

From the beginnings of human history, people have designated particular locations as sacred and traveled to them in a pilgrimage. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 314 CE, Christian shrines emerged very soon at martyrs' tombs and other places of historical importance in development of this religion. The distribution of physical relics created many of the Christian shrines in Western Europe. Popular belief concerning Mary began to evolve upon Jesus' death; and in turn, most of these beliefs were adopted into Roman Catholic doctrine and became Mariology or Marianism, the veneration of Mary. In Western Europe, a number of shrines were created from an apparition of Mary to local people, and with any shrine's approval by the institutional Church, it gained an international reputation and following; shrines not granted this approval by the Church have remained less internationally well-known and mostly locally based. This study contrasts the process of Marian shrine development in Western Europe with the United States. A typology is created for Marian shrines in the United States based primarily on the occurrence of an apparition. The distribution of each types is shown and possible explanations are presented. Not a single apparition location has received the approval of the Church. Since the majority of Marian apparition sites in Western Europe have been approved, it was possible to use a classification system based on the reason for their founding. Whereas none of the United States sites have been approved, it was necessary to construct another typology. Thus, this study finds a somewhat different rationale for development of Marian shrines in the United States when compared to Western Europe.