Explore Eternal Roam's documented churches, shrines, monasteries, and abbeys by geography.
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265 documented places
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Basilica
Algiers, North Africa, Algeria
The Marian basilica above the bay of Algiers, whose apse carries the prayer Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims, and where Mass is celebrated every day.
Basilica
Annaba, North Africa, Algeria
The basilica on the hill above ancient Hippo, where the Church in Algeria keeps the memory of her greatest bishop and a relic of his arm, cared for by the Augustinians.
Church
Annaba, North Africa, Algeria
The excavated city where Augustine was bishop for thirty-four years, with the remains of an early Christian basilica and baptistery below the hill that carries his name.
Church
El Menia, North Africa, Algeria
In a Saharan oasis a thousand kilometres south of Algiers, the grave of Saint Charles de Foucauld lies in the cemetery beside the church of Saint Joseph, where it has rested since 1929.
Monastery
Medea, North Africa, Algeria
The Trappist monastery in the Atlas whose seven monks were abducted and killed in 1996. A Catholic community lives and prays here still, and pilgrims are welcomed.
Church
Oran, North Africa, Algeria
The Marian sanctuary on Mount Murdjajo above Oran, restored and reopened in 2018, where Blessed Pierre Claverie and his eighteen companions were beatified on December 8, 2018.
Church
Souk Ahras, North Africa, Algeria
The Numidian town where Monica raised Augustine and where he later gathered a first monastic community. Nothing of their house survives; the ancient town lies beneath the modern city.
Abbey
Melk, Europe, Austria
A luminous Benedictine abbey above the Danube, known for its Baroque church, historic library, and long continuity as a place of prayer and learning.
Church
Geel, Antwerp, Belgium
The Gothic pilgrimage church at Geel where the relics of Saint Dymphna are kept, and where the pilgrimage of the mentally ill produced the household-care tradition the town still practices.
Monastery
Rila Mountains, Europe, Bulgaria
Bulgaria's great Orthodox monastery, set in the Rila Mountains and associated with Saint John of Rila, with painted arcades, a fortress-like courtyard, and deep national memory.
Church
Paphos, Middle East, Cyprus
At Paphos, a medieval church stands among the ruins of an Early Byzantine basilica, and Latin Catholics still celebrate Mass there.
Basilica
Alençon, Europe, France
The flamboyant Gothic parish church of Alençon, raised to a minor basilica in 2009, where Louis and Zélie Martin were married at midnight in 1858 and where Thérèse was baptized in 1873.
Church
Alençon, Europe, France
The house on rue Saint-Blaise where Louis and Zélie Martin brought up their family from 1871, where Thérèse was born in 1873, and where Zélie died in 1877.
Cathedral
Chartres, Europe, France
A UNESCO World Heritage site known for its exceptional Gothic architecture, stunning stained glass windows, and pilgrimage labyrinth.
Church
Chartres, Europe, France
A parish church begun in 1514 where late Gothic passes into Renaissance, with sixteenth-century glass and an interior painted from floor to vault.
Church
Chartres, Europe, France
The church of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Père-en-Vallée in the lower town, with a tower from about the year 1000 and one of the great surviving cycles of fourteenth-century glass.
Basilica
Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Europe, France
The sanctuary on the hillside above Domrémy, built from 1881 and solemnly consecrated in 1926, standing in the landscape that tradition associates with Joan of Arc's voices.
Church
Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Europe, France
The house at Domrémy-la-Pucelle where Joan of Arc was born around 1412 and grew up, kept as a monument since the fifteenth century and restored repeatedly since.
Church
Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Europe, France
The parish church of Domrémy-la-Pucelle, where Joan of Arc was baptized and where she went to Mass throughout her childhood, standing a short walk from the house where she was born.
Abbey
Le Mont-Saint-Michel, Europe, France
A medieval abbey rising above a tidal island, where pilgrimage, monastic prayer, military history, and Gothic architecture meet in one of Europe's most recognizable sacred landscapes.
Basilica
Lisieux, Europe, France
The great twentieth-century pilgrimage basilica raised over Lisieux after Thérèse was canonized in 1925, with a crypt holding the relics of her parents, Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.
Monastery
Lisieux, Europe, France
The Carmelite monastery where Thérèse Martin entered at fifteen in 1888, lived nine years, and died in 1897. The community still lives here, and the chapel holds the reliquary in which her relics have rested since 1923.
Cathedral
Lisieux, Europe, France
The medieval cathedral of Lisieux and the parish church of the Martin family, where Thérèse heard Sunday Mass for eleven years and made her first confession.
Church
Lisieux, Europe, France
The house on the hill above Lisieux where Louis Martin brought his motherless daughters in 1877, and where Thérèse lived the eleven years between her mother's death and her entry into Carmel.
Marian Shrine
Lourdes, Europe, France
The watermill where Saint Bernadette Soubirous was born on January 7, 1844, and spent the first years of her childhood. The preserved rooms begin the Lourdes story in family life, honest work, and an ordinary home before poverty overtook the Soubirous family.
Marian Shrine
Lourdes, Europe, France
The precise rock cave and spring at Massabielle where Saint Bernadette Soubirous reported eighteen apparitions in 1858. The apparitions are recognized by the Church as worthy of belief; this guide stays with the cave, its testimony, its gestures, and its practical conduct.
Church
Lourdes, Europe, France
The present parish church of Lourdes, built after Bernadette's lifetime, preserves the font from the former church of Saint Peter in which Saint Bernadette Soubirous was baptized on January 9, 1844. The font returns her story to the sacramental life of the Church.
Marian Shrine
Lourdes, Europe, France
The complete Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes: the Grotto, basilicas, sacraments, processions, water practices, and practical welcome for a pilgrimage complex shaped by care for the sick.
Marian Shrine
Lourdes, Europe, France
The former prison room where the impoverished Soubirous family lived in 1858, during the apparitions at Massabielle. Its low beams, hearth, and bare walls make the poverty surrounding Bernadette's testimony impossible to romanticize.
Monastery
Nevers, Europe, France
The Nevers convent where Saint Bernadette lived as a Sister of Charity and where her body is venerated in the chapel.
Cathedral
Orléans, Europe, France
The cathedral of Orléans, dedicated to the Holy Cross, where the city's Johannine observance is still kept and where Joan of Arc came to give thanks after the siege was lifted in May 1429.
Church
Orléans, Europe, France
The Marian church of Orléans, whose medieval belfry survives beside a body rebuilt after the bombing of 1940, and which keeps the venerated image of Notre-Dame-des-Miracles.
Basilica
Paris, Europe, France
Just north of central Paris, the Basilica Cathedral of Saint-Denis gathers the shrine of Saint Denis, first bishop and martyr of Paris, the royal necropolis of France, and the abbey church where Abbot Suger raised the first major Gothic interior in the 1140s.
Church
Paris, Europe, France
A quiet Marian shrine with global reach, tied to St. Catherine Labouré and the Miraculous Medal.
Church
Paris, Europe, France
The Paris chapel where pilgrims venerate St. Vincent de Paul, one of the great saints of Catholic charity.
Cathedral
Paris, Europe, France
The cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Paris, set on the Île de la Cité, returned to worship in December 2024 after the long restoration that followed the 2019 fire. Notre-Dame remains the principal Marian dedication of the city and the present pastoral home of the Crown of Thorns, traditionally venerated as one of the relics of the Passion.
Church
Paris, Europe, France
A quiet Paris Foreign Missions site where the memory of missionary martyrs opens Catholic Paris toward Asia and the wider Church.
Basilica
Paris, Europe, France
A hilltop basilica of the Sacred Heart where Montmartre is read first through prayer, adoration, and Catholic memory.
Church
Paris, Europe, France
A former Benedictine abbey church where the Left Bank still carries the early monastic and episcopal memory of Catholic Paris.
Church
Paris, Europe, France
A monumental Left Bank parish church where sacred art, liturgy, music, and the Sulpician memory of Paris meet.
Church
Paris, Europe, France
A Latin Quarter parish-sanctuary where Paris still venerates Saint Geneviève beside one of the city's most unusual sacred interiors.
Church
Paris, Europe, France
The royal palace chapel built by Saint Louis IX on the Île de la Cité to house the Crown of Thorns and the other relics of the Passion acquired for the kingdom of France.
Cathedral
Reims, Europe, France
The coronation church of the kings of France and one of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe, where Charles VII was crowned on July 17, 1429 with Joan of Arc present.
Cathedral
Rouen, Europe, France
The metropolitan cathedral of Rouen, a great Gothic church of many building periods, which carries the current Catholic commemoration of Joan of Arc in the city where she was tried and died.
Church
Rouen, Europe, France
The square in Rouen where Joan of Arc was burned on May 30, 1431, now a market place with a commemorative cross, the excavated remains of Saint-Sauveur, and the modern church of Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc.
Church
Vaucouleurs, Europe, France
The castle chapel at Vaucouleurs, where a medieval crypt holding the Marian image of Notre-Dame-des-Voûtes survives beneath a chapel rebuilt between 1923 and 1929, on the site from which Joan of Arc left for Chinon in February 1429.
Cathedral
Bremen, Germany
Bremen's cathedral preserves the episcopal history of Saint Willehad, the city's first bishop, and Saint Ansgar, who rebuilt the northern mission from Bremen after Hamburg's destruction. The present cathedral is Lutheran; Catholic pilgrims come as respectful guests within a shared Christian history.
Cathedral
Cologne, Europe, Germany
A magnificent Gothic masterpiece housing the Shrine of the Three Kings, said to contain the relics of the Magi.
Marian Shrine
Kevelaer, Europe, Germany
A major Marian pilgrimage destination in northwestern Europe, centered around the Chapel of Grace and a small 17th-century devotional image.
Relic destination
Rüdesheim am Rhein, Europe, Germany
The bones of Hildegard of Bingen are kept in a gilded shrine in the parish and pilgrimage church at Eibingen, not at the Abbey of St. Hildegard a kilometer uphill, and are carried through the village each September 17.
Monastery
Thessaly, Europe, Greece
A Greek Orthodox monastic landscape where monasteries rise from sandstone pillars above Thessaly, joining architecture, ascent, silence, and living Christian prayer.
Church
Kolkata, Asia, India
The simple Kolkata motherhouse where Saint Teresa of Calcutta lived, guided the Missionaries of Charity, died, and was buried; pilgrims enter a working religious house to pray at her tomb.
Church
Panaji, Asia, India
The Jesuit church at Old Goa that holds the body of Saint Francis Xavier. His remains reached Goa in 1554 and were moved into this church in 1624; since 1698 the silver casket that contains them has rested on a marble mausoleum in the chapel off the south transept.
Marian Shrine
Ambarawa, Central Java, Indonesia
A Lourdes grotto of the Archdiocese of Semarang at Ambarawa, blessed on August 15, 1954. Not an apparition site.
Cathedral
Jakarta, Indonesia
The cathedral and Jesuit parish of the Archdiocese of Jakarta, dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. A national ecclesial gateway, not a major pilgrimage shrine.
Marian Shrine
Kediri, East Java, Indonesia
The diocesan Marian sanctuary of Surabaya at Puhsarang, with a 1936 Javanese Catholic church and a Lourdes grotto. Not an apparition site.
Cathedral
Larantuka, Flores · East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
The cathedral and parish church of Larantuka, dedicated to Mary as Queen of the Rosary. It is the ecclesial center of the town's Holy Week, not a ticketed shrine.
Church
Larantuka, Flores · East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
The chapel on the main road at Pohon Sirih that keeps Tuan Ana, the image of Christ in Larantuka's Holy Week, opposite the Mater Dolorosa prayer garden.
Church
Larantuka, Flores · East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
The chapel that keeps Tuan Ma, the image of Our Lady at the heart of Larantuka's Holy Week. Pilgrims come here to pray before her, especially when the chapel is opened in Semana Santa.
Marian Shrine
Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia
A modern Marian sanctuary in Medan dedicated to Our Lady of Good Health, Annai Velangkanni, in an Indo-Mughal architectural language with Indonesian elements.
Church
Negara, Bali · Jembrana, Indonesia
The parish church of the Sacred Heart at Palasari, a Balinese Catholic village in Jembrana. A living parish of inculturation, not a first-wave pilgrimage shrine.
Church
Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta · Java, Indonesia
The parish church of the Sacred Heart at Ganjuran, with the candi in which Christ is shown as a Javanese king. A working parish and a place of pilgrimage south of Yogyakarta.
Marian Shrine
Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta · Java, Indonesia
A Marian pilgrimage landscape in the Menoreh hills, bound to the 1904 baptisms and to a Lourdes grotto set in a Javanese Catholic path of prayer.
Monastery
Alqosh, Middle East, Iraq
One of Iraq's oldest Christian monasteries, built into the mountainside above Alqosh, rooted in the Church of the East and later central to Chaldean Catholic history.
Cathedral
Baghdad, Middle East, Iraq
A twentieth-century cathedral in Karrada, seat of the living Chaldean Catholic community of Baghdad and, in 2021, the site of Pope Francis's Holy Mass during the first papal visit to Iraq.
Church
Mosul, Middle East, Iraq
A nineteenth-century Syriac Catholic church in the Old City of Mosul, badly damaged in 2017 and restored with UNESCO, returned to its community with new bells cast in Italy.
Church
Mosul, Middle East, Iraq
A nineteenth-century Dominican mission complex in the Old City of Mosul, where worship, education, printing, and medicine shaped Mosul's civic life, restored by UNESCO with the Dominican Order and publicly reopened in 2025.
Monastery
Qaraqosh, Middle East, Iraq
A living Syriac Catholic pilgrimage site in the Nineveh Plains, holding the memory of Behnam and Sarah, venerated through a martyr tradition, alongside medieval sculpture and a history of restoration after deliberate damage.
Church
Qaraqosh (Baghdeda), Middle East, Iraq
A monumental Syriac Catholic church built through years of communal effort, desecrated during occupation, reclaimed by its community, and visited by Pope Francis in 2021.
Monastery
Athlone, Europe, Ireland
The great early Christian monastic city founded by Saint Ciarán beside the River Shannon, where cathedral ruins, round towers, churches, crosses, and graves still gather on open ground.
Monastery
County Wicklow, Europe, Ireland
The monastic city Saint Kevin founded in the valley of the two lakes, where a round tower, cathedral, and small stone churches stand among crosses and graves below the Wicklow hills.
Church
Kildare, Europe, Ireland
The cathedral and round tower of Kildare stand on the site of Saint Brigid's monastery, the church of the oak, with the remains of her fire temple in the churchyard and her holy well nearby.
Church
Kildare, Europe, Ireland
A quiet holy well at Tully on the edge of Kildare, where pilgrims follow prayer stations beneath the trees and complete the living pilgrimage through Brigid's town.
Marian Shrine
Knock, Europe, Ireland
Site of a reported apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, and Saint John the Evangelist in 1879.
Church
Westport, Europe, Ireland
Ireland's great penitential mountain pilgrimage above Clew Bay, climbed from Murrisk toward Saint Patrick's Oratory with prayer, preparation, and respect for difficult terrain.
Church
Christian Quarter, Old City of Jerusalem
The Christian sanctuary that gathers beneath one roof the sites venerated since antiquity as Calvary and the tomb of Christ.
Holy Land Site
Mount of Olives, Jerusalem
The Mount of Olives sanctuary where the Church keeps vigil with Christ in his agony before the Passion.
Holy Land Site
Mount Tabor, Galilee
The summit basilica where Christian tradition venerates the Transfiguration, received with care because the Gospels name only a high mountain.
Holy Land Site
Nazareth, Galilee
The great Nazareth basilica built over the grotto venerated as the place where Mary gave her fiat at the Annunciation.
Holy Land Site
Nazareth, Galilee
The Franciscan church a short walk from the Annunciation basilica, venerated by long Nazareth tradition in connection with Joseph's house and workshop.
Holy Land Site
Capernaum, Galilee
The lakeshore town made a center of Jesus' Galilean ministry, with remains venerated as Saint Peter's house beside the later synagogue.
Holy Land Site
Tabgha, Galilee
The Benedictine church on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, built on Byzantine foundations, where the Church remembers the feeding of the multitude.
Holy Land Site
Tabgha, Galilee
The small Franciscan chapel on the Galilee shore, built around the rock called Mensa Christi and given to the memory of John 21.
Holy Land Site
Mount of Beatitudes, Galilee
The hillside above the Sea of Galilee long received as the place of the Sermon on the Mount, with an octagonal church built for the eight Beatitudes.
Basilica
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The 13th-century basilica raised over the body of Saint Clare on the southern edge of the old town. Pilgrims come here for her tomb in the crypt and for the original San Damiano Crucifix, preserved in a side chapel beside the nave.
Basilica
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The papal basilica raised over the tomb of Saint Francis on the western edge of Assisi. Pilgrims descend through the upper and lower churches to the crypt where Francis is buried with four of his earliest companions.
Cathedral
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The cathedral church of Assisi on the highest piazza of the old town, traditionally identified as the place where Saint Francis and Saint Clare were baptized. The Romanesque facade is one of the finest in central Italy, and the crypt and earlier layers preserve the memory of Saint Rufinus, the bishop venerated as the first patron of the city.
Church
Assisi, Europe, Italy
A seventeenth-century Franciscan church in the center of Assisi, built over the place long held by local tradition to be the house of Saint Francis's family. The church keeps the tradition of Francis's early household life and conversion with a reverence that does not pretend the rooms are documentary certainties.
Monastery
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The hermitage on Mount Subasio above Assisi, where Francis and his earliest brothers withdrew to pray. The buildings are kept small, the silence is kept strict, and the noise of the town below does not climb this high.
Basilica
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The small chapel of the Porziuncola, the cradle of the Franciscan movement, stands intact in the valley below Assisi inside a much larger 16th-century basilica raised to enclose it. The cell where Saint Francis died is preserved a few steps away.
Church
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The small church and cloister below the southern walls of Assisi where Francis is said to have heard Christ speak from the crucifix and where Clare and her first sisters lived in enclosure for over forty years.
Church
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The sanctuary in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore beside Assisi's former episcopal complex, where the local Franciscan tradition remembers Saint Francis's renunciation before his father. It is also the church where Saint Carlo Acutis is venerated, making it a place where Assisi's first Franciscan poverty and a modern saint's Eucharistic witness meet without being confused.
Church
Assisi, Europe, Italy
The Franciscan sanctuary in Rivotorto on the valley floor below Assisi, which keeps the memory of the first fraternity of Saint Francis and his companions before their move to the Porziuncola. It is a separate pilgrimage stop, not a casual continuation of an old-town walk.
Basilica
Bari, Europe, Italy
The Puglian basilica built in 1087 to hold the relics of Saint Nicholas after sailors from Bari carried them out of Myra. Catholics and Orthodox Christians pray in the same crypt, at the same tomb.
Church
Caposele, Campania, Italy
The Redemptorist sanctuary in the Irpinian mountains where Saint Gerard Majella died in 1755 and where his remains are kept, and the shrine Catholics have brought pregnancies to ever since.
Basilica
Cascia, Europe, Italy
The basilica and Augustinian monastery complex in Cascia where pilgrims pray before the body of Saint Rita.
Abbey
Cassino, Europe, Italy
The great Benedictine motherhouse founded by Saint Benedict, rebuilt after wartime destruction and still central to the story of Western monastic life.
Church
Forlì, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
The Servite church in Forlì where Saint Peregrine Laziosi's body is preserved in an urn, and where the painted Crucifixion associated with his healing is still kept in the chapter room.
Marian Shrine
Loreto, Europe, Italy
The Marian sanctuary of the Marche, built between 1469 and 1587 around three ancient stone walls that Catholic tradition venerates as the house of Mary at Nazareth.
Basilica
Milan, Europe, Italy
The church Ambrose founded for two martyrs and chose for his own grave. Ambrose, Gervasius and Protasius still lie together in the crypt, and the Milan around them is Lombard Romanesque built over a late-antique burial ground.
Cathedral
Milan, Europe, Italy
The iconic cathedral of Milan, known for its intricate gothic architecture and stunning views from the roof.
Basilica
Monte Sant'Angelo, Europe, Italy
The cave sanctuary of Saint Michael on the Gargano, where Catholics have prayed since late antiquity and where a Gothic stairway descends from the town into a natural grotto that serves as the church.
Shrine
Padua, Veneto, Italy
The Catholic sanctuary at Arcella preserves the place where Saint Anthony died on June 13, 1231, after the friars carried him from Camposampiero toward Padua.
Abbey
Padua, Veneto, Italy
A living Benedictine abbey basilica built around the memory of Saint Justina of Padua, with ancient martyr traditions and relics long venerated as those of Saint Luke the Evangelist.
Basilica
Padua, Europe, Italy
The Franciscan basilica in Padua built over the tomb of Saint Anthony, where pilgrims pray at the tomb itself and venerate his relics in the Chapel of the Treasury.
Cathedral
Padua, Veneto, Italy
Padua's living cathedral, dedicated to Saint Mary of the Assumption, and the adjoining medieval Baptistery whose frescoes place baptism within the whole history of salvation.
Shrine
Padua, Veneto, Italy
A living Capuchin sanctuary centered on Saint Leopold Mandić, his bodily tomb, the preserved cell where he heard confessions, and a continuing ministry of reconciliation.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The Archbasilica of St. John Lateran is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome and the seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome. The oldest of the four major papal basilicas and the first public basilica of the city, it is honored as the mother and head of all the churches of Rome and of the world.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The roofless walls of the vast fourth-century covered cemetery raised beside the grave of Saint Agnes, one of the best-preserved of Rome's circus-shaped basilicas.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
A twelfth-century basilica standing on a fourth-century church, which stands on first-century Roman rooms and a temple of Mithras. The relics venerated as Saint Clement's are beneath the high altar and Saint Cyril is buried in the church below.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The sixth stop of the Seven Churches and the last of the five papal basilicas, raised over the grave of the deacon Lawrence. Two churches of different centuries were joined end to end here, and the building was bombed in 1943.
Catacomb
Rome, Europe, Italy
The third stop of the Seven Churches, on the Via Appia. The cemetery beneath it gave the word catacomb to the Church, and its second-century graffiti record Romans praying to Peter and Paul at a place that was never their tomb.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The fifth stop of the Seven Churches, built inside Saint Helena's own palace to hold what she brought back from Jerusalem. Earth from Calvary lies under the floor, which is how the basilica came by the second half of its name.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The first temple in Rome consecrated as a Christian church, given to the Virgin and the martyrs by Boniface IV in 609, with the bones of martyrs brought from the catacombs beneath its floor.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The great Marian basilica of Trastevere, whose tradition places a Christian meeting place here from the third century and whose apse carries mosaics of the Virgin from the twelfth and thirteenth.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
On the summit of the Esquiline Hill, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is the largest of Rome's churches dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and one of the four major papal basilicas of the city.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
A ninth-century basilica behind Santa Maria Maggiore, holding the most complete early medieval mosaics in Rome and the column venerated as that of the flagellation.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
One of the oldest titular churches of Rome, holding an apse mosaic of Christ enthroned among the apostles made around 390, and today the national church of the Filipino community.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The best-preserved fifth-century basilica in Rome and the mother church of the Order of Preachers. Its cypress doors carry one of the earliest surviving images of the Crucifixion, and Thomas Aquinas began the Summa Theologiae in the priory beside it.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
A fortified medieval basilica and enclosed monastery on the Caelian, with a silent cloister and the thirteenth-century fresco cycle of Constantine and Pope Sylvester.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
Two kilometers south of the Aurelian Walls along the ancient Ostian Way, the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls is the papal basilica raised over the tomb traditionally venerated as the burial place of the Apostle Paul.
Catacomb
Rome, Europe, Italy
On the Via Appia Antica south of the Aurelian Walls, the Catacombs of San Callisto are the largest and most historically central of the Roman catacombs. They preserve the official cemetery of the Church of Rome from the late second century, the Crypt of the Popes where most of the third-century bishops of Rome were buried, the early burial place traditionally associated with Saint Cecilia, and some of the earliest Christian fresco programs in Rome.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The French national church in Rome, where Caravaggio's three paintings of Saint Matthew stand in the chapel they were made for, above an altar where Mass is still offered.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The mother church of the Society of Jesus, holding the tomb of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the image of the Madonna della Strada he prayed before.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The round fourth-century mausoleum raised by Constantine's daughter beside the tomb of Saint Agnes, keeping the oldest surviving monumental Christian mosaics in Rome.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The church near Piazza Farnese where Philip Neri lived for thirty-two years and where the Oratory began, a decade and more before the Congregation moved to the Chiesa Nuova.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The church Honorius III gave Saint Dominic before Santa Sabina, and where he founded the first monastery of Dominican nuns in 1221. Dominican sisters have been here ever since, and the twelfth-century campanile is among the finest in Rome.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The basilica on the Via Nomentana raised over the catacomb where Saint Agnes was buried, two miles beyond the ancient walls. Her body relics rest beneath the high altar, under a seventh-century apse mosaic that is among the oldest images of the saint in Rome.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The Baroque church on Piazza Navona, its concave Borromini facade set over the arches of the ancient Stadium of Domitian, on the spot Roman tradition associates with the public witness of Saint Agnes. A shrine within preserves a reliquary venerated as her skull.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The Benedictine house on the Aventine, built in the eighteen-nineties as the meeting point of an order that had never had one. The Abbot Primate lives here, the Church studies its liturgy here, and Vespers is sung in Gregorian chant.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The church of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem on the Janiculum, founded as a hermitage in 1419 and frescoed by Pinturicchio, Peruzzi and Domenichino.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
Built over Roman structures long venerated in Christian tradition as Saint Cecilia's family home and martyrdom site, this ancient basilica holds her tomb and remains a pilgrimage destination for musicians.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The Roman church given to Philip Neri's Oratory in 1575, where he is buried in his own chapel and where the rooms he lived in are still kept above the sacristy.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The Dominican basilica beside the Pantheon, the one Gothic church interior in Rome, where the body of Saint Catherine of Siena rests beneath the high altar.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The oldest Christian ground on the Aventine. The Roman synod of 499 lists it as the titulus of Aquila and Prisca, and Catholic tradition holds that the house of Saint Paul's coworkers stood here. A Mithraeum survives beneath the floor.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Italy
The Aventine's monastic house, and in the tenth century one of the great missionary centers of Latin Christendom. Adalbert of Prague was a monk here before he went to the Slavs and was killed.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The font of the cathedral of Rome, given its octagonal form by Sixtus III in the fifth century and the model from which Western baptisteries were built for a thousand years.
Church
Rome, Europe, Italy
The stairs venerated as those Christ climbed in Pilate's praetorium, ascended on the knees, and the Sancta Sanctorum above them, the private chapel of the medieval popes.
Church
San Giovanni Rotondo, Europe, Italy
The Capuchin sanctuary complex where Padre Pio lived for more than fifty years, heard confessions, received the stigmata, and is now venerated at his tomb.
Church
Siena, Tuscany, Italy
The Dominican church on the Camporegio hill above Catherine's own neighborhood, where she received the habit of the Dominican Third Order and where the relic of her head has been venerated since the 1380s.
Church
Siena, Tuscany, Italy
The Benincasa family house in Fontebranda, bought by the city of Siena in 1466 and turned over four centuries into a stacked complex of oratories and churches around the rooms where Catherine grew up.
Monastery
Subiaco, Europe, Italy
The monastery built into the cliff above Subiaco around the cave where Benedict lived as a hermit before he founded anything. This is where Benedictine life began, not where Benedict is buried.
Church
Nagasaki, Kyushu, Japan
The Catholic shrine complex on Nishizaka Hill marks the documented place where Saint Paul Miki and his twenty-five companions were crucified on February 5, 1597. Its monument, museum, and Saint Philip Church hold the memory of Japan's martyrs together.
Church
Nagasaki, Kyushu, Japan
Two coastal villages north-west of Nagasaki where Hidden Christian communities survived the ban, and where two small churches were built after it ended. Shitsu shows how those communities divided afterward; Ono shows one that returned to Catholic communion.
Cathedral
Nagasaki, Kyushu, Japan
The cathedral of the Urakami Catholic community, the village whose Christians identified themselves at Ōura in 1865 and were then exiled for it. Their brick cathedral, finished in the 1920s, was destroyed on August 9, 1945 and rebuilt in 1959.
Church
Nagasaki, Kyushu, Japan
The church the Paris Foreign Missions Society built for Nagasaki's foreign settlement in 1864, dedicated to the Twenty-Six Martyrs and facing the hill where they died. A month after its dedication, Christians from Urakami identified themselves here to Father Bernard Petitjean.
Holy Land Site
East bank of the Jordan River, Jordan
The east-bank pilgrimage landscape identified with Bethany Beyond the Jordan and the baptism of Jesus, with archaeological remains and a new Latin church.
Church
Nairobi, Africa, Kenya
The chapel of the Consolata Missionary Sisters at Flora Hostel in Nairobi, where the remains of Blessed Leonella Sgorbati have rested since 2017.
Marian Shrine
Mexico City, North America, Mexico
A major Marian shrine at Tepeyac in Mexico City, gathered around the image venerated as Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Cathedral
Mexico City, North America, Mexico
The cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Mexico on the Zócalo, begun in 1573 and finished in 1813, with the Sagrario Metropolitano built against its eastern flank.
Church
Mexico City, North America, Mexico
The eighteenth-century basilica at the foot of Tepeyac that held the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe until 1976, its baroque facade leaning on the soft former lakebed beside the modern basilica.
Church
Mexico City, North America, Mexico
The Jesuit parish church in Colonia Roma where Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro is buried, with a small museum beside it holding relics of his martyrdom in 1927.
Church
Mexico City, North America, Mexico
The church of the first Franciscan convent in Mexico City, founded in the 1520s, now a single building on Calle Madero where a vast religious house once stood.
Church
Mexico City, North America, Mexico
The church at the corner of Reforma and Hidalgo that has become the center of devotion to San Judas Tadeo in Mexico, drawing crowds that fill the surrounding streets on the twenty-eighth of every month.
Church
Mexico City, North America, Mexico
The surviving church of the Dominican house in Mexico City, dedicated in 1736, standing on a quiet arcaded square where the rest of the convent has vanished.
Church
Marrakech, North Africa, Morocco
The Franciscan parish of Marrakech, dedicated to the five friars sent by Saint Francis who were killed here in 1220, whose martyrdom turned a young Augustinian canon in Coimbra into Anthony of Padua.
Monastery
Midelt, North Africa, Morocco
The Trappist priory in the Moroccan Middle Atlas where the community of Notre-Dame de l'Atlas continues after Tibhirine. A living house of prayer, not a memorial.
Cathedral
Rabat, North Africa, Morocco
The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Rabat, whose patrons are the five Franciscan martyrs of Marrakech, and where Pope Francis met the Moroccan Church in 2019.
Church
Armagh, Europe, Northern Ireland
The Catholic cathedral of Armagh, raised in the nineteenth century across the valley from the older cathedral hill and dedicated to Saint Patrick, apostle of Ireland.
Cathedral
Downpatrick, Europe, Northern Ireland
A Church of Ireland cathedral on the Hill of Down beside the traditional burial place of Saint Patrick, visited by pilgrims with historical humility and Christian respect.
Cathedral
Trondheim, Europe, Norway
Norway's national shrine and the northern goal of the Saint Olav Ways, built over the burial tradition of the eleventh-century king and martyr Saint Olav.
Church
Lima, South America, Peru
The Dominican basilica and convent of Lima, where the city keeps the relics of three of its saints together: Rose of Lima, Martin de Porres, and John Macias, around a tiled colonial cloister a few blocks from the Plaza Mayor.
Cathedral
Lima, South America, Peru
The cathedral of Lima on the Plaza Mayor, where the archdiocese keeps the relics of Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo, the shepherd-bishop who confirmed Rose of Lima, within a church that also holds the tomb of the city's Spanish founder and centuries of colonial art.
Church
Lima, South America, Peru
The sanctuary that grew around a wall image of the crucified Christ painted by an enslaved man of Angolan origin in colonial Lima, the Lord of Miracles, whose October procession is one of the largest acts of Catholic devotion in the Americas.
Church
Lima, South America, Peru
The sanctuary on the site of Rose of Lima's family home, where pilgrims visit the garden hermitage she built, the well into which tradition says she cast the key of her penitential chain, and the sanctuary church that grew around her memory.
Marian Shrine
Czestochowa, Europe, Poland
Home to the famous Black Madonna, this shrine is one of the most important Marian pilgrimage sites in the world.
Marian Shrine
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, Europe, Poland
The Passion and Marian sanctuary founded in 1602 above the Beskid foothills, where a Baroque basilica and Bernardine monastery head a landscape of chapels walked as the dróżki kalwaryjskie.
Basilica
Kraków, Europe, Poland
The Conventual Franciscan basilica opposite the archbishop's palace, where Karol Wojtyła prayed as bishop and where Wyspiański's windows fill a medieval church with modern light.
Church
Kraków, Europe, Poland
The convent chapel, tomb of Saint Faustina, and international basilica at Łagiewniki, where pilgrims encounter Divine Mercy within the Church's sacramental and Easter life.
Basilica
Kraków, Europe, Poland
The Dominican priory church in Kraków, held by the Order of Preachers since 1222, where Saint Hyacinth's relics rest in the chapel above the sacristy.
Church
Kraków, Europe, Poland
The sanctuary of Saint John Paul II on the ground of the Solvay works where Karol Wojtyła laboured, a short walk from Łagiewniki and an institution entirely distinct from the Divine Mercy sanctuary.
Basilica
Kraków, Europe, Poland
The Marian parish church on Kraków's Main Market Square, where the Veit Stoss altarpiece is opened each morning above an altar that is still in daily use.
Cathedral
Kraków, Europe, Poland
The cathedral of Kraków on Wawel hill, built around the shrine of St. Stanislaus and holding the tombs of Poland's kings, its bishops, and Saint Jadwiga.
Basilica
Wadowice, Lesser Poland, Poland
The parish church of Wadowice, where Karol Wojtyła was baptized in June 1920 and served as an altar boy. It is still the parish church of the town, and John Paul II gave it the rank of minor basilica in 1992.
Church
Wadowice, Lesser Poland, Poland
The building on ul. Kościelna where Karol Wojtyła was born in 1920, now a state and Church museum. The family flat inside has been reconstructed; the exhibition around it runs from Wadowice to the Vatican.
Church
Wadowice, Lesser Poland, Poland
The Carmelite church and monastery on the rise above Wadowice, founded by St. Raphael Kalinowski in 1892. Karol Wojtyła received his scapular here as a boy, and it was returned to the sanctuary after his death.
Marian Shrine
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
The hamlet about two kilometers south of the Sanctuary of Fátima where the three shepherd children, Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, were born and raised. The homes of the Marto family and of Lúcia are preserved as they were, and the well behind Lúcia's house is remembered in the memoirs of Sister Lúcia as the site of the second apparition of the Angel of Peace in 1916.
Marian Shrine
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
The first basilica of the Fatima sanctuary, raised at the eastern head of the esplanade in answer to the request that a chapel be built at the Cova da Iria. Begun in 1928 and consecrated in 1953, it holds the tombs of Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto in the side aisles of the nave, and the tomb of Sister Lucia dos Santos, transferred from Coimbra on February 19, 2006.
Marian Shrine
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
The vast circular church at the western end of the Fatima esplanade, dedicated in 2007 and built so that the sanctuary could celebrate Mass for many thousands of pilgrims under cover.
Marian Shrine
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
The small open walled chapel at the Cova da Iria built at the spot where the Virgin Mary appeared to Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto between May and October 1917.
Marian Shrine
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
The rocky outcrop on the slope of the Cabeço, above Aljustrel, which the memoirs of Sister Lúcia name as the site of the first and third apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916, the year before the apparitions of Our Lady.
Church
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
The parish church of Fátima, about a kilometer from the sanctuary, where Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto were baptized and brought up in the practice of the faith.
Marian Shrine
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
Site of the Marian apparitions to three shepherd children in 1917, now a major pilgrimage center for prayer, penance, and peace.
Marian Shrine
Fatima, Europe, Portugal
Valinhos is the apparition site near Fátima, Portugal: the clearing among olive trees on the slope above Aljustrel where, on August 19, 1917, Our Lady is reported to have appeared to the three shepherd children after they were detained on the 13th and prevented from reaching the Cova da Iria.
Church
Lisbon, Europe, Portugal
The church raised over the house venerated as the birthplace of Saint Anthony, a minute downhill from the cathedral where he was baptized.
Church
Lisbon, Europe, Portugal
One of the earliest Jesuit churches in the world, plain outside and extraordinary within, holding the Chapel of Saint John the Baptist built in Rome and shipped to Lisbon.
Basilica
Lisbon, Europe, Portugal
The great white dome west of the center, built by Queen Maria I in fulfillment of a vow and among the earliest churches in the world dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Monastery
Lisbon, Europe, Portugal
The Manueline monastery at Belém, begun in 1501 on the shore from which Portuguese ships and missionaries sailed, with the church of Santa Maria de Belém still open for prayer.
Cathedral
Lisbon, Europe, Portugal
The mother church of Lisbon, begun in 1147 after the city passed into Christian hands, where the relics of Saint Vincent are venerated and Saint Anthony was baptized.
Monastery
Lisbon, Europe, Portugal
The great Augustinian house above Alfama, founded in 1147 and dedicated to the patron of Lisbon, holding the largest collection of Baroque azulejos in Portugal.
Marian Shrine
Gikongoro, Kibeho · Nyaruguru District · Diocese of Gikongoro, Rwanda
The Marian sanctuary at Kibeho, where Mary is recognized as having appeared under the title Nyina wa Jambo, Mother of the Word. Bishop Augustin Misago of Gikongoro judged the apparitions of 1981 onward worthy of belief in three early visionaries.
Church
Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Dunfermline is the place most closely bound to Saint Margaret of Scotland. She founded a church here around 1070 and was buried here in 1093, and the stone base of the medieval shrine that held her relics still stands in the open air at the east end of the church.
Monastery
Iona, Argyll and Bute, Scotland
The island foundation of Saint Columba, where an early monastic enclosure, a small shrine, carved crosses, and the later Benedictine abbey hold more than fourteen centuries of Christian prayer.
Cathedral
St Andrews, Fife, Scotland
The ruins of Scotland's largest medieval cathedral and the national shrine that once held relics of Saint Andrew, with St Rule's Tower still marking the coast for pilgrims.
Cathedral
Whithorn, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
The medieval cathedral priory built around the veneration of Saint Ninian at Whithorn, one of Scotland's earliest recorded Christian centers and a living destination for Catholic pilgrimage.
Monastery
Alba de Tormes, Europe, Spain
The Discalced Carmelite convent Teresa founded in 1571 and died in on October 4, 1582, where her body is venerated in the upper chamber of the high altarpiece together with the relics of her heart and her left arm.
Church
Azpeitia, Basque Country, Spain
The Catholic sanctuary built around the Loyola family tower house, where Ignatius was born and where his long recovery after Pamplona became a conversion toward Christ.
Church
Barcelona, Europe, Spain
An unfinished masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi, known for its distinctive modernist architecture, which has been under construction since 1882.
Monastery
Blascomillán, Europe, Spain
The remote hamlet in the province of Ávila where John of the Cross and two companions opened the first house of the Discalced Carmelite friars on November 28, 1568, now marked by a commemorative convent and a jubilee church.
Church
Fontiveros, Europe, Spain
The great brick parish church of the village where Juan de Yepes was born in 1542, a designated church of the 2025 to 2026 Sanjuanist jubilee, with a Carmelite convent standing on the site traditionally identified as his family's house.
Church
Manresa, Catalonia, Spain
The cave sanctuary above the Cardener where Ignatius prayed during his eleven months in Manresa and where the lived roots of the Spiritual Exercises came into focus.
Monastery
Monistrol de Montserrat, Europe, Spain
A Benedictine abbey on a serrated mountain in Catalonia that is three things at once: a living monastery, the sanctuary of Our Lady of Montserrat, and the place where Ignatius of Loyola laid down his sword in 1522.
Church
Santiago de Compostela, Europe, Spain
The Franciscan house north of the cathedral, held in local tradition to have been founded after Saint Francis walked to Santiago as a pilgrim, and home to the Museum of the Holy Land.
Church
Santiago de Compostela, Europe, Spain
The parish church on the Rúa Nova traditionally presented as the only church in Spain dedicated to Mary Salome, the mother of Saint James the Greater and Saint John.
Church
Santiago de Compostela, Europe, Spain
The twelfth-century collegiate church on the river Sar, the most complete Romanesque interior in Santiago after the cathedral, famous for the alarming lean of its nave piers.
Monastery
Santiago de Compostela, Europe, Spain
The great Benedictine house facing the cathedral across the Praza da Inmaculada, founded in the shadow of the Apostle's tomb and rebuilt at monumental scale in the seventeenth century.
Monastery
Santiago de Compostela, Europe, Spain
The Benedictine house founded to keep watch over the newly identified tomb of the Apostle, still a living enclosed community closing the eastern side of the Praza da Quintana.
Cathedral
Santiago de Compostela, Europe, Spain
The endpoint of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, this cathedral houses the relics of St. James the Apostle.
Monastery
Segovia, Europe, Spain
The Discalced Carmelite friary below the walls of Segovia, founded by John of the Cross in 1586 and governed by him in his last years, where the greater part of his relics has rested since 1593 in a tomb chapel off the transept.
Basilica
Ávila, Europe, Spain
The seventeenth-century Carmelite church raised over the site of the house where Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in 1515, with a chapel on the room her birth is traditionally placed in and a Teresian museum in the crypt below.
Monastery
Ávila, Europe, Spain
The convent Teresa founded on August 24, 1562, the first house of the Discalced Carmelite reform, whose church by Francisco de Mora became the model the order copied across Spain.
Monastery
Ávila, Europe, Spain
The Carmelite monastery outside the walls of Ávila where Teresa lived for close to forty years and where John of the Cross served as confessor, keeping her prioress cell, the parlor, and a drawing of the crucified Christ made by John's own hand.
Church
Úbeda, Europe, Spain
The Carmelite oratory and convent museum at Úbeda in Andalusia, built on the site of the friary where John of the Cross died in December 1591, keeping the leg and forearm returned to the town in 1607.
Church
Damascus, Middle East, Syria
A small underground shrine in Old Damascus keeps the tradition of the disciple who received Saul as a brother.
Church
Damascus, Middle East, Syria
A twentieth-century Franciscan shrine marks the traditional place of Paul's encounter with the risen Christ on the approach to Damascus, where Acts gives us the event but not its precise location.
Cathedral
Tunis, North Africa, Tunisia
The seat of the Archdiocese of Tunis, named for a saint who was sold as a slave in this country and for a girl of Palermo martyred here, where Mass is celebrated daily in four languages.
Church
Tunis, North Africa, Tunisia
The metropolis of the early African Church, where Perpetua and Felicity were martyred, Cyprian was bishop and martyr, and Augustine studied and taught. UNESCO names all three in the site's Outstanding Universal Value.
Church
Tunis, North Africa, Tunisia
The arena where Perpetua, Felicity and their companions were put to death on March 7, 203, with a chapel made in 1903 in a vault beneath it.
Church
Demre, Middle East, Turkey
In Demre, ancient Myra, Nicholas belongs to the landscape of his own life, before Bari and long before Santa Claus.
Basilica
Selçuk, Middle East, Turkey
On Ayasuluk Hill, the ruins of Justinian's great basilica keep the memory of a tomb that Christian tradition has long identified with St. John.
Church
Tarsus, Middle East, Turkey
Paul named Tarsus as his birthplace. The church and well that bear his memory are later monuments, and a good pilgrimage begins with that distinction.
Basilica
greater Kampala, Kira Municipality · Wakiso District, Uganda
The Catholic basilica at Namugongo, built where St. Charles Lwanga suffered martyrdom on June 3 1886, and the culmination of the Uganda Martyrs' sacred geography.
Cathedral
Kampala, Lubaga Hill · Kampala, Uganda
The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Kampala on Lubaga Hill: the ecclesial heart of Catholic Kampala, not a martyr shrine.
Basilica
Kampala, Munyonyo · Makindye Division, Uganda
The Catholic basilica at Munyonyo, on the ground of Kabaka Mwanga II's court in May 1886, where the condemned Christian pages began the road toward Namugongo.
Church
Asheville, North America, United States
Asheville's Catholic basilica is a living parish beneath Rafael Guastavino's extraordinary freestanding tile dome, now undergoing a major restoration that materially affects weekday access.
Monastery
Atlanta, North America, United States
A living Trappist monastery of twenty-eight monks where seven periods of common prayer, conventual Mass, work, silence, hospitality, and retreat life give the day its demanding and peaceful order.
Basilica
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
America’s first Roman Catholic cathedral, built for Archbishop John Carroll and shaped by Benjamin Henry Latrobe as a luminous national witness to Catholic worship and religious liberty in the early republic.
Monastery
Charlotte, North America, United States
A living Benedictine monastery on a 700-acre campus whose 1892 Basilica of Mary Help of Christians stands at the heart of common prayer, Mass, confession, hospitality, and the monks' daily work.
Church
Chattanooga, North America, United States
Chattanooga's historic Catholic basilica joins parish worship to the tomb of Servant of God Father Patrick Ryan and a large collection that the parish distinguishes between authenticated relics and additional pieces still awaiting authentication.
Monastery
Cullman, North America, United States
A living Benedictine abbey of about thirty monks on more than 800 acres, where Mass, the Divine Office, work, study, and hospitality give the visit its center; Brother Joseph Zoettl's Ave Maria Grotto remains a supporting work on the grounds.
Shrine
Detroit, North America, United States
A living Capuchin center of pilgrimage, healing, reconciliation, and peace built around the tomb of Blessed Solanus Casey and the works of mercy that marked his life as Detroit's holy doorkeeper.
Marian Shrine
Emmitsburg, Maryland, United States
A living Marian shrine on Saint Mary’s Mountain where an older Catholic sacred landscape, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton’s documented presence, and the 1875 Lourdes grotto form one American pilgrimage of prayer, reconciliation, and hope.
Basilica
Emmitsburg, North America, United States
The Emmitsburg basilica, tomb, museum, houses, and grounds where pilgrims encounter Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton's family, conversion, and educational foundation.
Marian Shrine
Green Bay, North America, United States
On this quiet ground near Green Bay, the Church has judged the substance of Adele Brise’s 1859 encounters with the Blessed Virgin Mary worthy of belief. The shrine still answers Mary’s charge through catechesis, confession, Mass, and prayer for the conversion of sinners.
Shrine
Hanceville, North America, United States
A Eucharistic shrine beside Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, founded by Mother Angelica and kept within the prayer of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, with Mass, confession, adoration, and her tomb.
Marian Shrine
High Springs, North America, United States
The Marian shrine of the western counties of the Diocese of St. Augustine, established in 2015 in the old Franciscan mission country of the Santa Fe River, where a relocated historic church, a grotto, Stations of the Cross, and a walking trail carry the same La Leche devotion kept at St.
Marian Shrine
Hubertus, North America, United States
A Discalced Carmelite Marian shrine rising above the Kettle Moraine, Holy Hill joins the Eucharist and confession to wooded Stations, the Rosary, and a church built for pilgrims under the title Mary Help of Christians.
Church
Jacksonville, North America, United States
Jacksonville's first Catholic parish, founded in 1854 and dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, rebuilt in stone after the Great Fire of 1901 and raised to minor basilica in 2013, still keeping daily Mass and confession in the center of the city.
Cathedral
Knoxville, North America, United States
Dedicated in 2018, Knoxville's cathedral is a new building with a long memory: relics and statues from the earlier church, a century-old tabernacle from the Netherlands, an altar holding parishioners' prayers, and a dome filled with saints chosen for East Tennessee's Catholic communities.
Marian Shrine
La Crosse, North America, United States
Founded near La Crosse as a place of pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe, this living shrine gathers Mass, confession, adoration, sacred art, the Rosary Walk, Stations of the Cross, and prayer for the dignity of every human life.
Shrine
Maria Stein, North America, United States
A living Ohio pilgrimage shrine whose historic Relic Chapel holds more than 1,200 relics, including a relic of the True Cross, within a campus of Mass, Eucharistic adoration, prayer, heritage, and Precious Blood spirituality.
Basilica
Milwaukee, North America, United States
Milwaukee’s great Polish-American basilica is not merely a monument. Conventual Franciscans still serve an active parish here, with Mass, confession, adoration, tours, and explicit pilgrimage programming beneath a dome and painted interior built by immigrant sacrifice.
Cathedral
Peoria, North America, United States
Peoria's mother church gathers the Diocese around the altar and holds the tomb of Venerable Fulton Sheen, who served here as a schoolboy and altar server before returning to be ordained a priest in 1919.
Marian Shrine
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
A Vincentian Marian shrine and minor basilica in Germantown where Philadelphia’s Perpetual Novena has carried the Miraculous Medal devotion into weekly worship since 1930.
Cathedral
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Philadelphia’s mother church, a monumental nineteenth-century cathedral and minor basilica whose living worship now gathers pilgrims at the tomb of Saint Katharine Drexel.
Church
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
A living Redemptorist church and national shrine where the bodily remains of Saint John Neumann, Philadelphia’s fourth bishop, rest beneath the lower shrine altar.
Church
San Antonio, North America, United States
An active Catholic mission church and the least altered of San Antonio's eighteenth-century mission churches, where old frescoes, stone vaults, and parish worship hold beauty and history together without romanticizing the mission system.
Church
San Antonio, North America, United States
The southern beginning of El Camino de San Antonio is a small active mission parish dedicated to Saint Francis, joined to an enduring acequia and aqueduct and to a history of evangelization, Indigenous labor and agency, colonial coercion, loss, and Catholic continuity.
Church
San Antonio, North America, United States
The largest of San Antonio's mission compounds, Mission San Jose remains an active parish and Franciscan place of worship whose carved church, Rose Window, granary, and walls must be read alongside the Indigenous community and difficult colonial system that built them.
Church
San Antonio, North America, United States
A modest active mission church within a landscape of acequia, farmland, granary, and unfinished stone walls, San Juan reveals that mission life depended on water, agriculture, Indigenous skill, family labor, and faith—not monumental architecture alone.
Cathedral
San Antonio, North America, United States
San Antonio’s mother church is the northern end of El Camino de San Antonio: a living cathedral where pilgrims arrive from the four mission churches and bring the long road to the Eucharist, confession, and prayer.
Cathedral
San Francisco, North America, United States
The mother church of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, raised after fire destroyed its predecessor in 1962. Designed by Pietro Belluschi with the engineer Pier Luigi Nervi and a local architectural team, completed in 1970 and formally blessed in 1971.
Basilica
San Francisco, North America, United States
Founded in 1776 and named for Saint Francis, the mission gave the city its name. Its adobe chapel of 1791 is the oldest intact building in San Francisco, its cemetery holds some five thousand Ohlone, Miwok and other First Californians, and the Camino de San Francisco ends here.
Church
San Francisco, North America, United States
The parish of Saint Francis was the first in California outside the mission system, and its 1860 church survived the 1906 fire as four brick walls. Rebuilt within them, designated a national shrine in 1999 and served by Capuchin friars, it holds Franciscan relics and the Porziuncola Nuova.
Church
San Francisco, North America, United States
The twin-spired Salesian church on Washington Square, founded in 1884, destroyed in 1906 and rebuilt between 1913 and 1924. Long the Italian parish of North Beach, it now also serves a Chinese congregation, and is a stamp church on the Camino de San Francisco.
Church
San Rafael, North America, United States
The twentieth California mission began in 1817 as a hospital asistencia of Mission Dolores, named for the archangel of healing. Its original buildings are gone; the white chapel on the site is a 1949 reconstruction beside the parish church, and the Camino de San Francisco begins here.
Cathedral
St. Augustine, North America, United States
The cathedral church of the Diocese of St. Augustine and a minor basilica, serving a parish whose sacramental life has continued in this city since 1565 and which still gathers daily for Mass, confession, and the ordinary work of a downtown parish.
Marian Shrine
St. Augustine, North America, United States
The national shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, standing on the ground where the parish life of St. Augustine began on September 8, 1565, where pilgrims come for Mass, confession, adoration, and Mary's intercession for motherhood, children, and safe delivery.
Church
St. Augustine, North America, United States
The Black Catholic mission church of the Cathedral Parish in Lincolnville, where Sunday Mass continues, where relics of Saint Benedict the Moor and Saint Carlo Acutis were installed in 2024, and where the Sisters of St.
Shrine
Terre Haute, North America, United States
At Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Mother Theodore Guerin's tomb stands within the living motherhouse of the Sisters of Providence, joined to Eucharistic worship, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, and a campus shaped by her trust in Providence.
Basilica
Washington, D.C., United States
The nation's preeminent Marian shrine, built in the capital as a church of prayer under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception and filled with chapels shaped by the Catholic peoples of the United States.
Monastery
Washington, D.C., United States
The U.S. home of the Holy Land Franciscans: a living friary, church, and garden pilgrimage whose mission supports the Custody’s ancient service of sacred places and Christian communities in the Holy Land.
Shrine
Washington, D.C., United States
A living national shrine entrusted to the Knights of Columbus, centered on prayer with Saint John Paul II, his first-class blood relic, sacramental worship, and an extensive exhibition on his life and teaching.
Basilica
Rome, Europe, Vatican City
The spiritual center of the Catholic Church, housing masterpieces of Renaissance art and architecture beneath Michelangelo's magnificent dome.
Church
Bethlehem
One of Christianity's oldest churches still in daily use, built over the cave that tradition marks as the birthplace of Jesus.
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