Our Lady of Aparecida

Patroness of Brazil

Our Lady of Aparecida ("Our Lady revealed"), (Nossa Senhora Aparecida or Nossa Senhora da Conceição Aparecida) is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with the Immaculate Conception. Her image, a clay statue, is widely venerated by Brazilian Catholics, who consider her as the principal patroness of Brazil. being able to hold up to 45,000 worshippers. Pope Benedict XVI granted the image her second golden rose on 12 May 2007
Pope Francis granted the third golden rose on 9 October 2017, honoring the 300th anniversary of the devotion

According to the account of the discovery of the statue in October 1717, Dom Pedro de Almeida, Count of Assumar and Governor of the Province of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, was passing through the area of Guaratinguetá, a small city in the Paraíba river valley, during a trip to Vila Rica, an important gold mining site. As the people of Guaratinguetá decided to hold a feast in his honour, three fishermen, Domingos Garcia, João Alves, and Filipe Pedroso went down to the Paraíba waters to fish. The fishermen prayed to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception that God would grant a good catch. The fishermen, having a run of bad luck, cast their nets in the River Paraiba and dragged up a headless statue of the Virgin Mary. They also salvaged the head and, according to the legend, then netted plenty of fish. After cleaning the statue, they found that it was a black version of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Neighbors began to venerate the statue, which came to be known as Our Lady Appeared, and devotion grew. The first chapel was built in 1745.

According to a local tale the clay statue was imported from Portugal; others say that it was made by Frei Agostinho de Jesus, a monk from São Paulo known for crafting artistic sacred images in clay. The small statue is less than three feet tall. The image was made around 1650, and must have been underwater for years, since it lost its original polychromy. Later, as the Virgin Mary outranks St. Peter of Alcantara in the Catholic hierarchy of saints, with the proclamation of the Virgin Aparecida as the principal Catholic patron saint of Brazil, St. Peter became the secondary patron.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception 1904, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1854 proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the statue of Our Lady Aparecida was Canonically crowned by the archbishop of São Paulo, Lino Deodato Rodrigues, at the decree of the Holy See and in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio. The Coronation was performed in the name and on behalf of Pope Pius X who granted this approval. In the wake of the papal decree naming Our Lady Aparecida Patroness of Brazil, on July 16, 1930, Cardinal Sebastião Leme da Silveira Cintra, the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro (then the Capital of Brazil), rededicated Brazil to the Virgin under this Marian title.

Up until the early 1950s, Aparecida remained an unassuming city with a small community of Redemptorists. In 1958, due to the growth of the Catholic community around the Marian Shrine of Aparecida, the Holy See decided to erect the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Aparecida, separating its territory in part from the Archdiocese of São Paulo and in part from the Diocese of Taubaté and transferring three suffragan Dioceses that previously were subject to the Metropolitan Archbishop of São Paulo to form the new ecclesiastical province of Aparecida. The new See was led by administrators until 1964, when the first Archbishop of Aparecida was appointed. Contrary to popular belief, John Paul II was the first Pope to consecrate the shrine with the title of Basilica on July 4, 1980. In his Apostolic message, the Pontiff mentioned the coronation of 1904, the Patronage granted in 1930, and his culminating purpose of consecration of the shrine as a Basilica during that time. By research in Vatican documents, there is no mention of 1908 proclamations of the shrine as a Basilica by the Pope or any Vatican prelate. As he was caught, the statue fell to the ground breaking to pieces; On the following day, Rede Globo's Jornal Nacional denounced the incident, causing a nationwide commotion. The event was perceived by Catholics as a major act of religious intolerance, causing a public outcry. Several temples of the UCKG were targeted by protesters, and Von Helder was transferred to South Africa until the end of the controversy.

In the mid 20th century, as the popularity of Our Lady Aparecida grew, the construction of a much larger building to shelter the image became necessary. In 1955, work on the present Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida was begun. Architect Benedito Calixto designed a building in the form of a Greek cross. The influence of Our Lady Aparecida on Brazilian Catholic society is incalculable. In 1992 a study showed that 296 parishes were dedicated to her while five cathedrals had the same title. In addition, many towns are named after the Virgin and so are many Brazilian women and girls. The modern art styled cathedral of Brasilia designed by Oscar Niemeyer is dedicated to Our Lady Aparecida, as Brasilia is the national capital and she is invoked as Brazil's special protector. In 2004, to commemorate the centennial of the pontifical coronation commanded by Pope Pius X and the 150th anniversary of the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the statue of Our Lady Aparecida was granted a renewed canonical coronation by the Holy See. The renewed coronation was presided by the Archbishop emeritus of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Eugênio Sales, in the capacity of special papal envoy of Pope John Paul II. On May 12, 2007 Pope Benedict XVI granted the Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida a Golden Rose. The "Old Basilica" also possesses a Golden Rose, awarded by Pope Paul VI on August 12, 1967, and presented by the Apostolic Nuncio; it was a gift of the Holy See to mark the Pope's participation in the commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the devotion to the Virgin of Aparecida. The "New Basilica"'s Golden Rose was presented by Pope Benedict, who visited the basilica and celebrated Mass there during his 2007 Apostolic visit to Brazil. Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the shrine on July 24, 2013, and entrusted his pontificate as well as the World Youth Day to the maternal protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Since the 19th century, the Feast Day of Our Lady Aparecida is celebrated on 12 October, the day of the finding of the statue. In the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite approved for Brazil, the day of Our Lady Aparecida ranks as a solemnity, and is a holy day of obligation. The feast's rank as a day of precept was established by the Holy See at the request of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops. The feast day of Our Lady Aparecida has been a National Holiday in Brazil since 1980. The federal statute declaring October 12 a national holiday in honour of "Our Lady Aparecida", Patroness of Brazil, was passed by Congress and signed into law on June 30, 1980, during Pope John Paul II's first visit to the country; that was also the first visit by a Pope to Brazil, and during that visit the "New Basilica" of Aparecida was consecrated.

The telenovela A Padroeira (The Patroness), broadcast on Rede Globo between June 18, 2001, and February 23, 2002, was a fictional portrayal of the finding of the Our Lady Aparecida statue, loosely based on the 1865 novel As Minas de Prata by José de Alencar, which itself had been adapted for the telenovela format in 1966 by the now defunct TV Excelsior.