| Our Lady of La Salette | |
|---|---|
| Location | La Salette-Fallavaux, France |
| Date | 19 September 1846 |
| Witness | Mélanie Calvat Maximin Giraud |
| Type | Marian apparition |
| Holy See approval | August 1848, during the pontificate of Pope Pius IX |
| Shrine | Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette, La Salette, France |
Our Lady of La Salette is a celebrated Roman Catholic icon of the Virgin Mary. La Salette is a small mountaintop village near Grenoble, France. It is most noted for an apparition of the Virgin Mary that was reported in 1846 by two shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, followed by numerous accounts of miraculous healings.
The Catholic Church investigated the claims and found them to be credible and was approved under the name of "Our Lady of La Salette". Devotion to Our Lady of La Salette was weakened in the late nineteenth century by the controversy surrounding the claims of one of the seers, Mélanie Calvat and the precarious situation of the Gallican church in a France hostile to religion. Recent release of the secrets from the Vatican Secret Archives[1] have clarified the situation.
Two shepherd children - Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat - reported a vision of the Virgin Mary on a mountaintop near La Salette, France, on September 19, 1846 around 3.00 p.m. during their cowherding. They were eleven and fourteen years old at the time and had received only a very limited education.
The apparition consisted of three different stages. Firstly, the children beheld in a resplendent light a "beautiful lady" clad in a strange costume. She was seated on a rock and in tears, with her face resting in her hands. This took place at the ravine called ravin de la Sezia
Secondly, she stood upright and talked to the children, speaking alternately in French and in the regional patois. She charged them with a message which they were "to deliver to all her people". This also took place in the ravin de la Sezia. After complaining of the impiety and sinfulness of men, and threatening them with dreadful chastisements in case they should persevere in evil, she promised them the Divine mercy if they would amend. Finally, she communicated to each of the children a special secret, before disappearing into the sky. This happened on the plateau called Mont-sous-les-Baisses.
They told of their experience to their employers, Baptiste Pra and Pierre Selme. These wrote the account down September 20, 1846, the day after the apparition, in a letter.[2]
Giraud was questioned upon his story by the mayor of the village, Pierre Peytard September 21, 1846.
Pra and Selme informed Louis Perrin, the parish priest of La Salette. Impressed by the account, Perrin preached about it at Holy Mass and informed the archpriest of Corps, Pierre Mélin. He interrogated the children on 26 September 1846. The bishop of Grenoble, Philibert de Bruillard, was officially informed by Mélin on October 4, 1846.
In October 1846 the children were questioned by Mathieu Cat, a diocesan priest. On November 2 they were interrogated by Archier, a religious. The news of the apparition spread like wildfire. Maximin's father, Jean-Maximin Giraud, not being religious at all, converted on November 8, 1846. This was one of many conversions.
Soon several miraculous cures took place on the mountain of La Salette, and pilgrimages to the place were begun. The first pilgrimage took place on November 24, 1846, with both children participating. On May 31 about 5,000 pilgrims participated in another pilgrimage, on the occasion of the planting of a crossway up the mountain.
November 25 another interrogation took place, by father ... Marcellin. In March and April 1847 both seers were repeatedly questioned by François Lagier, a French priest who spoke the local patois fluently. On April 16 and May 26, 1847 both children were interrogated by a city magistrate of Grenoble, the local juge de paix, Fréderic-Joseph Long. The children were reinterrogated by canon Nicolas Bez, another parish priest.[3] They were interrogated again by Pierre Lambert, another diocesan priest on the apparition May 29, 1847.[4]
The first miraculous cure that was recognised as such was that of Claire Pierron S.S.J., known as Sister Saint-Charles, of Avignon on April 16, 1847. The second was that of Mélanie Gamon, of Corps, on August 15, 1847.
On July 22, 1847 Clément Cardinal Villecourt, bishop of La Rochelle made a personal pilgrimage to La Salette. He met both children and questioned them. September 17, 1847 both children were reinterrogated by father ... Boisseaux.
One year after the apparition, September 19, 1847, over 50,000 pilgrims came to La Salette to celebrate the anniversary.
On July 7, 1847 Phillibert de Bruillard, the bishop of Grenoble asked canons Pierre-Joseph Rousselot and Servant of God André Berthier, both professors at the major seminary of Grenoble, to conduct a detailed investigation of the apparition, and write a full report on them. This report was finished on October 15, 1847.
In November 1847 de Bruillard submitted the report to a commission of investigation consisting of sixteen experts, under the chairmanship of the diocesan bishop. The members of the commission were all diocesan priests. They were the titulary vicar-generals canon Clair-Melchior Périer and André Berthier, the canons Pierre Joseph Rousselot, Jacques Bouvier, J.-F. Desmoulins, J. Henry, J.-C. Michon, P. Petit, J. Revol and Pierre Chambon, the parish priests Jean-Baptiste Gerin, archpriest of the cathedral of Grenoble, Jean-Pierre Cartellier, archpriest of Saint Joseph parish, H. Genevey, archpriest of Saint Louis parish, J.-H. de Lemps, parish priest of Saint André parish and Jean-Jules Keisser, parish priest of Saint Laurent parish, and the president of the major seminary Jacques-Philippe Orcel.
There were eight conferences in total, during two sessions, Calvat and Giraurd were present and questioned at length. On the final vote twelve of the sixteen members unequivocally supported the apparition. Three of the twelve members, André Berthier, H. Genevey and J.-H. de Lemps had doubts concerning the truth regarding some elements of the apparition. One member, Jean-Pierre Cartellier, expressed certainty that the apparition was false. Once the commission had finished its deliberations, the report was approved by the commission. The bishop waited giving official approval, because Maurice Cardinal de Bonald, the archbishop of Lyon on whom the bishopric of Grenoble depended, supported Cartellier.
The report was then published by Pierre Joseph Rousselot on June 26, 1848.[5] The report was sent to Pope Pius IX in August 1848. The findings of the report were accepted by the Holy See.
A meeting between Giraud and Saint Jean Baptist Marie Vianney, better known as "Curé de Ars" took place on September 19, 1850. A small incident occurred. After a period of doubt due to this unfortunate misunderstanding, the saint too became a strong defender of the apparition until the end of his life.[6] Cardinal de Bonald did not believe the apparition was genuine, and suspected a subterfuge. The cardinal demanded that the children tell him their secret under false pretenses, implying that he had a mandate from the Pope, which he did not have. The children finally acceded to this demand. On July 2 and 6 1851 both children wrote down an account of the apparition and of the secrets the Virgin Mary communicated to them. As a result of this, Mélanie, who wrote her text at the convent of the Sisters of Providence in Corenc, only wrote a shortened version of the secret[7] and insisted that both texts be carried directly to the Pope. It was under these conditions that two representatives, canons Pierre Joseph Roussilot and Jean-Baptiste Gérin, were sent to Rome. The text of the two private secrets were both handed to Pope Pius IX on July 18, 1851.
Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Lambruschini officially confirmed the communication of the documents the following day. His assistant and advocatus diaboli, Mgr Frattini, did the same. These documents were published only very recently, being discovered by Michel Corteville M.S. in the Vatican Secret Archives. That same day, July 19, 1851, the fifth anniversary of the apparition, the apparition was officially approved in a pastoral letter by the diocesan bishop under the title of Our Lady of La Salette. He wrote in his mandate:
This letter was later published, in translation, in the Osservatore Romano on June 4, 1852. On October 7, 1850 Luigi Cardinal Lambruschini officially approved the mandate of the bishop of Grenoble.
On August 11, 1851 Giraud reproduced his written account of July 3 at the request of Benjamin Dausse. From this period on, Mélanie was stigmatised on her hands.
The construction of a sanctuary at the site of the apparition was announced by the Bishop of Grenoble in another pastoral letter on May 1, 1852, which was swiftly followed by the celebratory placing of the first stone May 25. That same day, he canonically instituted the religious congregation of the Missionaries of La Salette.
In 1853 both Giraud and Calvat wrote their secret down again. A new edition was produced at the request of Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac, the new Bishop of Grenoble, who was unacquainted with it. In 1853 Giraud and Calvat honoured the request of the bishop by making a written account. These accounts were made public by André Limousin, Louis Gobert, William Bernard Ullathorne O.S.B.[8] and others.
The publication of the approval subdued but did not suppress the opposition, whose leaders, profiting by the succession in May 1853 of the bishop Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac (after Philibert Bruillard resigned), retaliated with violent attacks on the reality of the miracle of La Salette. Ginoulhiac had never shown any enthusiasm at all about the apparition and is described as being in good standing with the new regime.[9]
A good example of resistance to the approved apparition inside the Catholic clergy are the publications of diocesan priests Claude-Joseph Déléon[10][11] and Pierre-Joseph Cartellier,[12][13] who denounced the apparition of the Virgin Mary as a hoax. They alleged that the woman in the apparition was not the Virgin Mary but a young and disturbed former religious called Constance de Saint-Ferréol de Lamerlière. This story gave rise to a widely advertised suit for slander. They were however obliged to distance themselves from these allegations by the bishop of Grenoble, who condemned these writings as an "infamous brochure, full of false allegations, mendacious assertions and gross injuries."[14] The bishop finally publicly confirmed his adherence to his predecessors doctrinal judgement November 4, 1854.
Further examples of radical opposition were Laborde, a heretical French priest under interdiction, and Ponsot, Protestant pastor of Charleroi.
The messages were later instrumentalised. The controversy that grew in France after the approval of the message, fueled by easy access to both seers by the public at large, made Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac declare publicly September 19, 1855:
From 1858 onwards, Calvat was originally told by the Virgin Mary, she could make her private secret public. She wrote this secret down in an extended version of the 1851 edition, in Darlington, England, where she lived with the Carmelites.
This text further developed the themes of the first, short edition. It also included the first appearance of the religious rule, meant for the ecclesiastical orders that were to be founded. From then on, this element is retained in all further editions of the secret. The text of the edition was then sent by courier and an intermediary to Pope Pius IX on September 30, 1858. This edition of the secret became lost in the Vatican Secret Archives and has not yet been retrieved.
Calvat got permission to leave the Carmelites at Darlington, and return to mainland Europe from William Hogarth, bishop of Hexham and Newcastle on September 19, 1860.
The extended edition of 1858 was reproduced in Marseille in October 1860 on request of the newly appointed spiritual director of Mélanie, Francesco Petagna, who lived in France because of being exiled from his bishopric of Castellammare di Stabia, and some other ecclesiatical superiors. Calvat shortly went to live in Greece, but then returned to France and Italy.
Giraud also contributed to the public discussion of the secret. On February 2, 1866 he published a written rebuttal of the allegations made against the apparition.[15] March 1, 1875 Giraud died at Corps.
In 1870 both Francesco Petagna and Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac attended the First Vatican Council. Petagna supported the proclamation dogma of the papal infallibility, Ginoulhiac did not, and left Rome early. September 6, 1870 the bishop of Grenoble was succeeded by Pierre-Antoine-Justin Paulinier. He is himself succeeded November 18, 1875 by Armand-Joseph Fava.
A copy of the Marseille reproduction of 1860 was made in Castellammare in 1870 and was published on a small scale on April 30, 1873 by Félician Bliard, a French priest.[16] This publication contained the approval of the archbishop of Naples, Sisto Cardinal Sforza.
March 3, 1878 Leo XIII was elected pope after the death of Pius IX. He received Calvat in private audience December 3, 1878 to discuss the clerical rule given to her by the Virgin Mary during the apparition and meant for the foundation of a new religious order called Order of the Apostles of the Last Days, and their female equivalent the Order of the Mother of God. Calvat was asked by the pope to return to Grenoble in order to introduce the rule. This first attempt failed eventually.
Calvat herself publicised the 1873 edition of the apparition with the imprimatur of Salvatore Count Zola C.R.L., bishop of Lecce, Italy in a work published on November 15, 1879.[17]
A lively controversy followed as to whether the secret published in 1879 was identical with that communicated to Pius IX in 1851, or in its present form it was merely a work of the imagination of the children. This was due to the fact that Calvat and Giraurd only gradually made their secret known over the years, and that these new editions were portrayed by opponents as fictional accounts after the facts, in order to repudiate the contence of the secret.
After the First Council of the Vatican, Mélanie's publication that the Virgin Mary had confided in her that "Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist" fueled the controversy further.
In the later and longer editions of the secret, it is clear that this exact formulation was not present in the original text of the secret sent to Pius IX in 1851. But the expanded editions from 1858 onwards do logically elaborate on the more abstract, shortened statements, initially made by the seers. They build upon it by gradually further elaborating and detailing the 1858 edition.
In 1880 Pierre-Louis-Marie Cortet, bishop of Troyes, denounced the Lecce-imprimatured book to the Holy Office, and in turn Prospero Cardinal Caterini, secretary of the Congregation of the Holy Office, wrote back to him, to Vincenzo Maria Sarnelli, bishop of Castellammare di Stabia and to Pierre Archier M.S., superior general of the Missionaries of La Salette. In the very short and personal letter[18] he wrote:
As a result of this, it was alleged that the Vatican put this work in 1880 on the Index of Prohibited Books. But a controversy was started. The letter, written by Prospero Cardinal Caterini in a private capacity, on nonofficial paper without letterhead of office, is alleged to be falsely exaggerated by members of the French episcopate, in reference to its scope. The letter did not have any administrative reference for later Vatican archive retrieval.[19] The controversy continues until this day.
Calvat befriended Gilbert Combe, a French priest who was drawn toward the La Salette apparition. Until nearly the end of her life, they would remain in close contact. Calvat confided in him, and he made an important contribution in the further study of the secrets on the basis of his extensive collection of private letters and notes. She told him a number of confidences morales relating to the end times.[20] These moral confidences are a third source of relevant information concerning the secret, next to the message given to Mélanie, and the ecclesiastical rule of the religious orders. They are also a source of controversy and speculation.
In 1901 Gilbert Combe republished Mélanie's latter edition of 1873, now prohibited secret together with these moral confidences.[21] His book was labeled anti-Bonapartist and pro-Bourbon by opponents. It favoured traditional monarchism over laic republicanism. It was put on the Index.[22] Again in 1906 another of Combe's publications[23] was placed on the index.[24]
These actions of the church caused a great deal of confusion in Catholic minds, so that it was compelled to clarify that the original shortened edition of the message of 1851 remained approved, and it was only the latter contributions, that were precautious.
Calvat died December 15, 1904 in Altamura, Italy. The process of her canonization was begun. Currently the postulator of her cause is Ciro Quaranta R.C.J., an Italian religious.
In October 1912, Albert Lepidi O.P., Master of the Sacred Palace, in a public statement in reply to a query by Louis Cardinal Luçon, affirmed that the original apparition of 1846 remained approved.
During the pontificate of pope Benedict XV, the church was compelled to address the issue again. Benedict XV issued an admonitum or formal papal warning recognizing the many different versions of the secret from 1858 onwards, in all its diverse forms, and forbidding the faithful or the clergy to investigate or discuss them without permission from their bishops. The admonitum further affirmed that the church's prohibition of discussion issued under Pope Leo XIII issued in 1879 remained binding.[25]
There have been a number of attempts over time to establish the religious orders Calvat failed to establish herself. A first attempt was made by Giacomo Cusmano in Italy with the foundation of the congregations of the Missionary Servants of the Poor and of the Sister Servants of the Poor, its female equivalent. It was assisted by Calvat herself and exists to the present day.[26]
A second attempt was also made in Italy by Blessed Annibale Maria di Francia R.C.J., with the foundation of the congregations of the Rogationists of the Heart of Jesus and with its female counterpart the Daughters of Divine Zeal. This attempt was also assisted by Calvat during her life, and exists today.[27]
A further attempt was made in the first half of the twentieth century in small ecclesiastical communities in Western Europe; in Maranville, France, started by Germaine Blanchard; in Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay, France, started by the religious named Mother Saint Jean and supported by father Paul Gouin; and in Leuven, Belgium, started by canon Armand Thiéry and Bertha Isabelle Carton de Wiart with the support of Désiré Cardinal Mercier.[28]
Recent attempts in the 1970s and 1980s were made in Mérida, Mexico;[26] and Canada, France and Haïti by religious Brother Hubertise;[27] and very recently the lay community of the Frères de Saint Jean in France.[27]
Very little was known about the content of the first edition of the Blessed Virgin's message to the two children until the recent release of the secrets from Vatican archives by René Laurentin and Michel Corteville M.S., both French priests.[29] The recent release of the secret means that now the secret can be further analyzed.
The central theme of Our Lady of La Salette's messages to humanity was that they had to turn away from deadly sin and do penance, or undergo suffering. Our Lady of La Salette predicted future events in society and church. The fulfillment of these predictions was also seen as one of the indications of the apparition's veracity in the investigation that followed the apparition.
Concerning society, the Virgin Mary predicted that the harvest would completely fail. In December 1846, most of the popular crops were disease stricken, and in 1847 a famine hit Europe which resulted in the loss of approximately one million lives, including one hundred thousand in France alone. Cholera became prevalent in various parts of France and claimed the lives of many children. The demise of the Second French Republic with the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and the communist uprising of the Paris Commune of 1871 were also predicted.
Concerning the Church, she predicted that Catholic faith in France and the world, within the civilian population as in the Catholic hierarchy of priests and bishops would diminish greatly because of many sinful acts from laity and clergy. Wars and tribulations would occur if mankind did not repent, and the total destruction of the cities of Paris and Marseille near the end.
Humanity was warned, through the secret message delivered to Mélanie, for the coming of the antichrist and the end of times.[26] To Giraud, she supposedly predicted the conversion of England [30] in the final phase of the apocalypse.
During interrogations from the local authorities, the children were taken to the site of the apparition. A man broke off a piece of rock at the spot of the Virgin's appearance and uncovered a spring. The spring was found to have healing powers which inspired the bishop to begin an official inquiry. Twenty-three cures were attributed to the mountain spring in the first year after the apparition. Additionally, hundreds of miraculous cures have also been reported.
Numerous miracles have been attributed to Our Lady of La Salette. La Salette parish priest Louis Perrin attested to more than 250 miracles, and ... Bossan, first archivist of the La Salette pilgrimages, attested to many thousands of miracles.[31]
A detailed study of these miracles was made by titular archbishop Joseph-Lucien Giray, then bishop of Cahors, in a 1921 book.[32]
The following miracles are examples that were accepted as such:
These cures were a particular point of importance in the approval of the apparition as being genuine in the investigation afterwards.
The secret was given during the second stage of the apparition, when the Virgin Mary was standing upright and talked to the children.
There are, at least, ten written editions, nine preserved and one lost, of the secret of La Salette, of which four editions were made by Giraud, five editions were made by Calvat, and one edition was made by third parties.
These editions were written down at different moments in time. Over time, more information was gradually divulged by the seers and explanatory commentary was added.
The day of the apparition, the two children told their story to their employers, who wrote the account down the day after the apparition in a letter.[2]
This happened on the request of Maurice Cardinal de Bonald. He suspected a subterfuge and did not trust the visionaries. The cardinal demanded that the children tell him their secret, falsely implying that he had a mandate from the Pope. The children finally acceded to this demand. They wrote the text down, to be sent to the pope. Giraud wrote a first text, with ink smudges on it, in the episcopal palace at Grenoble. This text was destroyed, and a second smudge free text was then produced by him. Giraud gave his text to Benjamin Dausse, who gave it to Philibert de Bruillard, who read it, and gave the text his episcopal seal. He sealed the text inside a letter, which was countersigned by canons Pierre Joseph Rousselot and ... Gérin. Mélanie, however, insisted that both text be carried directly to the Pope. It was under these conditions that two representatives were sent to Rome. The text of the two private secrets were both handed to Pope Pius IX on July 18, 1851. This text was rediscovered by Marcel Corteville M.S. in 1999 in the Vatican Archives.
The edition of July 3, 1851 was reproduced on request of Benjamin Dausse.
A new edition was produced on request of Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac, the new bishop of Grenoble, who was unacquainted with the secret.
A new edition was produced on request of Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac, the new bishop of Grenoble, who was unacquainted with the secret.
An extended edition was produced in Darlington, England and made public in 1858 by Calvat who insisted this was explicitly requested by the Virgin Mary during the apparition. The text was sent by courier to Pope Pius IX. This edition is lost.
The extended text of 1858 was reproduced in Marseille in 1860 on request of the superiors of Calvat. A copy of the reproduction of 1860 was made in Castellammare in 1870 and was published on April 30, 1873 by Félician Bliard, a French priest.[16] This publication contained the approval of the archbishop of Naples, Sisto Cardinal Sforza. The existence of this text was not well known. Gilbert Combe rediscovered the distributed text of 1870 in 1902. Paul Gouin makes a photographic copy of the rediscovered text of 1902 in 19... .
A written rebuttal of allegations against the apparition was made by Giraud and published.[15]
An extended and final edition was produced and published with the approbation of Salvatore Count Zola C.R.L., bishop of Lecce in a book.[17] This book was reprinted in 1885 and republished in 1904 by Calvatshortly before her death.
Structurally, the secret consists of three parts. The first part, occurring to both Mélanie and Maximin together is the general part of the message, the facts of which could be made public in 1846. The two children also received a private message each. These were not to be made public before 1858.
The secret given to Mélanie is gradually divulged to the public. In its totality, it consists of three elements.
The first element is the written down account of the private message given to Mélanie. This account was written down for the first time in a shortened version in 1851, on July 3, in Corenc, at the convent of the Sisters of Providence. She sealed it at 10.00 am, and it was carried at the bishop's house who read it at 5.00 pm. She chose to rewrite the text on July 6 because she believed she misrepresented the chronology of a particular event. After Melanie hand delivered the document, Bishop de Bruillard read the document before sealing it. This edition was developed further over the years by Mélanie.
The second element of the secret is the rule of the religious order, that was dictated by the Virgin Mary to Mélanie. This rule was only mentioned in later editions of the secret.
A third element of the secret are the moral confidences related by Mélanie to Gilbert Combe concerning the end of the world, thus further developing and explaining the secret.
Maximins's secret consists of two elements. A first element is the text of the message he received. A second element of the secret are the moral confidences related by Maximin to various persons, concerning elements of his secret, thus further developing and explaining the secret.
Maximin initially wrote his secret down at the palace of Bishop de Bruillard in Grenoble on the evening of July 3, 1851. He was asked to rewrite it again because of spots of ink.
The soiled autograph was burnt. The bishop affixed his own seal to it and to send it to the pope. The sealed envelope was countersigned by two witnesses at 7:00 pm that night. He made three supplementary editions of his secret over the years.
The two writings of July 1851 agree on the essential, but differ in their developments and even their tonality. The secret of Giraud is shorter, simpler, and less serious. The secret of Calvat is longer, and more terrifying. Calvat is concerned to be understood by the recipient, and not to cause him too much sorrow, as she said, but this did not prevent the tears of the bishop of Grenoble. Because of the apprehension towards the demand of Cardinal de Bonald,Calvat only writes a shortened version of her secret.[7]
The later editions of the message are more extensive and explanatory, although the original statements of both children remain fully incorporated in them. The text of Mélanie, written in 1858 and afterwards contains a lot of additional information. Still their testimonies are more coherent and in accordance with one another than is often alleged by critics.[37]
Like the third secret of Fátima, the secret of La Salette has generated much controversy and wild speculation with both antagonists and protagonists alike, with many believing that the true secret is too frightening to be revealed.
Similar to the 1858 apparition at Lourdes and the 1917 Fátima apparitions, the Virgin Mary appeared short-statured and dressed in strange clothes to peasant children who had hardly any education. As at Fátima, the Virgin Mary reportedly warned that humanity would be severely chastised if they did not repent their sins.
Some sceptics allege that the knowledge of the visions of La Salette influenced later child-seers at Lourdes and Fátima. However, all the children concerned were illiterate and apparently chosen as such to make their assertions all the more credible, as they would not have the ability to create and maintain the truth of such elaborate fantasies.
Catholics are not dogmatically required to believe in a miraculous origin for the events at La Salette, as is the case with all other Church-approved private revelations. It is officially designated worthy of belief.
A large number of writers, philosophers, saints, religious, bishops and popes privately held a particular veneration towards Our Lady of La Salette. A number of members of the Catholic hierarchy, religious and bishops, were publicly and later privately opposed to the apparition.[27]
The message of La Salette contained elements, which were hostile to the lay principles of the French state. It condemned the principles of the French revolution, and was responsible for strong reactions towards it. Some examples are:
The intense confusion deliberately spread by anti-Catholics caused a reaction that caused La Salette to lose its glory and fall back into the slumber of a minor site of Catholic pilgrimage.
There are a number of schismatic movements that link themselves to the secret of La Salette:
The shrine of La Salette is located in a high alpine pasture at an altitude of about 6,000 feet, about 9 miles from the nearest town. Now easily accessible by car, bus, and taxi, the shrine operates a hospitality service with a range of accommodations. The mountain scenery around the shrine is spectacular and it is surrounded by a network of walking trails.
The Basilica of Our Lady of La Salette was begun in 1852, completed in 1865, and designated a basilica in 1879. It is a large, rather austere church, with a façade flanked by two strong towers.
Inside, the basilica's nave is bordered by two rows of Byzantine columns supporting the Romanesque vaulted ceilings. A mosaic of Christ crowns the apse. The transept has three medallions representing the stages of the apparition, the weeping, the message, and the departure. The basilica also includes a small museum documenting the history of La Salette.
Outside the basilica, pilgrims can take a walking path leading to the apparition site, the so called Valley of the Apparition. Bronze statues erected in 1864 depict the three stages of the apparition.
The prayer of Our Lady of La Salette is as follows:
This is an extensive bibliography of publications concerning Our Lady of La Salette: