Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
| The Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal | |
|---|---|
 The Basilica Shrine in 2016 | |
 The Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal | |
| Location | 500 E. Chelten Ave Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Country | United States |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Website | www |
| History | |
| Status | Basilica |
| Founder(s) | The Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul, Eastern Province, USA |
| Architecture | |
| Functional status | Active |
| Groundbreaking | 1875 |
| Completed | 1879 |
| Clergy | |
| Rector | Fr. John Kettelberger, CM |
The Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, formerly known as The Miraculous Medal Shrine, is at 500 E. Chelten Ave., in the East Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The church now known as the Basilica Shrine was completed by the Congregation of the Mission in 1879 as the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception on the grounds of St. Vincent's Seminary. In 1927, Fr. Joseph Skelly, CM, commissioned the creation of Mary's Central Shrine within the chapel to promote devotion to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, a title of the Virgin Mary originating with her apparitions to St. Catherine Labouré in Paris in 1830.[1]
On January 25, 2023, the Central Association of the Miraculous Medal (CAMM) announced that the Vatican's Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments had issued a decree dated Dec. 12, 2022,[2] granting The Miraculous Medal Shrine (jointly the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception and Mary's Central Shrine within it), the title minor basilica. This precipitated the renaming of the church to The Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. The Basilica Shrine thus became the second minor basilica in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia after the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul[3] and the 92nd minor basilica in the United States.[4]
In 1868, the Congregation of the Mission relocated the novitiate and scholasticate of its American Province from St. Louis, Missouri, to Philadelphia where they would establish St. Vincent's Seminary[5] on the eastern edge of the historic borough of Germantown, six miles north of the Philadelphia city center. (Germantown would later become part of a geographically expanded Philadelphia in the Act of Consolidation, 1854.) The Vincentians planned to build a chapel on the grounds of the seminary to serve Vincentian priests, brothers, and seminarians. Archbishop James Frederick Wood of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia requested that the plans be modified so that the chapel would also serve the working class immigrants in the area who did not have a parish church at the time. This chapel was opened to the public in 1879.[6]
Creation of Mary's Central Shrine
In 1927, Fr. Joseph Skelly, CM, expanded the chapel to create a shrine to our Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. The focal point of the shrine is a large sculpture of Carrara marble depicting the Blessed Mother extending her arms as she did in her second apparition to St. Catherine Labouré on November 27, 1830.[7]
