La Crosse Diocese to break ground for Our Lady of Guadalupe Church

Published: 2004-05-11

LA CROSSE, Wis. (CNS) -- The church to be built on the site of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the La Crosse Diocese will be "a beautiful place" that will inspire "the prayer of the people who come on pilgrimage," said the former head of the diocese. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis, who was La Crosse's bishop in 1994-2003 and now heads the St. Louis Archdiocese, was scheduled to break ground for the church May 13. "I have had a strong sense from the time I was ordained a bishop for the Diocese of La Crosse to foster the devotional life especially with the help of our Blessed Mother," Archbishop Burke said in an interview with The Catholic Times, the diocesan newspaper. "In time I understood the devotion would be to Our Lady of Guadalupe," he said. "Like those involved in the original apparitions, I too have had the sense of fulfilling the wish of our Blessed Mother that she might be more fully known and loved as the mother of all of America."

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