Shrine's Our Lady of La Vang chapel a gift from Vietnamese-Americans

Published: 2006-10-25

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington celebrated Mass and dedicated a chapel to Our Lady of La Vang, the Madonna of Vietnam, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Oct. 21. The new chapel is a gift from Vietnamese-Americans to the Washington shrine, emphasizing the solidarity between Catholics in the United States and Vietnam. Approximately 5,300 people -- from as far away as California, Texas, Mississippi and Massachusetts -- attended the ceremony. The story of Our Lady of La Vang goes back to the 18th century. Beginning about 1798, the emperor of Vietnam, during a period of political upheaval, restricted the practice of Catholicism and persecuted believers. Catholics fled to the nearby jungle, known as the La Vang region, in what is now the Quang Tri province in central Vietnam. Every night the people gathered at the foot of a large tree to pray the rosary. One night they saw an apparition of a beautiful woman in a native Vietnamese blue and white dress and magnificent cloak, carrying an infant son. Mary appeared many times at the same place throughout a nearly 100-year period of religious persecution.

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