Necedah Shrine, officially the Queen of the Holy Rosary, Mediatrix of Peace Shrine,July 2006, vol. 8, no. 3, p. 3 of Shrine Newsletter is a

Marian shrine A shrine to the Virgin Mary (or Marian shrine) is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion. Such locales are often the destinatio ...

located in

Necedah, Wisconsin Necedah is a village in Juneau County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 916 at the 2010 census. The village is located within the Town of Necedah. Geography Necedah is located at (44.0262, −90.0737). According to the United S ...

. On November 12, 1949, Mary Ann Van Hoof (1909–1984) reported receiving a vision from the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...

. She claimed that in subsequent visions she was told to "bring the truth to people" through prayer and the rosary. The

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

investigated and found the reported visions and other phenomena indisputably faked, and when Van Hoof and her followers refused to desist, put her under

interdict In Catholic canon law, an interdict () is an ecclesiastical censure, or ban that prohibits persons, certain active Church individuals or groups from participating in certain rites, or that the rites and services of the church are banished from ...

. Van Hoof and her followers then left the Roman Catholic Church and joined themselves to the Old Catholic movement.

Visions

Van Hoof reported that she received nine visions between November 12, 1949 and October 7, 1950, mostly in her own back yard. Pilgrims reportedly saw Van Hoof in a state of

religious ecstasy Religious ecstasy is a type of altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness, frequently accompanied by visions and emotional (and sometimes physical) euph ...

. Her messages were recorded on a tape recorder, and written in long hand by at least two people. Some were repeated word for word, other paraphrased; 100,000 people attended the vision on August 15, 1950, and witness accounts vary significantly. In 1956 Mrs. Van Hoof claimed to have been made aware of certain revelations made by the Madonna to George Washington concerning various trials his country would experience. Mrs. Van Hoof also claimed the ability to interpret these revelations. Van Hoof said that she suffered the Passion of Our Lord on the Fridays of Advent and

Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...

. Van Hoof reported that she was told in a vision that the most perfect way of offering

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

was the

Tridentine Mass The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass or Traditional Rite, is the liturgy of Mass in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church that appears in typical editions of the Roman Missal published from 1570 to 1962. Celebrated almo ...

approved by Saint Pius V and the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described a ...

for the

Latin Church , native_name_lang = la , image = San Giovanni in Laterano - Rome.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , alt = Façade of the Archbasilica of St. John in Lateran , caption = Archbasilica of Saint Joh ...

.July 2006, Volume 8, Issue 3, Various pages of Shrine Newsletter She was reportedly told that the Novus Ordo Mass, developed in the Vatican shortly after the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and ...

, was watered down. Some advocates of the Tridentine Mass oppose numerous changes implemented after Vatican II. The purported

revelation In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Background Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...

s also contain references to imminent

chastisement Chastisement is the infliction of corporal punishment as defined by law. Minors English common law allowed parents and others who have "lawful control or charge" of a child to use "moderate and reasonable" chastisement or correction. In the 1860 ...

, a thermonuclear

World War III World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use since at ...

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

submarines, and accusations that the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

hierarchy and

Papacy The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

had been subverted.

Interdict

After an investigation failed to support the validity of the apparitions, in 1951 John P. Treacy, Bishop of La Crosse, told the Van Hoofs to remove religious artifacts from their farm and stop circulating literature about the apparitions. In an official statement issued in 1955, he declared the visions to be false and prohibited worship associated with them. Van Hoof and her associates did not obey these orders. In May 1975, Bishop

Frederick William Freking Frederick William Freking (August 11, 1913 – November 28, 1998) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as bishop of the Diocese of Salina, in Kansas (1957–1964) and bishop of the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin ( ...

(1964–1983), Treacy's immediate successor, placed Van Hoof and six of her key followers under

, precipitating Van Hoof's final schism with the

Aftermath

Since 1975, the shrine has continued to operate, but has disaffiliated from the Roman Catholic Church, and affiliated instead with an

Old Catholic The terms Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics, Old-Catholic churches or Old Catholic movement designate "any of the groups of Western Christians who believe themselves to maintain in complete loyalty the doctrine and traditions of the Great Chu ...

, conservative independent organization. The shrine runs a private primary school, established in 1982, and a visitor center. Believers are building a new "House of Prayer" at the spot of the visions. Seven Sorrows of Our Sorrowful Mother's Home for Unwanted Infants - The name of the

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or ab ...

that used to be run by this community in the 1970s.Seven Sorrows of Our Sorrowful Mother Infants Home
/ref>

Bibliography

*Cuneo, Michael. "The Vengeful Virgin: Studies in Contemporary Catholic Apocalypticism" in ''Millennium, Messiahs and Mayhem''. Henry Robbins and Susan Palmer, editors. New York: Routledge, 1997. *Johnson, Kevin Orlin. ''Apparitions: Mystic Phenomena and What They Mean'', Dallas, 1998. *Kselman, Thomas A. and Steven Avella, "Marian Piety and the Cold War in the United States," ''Catholic Historical Review'' 72 (1986): 403–424 *Maloney, Marlene. "Necedah Revisited: Anatomy of a Phony Apparition" ''Fidelity Magazine'', vol. 8, no. 3 (February 1989) pp. 18–34. ISSN 0730-0271 *Swan, Henry ''My Work With Necedah'' Necedah: For My God and My Country Inc, 1959. *Van Hoof, Mary Ann and Myrtle Sommers. ''Revelations and Messages as Given Through Mary Ann Van Hoof at Necedah Wisconsin:'' Vol. 1: 1950–1970, Vol. 2: 1971–1975. Necedah: For My God and My Country Inc., 1978. *Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra. "Religious Experience and Public Cult: The Case of Mary Ann Van Hoof." ''Journal of Religion and Health'' 28 (1989): 36–57. *Zimdars-Swartz, Sandra ''Encountering Mary''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

References

External links

Necedah Shrine
* Case, Thomas W

Originally published in ''Fidelity Magazine'', 1993 * Joseph Dwigh
"My Personal Reasons Why I Left the Shrine at Necedah, Wisconsin"
{{coord, 44, 1, 17, N, 090, 3, 21, W, display=title Shrines to the Virgin Mary Old Catholic church buildings in Wisconsin Churches in Juneau County, Wisconsin