DC -- Basilica of the Natl Shrine of the Immaculate Conception:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.116.36.192 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1]
 BASIL_970714_08.JPG
|
[2] BASIL_970714_09.JPG
|
[3] BASIL_970714_10.JPG
|
[4] BASIL_970714_13.JPG
|
[5] BASIL_970714_17.JPG
|
[6] BASIL_970714_18.JPG
|
[7] BASIL_970714_19.JPG
|
[8] BASIL_970714_20.JPG
|
[9] BASIL_970714_22.JPG
|
[10] BASIL_970714_25.JPG
|
[11]
BASIL_970714_26.JPG
|
[12] BASIL_970714_30.JPG
|
[13]
BASIL_970714_32.JPG
|
[14] BASIL_970714_34.JPG
|
[15] BASIL_970714_36.JPG
|
[16] BASIL_970714_38.JPG
|
[17] BASIL_970714_40.JPG
|
[18] BASIL_970714_42.JPG
|
[19] BASIL_970714_44.JPG
|
[20] BASIL_970714_46.JPG
|
[21] BASIL_970714_48.JPG
|
[22] BASIL_970714_50.JPG
|
[23] BASIL_970714_52.JPG
|
[24] BASIL_970714_54.JPG
|
[25] BASIL_970714_56.JPG
|
[26] BASIL_970714_58.JPG
|
[27] BASIL_970714_60.JPG
|
[28] BASIL_970714_62.JPG
|
[29] BASIL_970714_64.JPG
|
[30] BASIL_970714_66.JPG
|
[31] BASIL_970714_68.JPG
|
[32] BASIL_970714_70.JPG
|
[33] BASIL_970714_72.JPG
|
[34] BASIL_970714_74.JPG
|
[35] BASIL_970714_76.JPG
|
[36] BASIL_970714_78.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- BASIL_970714_08.JPG: This, the Chapel of Our Lady of Hope of Pontmain, France, was my favorite chapel in the place. It was given in 1994 by Bob and Delores Hope (yep, *that* Bob Hope) in memory of the comedian's mother.
It consists of three of these rather abstract sculptures of Mary. I thought it looked very beautiful.
- BASIL_970714_26.JPG: This is one of the paintings inside the main area of the church. He looks kind of ticked off. The character on the lower right is actually a statue instead of being part of the painting.
- BASIL_970714_32.JPG: Another painting on the ceiling in the area of the sanctuary.
- AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
- Wikipedia Description: Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is a prominent basilica of the Catholic Church located in Washington, D.C., honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the Patroness of the United States.
It is the largest Catholic church in America and one of the largest religious structures in the world. Millions of pilgrims from around the country and the world visit the basilica each year. The basilica is located on Michigan Avenue in the northeast quadrant of Washington on land donated by The Catholic University of America. Nearby is the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center.
Church construction began in 1920 under Philadelphia contractor John McShain and opened in 1959 though not yet completed as of now. It is designated as a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Basilica is the Patronal Catholic Church of the United States, honoring Mary, Mother of God, under the title Immaculate Conception. It is not the cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Washington; the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle serves as church of the Archdiocese. It is accessible on the Metro Red Line via the Brookland-CUA station.
The Basilica is often—and wrongly—said to be the official church of the United States, which it is not. The United States has no official religion; thus, there is no official church. The Basilica is sometimes confused with the Washington National Cathedral, also a National Historic Landmark, which is an Episcopal church chartered by Congress as the National House of Prayer.
The Basilica does not have its own parish community, but it serves the adjacent University, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (located down the street), and hosts numerous Masses for organizations of the Church from across the United States. It houses dozens of chapels honoring Mary and reflecting the origins of the Catholic immigrants and religious orders whose generosity erected them. Its Greek-styled interior is crowned with numerous domes decorated in mosaics, similar to the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice, Italy, but much larger. The mosaics feature American renditions of traditional Catholic images.
The exterior of the Basilica is 459 ft. long, 240 ft. wide, and 237 ft. tall to the top of the cross on the dome. The diameter of the main (Trinity) dome of the Basilica is only 7 feet shorter than that of the dome of the United States Capitol.
Among the many works of art, Pewabic Pottery was installed consisting of arches outlined with iridescent Pewabic tile, huge ceramic medallions set in the ceiling, and fourteen Stations of the Cross for the crypt.
History:
In 1792, John Carroll, the bishop of Baltimore and America's first Roman Catholic bishop, consecrated the newly-created United States under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of The Immaculate Conception. In 1847, Pope Pius IX formalized Carroll's acclamation, proclaiming the Immaculate Conception as the Patroness of the United States. In subsequent years, a few priests imagined an elaborate shrine in honor of their country's patroness.
Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan, the fourth rector of the Catholic University of America proposed the construction of a national shrine to commemorate the Immaculate Conception in the country's capital. Bishop Shahan took his appeal to Pope Pius X on August 15, 1913. Shahan received the pope's enthusiastic support and his personal contribution of $400. Shahan returned to the United States and persuaded the Board of Trustees of the Catholic University of America to donate land at the southwest corner of the campus for his shrine.
In January 1914, Shahan published the first issue of Salve Regina, a newsletter meant to stir enthusiasm for his project. He wrote that the shrine would be a "monument of love and gratitude, a great hymn in stone as perfect as the art of man can make it and as holy as the intentions of its builders could wish it to be." His newsletter was circulated to dioceses throughout the country and financial donations began to pour into Washington. In 1915, Father Bernard McKenna of Philadelphia was appointed by Shahan as first director of the national shrine, bringing the bishop's dream one step closer to reality. Shahan oversaw the construction of the shrine until his death on March 9, 1932. His body is the only one interred at the national shrine.
By 1919, architectural drawings were chosen by Shahan and McKenna for the construction of the national shrine by the Boston firm of Maginnis & Walsh. At first a traditional Gothic architectural style was considered. Bishop Shahan wanted his shrine to be bold and glorious and opted instead for a Byzantine-Romanesque design. Cardinal James Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore, blessed the foundation stone on September 23, 1920. More than 10,000 people attended the mass, including foreign ambassadors, United States government officials, military officers, and other dignitaries. In 1929, the Great Depression halted the construction above the crypt level. The beginning of American involvement in World War II stalled plans even further.
After the war, in 1953, American bishops under the leadership of John Noll, archbishop ad personam of Fort Wayne and Patrick O'Boyle, archbishop of Washington, pledged to raise the funds necessary to complete the upper church of the national shrine. On November 20, 1959, thousands of Catholics gathered with their bishops for the dedication of the Great Upper Church.
The crypt has displayed the Papal Tiara of Pope Paul VI since 1968. In 1990, Pope John Paul II named the national shrine as the U.S.'s 36th minor basilica. In August 2006, work was completed on a mosaic covering the Redemption Dome in the Upper Church. This is the first new work to be done in many years and was part of the original architectural plans. Future plans include finishing the intended mosiacs for the Incarnation Dome and the largest of the domes, the Trinity Dome. A small chapel on the crypt level was recently completed honoring Our Lady of La Vang (Vietnam).
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].
