- San Carlos Borroméo de Carmel Mission Basilica; just south of Carmel, California:
The largest of California’s Spanish Mission Churches, Carmel Mission Basilica is the burial place of three of the most important California Franciscans:
Father Junipero Serra, who was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1988; Father Lausen, Serra’s able successor and the man who had the present church constructed; and Father Crespi, a diarist who recorded much information on early exploration and settlement.
carmelmission.org/museum/exhibitions/basilica/index.php
The present stone church was planned by Blessed Junipero Serra during his administration as Father–Presidente of the California Mission Chain (1770-1784). However many factors contributed to its actual erection being delayed until years after his death. Serra wished to build a permanent stone house of worship in the style of those in Mexico and Spain like those he erected in the Province of Queretaro in Mexico. This type of building required skilled masons to cut and dress the stones and no professionals were to be had in the province of California . . .
In the early 1960’s, the Diocesan Bishop, Aloyisus Willinger petitioned the Holy See in Rome to be designated a Minor Basilica. A Basilica is the highest honorary rank for a church and implies great historical and artistic importance. Pope John XXlll honored Carmel Mission’s church with the rank of Basilica in 1961 in recognition of Serra’s heroic work in the establishment of Christianity on the western coast of the United States as well as the unique architectural features of the structure such as the Moorish dome and the parabolic ceiling.
In the entry of the church hang the insignia that the church has been declared a basilica, - the pavilion ( papal umbrella) and the “tintinabulum” (basilica bell). Since that designation, Carmel Mission Basilica was honored with a visit of the Holy Father from Rome in 1987, when Pope John Paul ll visited the church to deliver an important address on evangelization as well as laying a wreathe at the foot of the grave of the mission’s founder, Junipero Serra, who he would beatify two years later in Rome at the Basilica of St. Peter’s.
Travel Tip: If you want to buy something from their Store at Carmel Mission Basilica, make sure you get inside the store well before they close.
I arrived there kind of late during the afternoon and wasn’t sure if I would be able to see everything, so I decided to look at the Mission, Museums, and Grounds first.
I then went to the Store at 4:55 P.M. and was told immediately by the clerk that they were closed even though their website says they are opened until 5:00 P.M.; I was suprised they didn’t want to take my money (I wanted to buy a booklet about the Mission).
- St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, NY
3)** Brompton Oratory, London, England (official called The London Oratory):**
bromptonoratory.com/Our_Church.html
- Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, France:
Built by the Saint Louis IX, King of France:
sainte-chapelle.monuments-nationaux.fr/en/sainte-chapelle.monuments-nationaux.fr/en/
- Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany
This Cathedral has a Reliquary of the Three Magi.
koelner-dom.de/
- Baltimore Basilica:
The historic Baltimore Basilica, built from 1806-1821, was the first great metropolitan cathedral constructed in the United States after the adoption of the Constitution. America’s First Cathedral, officially known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, quickly became a symbol of the country’s newfound religious freedom.
Two prominent Americans guided the Basilica’s design and architecture: John Carroll, the country’s first bishop, later Archbishop of Baltimore, and cousin of Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; and Benjamin Henry Latrobe, father of American architecture, and Thomas Jefferson’s Architect of the Capitol.
For more than 100 years until the American Revolution, the Catholic Church consisted of a persecuted but devout minority. With the adoption of the new Constitution, Church leaders wanted to build a cathedral to celebrate their newly acquired right to worship openly. Bishop Carroll adopted the forward-looking neoclassical architecture of the new federal city in Washington. He wanted an architectural symbol that was considered “American,” not Gothic and reminiscent of the Dark Ages in Europe.
baltimorebasilica.org/
Travel Tip: The Tour, for which a fee is charged, wasn’t that good; there was quite a crowd of people (including groups of Catholic schoolchildren) and the Tour Guide didn’t use a microphone, so it was very difficult to hear the Guide.
However, they did take you into the Crypt below which contained some Bishop’s graves and there was also a display of 19th century clerical vestments and a Museum Room with various artifacts from the Basilica’s history, including a few Papal artifacts and the Basilica’s Charter.