Nothing is without meaning at this church. Not the 100-foot-high dome’s turquoise color, the same as the mantle worn by Our Lady of Guadalupe when she was said to have appeared to an indigenous Mexican in 1531.

Not the constellation of stars gilded on that dome that reflect the sky in Mexico City at the time of that vision, and that appeared on Our Lady’s turquoise gown.

A 25-bell carillon system hangs in the Bell Tower at the top of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine Church. BELOW: An aerial view of the Shrine Church, which is set to be dedicated July 31, 2008. Ground was broken for the church May 13, 2004. Peter Thomson photo BOTTOM: Construction of the Shrine Church is scheduled to be completed around May 2008. Pews and artwork will be some of the final pieces to be put in the classically designed building.

Not the various Latin names for Mary around the nave of the church.

Not her words in Spanish found elsewhere in the church.

And not the church in its entirety, which one architect said is supposed to look as if it naturally sprang out of the bluff.

“People say to me, ‘Is it turning out just as you planned?’” said Archbishop Raymond Burke, founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. “In all honesty, it’s far more than I had ever imagined, and it truly is a work of God. I can’t take credit for this at all.”

Today, the centerpiece at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Shrine Church, still is a construction site on La Crosse’s southern edge. But when it opens July 31, 2008, artists and architects involved in the project expect the church to attract international attention.

For video of Saturday's dedication of the shrine's Rosary Walk, click here.

For photos of the dedication and progress on the Shrine Church, click here.

For an aerial photo overview and interactive explanation of the entire shrine grounds, click here.

“From my perspective in the northeast United States, what’s happening on the bluff in Wisconsin is absolutely revolutionary,” said Anthony Visco, fine arts coordinator for the shrine and director of the Atelier for the Sacred Arts in Philadelphia. “We have evidence in La Crosse that the church has indeed survived modernism. That’s how profound this is.”

Or this from Duncan Stroik, the Notre Dame University architecture professor who designed the church’s interior: “This is one of the most significant new buildings being built in the world right now.”

While people and materials from around the country and the world have been part of the shrine’s development, three local firms have had key roles.

River Architects has led the architectural design not only for the church but also the Votive Candle Chapel, the Pilgrim Center, the Stations of the Cross, the Memorial to the Unborn, the Rosary Walk, the rectory and the layout of the entire grounds.

Fowler and Hammer has taken the lead on construction of the church and other parts of the grounds.

TCI built the Votive Candle Chapel and the Pilgrim Center.

For Mike Swinghamer, project architect for the shrine and co-owner of River Architects, the project started as a mysterious sentence spoken by Burke, then head of the Diocese of La Crosse, at St. Joseph the Workman Cathedral after midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 1998.

“He said, ‘I have some big plans for you,’ and that’s all he said,” Swinghamer said. “I lay awake thinking about that until 1 or 2 in the morning.”

When the two started talking, Burke hadn’t yet chosen a site, and early on it was going to be a shrine to Our Lady of Fatima, Swinghamer said.

Burke eventually settled on the current site in town of Shelby, which was donated by Lucille and the late Robert Swing.

Swinghamer, a nephew of the Swings, remembers attending family reunions on the property as a child.

“I knew it was a special place, even as a young kid, just the hills and solitude of it,” he said.

The land was annexed into La Crosse in 2000.

Swinghamer said no decision is made without Burke’s approval.

The church is the centerpiece of the project. It will seat 450, has 25 bells in a tower at the top, a crypt church below and eight side shrines with saints along the side walls of the church proper.

Two weeks ago, as a construction worker for Fowler and Hammer sawed through a plaster column along a penciled line, Sherry Wall, construction administrator for River Architects, climbed scaffolding at the front of the church. With a 300-pound crucifix hanging above, she talked to a man who was installing a support bracket for a mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“It’s kind of like a phoenix growing out of the side of the hill now,” Wall said of the church, which is visible from Hwy. 14/61.

Wall has a running joke with a plumbing consultant that you build the shrine the same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

“The shrine church belongs to the shrine,” she said. “But I really believe when it’s done, it will belong to everybody who worked on it — little pieces of it, anyway.”

The project has had some critics among the laity in the diocese, especially concerning costs.

The shrine is set up as a non-profit and operates outside the structure of the Diocese of La Crosse. Burke is the founder and president of a board of directors that includes Bishop Jerome Listecki, head of the Diocese of La Crosse, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, head of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Sister Christa Marie Halligan, executive director of the shrine, won’t say how much the Shrine Church will cost, but the nonprofit’s IRS tax records provide some detail about how much has been spent on shrine buildings.

In its 2006 tax return, the shrine listed individual physical assets worth $7.9 million, including $2.8 million for the Pilgrim Center, $1.4 million for the Votive Candle Chapel, $693,000 for the parking lot and site work and $469,000 for the maintenance building, all of which were substantially completed in 2002. However, another part of the tax form indicates the shrine started 2006 with $17.9 million in land, buildings and equipment, but finished the year with $25.5 million. The shrine’s total net assets at the end of 2006, including cash and investments, was $38.8 million.

The shrine’s tax records, like those of other nonprofit organizations, are open to public inspection under federal law.

All of the costs have been funded through donations, said Halligan, of the Franciscan Sisters of the Martyr St. George.

While the church is the centerpiece, it’s at the top of a paved trail through the woods that includes Stations of the Cross and a Rosary Walk, which was dedicated Saturday.

A rectory adjoined to the church is under construction and will house the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.

A retreat and cathecetical center as well as a convent for contemplative nuns are planned for the 103-acre site as well.

Visco, the fine arts coordinator, did the artwork for the Stations of the Cross, the Rosary Walk and parts of the church.

While many thought something like the Shrine Church would have to come out of a major city, major cities still are entrenched in modernism, he said. People go to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, dedicated in 2002, because it’s a spectacle, Visco said.

He has to go on a pilgrimage to get to the Shrine Church, he said, and described the classical building as a “return to beauty to serve God.”

“We always knew the church would survive, but we’re seeing it in terms of brick and mortar and stone and mosaic,” Visco said. “What his excellency Archbishop Burke has set up here is a real academy of sacred arts for North America.”

In 1999, Pope John Paul II referred to Our Lady of Guadalupe during an address in Mexico City about the church in America, a term he used to encompass both North and South America.

Referring to that, Burke, now head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said South America has a great richness in devotional life and the whole life of faith, and North America has many resources and a richness and generosity to help those in need.

“If the two come together there would be a mutual enrichment,” Burke said.

He said he hopes the shrine makes Our Lady of Guadalupe better known in the northern part of North America.

By the Numbers

Diameter of copper dome: 42 feet

Main level: 16,380 square feet

Seating capacity: 450

Stained glass windows: 32

Confessionals: three

Concrete for footings, foundation wall and tunnel: 2,212 cubic yards

Structural steel: 184 tons

Custom chandeliers: 18

Concrete tile roof: 17,000 square feet

Joe Orso can be reached at (608) 791-8429 or jorso@lacrossetribune.com.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

On Dec. 9, 1531, an indigenous Mexican, Juan Diego, saw a vision of the Virgin Mary dressed in native garments. Diego told the bishop that Mary commanded a church be built on Tepeyac Hill, the site of the vision, in present-day Mexico City. When the bishop asked for proof, Juan Diego, returned with a cloak filled with flowers he found blooming in winter during another vision of the woman. An image of the woman was left on the cloak.

Source: catholic.org

Ads by Yahoo! Exclusive La Crosse Shop exclusive Justin Charles men's La Crosse coats & sweaters. www.JustinCharles.com Free Book: The Church Jesus Built What happened to the Church Jesus built? Find out now in free book. www.gnmagazine.org/church La Crosse Churches Compare Churches in La Crosse and get quotes. www.matchpoint.com/churches

Advertisement