Mary, Brazil’s beloved queen

Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world, as Pope John Paul II reminded us in 2004 during the centenary celebrations for the crowning of Our Lady of Aparecida.

It was Pope Pius X who solemnly crowned the Virgin Mary as “Queen of Brazil” in 1904.

But devotion to Mary in Brazil goes back to the 16th century, when the fleet of Portuguese admiral Pedro Alvarez Cabral (1467-1520) landed in April 1500 on the coast of what they first called “Vera Cruz Island” - present day Brazil (from “pau-brasil” or “ember- wood”, in reference to the fiery colors of the tree-trunks).

After praying for Mary’s maternal protection and attending Mass at a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Bethlehem, the Portuguese sailors, under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, set sail early in 1500, in search of distant lands in the Western waters of the Atlantic Ocean. And it was the Virgin Mary, under her title of “Our Lady of Hope”, who first touched Brazilian soil, thanks to Cabral who, on his arrival, arranged for the first Mass to be celebrated before the statue of the Virgin that he had brought with him to this new land. This is why Brazilians like to say that “Brazil was born in Mary’s arms”.

In fact, all the villages and seaports of the new country developed around a small chapel bearing Mary’s name, for instance “Our Lady of the Seas” in Paraiba (dedicated in 1584). The first major Marian shrine in Brazil was that of Our Lady of Graces, in Bahia (or Baia), following an apparition of Mary to a young Indian woman married to a Portuguese in the 1530s.

Near São Paulo is the shrine of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception at Itanhaem; Our Lady of Victories, in the Espirito Santo; Our Lady of Help at Porto Seguro; the basilica of Our Lady of Nazareth in the Para province with its huge hall of votive offerings in thanksgiving for the countless graces and miracles that Mary has obtained.

But without doubt the greatest evidence of devotion to Mary in her Immaculate Conception is the shrine of the “Immaculate Virgin of Aparecida” on the banks of the River Parahiba, in the State of São Paulo.

There, the Brazilian people renewed their consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1946.

It should also be mentioned that, since the 1940s, Brazil has always been at the forefront of the Marian movement across the world. Marian Congregations continue to blossom there: today, there are more than 3,000, bringing together a huge number of young people known as “Marianos”!

The Mary of Nazareth team