By Daniel Payne for CNA
Williamsburg, Virginia, Sep 24, 2025 / 14:57 pm (CNA).
“When you go on pilgrimage, hearts need to change. Something needs to change for a pilgrimage to be fruitful.”
That’s the message Sister Camilla Oberding, COLW, has for those who travel to the Marian Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in eastern England.
Sister Camilla was joined by two of her fellow sisters of the Community of Our Lady of Walsingham in Williamsburg, Virginia, on Sept. 24, with the nuns speaking at the U.S. National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham located in Virginia’s colonial-era capital city. Sister Camilla herself is the foundress of the English community.
The shrine in Williamsburg is part of a thousand-year history of Marian devotion dating back to rural England. The tradition endured centuries of repression and decline before a revival in the late 19th century saw a renewal of devotion to Mary in Walsingham — one that has extended to its sister shrine in Virginia, site of the first permanent English settlement in North America.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in England dates back to the 11th century, when, as tradition holds, the Blessed Mother appeared to the noblewoman Richeldis de Faverches and showed her a vision of the house in Nazareth at which the Annunciation took place.
Mary asked Richeldis to build a replica of the house in Walsingham; the house allegedly came together in a miracle one night while the noblewoman was in prayer, with the workmen at the site reportedly declaring the structure “flawlessly joined, and of a craftsmanship far superior to their own.”
A priory subsequently developed on the site; it was a place of holy devotion for several hundred years until the English Reformation under Henry VIII brought about its destruction.
The site fell into centuries of disuse after it was destroyed. In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the nearby Chapel of St. Catherine of Alexandria became the site of renewed devotion to the Walsingham apparition.
That church was long known as the “Slipper Chapel” as it represented the last stop on the ancient pilgrimage route to the Walsingham complex; pilgrims would remove their shoes to walk the last mile to the original Walsingham site. That chapel is now a national shrine and the Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham.
Just over a mile north sits the remains of the old Walsingham priory. A cross in the grass marks the site of the 11th-century house built by Richeldis.
The Williamsburg shrine, meanwhile, arose when the Virginia priest Father Thomas Walsh helped spearhead the dedication of a small chapel at the College of William and Mary to Our Lady of Walsingham in 1942.
Walsh may have earlier visited the English Walsingham site in the early 1930s during a trip to England; he was known in the U.S. to have a strong devotion to the apparition.
Of architectural note in the chapel is a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, commissioned by Walsh from the sculptor Lillian Dagless, who designed many of the furnishings for the Walsingham Slipper Chapel. The design of the statue is based on the seal of the ancient priory.
Sister Catherine Williams, who also made the trip to the Williamsburg shrine with her fellow nuns, said the community exists as an “ecclesial family of consecrated life.”
“We are dedicated to intensive prayer and intensive service,” she said. “We spend three hours a day in prayer. We also have the life of an apostolate. We run parish missions and engage in a broad range of apostolic work.”
There are plans to bring priests and brothers into the community as well, she said. The community also includes nearly a dozen lay adherents.
Sister Catherine described the small village of Walsingham as “a meeting place of so many denominations,” one that also features an Anglican-built recreation of the Marian holy house.
“The Anglicans ever-so-slightly beat us to it in setting up a major shrine,” Sister Catherine said with a laugh.
That site is richly ornate, she noted. “Going in there, you’d think it was Catholic,” she joked.
Sister Camilla said the Blessed Mother directed the building of the ancient holy house through Richeldis “so that everyone who goes there would be helped in their need.”
“God is using each of us to evangelize in today’s world. That’s what Walsingham is all about,” she said.
“We have to cultivate the graces we have received and grow in holiness each day,” she said. “We are called as Christians to say yes to God’s love from moment to moment each day.”
“If we did that, we would experience that joy that nothing else can give,” she said.
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Wheeling, W.V., Aug 23, 2019 / 04:43 pm (CNA).- After nearly a year without a bishop, due to the scandal-ridden former Bishop Michael Bransfield, the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia has a new shepherd, who was installed at a Mass yesterday on the feast of the Queenship of Mary.
Hundreds of Catholics, hopeful for a fresh start, came from throughout the diocese to fill the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling for the 2+ hour Mass and glimpse their new leader, Bishop Mark Brennan. Thousands more tuned in to the event via a Facebook live stream posted by the diocese.
“It’s a new beginning. We hope it’s a new beginning,” Joe Herrick, a Catholic who attended the Mass, told a local Fox News affiliate.
“We’re very hopeful for the future. I’m really praying Bishop Brennan will be able to lead us and mend the flock together so we can be one.”
Brennan, who gave the homily, did not hesitate to address the tumultuous year that both the diocese and the universal Church have experienced.
“My friends, the ‘people walked in darkness’ and ‘dwelt in the land of gloom’. Those words of Isaiah, referring to enemy armies oppressing the kingdom of Israel, are an apt description for how many Catholics in this country have felt over the past year and how many West Virginia Catholics have felt for even longer,” Brennan said on Thursday, Aug. 22 at his installation Mass.
While he did not specifically name Bransfield, Brennan spoke of the diocese’s “painful past” and the “crisis” it now faces as a result of the scandals.
“The scandals we have learned about have caused painful disappointment, confusion, anger and distrust of Church leaders,” he said.
In September 2018, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Michael J. Bransfield from the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston while an investigation was launched regarding allegations of financial and sexual misconduct against him. Archbishop William E. Lori was appointed apostolic administrator of the diocese in the interim.
Bransfield, who had been bishop of the diocese since 2004, reportedly sexually harassed, assaulted and coerced seminarians, priests, and other adults during his time there. He is also reported to have used diocesan funds to make large financial gifts to other bishops and to pay for personal luxuries. According to a report from the Washington Post, concerns about Bransfield’s finances were raised as early as 2012 and were evidently ignored for years by some bishops who were the recipients of these gifts.
In July 2019, after assessing the investigation into Bransfield by Lori, the Vatican announced sanctions against Bransfield, including that he is no longer allowed to participate in public Masses or to live within his former diocese. He is also expected to “make personal amends” for his wrongs, Pope Francis said in a communique.
“Behavior has consequences, and there are consequences to bad behavior in the past that will have to be dealt with,” Brennan said in his homily. “That is one of my responsibilities and I assure you that I will meet it.”
But still, there is hope, the new bishop added. “…Isaiah’s message to an oppressed people does not end in the darkness. Hear it again: ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone,’” he said.
“My friends, it takes no humility on my part to admit that I am not the light,” Brennan said, provoking laughter from the congregation. Instead, he said, it is the light of Christ that will lead the diocese out of these “dark times” and into a future of hope.
“The light of Christ beckons us to move now from the painful past toward him, not in denial but in confidence that the Lord will supply us with the wisdom and strength to do things better, to live our faith with greater integrity and to reflect more brightly, as far as our human weakness and limitations will permit, his own enduring light,” he said.
Brennan acknowledged numerous groups of people whom he said have already been lights in the darkness, including parents who continue to catechize their children, Catholic school and religious education teachers who do the same, parish priests who faithfully administer the sacraments, as well as diocesan chancery workers and faithful young people.
“Christ’s light has been shining in the darkness through all of them and, as St. John says in his Gospel, the darkness has not overcome it. I thank God for these faithful West Virginia Catholics,” he said.
The scandals may also have driven some people away from the Church, Brennan said, but he encouraged Catholics in the diocese to look to their roots circa the Civil War – when West Virginia seceded from Virginia in order to remain in the Union – for inspiration to remain united in faith.
“When the dark clouds of secession were rolling over the State of Virginia in the spring of 1861, the people of these western mountains chose to remain in the United States of America. They would not break their unity with Ohio and Pennsylvania, Michigan and Kentucky. They petitioned Congress to admit them as the State of West Virginia, which Congress did in 1863,” he said.
“Many of their sons—the ancestors of some here present — fought to maintain the integrity of the Union.”
He urged Catholics of today to fight for that same unity in the Church.
“Unity with one another and with God is what the Lord wants for us— and what, in our hearts, we truly desire,” he said.
“One man told me not long ago that he stopped going to Mass in his parish because of the recent scandals but then he asked himself: who was he helping by doing that? No one. Who was he hurting? Himself. He has since returned to Mass, still eager to see the Church address its failings and bring about lasting reform but conscious that walking away doesn’t help,” he added.
“As Simon Peter said to the Lord when some disciples were leaving Jesus because of hard teachings, ‘Lord to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.’” The Blessed Virgin Mary is another example of someone who said “yes” to the Lord despite difficult circumstances, Brennan said.
“…like Mary, we can let God fulfill his purpose in us and not let the darkness return to cover the earth. We can right the wrongs of the past and move on to make Christ known, helping our neighbor in need and remaining united in faith and love,” he said.
“West Virginia Catholics: cherish your faith and the holy Church that has nurtured it,” he added.
“Make Mary’s ‘yes’ to God your own and work with me and your brothers and sisters to let the light of Christ be a light brightly visible in the mountains and valleys, the city streets and country roads of this beautiful part of God’s creation: West Virginia.” […]
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St. Paul, Minn., Jul 16, 2020 / 10:32 am (CNA).- A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement directive that would have forced thousands of international students to leave the country has been rescinded after it was challenged by a litany of lawsuits.
The directive, which was announced July 6, denied visas to international students with an exclusively online course load. It came after many colleges and universities announced plans to conduct the fall semester online, throwing the fate of international students into turmoil.
Catholic institutions praised the reversal of the directive.
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities said in a statement that they were “heartened by the agreement” reached in the lawsuit between Harvard-MIT and the government.
“Our institutions’ ongoing advocacy stems from valuing global collaboration and having a keen awareness that the Jesuit mission of forming persons who are charged with making the world a better place is one that has no borders or boundaries,” said the AJCU.
President John J. DeGioia of Georgetown University, who signed an amicus brief in support of the Harvard-MIT lawsuit, told the university’s press that he was “thankful for the news” of the reversal. Previously he had called the ICE directive a “reckless action” on the part of the government.
The directive “creates new and unnecessary barriers for international students and puts their health, stability and academic progress at risk if they are unable to participate in classes in person,” DeGioia said. It failed to “recognize the invaluable contributions of our international students within our community and the impacts of this abrupt change during an ongoing pandemic.”
The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities also spoke out against the directive, calling it a “heartless” policy.
“These are young people fully vetted by the U.S. government, given clearance to study here, and now partway through their programs. Sending them home, without a degree, would force them to start their lives over simply because a university is trying to keep its faculty and students safe as contagion levels continue to be unpredictable,” the ACCU stated. “There are difficult decisions to make in challenging times, but this is not one of those.”
Shivam Mishra came to the U.S. from Jamshedpur, India, to study accounting at the University of Dallas, a Catholic University in Dallas, Texas. Although the university plans to open for in-person classes in the fall, it is prepared to go online if it is overwhelmed with cases.
For Mishra, who is working towards a masters in accounting, the ICE mandate would have threatened his ability to earn his license as a Certified Public Accountant.
“I have invested my time, money, and then I was away from my family, my parents and everyone,” Mishra told CNA. “I came to the US just to have better opportunities.”
Rahul Ashok Lobo, a rising junior who is majoring in economics and political science at Notre Dame University, led the international student response to the university’s dealings with international students and the ICE mandate.
Lobo, who was born in India, grew up in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and now holds a passport from the United Kingdom, said that the policy changes “throw any sort of semblance of planning out the window.”
“Information hasn’t been very forthcoming recently, and that really leaves us and our imaginations to run wild in terms of what the fall semester is going to look like,” Lobo told CNA.
Even after the ICE policy was rescinded, Lobo said that a lot of uncertainty remains. Since the university has stressed the value of the in-person experience, it may continue to encourage international students, especially first year students, to take a leave of absence.
The ACCU also voiced concern for first year students.
“Yesterday’s decision resolved these issues for existing international students. We hope the administration will address the needs of new international students using the same flexibility during this pandemic,” the organization said in a statement.
Lobo said that not only are international students enriched by the campus experience, but the campus is enriched by a diverse student body. This fall, though, the campus will likely not be as diverse.
International students offer “a diversity of thought, opinion, background, and experience,” said Lobo. “But the way things are looking, much of what Notre Dame prides in terms of diversity will simply be absent from fall semester on campus.”
Julie Sullivan, President of St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota, said in a statement that international students are an “integral and cherished part of the fabric of our community.”
“We are very grateful for the diverse, global perspectives our international students bring to the St. Thomas community, our state and our country,” Sullivan said. […]
Thank you so much for sharing this. Next time I go to Williamsburg I’ll try to pay a visit.
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