Post #6449

The Supreme Pontiff Pius IX honored it with holy indulgences, the privilege of an archconfraternity and the title of minor basilica (since 1874); and he wanted the statue of the Mother of God, which is venerated there, to be crowned with a solemn rite by his apostolic nuncio to France. The Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII then conferred on her innumerable benefits, granted the indulgence in the form of a jubilee on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apparition and encouraged pilgrimages with his authority and word. Under his pontificate, in 1883, work began for the construction of a new Basilica under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary (current Lower Basilica), the work of the architect Léopold Amédée Hardy, which was completed on 7 August 1889 and solemnly consecrated by Card. Benoît-Marie Langénieux, Archbishop of Reims, in the name of the Supreme Pontiff, on the 6th of October 1901. Furthermore, the Supreme Pontiff himself crowned the multiplicity of these privileges by graciously granting, at the request of many bishops, to celebrate a solemn feast under the title of the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate with its own Office and its own Holy Mass. Finally, the Supreme Pontiff St. Pius X in his piety towards the Mother of God, and to comply with the vows of many bishops, extended the same feast to the universal Church.