Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Associated Press August 17, 2017
A framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe from near the U.S.-Mexico border. (CNS photo/Jose Luis Gonzalez, Reuters)

A religious shrine that has served as a focal point for Hispanic residents of a New Jersey city has been removed after occupying ground on state-owned land for 14 years.

Workers took down the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Passaic on Wednesday. It consisted of a wooden log enclosed in a glass case, surrounded by statues, candles and flowers. It came together over the years after a Hispanic teenager claimed to have seen the face of the Virgin Mary in the stump.

“It gives us hope,” Esteban Dominguez said of the shrine as she was watching workers dismantle it. “And everybody lives for hope.”

The shrine was on property along Route 21 that is owned by the state Transportation Department.

Mayor Hector Lora tells The Record he ordered the shrine removed because of separation-of-church-and-state issues.

Lora said the group that maintained the shrine—Mayordomia Guadalupe—began to collect money at the site and ran electrical lines for security lighting. He said the city had tried unsuccessfully for months to relocate it and its removal should not come as a surprise.

“All of those suggestions were rejected,” he said.

Mayordomia Guadalupe has spoken to several churches and private properties in hopes of finding a place for the shrine.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

Preparations for the conclave to find a new pope accelerated Friday with the installation of the chimney out of the Sistine Chapel that will signal the election of a successor to Pope Francis.
The conclave that begins next Wednesday to elect a successor for Pope Francis is the first in 46 ½ years for which the Vatican hasn’t ordered a set of cassocks from the two best-known papal tailors.
Papabile: How do conclave watchers come up with their lists of the next pope—and should we trust them?
Inside the VaticanMay 01, 2025
The people of God see the bishop of Rome as a teacher, but they also unquestionably see him as a father.
J.D. Long GarcíaMay 01, 2025