basilica — for the purposes of this entry, a basilica is simply a large Roman Catholic church that has been given special ceremonial privileges and is the church that the Pope would visit if he were in the area
basílica — the Spanish cognate of the same meaning
I’m not a Catholic, so I won’t even pretend to understand the workings of that religion; however, I did teach Spanish for 30 years, and a large majority of Spanish-speaking people practice Catholicism. During that time, I visited Mexico City twice — once with other teachers and once with a group of my students. Included in both trips was a visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Guadalupe is the patroness saint of Mexico, and the shrine to her is housed in the Basilica pictured above — the one with the bluish roof. To the left you can see the original Basilica, but you can’t go inside of it anymore. The walls are cracked, and the building is unstable.
The Basilica can hold 10,000 people for each mass, and there are many masses held each day. Devout people approach the shrine on knees, some of them having crawled for miles to reach the site. When I was there with my students, I had to chastise a few who were openly staring at people doing that.
Prior to traveling abroad, I didn’t know what a basilica was. Now, I’ve been to the Basilica in Mexico City, to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and to a couple basilicas in Spain, including the massive one that is still under construction in Barcelona — the Sagrada Familia.
Originally, basilica only referred to four certain churches in Rome. Those are now called the Major Basilicas — Saint Peter’s is one of them — and the other basilicas around the world are known as Minor Basilicas. The one in Mexico City is a minor basilica even though it is immensely important to the people of Mexico.
The word “basilica” comes down to us from Greek and then into Latin and then into Spanish. English has borrowed the word from there. Interestingly, though, the word originally had nothing to do with churches or religion. It came from a Greek adjective that meant “royal” and there was a public building in the city of Thera that had a “royal portico.”
When other buildings, including later churches, were modeled on that building, the name “basilica” was born.
Now that we are in the season of Lent, many Catholics around the world are visiting basilicas. You don’t have to be a devout Catholic, though, to visit one as I’ve explained above. Even though I’m not very religious, I enjoy seeing cathedrals and basilicas as well as other ornate churches when I travel, and I really enjoy learning the stories behind them.
If you go to Mexico City, be sure to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Until next time. If you enjoy this newsletter, please recommend it to others, and please consider subscribing to my other newsletter where I share my writings. It’s a paid subscription, but I think it’s worth it. It can be found here: Tomes and Topics.
Tammy Marshall
Basilica