Rome Newsroom, Jul 9, 2021 / 13:00 pm
Pope Francis will travel to the Catholic-majority country of Slovakia on Sept. 12-15, stopping at four different locations.
One of these is Šaštín, one of Slovakia’s youngest towns, where there is an image of the Virgin Mary that has attracted pilgrim visitors such as Mother Teresa and St. John Paul II.
The image is of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows, a figure so important to the people of Slovakia that Pope Pius XI declared her the country’s patroness in 1927.
Even when the country was absorbed into the Communist Bloc, the Slovakian people managed to be present at the Basilica of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Šaštín for her Sept. 15 feast day.