National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa by Smallbones / Wikimedia Commons (Left), Donald Trump / Flickr (Top) Andrzej Duda / Flickr (Bottom)
CV NEWS FEED // Former President Donald Trump is going to visit the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, this weekend, according to recent reports.
Trump’s visit to the Shrine is reportedly set for September 22, “according to sources familiar with the plans,” news outlet Levittown reported on September 16.
NBC News reporter Katherine Doyle posted to her X account on September 17 that Trump’s campaign has confirmed the scheduled visit to the Shrine.
According to Levittown, the President of Poland Andrzej Duda is set to visit the Shrine on the same day as Trump.
The Shrine is in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1955, according to the Shrine website. According to the Shrine’s History webpage, Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, who would later become Pope St. John Paul II, visited the Shrine in 1969 and again in 1976.
In April 1980, during his campaign for presidential candidacy, George Bush visited the Shrine. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan visited the Shrine “for the conclusion of the Polish-American Festival,” according to the History webpage.
In June 2020, Trump visited the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C., shortly before signing an executive order expanding international religious freedom support, the Catholic Review previously reported.
On September 8, the Catholic feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Trump, who is not Catholic, posted an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on his social media accounts, along with a caption wishing her a happy birthday, referring to the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, based on the Catholic liturgical calendar.
It is not confirmed whether his upcoming visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa will be accessible to the public, according to Levittown.
Devotion to Our Lady of Czestochowa dates back centuries. According to EWTN, legend holds that St. Luke the Evangelist painted the image and St. Helen discovered it in Jerusalem in the 4th century. St. Helen gave the image to her son Constantine, and the painting was later credited with saving the city of Constantinople from the Saracens. Charlemagne acquired the painting and gave it to Prince Leo of Ruthenia in Hungary. Our Lady’s intercession is also credited with saving Ruthenia from an invasion in the 11th century.
According to the Polish American Center, Ladislaus of Opole, in 1382, helped to first bring the famous image to Poland, where it was entrusted to the Monks of St. Paul the First Hermit. Construction for the basilica at the Shrine of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, where the holy image resides, began around 1632.
“During the years of Poland’s partition (1772-1918) the Shrine of Jasna Gora became a vibrant link for the Polish people with their homeland,” the Polish American Center states. “The holy painting enshrined at Czestochowa beamed as a lighthouse of hope during the painful years of national hardships and defeats.”
