The Shrine of St. Joseph in De Pere, Wisconsin
Just last month -- on Christmas Day to be precise -- “Old St. Joseph’s” on the campus of St. Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin, celebrated its 150th anniversary. It was in 1870 that Joseph Melcher, the first bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay, dedicated the parish, which he had built to serve French Canadian settlers working in area lumber mills. The all-wood church built that year burned to the ground after a lightning strike in 1889, with only the statue of St. Joseph surviving. The church was rebuilt as a brick structure in 1890, and two years later, Pope Leo XIII decreed it as the site of the National Shrine of St. Joseph.
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