Devotion to Maria and the appearance of Champion in the United States
Our Lady of Good Aid is the appellation with which the Catholic Church authorizes the cult of Mary, mother of Jesus, in relation to the apparitions that Adele Brise would have had in 1859 in Champion, Wisconsin (United States of America), where now there is a sanctuary. The apparitions had official diocesan approval on December 8, 2010, by Bishop David Ricken, bishop of Green Bay.
History
At the beginning of October 1859, in Champion, a town in Wisconsin (USA), the Virgin Mary appeared to a young woman of Belgian origin, Adele Brise (1831-1896). In the first of three apparitions, the Virgin, dressed in a dazzling white, with a yellow band around the waist and a crown of stars on the head, would slowly disappear after a few moments, without saying anything. The second apparition would take place on Sunday 9 October, while Brise was going to Mass. Our Lady would have appeared a third time while Adele was returning from Mass; on the basis of the advice received shortly before by the confessor, the young woman asked the Lady who she was, and she would reply: "I am the Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I want you to do the same". He would then invite Adele to a general confession and to offer Communion for the conversion of sinners, adding that, if they had not converted and had not done penance, the Son would have been forced to punish them. He would then invite the young woman to teach catechism and to bring people closer to the sacraments. dele continued his mission throughout his life, while his father built a small chapel on the site of the apparitions.
On 8 December 2010, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States, Bishop David Laurin Ricken (1952), bishop of Green Bay, gave official diocesan approval to the apparitions. The approval, the first and only one currently for the United States, came after almost two years of investigations, since these started in January 2009. The decree reminds that it is the diocesan bishop who has the responsibility to judge the authenticity of the apparitions that took place in his diocese.