Source: Photograph by WTL© on site in Montréal (2016).
Image: L'Oratoire de Saint-Joseph à Mont Royal (Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal).
Comments: This building is a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic on Westmount Summet (one of the peaks of the small mountain chain that serves as the northern backdrop to the metropolitan area of Montreal. It is a Canadian national shrine, and it is the largest church in Canada. The Oratory began in 1904, when André Bessette (1845-1937), a lay brother of the (Catholic) Congregation of the Holy Cross had a small chapel constructed at this site. A larger churh was builit in 1917, but seven years later construction of this basilica was begun under the creative and engineering work of Fr. Paul Bellot (1876-1944). It was completed in 1967. (Incidentally, the dome is the third largest church dome in the world, following the second largest in the Ivory Coast and St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.) Myriads of healing miracles were said to have occurred at this pilgrimage site due to the intercession of St. Joseph. These miracles led to the canonization of St. André of Montreal. Thousands of crutches from people who left them there as a result of purposed miracles. They are displayed on one of the basilica's walls.