The 1846 La Salette apparition became one of the most widely recognized Marian apparitions in Catholic tradition, spurring international shrines and formal Church approval.
Key Facts
- Date of apparition
- 19 September 1846
- Witnesses
- Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat
- Bishop's formal approval
- 19 September 1851
- Canonical coronation granted
- 21 August 1879 by Pope Leo XIII
- International shrines
- Portugal, Poland, Mexico, India, United States
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
In rural France in 1846, two young shepherd children, Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat, were tending cattle on the slopes near La Salette-Fallavaux when they reported encountering a vision. The apparition came during a period of widespread Catholic piety and regional hardship in mid-nineteenth-century France.
On 19 September 1846, the two children reported seeing a weeping woman in radiant light who delivered a message of repentance and warning. The reported apparition took place on a mountain in the French Alps near La Salette-Fallavaux and attracted immediate local attention and pilgrimage.
The local bishop formally approved public devotion to Our Lady of La Salette in 1851, and Pope Leo XIII granted a canonical coronation to the associated image in 1879. The event inspired the founding of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette and the establishment of shrines and sanctuaries across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.