# Necedah Shrine

Necedah Shrine, officially the Queen of the Holy Rosary, Mediatrix of Peace Shrine, is a Marian shrine located in Necedah, Wisconsin. On November 12, 1949, Mary Ann Van Hoof (1909–1984) reported receiving a vision from the Blessed Virgin Mary. She claimed that in subsequent visions she was told to "bring the truth to people" through prayer and the rosary. The Roman Catholic Church investigated and found the reported visions and other phenomena indisputably faked, and when Van Hoof and her followers refused to desist, put her under interdict. Van Hoof and her followers then left the Roman Catholic Church and joined themselves to the Old Catholic movement.

## Visions

Van Hoof reported that she received nine visions between November 12, 1949 and October 7, 1950, mostly in her own back yard. Pilgrims reportedly saw Van Hoof in a state of religious ecstasy. Her messages were recorded on a tape recorder, and written in long hand by at least two people. Some were repeated word for word, other paraphrased; 100,000 people attended the vision on August 15, 1950, and witness accounts vary significantly.
In 1956, Van Hoof claimed to have been made aware of certain revelations made by the Madonna to George Washington concerning various trials his country would experience. Van Hoof also claimed the ability to interpret these revelations.
Van Hoof said that she suffered the Passion of Our Lord on the Fridays of Advent and Lent.
Van Hoof reported that she was told in a vision that the most perfect way of offering Mass was the Tridentine Mass approved by Saint Pius V and the Council of Trent for the Latin Church. She was reportedly told that the Novus Ordo Mass, developed in the Vatican shortly after the Second Vatican Council, was watered down. Some advocates of the Tridentine Mass oppose numerous changes implemented after Vatican II.
The purported revelations also contain references to imminent chastisement, a thermonuclear World War III, Soviet submarines, and accusations that the Roman Catholic hierarchy and Papacy had been subverted.

## Interdict

After an investigation failed to support the validity of the apparitions, in 1951 John P. Treacy, Bishop of La Crosse, told the Van Hoofs to remove religious artifacts from their farm and stop circulating literature about the apparitions. In an official statement issued in 1955, he declared the visions to be false and prohibited worship associated with them. Van Hoof and her associates did not obey these orders. In May 1975, Bishop Frederick William Freking (1964–1983), Treacy's immediate successor, placed Van Hoof and six of her key followers under interdict, precipitating Van Hoof's final schism with the Roman Catholic Church.

## Aftermath

Since 1975, the shrine has continued to operate, but has disaffiliated from the Roman Catholic Church, and affiliated instead with an Old Catholic, conservative independent organization. The shrine runs a private primary school, established in 1982, and a visitor center. Believers are building a new "House of Prayer" at the spot of the visions.
In the 1970s, the community ran an orphanage, named Seven Sorrows of Our Sorrowful Mother's Home for Unwanted Infants.

## Fundraising

Since 2002, the Queen of the Holy Rosary School holds an annual Summerfest event in late August to raise money with help for paying everyday needs and bills for the school. The event offers a food and beer tent, live music, hay rides touring the grounds, a kiddie carnival, a country store selling merchandise, basket raffles, and 50/50 raffles for two major prizes. Added to the event in 2004 was the Olden Days Car Show, sponsored by Sauter Family Racing.