Pope Leo XIII formally recognized Mary’s House as an official place of pilgrimage in 1896. Later, Pope Pius X granted a plenary indulgence for the remission of sins to pilgrims who make the journey to Mary’s House, and in 1967, Pope Paul VI made the first papal visit to the shrine, bringing a bronze lamp as a present for the Blessed Virgin. A decade later, Pope John Paul II visited the shrine where he celebrated an outdoor mass for thousands of pilgrims. In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI celebrated mass at the House of Mary.