Shrine of the North American Martyrs (Auriesville)

The Story

The Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, rises above the Mohawk River valley on ground traditionally identified with Ossernenon, the Mohawk village where three Jesuit missionaries gave their lives for the faith in the 1640s. St. Rene Goupil, a lay missionary and surgeon, was killed there in 1642 after making the Sign of the Cross over a child. St. Isaac Jogues, who had been captured and tortured alongside Goupil, escaped, returned to France, and then came back to the mission of his own free will; he was martyred at the village in 1646, along with the young lay missionary St. Jean de Lalande. They are honored among the eight North American Martyrs, Jesuits of the mission to New France who died between 1642 and 1649. A decade after their deaths, the same village saw the birth of St. Kateri Tekakwitha in 1656, the Mohawk-Algonquin woman who became the first Native American to be canonized, a flowering of faith that pilgrims have long seen as the fruit of the martyrs' sacrifice. The shrine was founded by the Jesuits in 1885 and grew to include the vast circular Coliseum church, chapels, and outdoor ways of prayer across hundreds of acres. Pilgrims continue to come, especially in the summer and around the martyrs' feast, to walk the ravine associated with St. Rene Goupil's death and to pray where the Gospel was first sealed in blood on what is now United States soil.

Church Recognition

Sts. Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, and Jean de Lalande were canonized with the other North American Martyrs by Pope Pius XI in 1930; the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs is a recognized Catholic pilgrimage shrine within the Diocese of Albany.

Catholic Teaching

The shrine bears witness to the Church's teaching that martyrdom is the supreme testimony to the truth of the faith (CCC 2473-2474), and to the missionary mandate that carried the Gospel to the peoples of the New World (CCC 849-856).

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Practical

1 Additional Information ▾

The Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs at Auriesville commemorates the North American Martyrs.

Go Deeper

The shrine's official website, https://www.ourladyofmartyrsshrine.org, offers history, maps, and pilgrimage schedules; readers may also explore the Jesuit Relations, the missionaries' own accounts of the mission to New France, and the Catechism on martyrdom (CCC 2473-2474).