Our Lady of La Salette — Chronology

Chronology

Key events in chronological order. A ? flag marks dates not yet verified against a primary source.

1. 18261826-08-06

   Paris / Grenoble, France

   Philibert de Bruillard is consecrated Bishop of Grenoble

   Philibert de Bruillard, born at Dijon in 1765, ordained in 1789 and a clandestine priest through the Revolution, was consecrated Bishop of Grenoble by Bishop Frayssinous on 6 August 1826. Over his episcopate he established 107 new parishes and 34 vicariates and brought several congregations into the diocese, among them the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1834. He was therefore about eighty years old, and twenty years into rebuilding a post-Revolutionary diocese, when the two children of Corps made their report in September 1846. He resigned in 1852 and died on 15 December 1860; his heart is kept at the shrine. Recorded as the institutional setting of the judgment of 1851, not as a reason to accept or reject it.^[11]

2. 1846

   France and continental Europe

   The subsistence crisis of the Hungry Forties reaches its worst year

   Potato blight arrived on the continent in the summer of 1845 and spread within weeks; the cereal harvests failed as well, and food prices reached their peak in the first half of 1847. France recorded roughly ten thousand famine-related deaths — far fewer than Ireland, and still a subsistence crisis of a kind Western Europe would not see again. Historians read the hardship as the main trigger of the political upheaval of 1848. In the Isère, per the French Wikipedia account, cereal production fell sharply and the price of bread doubled. The public message the children reported speaks of spoilt wheat and rotting potatoes; readers have drawn conclusions from that in both directions, and this dataset draws none. The crisis is recorded here as the material condition of the year, not as an explanation of the report and not as corroboration of it.^{[10] [13]}

   The crisis is dated to 1845–1847 as a whole; this entry is placed at 1846, the year of the failed harvest that preceded the reported apparition of 19 September.

3. 18461846-09-19

   La Salette-Fallavaux, France

   Two children report an apparition of a weeping "Beautiful Lady"

   Mélanie Calvat (14) and Maximin Giraud (11), shepherd children from Corps, report that at about 3 p.m., on the mountain pasture above La Salette-Fallavaux, a weeping woman surrounded by light spoke to them — in French and then in the local Occitan dialect — delivering a public message centred on blasphemy, Sunday observance and conversion, and entrusting each child with a personal secret. All content of the event rests on the children's own accounts.^{[1] [5] [6]}

4. 18461846-09-21 ?

   La Salette-Fallavaux, France

   A spring is reported flowing at the apparition site

   Two days after the reported apparition, inhabitants of La Salette are said to have gone up to the pasture and to have found clear water flowing abundantly at the spot where the children placed the weeping woman. The spring became the centre of the pilgrimage and of the cures later claimed there. The datable thing recorded here is the REPORT — who said what, and when it began to circulate. This dataset does not record that a spring appeared, nor that it had not been there before.^[13]

   The date is given by the French Wikipedia article, in the conditional mood it uses throughout for the reported events ("se seraient rendus", "auraient constaté"). No contemporary document establishing it was reachable from this session.

5. 18461846-11-17 ?

   Isère, France

   The first cure is reported and circulated as a "declared miracle"

   A woman who for twenty-two years had walked only on crutches, and had been bedridden for seven, is reported to have walked unaided after prayers were made for her at the site. It is the first of the claims that later brought the bishop to open a formal inquiry. The event dated here is the REPORTING, not a cure: this dataset does not record that anyone was healed. The French Wikipedia article notes of these "declarations of miracles" that the Church subjected them to no scientific inquiry — La Salette has no institution equivalent to the Lourdes Medical Bureau, and no cure connected with the shrine carries a separate act of recognition.^[13]

   The date is the one the French Wikipedia article gives for what it calls the first "declared miracle"; the underlying document was not reachable from this session.

6. 18471847-07-19 ?

   Grenoble, France

   Bishop de Bruillard opens the canonical investigation

   Bishop Philibert de Bruillard of Grenoble orders an investigation of the children's report and appoints a commission of clergy and theologians to examine it judicially. What brought it to this point, on the French Wikipedia's account, was the reported cures and the press controversy around them, not the children's account alone: the commission interrogated the visionaries, the inhabitants and the local clergy, and also examined the cures being reported. The commission concludes, per the Catholic Encyclopedia, that the reality of the apparition should be admitted.^{[1] [5] [13]}

   The French Wikipedia article gives 19 July 1847 for the formal opening of the canonical inquiry and 13 December 1847 for the commission's vote. Both are recorded and both stay flagged: the source is tertiary, and the diocesan act itself was not reachable from this session. The sanctuary presents the 1851 judgment as the outcome of five years of inquiry; the Catholic Encyclopedia records only that Bishop de Bruillard appointed a commission, without dates.

7. 18471847-09-19

   La Salette-Fallavaux, France

   First anniversary: the congregation counts at least 30,000 on the mountain

   The Missionaries' own timeline records "at least 30,000 pilgrims" going up the mountain on the first anniversary, and notes that by 1849 some 15,000 people had been inscribed in the Confraternity of Our Lady of La Salette, Reconciler. Both figures are the congregation's, published by the congregation, and are attributed to it here rather than asserted; no independent count for those years was reachable.^[2]

8. 18471847-12-13 ?

   Grenoble, France

   The episcopal commission votes in favour of the apparition

   The commission of examiners appointed by Bishop de Bruillard votes, on the French Wikipedia's account, in favour of recognising the apparition — with a single dissenting voice. The vote is advice to the bishop, not a judgment: the diocesan judgment itself would not come for another four years, on 19 September 1851.^[13]

   Date from the French Wikipedia article; the commission's own minutes were not reachable from this session.

9. 1848 ?

   Grenoble, France

   Canon Rousselot publishes his report to the bishop — the printed record of the reported cures

   Pierre-Joseph Rousselot (1785–1865), professor of dogmatic theology at Grenoble, member of the commission and the leading advocate of the apparition's reality, published his report to the bishop as La vérité sur l'événement de La Salette du 19 septembre 1846. It is the document in which the cures claimed at the mountain entered the printed record, gathered and argued by a named ecclesiastic who believed them. That is what is dated here: a report about reported cures, by a partisan of the case, addressed to the authority that would judge it. What the cures were, this dataset does not say — the book itself was not readable from this session, and no cure recorded in it carries a Church act of its own.^{[12] [13]}

   The Google Books catalogue record gives 1848; the French Wikipedia article gives 1849. The disagreement is recorded rather than resolved — the title page could not be read directly, because the Gallica digitization returned 403 to this session's egress.

10. 18511851-07

    Grenoble, France

    The children's secrets are written down and sent to Pius IX

    At the bishop's instance the two seers commit their personal secrets to paper — Maximin's letter is dated Grenoble, 3 July 1851, Mélanie's 6 July 1851 — and the sealed texts are carried to Rome by two envoys of Bishop de Bruillard and delivered to Pope Pius IX in July 1851. Accounts differ on the envoys' identity (canons Gerin and Rousselot, or vicars-general Melin and Rousselot). Neither text was published by the Holy See; Maximin's secret was never published at all.^{[9] [5] [6]}

    Maximin's text is dated Grenoble, 3 July 1851 and Mélanie's 6 July 1851 (Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, reprinting earlier accounts). Accounts differ on the carriers — canons Gerin and Rousselot in some accounts, vicars-general Melin and Rousselot in others — and the delivery to Pius IX is commonly dated 18 July 1851, a day not verified here against a reachable source.

11. 18511851-09-19

    Grenoble, France

    Bishop de Bruillard declares the apparition worthy of belief

    Five years to the day after the reported event, Bishop Philibert de Bruillard issues his doctrinal pronouncement: the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to the two shepherds on 19 September 1846 "bears within itself all the characteristics of truth", and the faithful are justified in believing it certain. This is the key diocesan approval document; the Catholic Encyclopedia dates the declaration 16 November 1851, a discrepancy recorded here rather than resolved.^{[1] [6] [5]}

    The doctrinal pronouncement is dated 19 September 1851 (sanctuary, Missionaries, Wikipedia). The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia instead gives 16 November 1851 — read here as the date the mandement was published and read in the diocese's churches; the disagreement is recorded, not resolved.

12. 18521852-05-01

    Grenoble, France

    Pastoral letter: a sanctuary decreed, the Missionaries of La Salette founded

    Bishop de Bruillard publishes a pastoral letter announcing the construction of a sanctuary on the mountain of La Salette and creating a body of diocesan missionaries he names the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, charged with serving the pilgrims and spreading the message the children reported.^{[8] [6] [2]}

    1 May 1852 per the French and English Wikipedia articles; the congregation's own timeline speaks of a second doctrinal statement of the bishop dated 25 May — the day the cornerstone was laid. Both dates are carried.

13. 18521852-05-25

    La Salette-Fallavaux, France

    Cornerstone of the sanctuary church laid on the mountain

    The first stone of the church is laid on the apparition site at about 1,800 m altitude, before a large assembly of the faithful; the building was completed in 1865.^{[5] [8]}

14. 18521852-08-24 – 1852-09-07 ?

    Rome

    Pius IX grants the new sanctuary a series of spiritual favours

    In a fortnight, eleven months after the Bishop of Grenoble declared the apparition worthy of belief, Rome attaches a run of privileges to the site and to the works growing around it. Ullathorne, writing in 1854, lists them: a rescript of 24 August making the sanctuary's high altar a privileged altar in perpetuity; a rescript of 26 August allowing any priest who comes to La Salette to say a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin on almost any day; a brief of the same day granting five indulgences to members of the Confraternity of La Salette; a brief of 3 September granting a plenary indulgence once a year to everyone who visits the church; a second brief of that date for those who follow the missioners' missions and retreats; and three briefs of 7 September — two giving the missioners the power to indulgence crosses, medals and beads and to give the Scapular, and one erecting the Confraternity into an Archconfraternity under the title of Our Lady of Reconciliation of La Salette. What these acts favour is the cult, the pilgrimage and the missioners. None of them pronounces on whether the apparition happened, and Ullathorne opens the chapter that lists them by saying so: "The Holy See has not formally pronounced upon the fact of La Salette. Her word, that final and decisive word, has not been uttered."^{[16] [19] [18]}

    The dates are Ullathorne's, published in 1854 and itemised act by act. The acts themselves predate the Holy See's printed gazettes — Acta Sanctae Sedis begins in 1865 — so none of them has been checked against an official text. A second nineteenth-century list, Petrocchi's of 1864, differs twice: he dates the votive-Mass rescript 29 August where Ullathorne has 26 August, and he reads the faculty of 7 September as granted “per dieci anni” — for ten years — where Ullathorne and the confraternity's own 1855 manual both make it a faculty given to ten of the missioners. Both differences are recorded rather than resolved; the originals would settle them.

15. 18521852-12-02 ?

    Rome

    Indult: the anniversary of the apparition may be solemnized across the diocese

    At the Bishop of Grenoble's request, Pius IX permits the 19th of September — the anniversary of the apparition, "vel ipso apparitionis die" — to be solemnized each year in all the churches of the diocese, or kept on the following Sunday with a solemn Mass and sung Vespers of the Blessed Virgin; the clergy may instead take the whole office and the Mass of the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin under solemn rite, as a Double of the Second Class. Ullathorne draws the inference his readers would draw and marks its limit in the same breath: the clergy "are not indeed enjoined, but they are permitted" to keep the day. A liturgical permission for one diocese is not a doctrinal judgment, and no doctrinal judgment followed it. Petrocchi's Italian history of 1864 renders the formula as leave “per celebrare con officio solenne la memoria della madre di Dio apparsa in forma umana alla Salette” — the memory of the Mother of God appeared in human form — so the wording he had before him still spoke of the apparition itself.^{[16] [18] [19]}

    Ullathorne gives “2nd December” without restating the year, and the year was an inference from his chapter. It is an inference no longer: the confraternity's own manual of 1855 states it outright — “by an Indult of the 2nd of December, 1852” — a year after him and independently of him. The indult itself has still not been read in its own text, which is why the date remains unverified here.

16. 1855 ?

    Grenoble, France

    Bishop Ginoulhiac confirms his predecessor's judgment

    Jacques Ginoulhiac, de Bruillard's successor as Bishop of Grenoble, confirms the 1851 decision, stating — per the sanctuary's account — that "the task of the shepherds is complete; that of the Church begins."^[1]

    Only the year is given by the source cited (the sanctuary's own history page); the date of Bishop Ginoulhiac's confirming statement was not verified against a reachable primary document.

17. 18581858-02-02

    Grenoble, France

    The first Missionaries of La Salette take their vows

    Fathers Albertin, Archier, Berlioz, Basson, Buisson and Petit took their first vows in the bishop's chapel, six years after the pastoral that created the body of diocesan missionaries. Their perpetual vows came in 1879, the same year Rome approved the Institute. Dates from the congregation's own timeline.^[2]

18. 18751875-03-01

    Corps, France

    Death of Maximin Giraud

    Maximin Giraud, who after unsettled years of study and odd employments had returned to his native Corps, dies there aged about 39. His personal secret was never published.^{[5] [6]}

19. 1879

    La Salette-Fallavaux, France

    The sanctuary church is consecrated and made a minor basilica

    The church on the apparition site — begun in 1852 and finished after nearly three decades of building at 1,800 m — is officially consecrated and raised to the rank of minor basilica, and at the same ceremony the statue of Our Lady of La Salette receives a canonical coronation granted by Leo XIII. Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, presided, according to the French Wikipedia account.^{[8] [14] [6] [2]}

    Sources disagree on the day and even the month. The French Wikipedia articles give 20 August 1879 for the consecration and the crowning; the English article gives 21 August 1879 for the canonical coronation granted by Leo XIII; the congregation's own timeline places the crowning and consecration on 20–21 April 1879 and dates 18 August 1879 to the canonical approval of the Institute — a different act. The disagreement is recorded, not resolved: only the year is treated as verified.

20. 18791879-08-18 ?

    Rome

    Rome canonically approves the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette

    The Institute founded by de Bruillard's pastoral of 1852 as a body of diocesan missionaries was canonically approved by Rome, per the congregation's own timeline, on 18 August 1879. This is a Roman act about a religious institute — its constitutions and its existence — and not a judgment on the apparition, which Rome has never ruled on. The two must not be read into one another.^[2]

    The congregation's own timeline gives 18 August 1879 for the canonical approval of the Institute; the Roman decree itself was not reachable from this session.

21. 18791879-11-15

    Lecce, Italy

    Mélanie publishes her expanded secret at Lecce

    Mélanie Calvat publishes at Lecce, as "L'apparition de la très Sainte Vierge sur la montagne de La Salette", a text of her secret far longer than the one sent to Pius IX in 1851, with the imprimatur of Salvatore Luigi Zola, Bishop of Lecce, who had received her in his diocese. The expanded text — including its much-quoted apocalyptic passages — is her own later redaction; its relation to what she wrote in 1851 is precisely what the subsequent controversy disputes.^{[7] [6] [5]}

22. 18801880-08 ?

    Rome, Italy

    The Holy Office asks that the Lecce booklet be withdrawn

    After the Bishop of Troyes denounces the Lecce publication, Cardinal Prospero Caterini of the Holy Office writes — per the accounts cited — that the Holy Office is displeased with the book and wishes copies withdrawn from circulation. This is a disciplinary reaction to the expanded secret, not a revocation of the 1851 approval of the apparition.^[7]

    August 1880 per the Caterini letter as reported by the Wikipedia biography of Mélanie Calvat; the letter itself was not reachable and its exact date is not verified here.

23. 1892

    Hartford, Connecticut / worldwide

    The Missionaries spread beyond France

    Fathers Pajot and Vignon reached Hartford, Connecticut in 1892, beginning the congregation's North American presence; earlier, from 1879, missionaries had served ten years in Norway. Madagascar followed in 1899, Poland in 1901–02 and Brazil in 1902, and by 1934 the congregation was organised in four provinces — France, Poland, Brazil and the United States. The English Wikipedia article states the Missionaries now serve in some twenty-five countries. Dates from the congregation's own timeline; the count of countries is attributed to Wikipedia and is not independently verified here.^{[2] [6]}

24. 19041904-12-14 ?

    Altamura, Italy

    Death of Mélanie Calvat

    Mélanie Calvat dies at Altamura in southern Italy, where she had settled after decades of wandering between convents and countries. Sources disagree on the day — 14 December (Wikipedia) or 15 December (Catholic Encyclopedia).^{[7] [5]}

    Sources disagree: 14 December 1904 (Wikipedia biography) versus 15 December 1904 (the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia). She was found dead in the morning; the disagreement is recorded, not resolved.

25. 1905 ?

    La Salette-Fallavaux, France

    The congregation is expelled from the shrine under the separation laws

    Under France's separation of Church and State the religious community was put out of the sanctuary and diocesan priests served it in their place. The Missionaries came back after the First World War and permanently in 1943. New roads in the 1960s made the mountain reachable for coach pilgrimages — and three coach crashes on the Laffrey descent, in 1973, 1975 and 2007, killed ninety-eight people between them.^[14]

    The French Wikipedia article dates the expulsion to the separation of Church and State (law of 9 December 1905) without giving a day for the shrine itself, and gives 1943 for the congregation's permanent return.

26. 19151915-12-21

    Rome, Italy

    Holy Office decree: the faithful ordered not to discuss the "Secret de la Salette"

    The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issues a decree — "Decretum circa vulgo dictum «Secret de la Salette»" — commanding all the faithful, of every country, not to treat or discuss the so-called Secret of La Salette, its diverse forms, or its application to present or future times, under any pretext or form, in books, pamphlets or articles signed or anonymous, under pain of canonical sanctions. The decree states expressly that it does not forbid devotion to the Blessed Virgin invoked as Reconciler of La Salette. It disciplines discussion of the expanded secret; it does not touch the 1851 judgment on the apparition.^[3]

27. 19231923-05-09

    Rome, Italy

    Mélanie's booklet is placed on the Index of Forbidden Books

    The Holy Office proscribes and condemns the booklet "L'apparition de la très Sainte Vierge sur la sainte montagne de la Salette" — the 1922 Société Saint-Augustin reprint of the text published by Mélanie — ordering that copies be withdrawn from the hands of the faithful; Pope Pius XI approves the resolution. The condemnation names Mélanie's booklet, a separate object from the apparition approved in 1851.^{[4] [7]}

    The Holy Office's general session (Feria IV) condemned the booklet on 9 May 1923 and Pius XI approved the resolution the same day; the decree as printed in AAS 15 (1923), pp. 287–288, is dated from the Holy Office on 10 May 1923.

28. 3 decades with no recorded events (1930–1959)
29. 1962

    La Salette-Fallavaux, France

    The Association of the Pilgrims of Notre-Dame de La Salette is created

    The sanctuary's own history page records the creation in 1962 of the Association des Pèlerins de Notre-Dame de La Salette, to maintain and administer the buildings and the infrastructure that a mountain shrine at 1,800 m requires. It is the civil body behind the pilgrimage as it now runs.^[1]

30. 4 decades with no recorded events (1970–2009)
31. 20162016-03-18

    Rome, Italy

    Our Lady of La Salette entered in the liturgical calendar for France

    The Congregation for Divine Worship inscribes the celebration of Our Lady of La Salette in the proper liturgical calendar for France as an optional memorial on 19 September — a further act of the ordinary ecclesiastical recognition that has always concerned the apparition and the devotion, not the expanded secrets.^[8]

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