Churches Named for ‘St. Mary’
Date: August 17, 2025
Author: Fr. Edward McNamara, LC
Question: As a follow-up to the June 7 question about a solemnity linked to a parish patron, what day of the liturgical calendar should be celebrated as a church’s solemnity if the church has the generic title "St. Mary’s"? Can the parish priest or diocesan bishop simply select one of the Marian feast days to celebrate it as a solemnity (if it is not such already)? — F.D., Wagga Wagga, Australia
Answer: This topic has been dealt with in a somewhat obscure “Notification on Certain Aspects of the Proper Liturgical Calendars and Texts” issued in 1997 by the then Congregation for Divine Worship. So far, I have only been able to track down an Italian version of the text on the Vatican’s official website. Hence the following translations are not official.
The document begins by stating its purpose and reaffirming the general principle involved:
“1. The Second Vatican Council reaffirmed the principle that the celebrations of the Saints, in which the wonders of Christ are proclaimed in his servants, important as they are, should not take precedence over the celebrations of the mysteries of salvation which take place weekly on Sundays and during the liturgical year. This perception led to the decision that the celebration of many saints had to be left to dioceses, nations and religious families (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 111). This principle, together with others established by the Council, served for the restoration of the liturgical year and the General Calendar of the Roman Rite.
“2. The Normae universales de anno liturgico et de calendario, together with the Tabuladierum liturgicorum, have the purpose of applying this criterion concretely both to the General Calendar and to the proper calendars. In addition, the Instruction Calendaria particularia of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, of June 24, 1970, makes explicit some complementary considerations regarding proper calendars.
“3. Since these norms were promulgated, two new factors have been introduced. On the one hand, the high number of beatifications and canonizations celebrated in recent years by the Supreme Pontiff has sometimes led to a considerable increase in the number of celebrations inscribed in the proper calendars. On the other hand, the inclusion of a certain number of celebrations in the General Calendar or the increase in the number of celebrations already present in it have correspondingly reduced the number of days not impeded.
“4. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments does not consider it opportune, however, to change the norms in force; at the same time, however, it considers it necessary to emphasize some points of these norms, the observance of which could help to avoid a considerable alteration of the liturgical calendars. Finally, some aspects related to the choice and composition of the relative liturgical texts will be treated.
“5. The appropriate day for the inclusion of celebrations in a particular calendar is that of the celebration itself in the General Calendar (Normae, n. 56a;Calendaria particularia, no. 23), even if the degree of the celebration is changed.
“6. A sound practice, with regard to the traditional titles of devotion of both the Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary to be celebrated liturgically, is to link these titles to one of the feasts or solemnities of both found in the General Calendar. In the case of Our Lady, it is also customary to fix the celebration on September 12, which was the date of the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary in the Roman Calendar. At the same time, in the same spirit of integration and clarification, it is advisable to avoid the creation of new titles or celebrations of devotion around the Lord or his Mother, limiting oneself to those already in use in the liturgical books, unless they respond to a widespread sensibility among the Christian people, and are previously and duly examined from the doctrinal point of view.”
The document then continues until No. 49 with precise norms regarding the celebration of the saints and their respective liturgical texts.
Therefore, this document gives a precise criterion. Those Marian feasts which have no fixed date in the calendar can be celebrated on the feast of the Holy Name of Mary on September 12.
It must be noted that the above document spoke of the feast in the past tense because the celebration, first instituted by Pope Blessed Innocent XI in 1684 to commemorate the victory over the Turks wrought by Polish King Jan Sobieski at Vienna in 1683, had been removed from the universal calendar after Vatican II.
Pope St. John Paul II, however, restored the celebration in the third typical edition of the Roman Missal in 2002, along with other similar feasts such as the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3.
It remains, therefore, as a universal celebration for churches dedicated only to the name of the Virgin Mary and to any other Marian invocation that has no corresponding traditional date in either the universal or local calendar.
* * *
Readers may send questions to zenit.liturgy@gmail.com. Please put the word "Liturgy" in the subject field. The text should include your initials, your city and your state, province or country. Father McNamara can only answer a small selection of the great number of questions that arrive.