Mary Immaculate, Queen of the Universe: the title is as wide as Catholic devotion goes, and the American shrine that carries it sits at 1025 East Madison Street in Lombard, Illinois, on a parish block that also holds a school and a rectory. There is no separate shrine building. The devotion is kept inside St. Pius X Catholic Church, a suburban parish of the Diocese of Joliet served by the Congregation of the Resurrection.
Lombard is a DuPage County village about 30 km west of the Chicago Loop, on Metra's Union Pacific West Line. Its best-known landmark has nothing to do with the shrine: Lilacia Park and the lilac collection that earned the village its nickname, the Lilac Village. A pilgrim arriving with a basilica in mind should adjust the scale before setting out.
Bishop Romeo Blanchette authorised the shrine in 1974. The diocesan account that records the authorisation describes it as the first shrine of this title in the United States, and that account is the only source for the claim.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
On 11 October 1954 Pope Pius XII published Ad Caeli Reginam, proclaiming the queenship of Mary and instituting a liturgical feast for it. The feast was first fixed to 31 May. In the reform of the calendar after the Second Vatican Council it moved to 22 August, where the Church keeps it.
That same December, the newly erected Diocese of Joliet raised a parish in Lombard. Bishop Martin D. McNamara, the diocese's first bishop, established St. Pius X canonically on 28 December 1954. Ground was broken on 28 August 1955. The cornerstone went down on 4 December 1955, cut with the motto of the pope the parish is named for — "Restore all things in Christ." The first Mass in the finished church was said on 4 September 1956, and the school opened eleven days later with 276 children, taught by the Sisters of St. Francis Mary Immaculate of Joliet.
The shrine came twenty years after the parish. Bishop Romeo Blanchette, who governed Joliet from 1966 until illness forced his resignation in January 1979, authorised the establishment of the National Shrine of Mary Immaculate Queen of the Universe at St. Pius X in 1974. No month or day for that decision has been found in any published record, and the superlative attached to it — first in the United States under this title — rests on the diocese's own account rather than on an independent source.
A second American shrine under a nearly identical title stands in Florida. The Basilica of the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe in Orlando was raised to national-shrine standing after Archbishop Thomas Wenski petitioned the United States bishops' conference in 2004, three decades after the Lombard designation. The two are separate foundations in separate dioceses.
Lombard lies inside the Chicago metropolitan area, but the parish and the shrine it holds belong to the Diocese of Joliet rather than the Archdiocese of Chicago. The National Association of Shrine and Pilgrimage Apostolate carries the shrine in its directory of national shrines in the United States.
The shrine's devotion invites pilgrims to acknowledge Mary's queenship, to enthrone her image in their homes, and to consecrate themselves to her.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Lombard
National Shrine of Mary Immaculate, Queen of the Universe
The shrine occupies St. Pius X Catholic Church, in a residential part of eastern Lombard where the parish church, school and rectory share one block. The parish is served by the Congregation of the Resurrection and belongs to the Diocese of Joliet; the shrine is the Marian dedication kept within it, in the same building where the congregation hears Mass on Sunday.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary — August 22
The feast the dedication points toward. Pius XII instituted it in Ad Caeli Reginam and fixed it to 31 May; the post-conciliar calendar moved it to 22 August, a week after the Assumption. It is a memorial in the General Roman Calendar and falls on the same date every year.
St. Pius X — August 21
The patron of the church that houses the shrine is remembered on the day before. Giuseppe Sarto, pope from 1903 to 1914, gave the parish both its name and the cornerstone motto of 1955. The two observances fall on consecutive days by the ordering of the calendar rather than by any local arrangement.
🛏️ Where to Stay
The shrine keeps no guesthouse, and the streets around it are residential. Lombard's hotels cluster together about 3–4 km south, around Yorktown Center on Butterfield Road, which puts all three of the following within ten minutes' drive of the church.
Hyatt Place Chicago/Lombard/Oak Brook ⭐⭐⭐ — The value choice and the nearest of the three, 3.4 km from the church, with breakfast and a twenty-four-hour market. Website
Embassy Suites by Hilton Chicago Lombard Oak Brook ⭐⭐⭐⭐ — An all-suite house on Butterfield Road, 4.1 km from the church, where every room has a separate living area and a made-to-order breakfast is included. Suited to a family or a pair travelling together. Website
The Westin Chicago Lombard ⭐⭐⭐⭐ — The most comfortable of the three, 3.6 km from the church, across the road from Yorktown Center and its restaurants, with an indoor pool and a shuttle to the Metra station for anyone adding a day in Chicago. Website
🚗 Getting There
By Air: Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) lies about 13.7 km north-north-east of the church, the nearer of the city's two airports. Chicago Midway International (MDW) is about 22.2 km south-east.
By Train: Metra's Union Pacific West Line stops at Lombard station, 20 South Main Street, about 2.5 km north-west of the church. The line's eastern terminus is the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago, roughly 32 km away by rail.
By Bus: Pace Route 301 runs through Lombard on its way between Wheaton and Forest Park, calling at Glen Ellyn, Villa Park, Elmhurst and Maywood, and connecting with the Union Pacific West Line.
By Car: Interstate 88 and Interstate 355 both serve Lombard. The church is on East Madison Street, in the eastern part of the village.
📚 Further Reading
Books:
St. Louis de Montfort. St. Louis de Montfort's Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary — The classical text on Marian consecration, which grounds devotion to Mary in her queenship over heaven and earth. The theology behind the title this shrine carries, in a day-by-day modern translation.
Marion Amberg. Mary's Miracles: A Traveler's Guide to Catholic America — A traveller's survey of Marian shrines and holy places across the United States, useful for setting a stop in Lombard inside a wider Midwestern route.
Online Resources:
Ad Caeli Reginam — Pius XII's encyclical of 1954 on the queenship of Mary, the doctrinal ground of the title this shrine bears, in the Vatican archive.
🔗 Useful Links
St. Pius X Parish — Official site of the Lombard parish that holds the shrine.
Diocese of Joliet — The diocese to which the parish and its shrine belong.
National Association of Shrine and Pilgrimage Apostolate — The association whose directory of United States national shrines carries this one.
GCatholic: St. Pius X, Lombard — Directory record for the church, with its address, its Resurrectionist clergy and its place in the Diocese of Joliet.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Berwyn, Illinois (17 km east) — The National Shrine of the Poor Souls at St. Odilo, the parish Cardinal Mundelein dedicated to the souls in purgatory in 1928.
Chicago (30 km east) — Birthplace of American devotion to St. Jude, with national shrines to Sts. Anne, Peregrine, Cabrini and Kolbe.
Holy Hill (155 km north) — A Carmelite basilica and Marian shrine on a rise above Wisconsin's Kettle Moraine.
Peoria (187 km south-west) — The Illinois cathedral where Venerable Fulton J. Sheen served at the altar as a boy and was ordained, and where his tomb lies.
Saint Mary-of-the-Woods (267 km south) — The Indiana motherhouse of the Sisters of Providence, with the National Shrine of Our Lady of Providence and the tomb of St. Mother Theodore Guérin.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"The theologians of the Church, deriving their teaching from these and almost innumerable other testimonies handed down long ago, have called the most Blessed Virgin the Queen of all creatures, the Queen of the world, and the Ruler of all."
