Sacred places

Charlemagne's palace chapel, built around 800 AD, the oldest cathedral in northern Europe, where German kings were crowned for six hundred years and where Charlemagne's remains are still venerated.

The ruins of what was once the largest church in Christendom, the motherhouse of a monastic reform movement that shaped medieval Europe.

A remarkably preserved twelfth-century Cistercian monastery in Burgundy, built under the influence of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The birthplace of Western monasticism, founded by St. Benedict around 529 on a hilltop between Rome and Naples, destroyed and rebuilt four times.

A Trappist monastery in the hills of central Kentucky, famous as the home of Thomas Merton and one of the oldest continuously operating monasteries in the United States.

The oldest church in Paris, founded in the sixth century on the Left Bank, with Romanesque bones beneath nineteenth-century painted decoration and a long history as a center of Benedictine scholarship.

A Benedictine abbey in northwestern France that revived Gregorian chant in the nineteenth century and remains the world's leading center for the study and practice of plainchant.

A grand Russian Orthodox cathedral on Tallinn's Toompea Hill, built during the Tsarist period as a symbol of imperial authority, now a functioning parish and a striking piece of the city's layered history.

Gaudí's unfinished masterpiece in Barcelona, a church unlike any other on earth.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site in Old Goa housing the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of missionaries.

A UNESCO-listed pilgrimage church above Braga, Portugal, reached by a monumental Baroque stairway of 577 steps representing the ascent of faith through the senses, virtues, and ultimately to grace.

A Benedictine monastery tucked into jagged mountain peaks northwest of Barcelona, home to the beloved Black Madonna of Catalonia.

A Benedictine abbey church in Bavaria whose Rococo interior is an overwhelming burst of white stucco, painted ceilings, and gilded altars — one of the great church interiors in Europe.

The largest Marian church in the world and Brazil's national shrine, built to honor a small clay statue pulled from a river in 1717.

The principal Marian shrine of the Canary Islands, built on the spot where a statue of the Virgin was found by the indigenous Guanche people before the Spanish arrived.

Cuba's national shrine, set in the copper-mining hills outside Santiago de Cuba, housing the beloved statue of La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre — patroness of Cuba and a symbol of Cuban identity across all divides.

A hilltop sanctuary on the shores of Lake Titicaca housing Bolivia's most revered Marian image, carved by an indigenous convert in the sixteenth century.

A Moorish-influenced Renaissance basilica on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, housing a dark-skinned Virgin carved by an indigenous artist in 1583, the most venerated Marian image in Bolivia.

A minor basilica in Thrissur, Kerala, and the largest church in India, a massive Indo-Gothic structure that serves the Syro-Malabar Catholic community and hosts the spectacular Thrissur Pooram-adjacent festival.

India's most visited Catholic shrine, a white-and-gold church on the Tamil Nadu coast where devotees of all faiths come to seek healing, fulfilling vows by shaving their heads and offering silver replicas of healed body parts.

The most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the Americas, housing the miraculous tilma of St. Juan Diego.

Ireland's national Marian shrine, built at the site where fifteen people witnessed an apparition of the Blessed Virgin in 1879.

Vietnam's most important Catholic pilgrimage site, in Quang Tri province, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to persecuted Catholics in 1798.

Argentina's national shrine, a Neo-Gothic marvel in the pampas where millions pilgrimage each year to honor a small terracotta Virgin.

The largest church in the world by area, rising from the West African landscape in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast.

The largest church in the world by area, built in the political capital of Ivory Coast in the late 1980s and modeled on St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Belgium's most important Marian pilgrimage site, a domed Baroque church built on a hilltop in Flemish Brabant where a miraculous statue of the Virgin has drawn pilgrims since the late Middle Ages.

A seventeenth-century Baroque church in Oaxaca, Mexico, dedicated to the patroness of the state and home to a beloved colonial-era statue of the Virgin.

Honduras's national Marian shrine, housing a tiny carved wooden statue of the Virgin that has been venerated since a farmer found it in a field in 1747.

A major Marian shrine on the Ebro River, built around the pillar where tradition says Mary appeared to the Apostle James.

A Neoclassical basilica in Rosario, Argentina's third-largest city, elevated to basilica status in 1966 and known for its devotion to the Virgin of the Rosary.

Colombia's most important Marian shrine, housing a miraculously restored painting of the Virgin that has drawn pilgrims to this Andean town since 1586.

The lower basilica at the Sanctuary of Lourdes, built above the grotto where Bernadette Soubirous saw the Blessed Virgin in 1858.

A major Marian pilgrimage church in the shadow of Vesuvius, built in the late nineteenth century around a miraculous painting of the Virgin of the Rosary that continues to draw millions of visitors each year.

The principal Marian shrine of Venezuela, on Margarita Island, where fishermen and sailors have prayed to the patroness of eastern Venezuela since the seventeenth century.

An eighteenth-century church in Salvador, Brazil, dedicated to the Senhor do Bonfim and famous for its tradition of colorful ribbon wishes tied to the gates.

The Romanesque basilica in Burgundy where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque received the visions of the Sacred Heart in the seventeenth century, making this small town one of the most important pilgrimage sites in France.

The burial place of French kings and the birthplace of Gothic architecture, just north of Paris.

A major pilgrimage shrine on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, where devotion to St. Anne — the grandmother of Jesus — has drawn the sick and hopeful since the 1650s.

A hilltop Romanesque masterpiece in Burgundy where the Second and Third Crusades were launched, housing relics of Mary Magdalene and famous for its luminous carved tympanum.

A nineteenth-century parish church in the town of Sainte-Thérèse north of Montreal, dedicated to Teresa of Ávila and anchoring a community shaped by Quebec's deep Catholic heritage.

A three-layered church in Rome where you descend from a medieval basilica through a fourth-century church to a first-century Roman street.

One of Rome's seven pilgrim basilicas, built over the tomb of the deacon and martyr St. Lawrence, combining a sixth-century church and a thirteenth-century church joined end-to-end in an unusual double-basilica structure.

One of the seven pilgrim churches of Rome, built over the catacombs where early Christians — and possibly the remains of Peter and Paul — were temporarily sheltered.

A sixth-century octagonal church in Ravenna whose Byzantine mosaics are among the most important surviving artworks of the late Roman world.

The finest Romanesque church in northern Italy, a twelfth-century masterpiece in Verona with celebrated bronze doors, a striped marble facade, and Mantegna's altarpiece in the apse.

A sixth-century basilica outside Ravenna whose apse mosaic of St. Apollinaris standing among sheep in a green paradise is one of the finest surviving works of early Christian art.

The principal Franciscan church in Florence, where Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli are buried, and where Giotto's frescoes of St. Francis still glow on the chapel walls.

A massive Renaissance basilica built around the tiny Portiuncula chapel where Francis founded the Franciscan Order and where he died in 1226.

One of the oldest churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Rome, set in the lively Trastevere neighborhood, celebrated for its twelfth-century golden apse mosaics and its role as the spiritual home of the Community of Sant'Egidio.

The only Gothic church in central Rome, built over an ancient temple of Minerva, housing the tombs of St. Catherine of Siena and Fra Angelico.

A ninth-century Roman basilica tucked behind Santa Maria Maggiore, famous for its Byzantine mosaics — among the finest in Rome — and a fragment of the pillar of the Scourging.

A massive Dominican Gothic church in Venice that serves as the burial place of twenty-five doges, often called the Pantheon of Venice.

One of the most visited pilgrimage sites in Italy, housing the tomb and relics of the beloved Franciscan saint.

The mother church of the Franciscan order, built over the tomb of St. Francis and covered in Giotto's frescoes.

The cathedral of the Bishop of Rome — the Pope's own church and the oldest public church in the city.

The largest church in Rome dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, preserving relics of the holy manger from Bethlehem.

Built over the tomb of the Apostle Paul, the second largest church in Rome after St. Peter's.

A Baroque church on Krakow's Skałka hill where Bishop Stanislaus was martyred in 1079, now a pilgrimage site and crypt for distinguished Poles.

The second-most visited pilgrimage site in France, honoring the beloved Doctor of the Church known for her 'Little Way.'

A Baroque basilica perched on a hilltop above Turin, built by Filippo Juvarra as a royal vow fulfilled after the 1706 siege, with sweeping views of the Alps.

A Franciscan church built over the rock where Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion, at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Built over the traditional site where the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, in her hometown of Nazareth.

A massive cathedral in Covington, Kentucky, modeled after Notre-Dame de Paris, with one of the largest stained glass windows in the world and a richly decorated interior that rivals any church in the country.

The most important Marian pilgrimage site in Central Europe, nestled in the Styrian Alps of Austria, where a twelfth-century wooden statue of the Virgin has drawn millions of pilgrims for over eight hundred years.

A Rococo pilgrimage church in the Franconian hills of Bavaria, built on the site where a shepherd saw fourteen child saints appear in a field in 1445.

A major pilgrimage site in eastern Guatemala housing the Black Christ of Esquipulas, a sixteenth-century dark-wood crucifix venerated across Central America.

The first Catholic cathedral built in the United States, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and completed in 1821, the mother church of American Catholicism.

The largest Catholic church in North America, honoring Mary under her title as patron of the United States.

The stunning Gothic Revival church at the heart of Notre Dame's campus, one of the largest university chapels in the world.

The largest church in Zagreb after the cathedral, a striking neo-Baroque basilica built in the early twentieth century in the Lower Town, serving as the Jesuit parish church and a center of devotion to the Sacred Heart.

The white-domed basilica on Montmartre hill, where perpetual adoration has continued since 1885.

A white-domed basilica crowning the highest point in Paris, built as an act of national penance after the Franco-Prussian War, now one of the most visited churches in France.

The mother church of the Anglican Communion, built on the site where Augustine of Canterbury planted Christianity in England.

The enclosed Carmelite monastery in Lisieux, Normandy, where Thérèse Martin lived from age fifteen until her death at twenty-four, and where her relics now rest.

Peru's principal church on the Plaza Mayor, where the remains of Francisco Pizarro rest and colonial-era craftsmanship fills every chapel.

The mother church of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, a grand Roman Corinthian structure on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway whose unusually high windows were originally designed to prevent anti-Catholic vandalism.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Panama, standing in the historic Casco Viejo district of Panama City, with distinctive twin towers inlaid with mother-of-pearl that catch the tropical light.

The oldest Catholic parish in the United States, established by Spanish missionaries in 1565 on the coast of Florida.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, a Romanesque Revival church built by Archbishop Lamy in the 1800s — the most famous Catholic church in the American Southwest and the inspiration for Willa Cather's novel.

A French Gothic cathedral on Lafayette Square in Savannah, Georgia, known for its Austrian stained glass and its deep roots in the oldest Catholic community in Georgia.

Home to the largest mosaic collection in the Western Hemisphere, covering 83,000 square feet of interior surface.

Lithuania's principal Catholic cathedral, a neoclassical building on the site where the nation was baptized in 1387, standing at the heart of Vilnius Old Town.

A colonial cathedral built on the foundations of an Inca palace in Peru's former imperial capital, blending Spanish Baroque architecture with Andean artistic traditions.

The mother church of the Archdiocese of Denver, a French Gothic Revival cathedral that has anchored the city's Catholic life since 1912, elevated to minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007.

The main church of the Archdiocese of Bogota, Colombia, a massive Neoclassical cathedral on the Plaza de Bolivar that has been rebuilt four times since the sixteenth century and holds the remains of the founder of Bogota.

The fifth-largest cathedral in North America, a massive French Gothic structure in Newark whose construction spanned over fifty years and whose stained glass collection is among the finest in the Western Hemisphere.

The oldest cathedral in Portugal and one of the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula, seat of the Primate of Portugal, layered with Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline, and Baroque additions accumulated over nine centuries.

Oscar Niemeyer's hyperboloid concrete cathedral, a radical departure from traditional church architecture in Brazil's capital.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Caracas, Venezuela, a colonial-era church in the Plaza Bolivar that holds the Bolivar family chapel and has survived earthquakes and political upheavals since the sixteenth century.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, a handsome English Gothic church in the Buckhead neighborhood that has grown alongside the city's Catholic population since 1937.

Oakland's striking contemporary cathedral, completed in 2008, whose wood-and-glass shell is shaped like a vessel and floods the interior with natural light filtered through translucent panels of Douglas fir.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Shillong, a Gothic Revival church in the hill station capital of Meghalaya that serves the predominantly tribal Catholic community of northeast India.

A twelfth-century Norman cathedral above Palermo whose interior walls are covered in more than six thousand square meters of gold-ground mosaics depicting the entire Bible.

The tallest complete Gothic cathedral in France, with the largest interior volume of any French church and a stunning display of medieval sculpture.

The Gothic cathedral where French kings were crowned for a thousand years, known for its exceptional sculpture and its association with St. Joan of Arc.

A Gothic cathedral in Normandy that Claude Monet painted more than thirty times, with a facade so densely carved it looks woven, and a cast-iron spire that is the tallest in France.

A Gothic cathedral on the French-German border with a single completed spire, an astronomical clock, and a sandstone facade whose red-pink glow changes with the light.

The principal cathedral of Kinshasa, a modernist church completed in 1914 and rebuilt in the mid-twentieth century, serving one of the largest Catholic populations in Africa.

The national cathedral of Luxembourg, a seventeenth-century Jesuit church with a remarkable Gothic-Renaissance fusion that houses the beloved icon of Our Lady, Consoler of the Afflicted, patroness of the Grand Duchy.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Rapid City, a mid-century modern church in the Black Hills of South Dakota that serves a vast, sparsely populated diocese including several Native American reservations.

A parish church in Suva serving as the principal Catholic worship site for the Archdiocese of Suva, reflecting the Marist missionary heritage in the South Pacific islands of Fiji.

A striking modern cathedral opened in 2002 in downtown Los Angeles, designed by Rafael Moneo, where the Archdiocese serves one of the largest Catholic populations in the United States.

The Melkite Greek Catholic cathedral in Aleppo, Syria, a church that has served one of the oldest Christian communities in the world through Ottoman rule, modern upheaval, and the Syrian Civil War.

A green-stone Baroque cathedral on the main square of Oaxaca, Mexico, rebuilt after earthquakes and housing a deeply venerated bronze crucifix brought from Spain in the sixteenth century.

The principal cathedral of Haiti, destroyed in the 2010 earthquake and slowly being rebuilt, a symbol of faith that endures through catastrophe.

A white modernist cathedral in Mozambique's capital, built in the mid-twentieth century and serving a Catholic community that has endured colonialism and civil war.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site in the oldest city of Belgium, remarkable for its five massive Romanesque towers and the unusual combination of a Romanesque nave with a soaring Gothic choir — a visible record of architectural transition.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Dakar, a twin-towered Neo-Gothic church on the Plateau district that has served as the center of Catholic life in Senegal since its consecration in 1929.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Yaoundé, a red-brick church on a hillside in Cameroon's capital that has been the seat of the archbishop since 1955 and a center of the country's Catholic life.

The Catholic cathedral of Kigali, a modern church on a hilltop in Rwanda's capital that serves a nation where Catholicism is the majority faith and where the Church has had to reckon with its role during the 1994 genocide.

The tallest Gothic cathedral in the Low Countries, home to masterpieces by Peter Paul Rubens.

Ecuador's oldest cathedral, standing on the Plaza Grande since the sixteenth century, where conquistadors and saints and ordinary believers have all knelt on the same stone floor.

A thirteenth-century Gothic cathedral in northern Spain with lace-like spires, the tomb of El Cid, and a star-vaulted lantern that floods the crossing with light.

The largest Gothic cathedral in the world, built on the site of a great mosque, housing the tomb of Christopher Columbus.

A thirteenth-century Gothic cathedral in the former capital of Spain, known for its soaring interior, the Transparente altarpiece, and an art collection that includes works by El Greco.

A copper-domed Beaux-Arts cathedral overlooking downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the largest and most architecturally ambitious Catholic churches in the United States.

The Catholic cathedral of Tirana, a striking modern church completed in 2002 that rose from the ashes of Albania's decades-long ban on all religion under communist rule.

The Catholic cathedral of Paramaribo, a remarkable all-wood Gothic cathedral in Suriname that is one of the largest wooden buildings in the Western Hemisphere.

The cathedral of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de La Laguna in Tenerife, a Neoclassical church in the Canary Islands that holds the remains of the founder of the city.

A partially ruined colonial cathedral in Antigua, Guatemala, first built in 1543 and repeatedly damaged by earthquakes, now a parish church occupying part of the original grand structure.

The partially ruined colonial cathedral in Antigua Guatemala, destroyed by earthquakes in the eighteenth century, with a restored front section still used for worship.

The second-oldest cathedral in the Americas, serving as the seat of the Archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and home to the tomb of the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, an eighteenth-century Baroque church on the central plaza whose ornate altarpiece and colonial-era artwork represent the finest religious art in Central America.

Florence's crown — Brunelleschi's red-tiled dome rising above the city, a feat of engineering that launched the Renaissance.

The oldest cathedral in the Americas, completed in 1540 in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, blending late Gothic and early Renaissance architecture in a building that launched five centuries of Catholic worship in the New World.

The destination of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, believed to hold the remains of St. James the Apostle.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Little Rock, a handsome Neo-Gothic church in downtown Arkansas that has served as the mother church of the state's Catholics since 1881.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Tucson, a Spanish Colonial Revival church in downtown Arizona that has anchored the local Catholic community since the 1860s.

The Catholic cathedral of Helsinki, a neo-Gothic red brick church built in 1860 and dedicated to St. Henry of Uppsala, the English-born bishop who brought Christianity to Finland in the twelfth century.

The Catholic cathedral of Riga, a thirteenth-century Gothic church in Latvia's capital that has passed between Catholic and Lutheran hands multiple times across the centuries of Baltic religious conflict.

The oldest church in Warsaw, a Gothic cathedral destroyed almost completely during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and meticulously rebuilt in its medieval form — a symbol of Polish Catholic endurance.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Boise, a sandstone Romanesque Revival church in downtown Idaho that has served the state's scattered Catholic community since 1921.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, a cream-colored brick church near the lakefront that has served Wisconsin's Catholics since 1853.

The striking Modernist cathedral of the Archdiocese of Hartford, built after the original burned in 1956, with a dramatic limestone facade and a collection of notable contemporary stained glass.

The coronation cathedral of Bratislava, a Gothic church below the castle hill where eleven Hungarian kings and eight queens were crowned between 1563 and 1830.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Miami, a mid-century modern church in the heart of the city that serves one of the most multilingual Catholic communities in the United States.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Cheyenne, a Gothic Revival church on Capitol Avenue in Wyoming's capital — the mother church of one of the least populated dioceses in the United States.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Fargo, a red brick Gothic Revival church in eastern North Dakota that anchors Catholic life on the northern Great Plains.

The seat of the Archdiocese of Washington, a Roman-Renaissance church where presidents have prayed and where John F. Kennedy's funeral Mass was held in 1963.

The Catholic cathedral of Bridgetown, a coral stone church in Barbados that serves the island's small Catholic community — a minority within a deeply Anglican society.

The Baroque cathedral in Malta's ancient walled capital, built on the traditional site where the Apostle Paul met the Roman governor Publius after his shipwreck in 60 AD.

The principal Catholic church of the Ashanti region in Ghana, where faith brought by European missionaries has become deeply Ghanaian over more than a century.

Germany's oldest cathedral, built over a fourth-century Roman palace church, housing the Holy Robe — the seamless garment said to have been worn by Christ before his crucifixion.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, a Greek Revival church from 1845 with a soaring white steeple that remains one of the most architecturally distinguished cathedrals in the Midwest.

The seat of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the primatial cathedral of Belgium, dominated by a massive unfinished Gothic tower that holds one of the finest carillons in the world.

A Romanesque cathedral in the walled city of Kotor, Montenegro, dating to 1166 and housing relics of the city's patron saint in one of the best-preserved medieval towns on the Adriatic.

A cathedral built directly into a fifth-century BC Greek temple of Athena, where massive Doric columns still stand embedded in the church walls — one of the most striking fusions of pagan and Christian architecture anywhere.

The oldest inland cathedral in continuous use in the United States, a Greek Revival landmark in downtown Louisville that has served the Archdiocese since 1852.

A Baroque cathedral in Oradea, Romania, built in the 18th century and serving the Latin Rite Catholic community in a city known for its Austro-Hungarian architecture near the Hungarian border.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin in Carlow, Ireland, a Gothic Revival church completed in 1833 that was one of the first large Catholic churches built after Catholic Emancipation.

Croatia's tallest building and most visited church, a twin-spired neo-Gothic cathedral on a site fortified against Ottoman invasion, housing the tomb of Blessed Alojzije Stepinac.

A Baroque cathedral in the walled city of Dubrovnik, rebuilt after the catastrophic 1667 earthquake, housing a treasury of medieval reliquaries including a reliquary of the head of St. Blaise, the city's patron.

A Baroque cathedral in the heart of Puglia, built in the distinctive golden Lecce stone, with an ornate bell tower and lavish interior decoration.

A cathedral in Sicily that blends Norman, Gothic, Baroque, and Islamic architectural elements, housing royal tombs including that of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.

A grand Victorian-era cathedral in downtown Sacramento, restored to its original splendor in 2005 after decades of decline, now serving one of California's fastest-growing dioceses.

A Renaissance Revival cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, severely damaged in the 2011 earthquake, now being rebuilt as a symbol of the city's Catholic community and recovery.

Singapore's oldest Catholic church still in use, a graceful Neo-Classical building completed in 1847 that has served the city-state's Catholic community through colonial rule, Japanese occupation, and rapid modernization.

The Catholic cathedral of Lusaka, a modern church in Zambia's capital that serves a fast-growing Catholic community in one of the most Christian nations in Africa.

The largest Catholic cathedral in New England, serving as the mother church of the Archdiocese of Boston since 1875.

The principal Catholic cathedral in Lagos, Nigeria — a colonial-era church that has grown with one of Africa's most vibrant Catholic communities.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Bombay, a Gothic Revival church in the Colaba district of Mumbai that has served as the center of Catholic life in India's largest city since 1905.

The oldest church in sub-Saharan Africa built by Europeans, founded by the Portuguese in 1628 in Luanda, Angola, and still serving as the seat of the Archbishop after nearly four centuries.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Mombasa, a mid-century church on Nyerere Avenue in Kenya's coastal city, serving a Catholic community rooted in Portuguese and Goan missionary work.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Bismarck, a striking modern church in North Dakota's capital that replaced an older building in 1945 and serves the Catholic communities of the western Dakota prairie.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Abuja, a modern circular church in Nigeria's planned capital city that reflects the ambition and vitality of Africa's largest Catholic population.

The mother church of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, a sturdy Gothic Revival cathedral in the Northwest neighborhood that has served Portland's Catholic community since 1926.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Memphis, a sturdy Romanesque Revival church on Central Avenue that has served West Tennessee's Catholic community since 1938.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, a golden-domed Renaissance Revival church on Broadway that has anchored Catholic life in western Missouri since 1882.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Ouagadougou, a striking red laterite church in the capital of Burkina Faso that serves as the heart of one of West Africa's fastest-growing Catholic communities.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Dili, a white-walled church facing the Timor Sea that served as a refuge during the Indonesian occupation and remains the spiritual center of one of the most Catholic nations on earth.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Mobile, a Greek Revival church with a distinctive portico on the Gulf Coast that predates most Catholic institutions in the Deep South.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Castries in Saint Lucia, a large wooden church with a painted interior that is the Caribbean island's most prominent Catholic landmark.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Maputo, a white Neo-Romanesque church in the Mozambican capital that has served as a center of Catholic life through colonial rule, civil war, and independence.

The Catholic cathedral of Port of Spain, a twin-towered Gothic Revival church on Independence Square that has served Trinidad's multiethnic Catholic community since 1832.

The Catholic cathedral of Antananarivo, a stone and brick church perched on one of Madagascar's capital city's famous hills, overlooking the rice paddies and red-earth buildings below.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Burlington, a handsome Gothic Revival church overlooking Lake Champlain in Vermont's largest city, built to serve the French Canadian and Irish immigrants who shaped New England Catholicism.

The Catholic cathedral of Georgetown, a white-painted wooden church in Guyana's capital that serves one of the most ethnically diverse Catholic communities in South America.

The metropolitan cathedral of Medellin, Colombia, a massive brick Romanesque Revival church that is reportedly the largest adobe brick structure in the world.

The principal Catholic cathedral of Samoa, a white-walled church in the capital city where Polynesian culture and Catholic worship have intertwined since the arrival of Marist missionaries in the 1840s.

The oldest Catholic church in Beijing, known locally as South Church, a center of Chinese Catholicism since the Jesuit missions.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Nashville, a Neo-Romanesque church on West End Avenue that has anchored Catholic life in middle Tennessee since 1914.

A Romanesque Revival cathedral in Salt Lake City, the Catholic center in a predominantly Latter-day Saint city, noted for its rich interior murals and restored organ.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Detroit, a massive Neo-Gothic church in the city's Woodbridge neighborhood that seats over three thousand and reflects the ambition of a diocese built by immigrant labor.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Lagos, a coral-stone church on Lagos Island that was the first Catholic church in Nigeria, founded by freed Brazilian slaves returning to West Africa in the 1860s.

The Catholic cathedral of Kingston, a Spanish Colonial-influenced church in Jamaica's capital that traces its roots to the earliest days of European settlement in the Caribbean.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Macau, a modest but historically significant church near Largo da Sé that has served as the bishop's seat since the sixteenth century, making it one of the oldest Catholic cathedrals in East Asia.

The cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Addis Ababa, a modest Italian-built church in Ethiopia's capital that serves the small Latin-rite Catholic community in a country with ancient Christian roots predating Rome's conversion.

The cathedral of the Diocese of Juneau, a compact wooden church tucked between mountains and sea in Alaska's capital — one of the most remote cathedrals in the United States.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Vrhbosna in Sarajevo, a Neo-Gothic church built in 1889 that has endured two world wars and the siege of the 1990s in one of Europe's most religiously mixed cities.

The principal Catholic cathedral of Fiji, a stone church in the capital city built by Marist missionaries, where Fijian, Indian, and European Catholic traditions converge in a single parish.

The Catholic cathedral of Skopje, a modern church in the hometown of Mother Teresa, rebuilt after the devastating 1963 earthquake that destroyed much of the city.

An asymmetrical Baroque cathedral on a cobblestone plaza in Old Havana, one of the oldest Catholic cathedrals in the Americas.

The oldest continuously active Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States, standing on Jackson Square in the French Quarter since 1727.

England's Nazareth — a medieval Marian pilgrimage site revived in the twentieth century, once rivaling Canterbury and Rome.

A small convent chapel in northern Japan where a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary reportedly wept 101 times in the 1970s, approved by the local bishop.

An extraordinary underground chapel carved entirely from rock salt in the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow — chandeliers, altarpieces, and floor all hewn from salt by miners over the course of seventy years.

A masterpiece of High Gothic architecture southwest of Paris, famous for its original medieval stained glass and labyrinth.

A Benedictine church and monastery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, built on the traditional site where the Virgin Mary fell into her final sleep before being assumed into heaven.

A small roadside church on the Via Appia where tradition says Peter, fleeing Rome, met the risen Christ and asked 'Lord, where are you going?'

The first church built in Valletta after the Great Siege of 1565, where the Knights of St. John gave thanks for their survival against the Ottoman fleet.

The second-largest church in Paris, a grand Neoclassical building in the sixth arrondissement known for its Delacroix murals, its massive organ, and its gnomon — a brass meridian line set into the floor.

The small stone church outside Assisi where a crucifix spoke to Francis and told him to rebuild, and where Clare later founded her order of Poor Ladies.

Bernini's small masterpiece on the Quirinal Hill in Rome — an oval Baroque church he considered his most perfect work, built for the Jesuit novitiate.

A Dominican church in Milan housing Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, painted directly onto the refectory wall.

A fortified medieval church on the Caelian Hill in Rome that shelters one of the city's hidden treasures — a thirteenth-century cloister of quiet beauty and a chapel with frescoes depicting the legend of the Donation of Constantine.

A Renaissance church in Florence's Oltrarno district designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, where clean geometry and local parish life coexist without fuss.

A Franciscan church attached to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where the Latin Patriarch celebrates Christmas Midnight Mass each year in the town of Christ's birth.

A grand Jesuit church in central Rome dedicated to the founder of the Society of Jesus, famous for Andrea Pozzo's painted ceiling that creates the illusion of a soaring dome.

The mother church of the Society of Jesus in Rome, where St. Ignatius of Loyola is buried and Baroque art reaches full force.

A mid-nineteenth-century Jesuit church in downtown Montreal, one of the city's architectural landmarks, with a richly decorated Baroque-inspired interior and a long history as a center of French-Canadian Catholic intellectual life.

A former Renaissance palace in the heart of Naples converted into a Jesuit church, famous for its diamond-point rusticated facade, its lavish Baroque interior, and the shrine of St. Giuseppe Moscati.

Built over the site of Christ's crucifixion and burial, shared by several Christian communities.

One of only four surviving medieval round churches in England, built around 1130 by the Knights Templar in Cambridge and modeled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

A massive modern church in the Fatima sanctuary complex in Portugal, completed in 2007, the fourth-largest Catholic church in the world by seating capacity.

A Benedictine church on the shore of the Sea of Galilee marking where Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish.

One of the oldest continuously operating churches in the world, built over the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

A seventeenth-century Jesuit church in Arequipa, Peru, whose carved white volcanic stone facade is considered the finest example of Andean Baroque architecture.

A grand seventeenth-century Baroque church in Paris built by Queen Anne of Austria in thanksgiving for the birth of Louis XIV, with a massive dome frescoed by Pierre Mignard.

The co-cathedral of the Diocese of Honolulu, a modest mid-century church in the Kalihi neighborhood that serves one of the most ethnically diverse Catholic communities in the United States.

The co-cathedral of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, a striking modern church completed in 2008 that serves one of the most diverse Catholic communities in the United States.

A Gothic masterpiece that took over 600 years to complete, holding the Shrine of the Three Kings.

A neoclassical church in Paris designed to look like a Greek temple, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, standing at the head of the grand Rue Royale.

A Benedictine abbey in the Swiss Alps that has been a major European pilgrimage site for over a thousand years, home to the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln.

The mother church of Hungarian Catholicism and the largest church in Hungary, crowning a hilltop above the Danube where Hungary's first Christian king was baptized.

Munich's landmark cathedral, with its twin onion-domed towers visible across the city skyline, a massive late Gothic hall church that has served as the seat of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising since 1821.

The great church of Constantinople, built in 537, served as the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years.

Kenya's principal Catholic church in the heart of Nairobi, a modern basilica where East African Catholicism gathers for its most important liturgies.

The principal Catholic church of Nairobi, Kenya, a mid-century modern cathedral in the city center that serves as the seat of the Archbishop and a gathering point for one of Africa's fastest-growing Catholic populations.

The seat of the Archdiocese of Chicago, a Gothic Revival cathedral on State Street that has served the city through fire, scandal, and renewal since the 1870s.

The principal Catholic church in Belize City, a modest Caribbean cathedral that serves as the mother church of Central America's only English-speaking Catholic diocese.

The spiritual capital of Poland, a fortified hilltop monastery in Częstochowa that houses the Black Madonna, the nation's most sacred icon.

A stunning Gothic Revival basilica built into a canyon wall in southern Colombia, spanning a river gorge 100 meters deep.

One of the great Imperial Cathedrals of the Holy Roman Empire, a massive Romanesque structure in red sandstone where seven German kings were elected and crowned, standing on the banks of the Rhine for over a thousand years.

A floating church and community structure in the Makoko stilt village on the Lagos Lagoon — an innovative response to the challenge of building sacred space on water in one of Africa's largest informal settlements.

Rebuilt eight times from earthquakes, wars, and typhoons, the seat of the Archdiocese of Manila stands as the heart of Filipino Catholicism.

A Benedictine abbey perched on a rocky bluff above the Danube in Austria, whose golden Baroque church and magnificent library are among the finest examples of monastic architecture in Europe.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, a Neoclassical church with a striking twelve-column portico on the Plaza de Mayo, home to the tomb of General Jose de San Martin and the former parish of Pope Francis.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Guatemala, a Neoclassical church in the capital's central plaza that has withstood repeated earthquakes and serves as a memorial to the victims of the Guatemalan Civil War.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Montevideo, Uruguay, a Neoclassical church on the Plaza Constitucion that has served the country's small but steady Catholic community since 1804.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Asunción, a Neoclassical church in the heart of Paraguay's capital that has served as the country's principal Catholic church since the colonial era.

The primatial cathedral of Ecuador, a sixteenth-century church on the Plaza Grande in Quito's UNESCO-listed historic center.

The metropolitan cathedral of Bolivia, a whitewashed colonial church in the constitutional capital that holds the country's most venerated Marian image.

The largest cathedral in the Americas, built over two and a half centuries on the ruins of the Aztec sacred precinct.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, where Archbishop Oscar Romero celebrated his final Masses before his assassination in 1980, now a place of pilgrimage honoring his memory and his witness for the poor.

The oldest Roman Catholic parish in the Philippines, established by Spanish explorers in 1565, standing near the cross Magellan planted in 1521.

Italy's largest church, a forest of Gothic spires rising from the heart of Milan over six centuries of construction.

A sixteenth-century church in Manila's Chinatown, the oldest in the district, named for the first Filipino saint and patron of Chinese-Filipino Catholics.

The only all-steel church in Asia, a prefabricated Gothic Revival structure shipped from Belgium to Manila in the 1890s, surviving earthquakes, wars, and typhoons that destroyed its stone predecessors.

The oldest Christian church in the Philippines, founded in 1565 in Cebu City, housing the Santo Niño de Cebu — a statue of the Child Jesus believed to date to Magellan's arrival in 1521.

The oldest surviving structure in San Francisco, a 1791 adobe mission church with original Ohlone-painted ceiling beams, still in active use.

The largest and best-preserved of the San Antonio missions, a UNESCO World Heritage Site called the Queen of the Missions, still an active Catholic parish.

A Spanish mission in Orange County, California, founded in 1776, known for its Great Stone Church ruins, the Serra Chapel, and the annual return of the swallows.

The 'White Dove of the Desert' — a Spanish Colonial mission church south of Tucson, one of the finest examples of its kind in the Americas.

A monastery built into the cliffside at Subiaco, Italy, marking the cave where a young Benedict of Nursia lived as a hermit before founding Western monasticism.

Korea's oldest parish church and a national symbol, where Catholicism survived persecution and became a voice for justice in modern Seoul.

A handsome Romanesque Revival church on the North Side of Chicago that serves as the national shrine to St. Therese of Lisieux, drawing pilgrims from across the country to venerate her relics.

The northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, built over the burial site of St. Olav in Trondheim, Norway — once the greatest pilgrimage destination in Scandinavia and now a national landmark where Norwegian kings are consecrated.

The medieval cathedral on the Île de la Cité, one of the most recognized churches in the world.

The earthquake-damaged shell of Nicaragua's former cathedral, left standing in central Managua as both a ruin and a reminder that some things survive by refusing to fall.

The first Catholic cathedral in California, built in 1854 during the Gold Rush using granite shipped from China and bricks from New England, still standing at the edge of San Francisco's Chinatown.

The original cathedral of the Archdiocese of New York, a Federal-style church on Mulberry Street in NoLita that served as the city's mother church from 1815 to 1879.

The largest Catholic church in the Arabian Peninsula, consecrated in 2021 in Bahrain, a striking contemporary structure that serves a Catholic population made up almost entirely of migrant workers from Asia and Africa.

A Benedictine archabbey on a hilltop in western Hungary, founded in 996, and one of the oldest historical sites in the country. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A remarkable Vietnamese-Chinese stone cathedral in Ninh Binh Province, built in the 1890s by Father Trần Lục using entirely local materials and design traditions, creating a Catholic church that looks like a Vietnamese pagoda complex.

A UNESCO World Heritage brick Gothic cathedral in Denmark that served as the Catholic cathedral of Roskilde before the Reformation and has been the burial church of Danish royalty for over five hundred years.

A fortified monastery in the mountains of Extremadura, Spain, housing the original Black Madonna of Guadalupe — the statue that gave its name to the famous Mexican shrine and that Columbus visited before his voyage to the Americas.

The largest church in Canada, perched on the slope of Mount Royal in Montreal, built through the faith of a humble doorman named Brother André.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, a compact but dignified Romanesque Revival church in the heart of the city that has served as the bishop's seat since 1907.

A functioning Catholic church carved 200 meters underground in a Colombian salt mine, one of the most unusual sacred spaces in the world.

A monumental early Baroque cathedral in the heart of Mozart's city, where the composer was baptized, with a grand facade of Untersberg marble, a soaring dome, and a musical tradition that runs unbroken for centuries.

The oldest stone church in the Philippines, a UNESCO World Heritage Site built by Augustinian friars in 1607, surviving wars, earthquakes, and the Battle of Manila.

The oldest cathedral sanctuary in the United States, standing at the heart of San Antonio since 1738.

The largest church in Asia at the time of its construction, built by the Portuguese in Old Goa to celebrate their conquest and now a monument to the Catholic heritage of India.

The only Vatican-approved Marian apparition site in Africa, where three young women reported visions of the Blessed Virgin beginning in 1981.

The Pope's private chapel, home to Michelangelo's ceiling and Last Judgment, and the site where popes are elected.

A small chapel in the Bavarian Forest built entirely from packed snow and ice each winter, where Mass is celebrated in freezing temperatures — one of the most unusual liturgical spaces in the world.

A major pilgrimage church on the Kerala coast of India, founded by Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century and now drawing over a million pilgrims annually for the feast of St. Andrew and the annual St. Sebastian festival.

The cathedral of Ghent that houses the Ghent Altarpiece, Jan and Hubert van Eyck's polyptych masterpiece — one of the most important and most stolen works of art in history.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Omaha, a grand Spanish Colonial Revival church on a hilltop that is one of the largest cathedrals in the Midwest.

The cathedral of the Maronite Archeparchy of Beirut, a 19th-century church in downtown Beirut that was heavily damaged in the Lebanese Civil War and rebuilt as a sign of the Maronite community's endurance.

The seat of the Archdiocese of Seattle, an early twentieth-century Renaissance Revival cathedral on First Hill whose twin towers and copper domes define the city's eastern skyline.

The principal Catholic church of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a Gothic-influenced coral stone cathedral built by German missionaries on the harbor front in 1897 and still anchoring the city's waterfront.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Nouméa, a Neo-Gothic church in the capital of New Caledonia built by convict labor in the 1890s, standing as the oldest major church in the French Pacific territories.

A nineteenth-century Gothic Revival cathedral in Chongqing, China, that survived wartime bombing and the Cultural Revolution to remain an active parish.

A French colonial Gothic cathedral in the heart of Hanoi's Old Quarter, the center of Catholic life in northern Vietnam.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Colombo, a grand white Neo-Classical church in the Kotahena neighborhood that has been the center of Sri Lankan Catholic life since 1873 and hosts one of Asia's largest annual church festivals.

Venice's golden cathedral, housing the relics of St. Mark and covered in Byzantine mosaics.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Port Moresby, a simple hilltop church in Papua New Guinea's capital that serves a Catholic community shaped by twentieth-century missionary work across some of the most remote terrain on earth.

The Catholic cathedral of Yangon, a red brick Gothic Revival church built during British colonial rule that has survived wars, military dictatorship, and tropical decay to remain the center of Catholic life in Myanmar.

The mother church of Australian Catholicism, a sandstone Gothic Revival cathedral in central Sydney that took over a century to complete, standing in quiet contrast to the Opera House across the harbor.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Kampala, perched on Rubaga Hill with views across Uganda's capital, built on the site where the White Fathers established their first permanent mission in the kingdom of Buganda.

The seat of the Archbishop of New York, standing on Fifth Avenue since 1879.

The largest church in the world and the spiritual center of Catholicism, built over the tomb of St. Peter.

Vienna's mother church since the twelfth century, with a Gothic spire that has watched over the city through Ottoman sieges, imperial splendor, and modern rebuilding.

The towering Gothic cathedral within Prague Castle that took six centuries to complete, housing the Czech crown jewels and the tomb of Good King Wenceslaus.

The traditional site of the Last Supper and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

The largest cathedral in Scandinavia, built as a Gothic Catholic cathedral in the thirteenth century, converted to Lutheranism during the Reformation, and still holding the relics of St. Erik, the patron saint of Sweden.

The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Nagasaki, rebuilt after its complete destruction by the atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, standing as the parish church of a Catholic community that endured over two centuries of hidden faith.

Poland's coronation church and royal burial site atop Wawel Hill in Krakow, a layered building spanning Romanesque to Baroque where Polish kings and heroes rest.

The mother church of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, a striking Byzantine Revival building in central London.