Our Lady of La Salette

Devotions

The Marian apparition two shepherd children reported on a French mountainside in 1846, approved by the Bishop of Grenoble five years later.

Our Lady of La Salette refers to a Marian apparition reported on September 19, 1846, by two shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, on a mountainside above the village of La Salette in southeastern France. Bishop Philibert de Bruillard of Grenoble approved the apparition in 1851 after a five-year investigation, and the religious congregation he founded the following year, the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, continues to serve the shrine and spread its call to conversion and prayer.

Quick Facts

Category: Marian Apparitions and Shrines — Major International Devotions
Origin: A Marian apparition reported by two shepherd children near La Salette, France, on September 19, 1846
Feast: September 19 (apparition anniversary; local and congregational observance)
Church status: An approved apparition; Bishop Philibert de Bruillard of Grenoble declared in 1851 that it bears all the characteristics of truth and authorized public devotion
Private revelation: A Church-approved private revelation; belief in it is not required of Catholics, and a later, disputed version of the reported message should not be confused with the approved core event

What Is This Devotion?

Devotion to Our Lady of La Salette centers on a specific reported event: an encounter two children described on a remote Alpine mountainside, in which a weeping woman spoke to them of sorrow over her Son being offended by sin and of the need for prayer and conversion. Unlike titles honoring an ancient image or shrine, this devotion rests entirely on that one reported event and the Church’s subsequent examination of it, which makes questions of historical detail and ecclesiastical approval central to understanding it correctly.

Origin and History

On September 19, 1846, two shepherd children from the area, Mélanie Calvat, fourteen years old, and Maximin Giraud, eleven, reported that while tending cattle in the mountains above La Salette, in the Grenoble diocese of southeastern France, they encountered a lady seated and weeping, surrounded by light. Speaking to them first in French and then, when Maximin said he could not understand, in their local dialect, she spoke of grief over how her Son’s day of rest and his name were treated, and of the hardship that would follow if people did not return to prayer and repentance, before walking to the top of a rise and disappearing. Each child also reported receiving a private message not shared with the other, a detail that would later generate significant controversy.

Bishop Philibert de Bruillard of Grenoble opened a formal canonical investigation soon afterward, and on September 19, 1851 — the fifth anniversary of the reported event — he issued a mandement declaring that the apparition bears within itself all the characteristics of truth and that the faithful had grounds for regarding it as certain, authorizing public devotion at the site. He established the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette the following year to staff the growing shrine, and his successor, Bishop Jacques-Marie-Achille Ginoulhiac, reaffirmed the approval in 1855. The story became more complicated in 1879, when Mélanie Calvat, by then an adult, published a greatly expanded version of her private message containing dramatic apocalyptic warnings; this later text proved so controversial that the Holy See placed it on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1923, a judgment concerning Mélanie’s later published expansion, not the Church-approved 1846 event itself.

Catholic Theology

The reported message at La Salette centers on themes fully at home in Catholic teaching regardless of the apparition’s own status: sorrow over sin, the call to conversion, and the importance of prayer, especially the Lord’s Day rightly observed. As with every approved private revelation, the Church’s approval means the faithful may reasonably trust that nothing in the core message contradicts the faith and that devotion here has produced real spiritual fruit — not that Catholics are bound to believe every detail as they would a truth of revelation itself.

How to Practice It

Pray for personal conversion and for reverence toward the Lord’s Day, the themes the reported message centers on.
Visit or learn about the Sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette in the French Alps, staffed since 1852 by the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette.
Distinguish, when reading about La Salette, the Church-approved 1846 event from Mélanie Calvat’s later, disputed 1879 publication.
Join prayer for the Church’s ongoing call to conversion with the sacraments, especially confession, rather than treating the apparition as a substitute for them.

Associated Prayers

When It’s Observed

September 19 marks the anniversary of the reported apparition and is kept locally at the shrine and by the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette; it is not on the General Roman Calendar for the universal Church.

Church Status

La Salette is a formally approved apparition, examined over five years by the competent local bishop and publicly declared, in the language available to a nineteenth-century diocese, to bear the characteristics of truth. That approval concerns the core 1846 event witnessed and reported jointly by both children and investigated by the diocese; it does not extend to material Mélanie Calvat published independently decades later, which the Holy See itself later restricted.

Private Revelation

As with every approved private revelation, belief in La Salette is not required of any Catholic, and the approved message adds nothing to the deposit of faith already given fully to the Church through Scripture and Tradition. Catholics may reasonably and prudently receive it as a help toward conversion, while remembering that the expanded text Mélanie Calvat published on her own in 1879 does not carry the same approval as the original 1846 event and should be treated with the caution the Church itself later applied to it.

Common Misconceptions

“The Church approved everything Mélanie Calvat later revealed as the La Salette secret.”

It did not. Bishop de Bruillard’s 1851 approval concerned the apparition the two children witnessed and reported together in 1846. The dramatically expanded, apocalyptic text Mélanie published on her own authority in 1879 is a separate matter; it proved so controversial that the Holy See placed it on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1923, and it should never be treated as carrying the same Church approval as the core event.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who were the visionaries of La Salette?

Mélanie Calvat, fourteen at the time, and Maximin Giraud, eleven. Both were local shepherd children tending cattle on the mountainside above La Salette when they reported the encounter.

What did Bishop de Bruillard actually declare in 1851?

After a five-year investigation, he declared that the apparition bears within itself all the characteristics of truth and that the faithful had grounds for regarding it as certain, and he authorized public devotion at the site — the standard nineteenth-century form of episcopal approval for a reported apparition.

Is the La Salette message still controversial today?

The Church-approved 1846 core event is not controversial and has been part of accepted Catholic devotional life for over 170 years. The controversy concerns only Mélanie Calvat’s later, independently published 1879 expansion, which the Holy See itself restricted in 1923.

Are Catholics required to believe in the La Salette apparition?

No. Like every approved private revelation, it is not part of the deposit of faith and no Catholic is obligated to believe in it; the Church’s approval means it is judged worthy of belief and free of doctrinal error, not that belief in it is required.