Banneux

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Banneux

Banneux is a town in the French-speaking section of Belgium that in 1935 became the site of a set of apparitions of the Virgin Mary. These apparitions are often tied to those that occurred at the end of 1934 at Beauraing, another Belgian community not far away. It appears that the claims of five children to be seeing the Virgin at Beauraing was the occasion for the Banneux apparition.

The apparitions occurred to Mariette Beco, the eleven-yearold daughter of a non-practicing Catholic family. The first appearance occurred on January 15, 1935, less than two weeks after the last sighting at Beauraing. Mariette was looking at the window when she saw a woman walking in the garden. She recognized her as the Virgin Mary, but Mariette's mother, who could not see the figure, would not let her daughter out of the house. Without mentioning why, on January 18, Mariette went into the garden and began praying before the figure, who was enveloped in light. Her father came out but could see nothing. Then, with a friend who was still a practicing Catholic, he followed his daughter to a nearby stream where the Virgin told her that She was setting the stream aside for Her use. In a later conversation with the local priest, she described the Virgin as being dressed in white with a blue girdle around her waist. Her left foot was bare and rested on a golden rose. She had a rosary in her hand.

At the third apparition the following night, the Virgin described herself as the "Virgin of the Poor." Again she beckoned for Mariette to follow her to the stream and reiterated its new use and that she wanted a small chapel built. The stream would be for the sick of all nations. The five subsequent apparitions, the last of which occurred on March 2, repeated her message. One of these apparitions was on February 11, the 75th anniversary of the first apparition at Lourdes.

The apparitions at Banneux occurred just as controversy over Beauraing was growing and the country experienced a number of questionable claims of apparitions related to the earlier Beauraing sightings. However, the bishop finally appointed an investigating committee. By that time the stream had become a place of pilgrimage, especially by the sick and crippled. Among the early healing was that of Spanish anarchist Benito Pelegri Garcia, whose arm had been rendered useless due to a boiler explosion.

In 1942, during the Nazi occupation, the church finished its study and issued a word of acceptance of the apparition. The chapel requested by the Virgin had already been built and in 1984 a basilica was started. While hundreds of apparitions of the Virgin have been reported since, this is the last of the twentieth-century apparitions that has passed the tests put to it by the Catholic Church's authorities.