A basilica — Sorin's ask of 1888 and the pope's answer of 1992

1888 – 17 January 1992 · the designation

The ask: The designation was Sorin's idea, and it is as old as the consecration. In 1888, the Basilica's history page records, Sorin asked that the church be made a basilica. Nothing in the record reached shows the ask renewed in his lifetime — he died in 1893 — and the church served a full century as Sacred Heart Church before the answer came. The Notre Dame history in this record carries the thread at its size; this entry carries the answer whole.

The answer: On 17 January 1992, Pope John Paul II designated the church a minor basilica. The university's own coverage, in Notre Dame News, gives the designation its frame: it came in conjunction with the university's 150th anniversary; it made the church the thirty-seventh minor basilica in the United States, in Notre Dame News's count; and the instrument of it was a Vatican letter signed on the pope's behalf by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state, carrying the pope's seal of the fisherman. The letter, as Notre Dame News quotes it, traces the temple's foundation "even to the 17th century" and calls the church "an outstanding testimony to the widespread labor of missionaries." The student paper of the day itself — The Observer of Friday, 17 January 1992 — gives the title in its full form, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and records that the honor was to be celebrated at a special Mass that Sunday, 19 January, at ten in the morning. The rector in whose tenure the elevation fell, Daniel Jenky (rector 1977–1997), stated its meaning in the university's coverage: the designation "affirms and strengthens the unity of our local faith community with the university church and the Roman pontiff."

What changed: What a designation documentably changes is furniture and arms, and the record names them. As a basilica, the church may display the papal arms on its exterior — the tour places the Papal Coat of Arms over the outside main entrance. And two symbols stand near the altar, the tour's ninth and seventeenth stations: the Tintinnabulum, the basilica bell, adorned with the insignia of the Roman Pontiff and the coat of arms of the Basilica; and the Ombrellino, the papal umbrella, a mark of honor for the church in which it is displayed. The tour's definition heads the whole matter in the Basilica's own words: a minor basilica is a church the pope has singled out "because of their antiquity, dignity, historical importance or significance as places of worship and devotion." Sorin's church had waited 104 years from the ask; by the tour's criteria it had, by 1992, all four.

Sources

1. University of Notre Dame — the Basilica's history page (basilica.nd.edu): Sorin's ask of 1888; the designation of 17 January 1992.
2. Notre Dame News, University of Notre Dame — "Pope John Paul designated Sacred Heart a basilica in 1992": the sesquicentennial conjunction; the thirty-seventh count; Cardinal Sodano's letter and the fisherman's seal; the letter's words; Rector Jenky's statement; the papal arms, the basilica bell and the papal umbrella.
3. The Observer (University of Notre Dame), Friday, 17 January 1992 (University Archives copy) — the title in full, Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the celebration Mass of Sunday 19 January.
4. University of Notre Dame, Campus Ministry — Self-Guided Tour of the Basilica: the definition of a minor basilica; the Tintinnabulum and Ombrellino at their stations; the Papal Coat of Arms over the main entrance.