Basilica of Our Lady of Victory - Lackawanna, NY
Posted by: 
Rayman
N 42° 49.545 W 078° 49.416
17T E 677898 N 4743762
The Our Lady of Victory Basilica located just outside Buffalo, NY is one of a handful of basilicas in the country. It was largely through the efforts of Father Nelson Baker that the basilica was constructed in the 1920s.
Waymark Code: WM1TRM
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 07/09/2007
Views: 174
The following is an excerpt from
New York: A Guide to the Empire State in the Tour 11 section (NY Route 5):
The Basilica of Our Lady of Victory, SE. corner of Park Ave. and Ridge Road, is one of two North American Catholic churches designated by Papal decree as a basilica, the title conveying special privileges and indulgences. It is a large, rectangular structure of white limestone with a Byzantine dome 251 feet in circumference; the main entrance has two 165-foot towers with interlaced stone carvings; the interior is lavishly ornamented in 48 different kinds of marble.
The basilica is one of a large group of religious and charitable institutions known to western New Yorkers as Father Baker's Colony. The Right Reverend Monsignor Nelson D. Baker (1841-1936), native of Buffalo, was educated at Canisius College and Niagara University. Shortly after his ordination in 1876 he became director of a reform school in Lackawanna, which he converted into an industrial school; when his efforts to pay off the school's huge debt succeeded he enlarged the scope of his activities and continued to raise money and build institutions for the rest of his life. Today the basilica, orphanages, hospitals, schools, etc., representing an investment of about $25,000,000 stand as a memorial to the man.
The basilica itself has remained largely unchanged since it was built. In 1941, a freak lightning storm caused major damage to the original twin towers. Father Baker's successor, Msgr. Joseph Maguire, led the efforts to replace the marble towers, replacing them with the shorter copper domed towers that can be seen today. The ice and snow of the winter of 2001-2002 forced the replacement of the roof of the shrine.
On March 11, 1999, Father Baker's remains where unearthed from nearby Holy Cross Cemetery and were moved to the OLV basilica at the request of the Vatican. Six men that were raised by Father Baker moved his casket into a sarcophagus within the Grotto Shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes at the southern end of the basilica. The Grotto is made out of black lava rock from Mount Vesuvius in Italy. Father Baker insisted on using a material that was untouched by humans to pay tribute to the vision of Our Blessed Lady to St. Bernadatte in Lourdes, France.
Father Baker is officially on the "road to sainthood". His journey began in 1987 when the Vatican named him Servant of God, the first of three steps to canonization. During the move from Holy Cross Cemetery to the Basilica, three vials of bodily fluid were found and removed from Father Baker's coffin. The containers were in pristine condition, as was the blood inside. In 2000, the blood, which was still in liquid form 60-plus years after Father Baker's burial, was sent to the Vatican for testing. All of the paperwork with the vials has been submitted to the Vatican and all are hopeful that word will come soon of the acceptance of the uncorrupted blood as Father Baker's first miracle, called beatification, the second step towards sainthood. If the Vatican determines that that first miracle has occurred, the process will begin again with a second miracle needing to be documented, submitted, and accepted.