If you do visit, you probably will not be alone. Sometimes called the “Lourdes of America,” Wikipedia claims Chimayo has 300,000 visitors per year and is the most important Catholic pilgrimage site in the United States. The main church, El Santuario, has a adobe-walled courtyard and twin bell towers topped with crosses. The nave is decorated with a large carved crucifix and various altarpieces, all from the 1800s. On the side of the nave is a separate prayer room/vestibule literally lined with hundreds discarded crutches from people believed to be healed from the “holy dirt” of the church. One wall of the prayer room, as well as many other walls elsewhere on the grounds, is covered with photographs of people also helped by the shire. The holy dirt is located within a hole in the floor of a small room attached to the prayer room. When we visited, a woman was kneeling on the floor, scooping holy dirt into a Ziploc bag to take home.
The second church is the Chapel of Santa Niño de Atocha. The chapel was built in 1856, but fell into disrepair to be renovated by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in the early 1990s as a children’s chapel. It is decorated with modern artwork, but still maintains its historic feel.
Unfortunately, photography within both the churches is prohibited. However, many wonderful photographs can be captured by walking around the grounds and in the nearby portions of the town as you can see by the examples I’ve posted below.
