Sanctuary of Mary of the Rosary of San Nicolas

The machine is located inside the church, on the right side in the middle of the church.

About the Parish Church of San Nicolás de Bari:

In 1884, the parish church of San Nicolás de Bari was inaugurated, housing an image of the Virgin of the Rosary.

In the 20th century, a woman named Gladys Quiroga de Motta claimed to have received a series of apparitions of the Virgin Mary, which allegedly began on September 25, 1983. Every year on September 25, the city of San Nicolás welcomes hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and devotees who come to pay homage to the image of Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás. In 2003, marking the 20th anniversary of the first supposed apparition, the second-largest gathering of devotees occurred, with 400,000 people in attendance. Pilgrims arrived from all over Argentina, including groups of over 1,000 people who walked the 240 km from Buenos Aires to San Nicolás—a distance three times greater than the pilgrimage from Buenos Aires to Luján. On September 25, 2013, the 30th anniversary of the apparitions, 500,000 people gathered in the city, surpassing previous records and making it the largest pilgrimage event to date.

The church was designed with a ground floor and special mezzanines to accommodate between 8,000 and 9,000 standing worshippers. For outdoor ceremonies, terraces and open plazas were constructed.

The dome has an interior diameter of 24 meters and an exterior diameter of 27 meters. It consists of 64 vertical reinforced concrete segments, with exterior copper plates arranged in individual trays. The dome is visible from various points across the city. Currently, the construction is 70% complete.

On May 25, 2014, the interior of the sanctuary was fully inaugurated.

In August 1990, French theologian René Laurentin published An Appeal from Mary in Argentina: The Apparitions of San Nicolás, a 163-page book based on his visit to the city. Laurentin, who has written about other supernatural apparitions, acknowledged collaborators such as Bishop Domingo Salvador Castagna, Marie Helene Sutter de Gall, and Father Carlos Pérez, to whom Gladys Motta had confided her experiences.

In 1994, historian Cayetano Bruno from Rosario published “History of the Manifestations of the Virgin, Mary of the Rosary of San Nicolás,” compiling testimonies and official records from the Sanctuary’s archives.

Other publications include “Messages” (1990), a compilation of the 1,887 messages the Virgin allegedly conveyed to Gladys Motta, and “Who Is This Woman?” (1991), a commentary by author Víctor Martínez.

Approval by the Catholic Church:
In a decree signed on May 22, 2016, and published shortly after, Bishop Héctor Cardelli of San Nicolás declared that the apparitions in San Nicolás were of a supernatural nature. Thus, the events were officially recognized at the diocesan level within the Catholic Church.