Sanctuary of Our Lady of Laus

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Laus is in Saint-Étienne-le-Laus, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France and is a major Marian pilgrimage sanctuary associated with Benoîte Rencurel’s reported apparitions from 1664 to 1718, formally recognized by the Bishop of Gap in 2008.. Benoîte Rencurel reported apparitions beginning in May 1664.

Pilgrimage was authorized in September 1665, and a church was built between 1666 and 1669. After later historical, theological and scientific commissions, the Bishop of Gap and Embrun promulgated a decree on 4 May 2008 recognizing the reported apparitions within the Catholic Church. Benoîte Rencurel said that the Virgin Mary appeared to her repeatedly over many years.

Accounts of healing, conversion and spiritual graces belong to the sanctuary’s religious tradition. The 2008 decree is an ecclesiastical judgment about the apparition tradition and does not constitute scientific proof of supernatural causation. The sanctuary remains an active Catholic pilgrimage place in the Hautes-Alpes, where the documented development of the church and formal diocesan decisions can be distinguished from the much longer visionary narrative preserved in devotional tradition.