Catholics For Catholics celebrates the edict issued by Bishop Ricken in Wisconsin and encourages the faithful to submit their testimonies, personal experiences, documents, and accounts of intercession that could further Adele’s cause for canonization.
By Catholics for Catholics
During Mass on December 28, 2025, Bishop David L. Ricken formally announced a diocesean inquiry into the life of Servant of God Adele Brice who received apparitions from Our Lady of Champion in the 1800s in Wisconsin. The Marian apparitions Adele received are the only ones approved by the Church in the United States.
The faithful are invited to share their testimonies to Servant of God Adele Brice’s intercession in order for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints to affirm the “heroic virtue” of Adele and declare her “Venerable.”
In 1859, Adele received three apparitions of Our Lady near what is now Champion, Wisconsin. Our Lady encouraged Adele to teach children in the area “what they should know for salvation,” and when Adele asked how she could do that, Our Lady said, “Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do. Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”
On October 8, 1871, the Great Peshtigo Fire destroyed more than a million acres and killed many people; as the fire spread, Adele others from the area took shelter in a shrine that her father had previously built on the site of the apparitions, and they prayed through the night for safety. On the morning of October 9 – twelve years to the day of Our Lady’s final apparition to Adele – the people emerged to find everything surrounding the shrine utterly ravaged, but the shrine was not damaged in the slightest.
Our Lady of Champion is intrinsically attached to the mission Catholics For Catholics and she inspired the name of our show “The Catholic Champion” which airs every Wednesday 12pm ET on our YouTube channel.
Our mission is to evangelize, with zeal and courage, America through public prayer, powerful media, and strategic political action. This is in response to Our Lady’s message to teach the Catholic catechism to the children (citizens) of “this wild country,” saying, “Go and fear nothing, I will help you.”
Servant of God Adele Brice is also featured on our Catholic Patriotic Calendar 2026 which is available for purchase, and we recently dedicated a Catholic Patriotic Minute video to her story.
Watch the Full Story of Our Lady of Champion and Adele Brice!
