Where are the Christian holy sites?

Answer 1

The holy Bible places from the time of Jesus are all in the area of Israel, the Holy Land.

Answer

One of the Christian holy sites is The Church of The Holy Sepulchre.

Answer 2

Until the fourth century, there was surprisingly little interest in knowing of the places associated with Jesus in The Bible. Then, Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, visited Palestine and identified, to her own satisfaction, every important place associated with the life of Jesus. They include the very place in Bethlehem where Jesus was born and the places in Jerusalem where he was crucified and buried. These are now important places of pilgrimage, although New Testament scholars say they are unlikely to have been the actual places where these events occurred.

The veneration of places and people subsequent to the close of the New Testament is a pecularly Catholic practice. Roman Catholics are always on the lookout for miracles and for places where miracles might have occurred, whereas non-Catholics are sceptical of these claims. Some important Catholic holy sites include:

• Lourdes, where Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing a "small young lady" who came to be identified as Mary, mother of Jesus. The lack of any corroboration by other witnesses saw the local clergy ridicule her claims but then, as pilgrims began to arrive, they accepted them as true. The Catholic Church soon saw the commercial possibilities of these apparitions and aggressively marketed Lourdes as a place of pilgrimage.
• Fatima in Portugal, where once again the Virgin Mary appeared to three small children.
• Loreto, where there is a small house that Catholic tradition says was raised from its foundations in Nazareth and transported by angels across the Mediterranean that in May, 1291. Apart from certain documents considered spurious, no writer can be shown to have heard of the miraculous translation of the Holy House before 1472, which is 180 years after the event is supposed to have taken place. This holy site is now considered by some to be a minor embarrasment for the Catholic Church.
• Guadalupe in Mexico where, according to the Guadalupe tradition, a poor Indian named Juan Diego saw a vision of the Virgin Mary on 9 December 1531 asking him to have a chapel built in her honour in Tepeyac, Mexico. The story seems to have remained unknown for over one hundred years until it appeared in a remarkable book by a priest named Miguel Sanchez. In 1996, Guillermo Schulenberg, the abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City opposed the canonisation of Juan Diego and questioned his historic existence, saying that Juan Diego was "a symbol, not a reality."

For more information on important Catholic holy sites, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/catholicism/visions-of-the-virgin-mary