The bronze Madonna that stands forty-eight feet above the lawn at 174 Filors Lane was made for somewhere else. She was cast in Pistoia in 1959 and blessed by Pope John XXIII, then raised at Good Counsel College in White Plains. When that college closed, the six-and-a-half-ton figure was given to the Salesians of Don Bosco and set up at Stony Point in September 1977, on a Vermont-stone pedestal whose star-shaped base copies the one under the Statue of Liberty.
She looks out over roughly 160 wooded acres on the hills of the west bank of the Hudson, some thirty miles northwest of New York City. The property is the remnant of Greyridge Farm, the 212-acre estate of Mabel T. Filor, which the Salesians bought in 1945. They went on farming it while they built: a high school for prospective priests and brothers in 1947, a gymnasium in 1950, the first weekend retreats in 1954. That same year a white marble altar went up in the open air for the Marian Year, and work began on the Rosary Way — a shamrock-shaped path lined with life-size Italian marble figures of the mysteries, dedicated in 1956. As the pilgrim crowds grew, the work was renamed in 1967: the Marian Shrine.
In the autumn of 2024 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops designated it a national shrine, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan celebrated the inauguration Mass on 30 January 2025, the eve of the feast of St. John Bosco. It is one of eight sites the Archdiocese of New York named for the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
The title on the gate belongs to Turin before it belongs to Rockland County. St. John Bosco founded the Salesians on 18 December 1859 to work among the poor and abandoned boys of an industrialising city, and he put the work under Mary in her character as Maria Auxilium Christianorum — Help of Christians, the Virgin invoked as protector of the Church's people. He built her a basilica at Valdocco in Turin, consecrated in 1868 and raised to a minor basilica in 1911, and he founded a congregation of women under the same title. Everything at Stony Point descends from that decision: the dedication, the order that keeps the grounds, and the January feast on whose eve the shrine was inaugurated.
The American ground came late and by purchase. In 1945 the Salesians acquired Greyridge Farm from the estate of Mabel T. Filor — 212 acres straddling the Town of Haverstraw and the Town of Stony Point, with the entrance on Filors Lane. The Don Bosco Juniorate, a high school for boys considering the Salesian life, opened in 1947; a gymnasium followed in 1950 and became the St. Dominic Savio Youth Center. Retreats began in 1954 as weekend gatherings for boys in the seventh and eighth grades, run by the vocation director.
The devotional landscape was laid out across the same decade. The white marble outdoor altar dates from the Marian Year of 1954. The Rosary Way was begun that year and dedicated in 1956, its life-size Italian marble groups set along a path cut in the shape of a shamrock. A pavilion chapel for daily Mass and confessions went up in 1963. By 1967 the pilgrim traffic had outgrown the school's identity and the place was renamed the Marian Shrine.
Two crowds fixed the shrine in the memory of the New York Catholic world. On 15 August 1968 more than ten thousand people came to venerate the pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fátima, flown in from Fátima with the bishop of that diocese accompanying it. From that year the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn organised nationality pilgrimages to Stony Point — Italian, Latino, Polish — and in 1972 the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel became Italian-American Day at the shrine. On 30 September 2010, when the relics of St. John Bosco travelled from Italy in a glass-sided bronze coffin, Cardinal Dolan led close to ten thousand people in prayer before them.
Building went on around the devotions. A brick-and-wood retreat house of fifty-four rooms was begun in September 1971, next to the former school, whose classrooms became meeting and dining rooms. In September 1977 the Rosary Madonna arrived from White Plains. A fire in January 2001 destroyed the administration and gift-shop building; the St. Joseph Center replaced it in July 2004, and a new outdoor Stations of the Cross was added the same year. In May 2008 an enclosed church seating six to eight hundred was dedicated on the foundation of the old pavilion chapel, fitted with stained glass, confession rooms and a set of ceramic Stations recovered from an old church in Venice.
The Salesians marked seventy-five years in Rockland County in 2022. Two years later the bishops' conference designated the grounds a national shrine, and on 30 January 2025 Cardinal Dolan opened that status with a Mass before some four hundred people and about twenty concelebrating priests.
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Stony Point
National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians
One address holds everything a pilgrim walks to here. The grounds rise behind the entrance on Filors Lane in wooded, hilly country above the Hudson, and the devotional features are spread across them on foot paths rather than gathered into a single building. The shrine is served by the Salesians of Don Bosco, who also run the retreat house and the youth center on the property.
Mary Help of Christians Church
The enclosed church, dedicated in May 2008, seats between six and eight hundred and was built on the foundation of the 1963 pavilion chapel it replaced. Stained-glass saints line the walls; the ceramic Stations of the Cross inside were recovered from an old church in Venice and reinstalled here.
The Rosary Way
Life-size Italian marble groups of the mysteries of the Rosary stand along a path cut in the shape of a shamrock. Work began in the Marian Year of 1954 and the walk was dedicated in 1956.
The Rosary Madonna
Forty-eight feet of bronze, six and a half tons, on a star-shaped Vermont-stone pedestal beside a fountain. The statue was cast in Pistoia in 1959, blessed by Pope John XXIII, and stood at Good Counsel College in White Plains until that college closed; the Salesians received it as a gift and raised it here in September 1977.
The Outdoor Altar
White marble, erected for the Marian Year of 1954, at the head of the open picnic and worship ground. Outdoor Mass on the shrine's larger pilgrimage days is celebrated here rather than inside the church.
Stations of the Cross
An outdoor Way of the Cross added in 2004, walked in the open along the hillside paths, separate from the ceramic Stations inside the church.
The Becchi House
A brick-and-tile replica of the house at Becchi, in Castelnuovo in Piedmont, where St. John Bosco was born.
Outdoor Shrines
Smaller devotional gardens are set among the trees, including shrines to Our Lady of Guadalupe and to St. Padre Pio.
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Feast of Mary, Help of Christians — May 24
The shrine's titular feast, kept on its fixed date. The day is given to adoration and confessions, Mass, and a Rosary of Hope with the crowning of Our Lady. A novena to Mary, Help of Christians runs in the days leading up to it and closes on the feast itself.
The Rise Up Festival — a Saturday in August
An afternoon-and-evening festival on the grounds, tied to the Solemnity of the Assumption on 15 August, though the Saturday it falls on is announced year by year rather than fixed. The programme runs through the afternoon and into the evening: an open-air concert, games, exhibitions and food on the grounds, then the Rosary, adoration and confession, and an outdoor Mass celebrated by a bishop of the Archdiocese of New York. In the years when it runs late there are fireworks on the upper field.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Budget Motor Inn (hotel) — A plain roadside inn in Stony Point village, the closest lodging to the shrine. Private rooms with microwave, fridge and air conditioning, free Wi-Fi and a 24-hour desk. Guest reviews are mixed — some praise the staff, others report maintenance problems — so it suits pilgrims who want proximity and little else. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
Bear Mountain Inn (hotel) — Built in 1915 on a plateau above Hessian Lake at the foot of Bear Mountain, on the line of the Appalachian Trail, about 18 km from the shrine by road. Guest rooms are in the Overlook Lodge and the Stone Cottages within the same state-park complex; there is a full restaurant and a view down the Hudson Highlands. The natural choice for pilgrims pairing the shrine with a day in Bear Mountain State Park. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
Hotel Nyack, a JdV by Hyatt (boutique hotel) — A design-led hotel in downtown Nyack on the Hudson, about 16 km south, with an on-site restaurant. The most comfortable option within an easy drive, for pilgrims willing to trade proximity for comfort. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
The Salesians keep a fifty-four-room retreat house on the property, but it serves organised retreat groups rather than general travellers; enquiries go through the shrine's retreats page.
🚗 Getting There
By Air: New York Stewart International (SWF) at Newburgh lies about 33 km north, and Westchester County Airport (HPN) about 30 km southeast across the river; both are small and best for domestic connections. Newark Liberty (EWR), about 60 km south, and John F. Kennedy (JFK), about 67 km southeast, carry the international traffic. A car is needed for the last leg from any of them.
By Train: No railway serves Stony Point. Metro-North's Hudson Line runs along the opposite bank, and Peekskill station sits about 10 km northeast across the water. The NY Waterway ferry between Haverstraw and Ossining, boarding about 5 km south of the shrine, is timed to meet Hudson Line trains at Ossining for Grand Central.
By Bus: Coach USA's Short Line 9 Line links the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan and the George Washington Bridge Bus Station with Stony Point along Route 9W. The Stony Point Park and Ride is the local stop.
By Car: From the George Washington Bridge, take the Palisades Interstate Parkway north to Exit 14, then turn right onto Willow Grove Road; the shrine entrance is on the right at 174 Filors Lane. Coming from Westchester, Connecticut or points northeast, take I-287 south across the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge to Exit 13N, then the Palisades Interstate Parkway north to the same Exit 14.
📚 Further Reading
Books:
F. A. Forbes. St. John Bosco: The Friend of Youth — A short popular life of the founder whose Marian devotion gives this shrine its name, from his Piedmontese boyhood to the founding of the Salesians. TAN Books.
John Bosco. Forty Dreams of St. John Bosco: From St. John Bosco's Biographical Memoirs — The saint's own dream-visions, drawn from his biographical memoirs, giving his voice directly rather than through a biographer.
Marion Amberg. Mary's Miracles: A Traveler's Guide to Catholic America — A survey of Marian shrines across the United States, useful for placing Stony Point among the country's other Marian destinations.
Online Resources:
Marian Shrine: History — The Salesians' own dated account of the property from the 1945 purchase of Greyridge Farm onward.
NASPA: National Shrines in the United States — The National Association of Shrine and Pilgrimage Apostolate's list of shrines designated by the USCCB, where Stony Point appears under New York.
🎥 Recommended Videos
Come visit us at the National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Stony Point, NY — A short welcome film from the shrine's own channel, taking in the grounds and the church. 1 minute.
Welcome to the Marian Shrine — Stony Point, NY — A longer walking tour from the Salesians' regional channel, covering the Rosary Way, the outdoor altar and the Rosary Madonna. 6 minutes.
🔗 Useful Links
National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians — The shrine's official website, with news and the events calendar.
Pilgrimages at the Marian Shrine — The shrine's page for organised and individual pilgrimages to the grounds.
Archdiocese of New York — The diocesan website, which carries coverage of the shrine's major gatherings.
Salesians of Don Bosco — The province's site, with background on the Salesian charism and its Marian title.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Graymoor (16 km northeast) — The Franciscan Friars of the Atonement's hilltop motherhouse, home of the St. Anthony National Shrine and birthplace of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Middletown (43 km northwest) — The National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a Carmelite Marian centre in the Hudson Valley.
New York City (51 km south) — St. Patrick's Cathedral, Mother Cabrini's shrine, the city's only catacombs, and several national shrines across the boroughs.
Newark (54 km southwest) — Two USCCB national shrines: St. Gerard Majella, patron of expectant mothers, and Jesús del Gran Poder, a Sevillian Passion devotion.
Stirling (73 km southwest) — The Shrine of St. Joseph in the Watchung Mountains, run by the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity.
🪶 Closing Reflection
"May the Blessed Virgin Mary whom you venerate with the lovely name of Help of Christians, protect and help you and be the sure guide of the course of your religious family."
— Pope John Paul II, Address to the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, 8 November 2002
