Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Milagros de Caacupé

The Basilica of Our Lady of Miracles of Caacupé is Paraguay's most important Marian shrine and the seat of what is known as the country's "Spiritual Capital," in the city of Caacupé, capital of Cordillera department, about 54 km from Asunción. Devotion at the site dates back to the early 17th century, when, according to tradition, an indigenous man named José carved two images of the Virgin from a tree trunk and built a small chapel next to a spring there.

The current building should not be confused with earlier structures on the same site: an earlier church was inaugurated on December 8, 1765, and later rebuilt in 1883 and 1885, but neither of those buildings is the basilica that stands today. The present basilica was commissioned in 1939 by Archbishop Juan Sinforiano Bogarín from architect Miguelángel Alfaro Decoud; its cornerstone was laid on April 15, 1945, and construction — with successive design changes, including the replacement of the originally planned materials with reinforced concrete after the Second Vatican Council — dragged on for more than sixty years before finally being completed in 2006.

Every December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, more than a million pilgrims — as many as 2 million across the full novena in peak years — walk in from every corner of the country, in one of South America's largest mass pilgrimages. On July 11, 2015, during his visit to Paraguay, Pope Francis presided over a service at the church and elevated it to the rank of Minor Basilica. Caacupé also offers museums, leather and ceramic crafts, and nearby access to Lake Ypacaraí.