Our Lady of La Vang: Miracle Mary

Garden Grove, California

Way back in 1798, persecuted Vietnamese Catholics were hiding in the rainforest of La Vang when they were visited by a ghostlike Vietnamese version of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. In 2021 the descendants of those Catholics, now living in California, paid over $12 million to erect a 12-foot-tall statue-shrine honoring Our Lady of La Vang. Carved in Italian marble, the Lady wears a traditional high-collared Vietnamese ao dai, a star-studded hat, and stands beneath a spiraling canopy meant to evoke the rainforest. Along one wall are the names of 117 Vietnamese Catholics persecuted for their religion.

The statue would no doubt surprise the late Protestant televangelist Robert Schuller, for it stands outside his former Crystal Cathedral, which went bankrupt in 2010 and was subsequently bought by the Catholic Diocese of Orange, a significant number of whom are Vietnamese-American.