March 15
Our Lady of the Rosary, Mesaimeer, Al Rayyan, Qatar
On March 14, 2008, Cardinal Ivan Dias of India dedicated the first Christian church in the emirate of Qatar in the presence of state and church officials. The next day, March 15, some 15,000 people attended the first mass there. Our Lady of the Rosary was the first of several churches in the Religious Complex in Mesaimeer, a suburb of the capital, Doha. Because of its location in an Islamic state, by permission of and on land donated by the ruler, Our Lady of the Rosary is not a typical Catholic church. The large, modern building has no exterior cross or other sign of Christianity, and the biggest day for worship is Friday, not Sunday. Before entering the Blessed Sacrament chapel, visitors remove their shoes, as they would at a mosque. There is a 24-hour police guard outside. Our Lady of the Rosary Church serves a cosmopolitan congregation with masses in nine languages and two rites. Staffed by a diverse team of Capuchin Franciscans, with masses in English, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, and French, the church serves some 200,000 Catholics from all over the world who have come to work in Qatar.
Sources include:
|
Also commemorated this date:
 | Notre Dame de la Brèche, Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, Centre-Val de Loire, France. Pilgrimage commemorates raising of Protestant siege, 1569. |
| Divina Pastora, Olopa, Chiquimula, Guatemala (Divine Shepherdess). Town's patronal fiesta: parade, coffee & banana fair, music. |
| Maria Santissima delle Grazie e Consolazione, Belvedere Marittimo, Cosenza, Calabria, Italy. Shrine founded, 2002. Festa July 2. |
| Derzhavnaya Mother of God, Kolomenskoye, Moscow, Russia (March 2 / 15). Feast commemorates the icon's finding in the Kolomenskoye church basement by a woman from an outlying village who'd seen it in a recurring dream, 1917. |