“There are people who drive hundreds of miles for the sole purpose of coming to the shrine, and we want to make sure they have a wonderful experience.”

Pilgrims arrived from 44 states, criss-crossing the country from Washington to Florida, from Maine to California — and from Canada and Mexico, too.

A priest’s appeal in 2011 to begin a walking pilgrimage in northeast Wisconsin, similar to other pilgrimages to holy sites around the world, inspired two men to take up the challenge.

A Marian shrine in rural northeast Wisconsin, the only shrine in the United States to be designated by the Catholic Church as an approved Marian apparition site, is changing its name.

The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion, Wisconsin, received an official name change on Thursday. Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, officially announced its name is now the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. At the same time, after receiving confirmation from the Holy See, he proclaimed the Mass celebrating the anniversary of the only approved Marian apparition in the United States, held at the shrine every Oct. 9, has been raised to the rank of a solemnity.