The shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, the patroness of Brazil, released the official number of visitors in 2025, and it’s a stunning statistic: 10.5 million! This represents a 15% increase compared to 2024.
The Jubilee Year is cited as a factor in the increase of visitors, and as favoring “a more intense living of the faith.”
Notably, while the number of pilgrims went up by 15%, the number of sacramental confessions went up by a whopping 84%, and participation in Holy Communion showed a 27% increase.
Unsurprisingly, the greatest number of pilgrims was seen during the last third of the year, around the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida, which falls on October 12. Just on the feast day itself, the shrine counted 152,000 visitors. Another 342,000 participated in the novena (October 3-11), for a total of 494,000 visitors.
Christmas and Easter were also peak dates, with 314,000 and 257,000 pilgrims respectively visiting during the days around these holidays.
More families
Interestingly, the shrine reports that there seems to have been a shift over the past five years in an aspect of the pilgrimages: they seem to consist of more individual families and fewer large groups. This is deduced from the fact that in 2025, some 90% of the vehicles that parked in the shrine’s immense parking lot were family vehicles; only 4% were buses and vans.
As a result of the increase in pilgrims and changes in trends, the shrine is carrying out a study of how to adapt infrastructure, manage traffic and parking, etc. The goal is to make visiting the shrine as easy as possible and take advantage of the modernization of the main highway that passes near the shrine. Also being taken into account is the impact on the local community.
Compared to other shrines
Shrines to the Blessed Mother and other saints are focal points of pilgrimages around the world. Although official and detailed numbers aren’t always available, news reports can give us a general idea of the statistics. (It’s important to note that this is not a competition, and numbers of physical visitors don’t necessarily reflect the depth or spiritual impact of a shrine. Still, numbers are interesting.)
The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, for example, was reportedly visited by more than 13 million people just on the occasion of the titular feast day (December 12 and the days leading up to it) in 2025. The site of the visions of Our Lady to Saint Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac is said to receive about 20 million visitors per year.
Visits to European shrines are somewhat less concentrated -- and there are many more shrines in Europe -- although the numbers are still significant.
Notre Dame of Paris, which is both a religious and cultural destination, received about 11 million visits between tourists and pilgrims in 2025. By comparison, the number of visitors to the Louvre in Paris, the most visited museum in the world, was 9 million in 2025.
The shrine of Fatima reported 6.2 million visitors in 2024; numbers for 2025 have not yet been released. Lourdes, according to a PBS report, receives more than 3 million pilgrims per year. However, in 2025 it reportedly enjoyed an “exceptional” number of visitors, closer to 4 million.
Our Lady isn’t the only heavenly intercessor to attract pilgrims. San Giovanni Rotondo, where Padre Pio’s shrine is located, also saw an increase in 2025; more than 3 million people visited his tomb. The famous shrine of St. James in Spain, Santiago of Compostela, reported 530,987 certified pilgrims in 2025, an all-time record with an increase of 6% compared to 2024.
