The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception...

A cool name for a cool place.



The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (hereafter known as the Basilica) is extra cool because it's the largest church in North America and the eighth largest "religious structure" in the world!! And as a side note, it is also the tallest building in DC at 329ft (not to be confused with the tallest structure in DC, the Washington Monument: 555ft 5in, which we visited without our camera...tragic, it was awesome, did you know that you can ride an elevator to the top? I didn't. Or that the stairs are now off limits because too many people decided to graffiti the inside walls including the commemorative state stones?? True. Anyways, back to the basilica...).

We gave ourselves a self tour of the place starting down a long stone corridor with lots of little rooms with cool statues and altars in them. Including this guy who I think looks like the "Camerlengo" from Angels and Demons, played by Ewan McGreggor.







There are several different chapels inside the main Basilica building, each with it's own amazing artwork, most noteably incredibly large and intricate mosaics on almost every wall.







And this HUGE mosaic on the inside of one of the giant domes in the main chapel which I like to call "Angry Jesus"...somehow this just isn't quite how I imagine him...



Here's a picture of the main chapel, it was stunning, in a totally overwhelming and echo-y way.



And my personal favorite mosaic, Adam and Eve.



A note about the name of the Basilica...I wondered as I was walking around why there were so many different "Virgin Marys" of every race and nation depicted, including this puppet Mary and Jesus in a plastic tube hanging from the ceiling...



...then I read in the brochure that Catholics consider Mary to be "immune from all stain of original sin", in other words, they believe that Mary was free from temptation, and never sinned, making her perfect, possessing a "fullness of virtue". Anyways, the emphasis on her, especially in this Basilica makes much more sense in light of that information, since the LDS church believes that she was just a very righteous and special, but imperfect, mortal. The Basilica is amazing, and I highly recommend it if you enjoy beautiful artwork and incredible architecture. Go see it!