The Title of the Church
No church is anonymous.
Saint Patrick, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Corpus Christi, Holy Cross: the names of churches are a geography of devotion.
The title given in dedication
Each church is to have its title, and once the church has been dedicated, that title cannot be changed.i The title may be the Most Holy Trinity or a mystery of the Lord (Holy Cross, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart), or the Blessed Virgin under one of her invocations, or an angel, or a saint inscribed in the martyrology. The dedication of a church is among the most solemn rites the Church possesses: the walls are anointed with chrism like the hands of a priest, and the building passes permanently to God.ii
The title is not decoration. In its own church the title is kept as a solemnity, ranked in the liturgy with the greatest days of the year;iii the saint stands over the font where the parish’s children are baptized and over the door its dead are carried through. A people and its patron grow together.
A geography of devotion
Read across a country, the titles of churches are a record of who came, and when, and what they loved. Where the parishes of Saint Patrick are thick on the ground, or Saint Stanislaus, or Our Lady of Guadalupe, the history of a people can be read from the doors of its churches. Search a saint here and the churches that bear the name gather together, each beside its parish.
Search a church by its title from the front page, or see the cathedrals gathered together.