What is a first-class relic?

In customary Catholic usage, a first-class relic is part of a saint's body, here a small quantity of blood. The classes are traditional terminology and not a ranking of holiness.

Is there a St. John Paul II shrine in the United States?

By Andrew McGilly, Founder of Bold Pilgrim · Updated 2026-10-08

Times, dates and prices on this page were checked against the official source on 2026-10-08 (Saint John Paul II National Shrine: hours and directions). They change; confirm before you travel. Reviewed quarterly.

Yes. The Saint John Paul II National Shrine is at 3900 Harewood Road NE in Washington, D.C., near the Catholic University of America. It is open every day with no admission fee, and it holds a first-class relic of the saint's blood, which pilgrims may venerate, along with a permanent exhibit on his life. The Knights of Columbus established it in 2011, and the U.S. bishops designated it a national shrine on March 14, 2014.

Illustration of a stone pilgrimage path through green hills toward a chapel, with two distant walkers

Editorial illustration · AI-generated · Not a specific destination

The shrine lists its hours as Monday to Friday in the morning until mid-afternoon and Saturday and Sunday in the morning until early evening, with the exhibit and gift shop open the same hours. Mass is at noon from Monday to Saturday, and on Sunday in Spanish in the late morning and in English in the early afternoon. Confessions are heard Monday to Saturday in the late morning, and on Sunday around midday in Spanish and in the mid-afternoon in English. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is prayed in the mid-afternoon every day, online only on Mondays. Parking for cars and buses is free, and the building is accessible to wheelchair users. These details were read from the shrine's site on October 10, 2026.

The blood relic was a gift of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, John Paul II's longtime secretary and later Archbishop of Kraków. The shrine notes that pilgrims traditionally venerate a relic by touching or kissing the reliquary while asking the saint's intercession; veneration honors the saint and is not worship.

Good to know before you go: the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is close by, along the same Harewood Road, so the two are easily visited on one day. Another relic of his blood has been enshrined since 2012 at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In recent years the Washington shrine has held a walking pilgrimage through the city for his October 22 memorial; ask the shrine whether and how it is held in a given year.

Is there a St. John Paul II shrine in the United States?

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What is a first-class relic?

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