The main places of pilgrimage to St. Joseph are Nazareth, where the Franciscan Church of St. Joseph stands on a site that ancient tradition links with the carpenter's home; Kalisz in Poland, whose Shrine of St. Joseph St. John Paul II visited in 1997; St. Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal in Montreal, founded by St. Brother André in 1904, which reports nearly two million pilgrims and visitors a year; and Cotignac in Provence, where a shepherd reported in 1660 that St. Joseph appeared to him and showed him a spring. The Holy House of Loreto in Italy, venerated by tradition as the house of the Holy Family at Nazareth, is also a place of devotion to him.
These places do not all rest on the same kind of claim. Nazareth is a matter of tradition: the Custody of the Holy Land records one tradition of the family home and another of Joseph's workshop. Kalisz is a matter of record: St. John Paul II preached at its Shrine of St. Joseph on 4 June 1997, on Joseph as guardian of the Son of God and on the defense of human life. Cotignac is a long-standing local devotion; the Bishop of Fréjus is reported to have united its two sanctuaries in 1661, but we found no formal decree on the supernatural character of the event, and no Catholic is obliged to believe a private revelation.
At Knock in Ireland, St. Joseph appears beside Our Lady and St. John in the 1879 apparition, whose witnesses a Church commission found trustworthy. The reason to go is the same everywhere: the man God trusted with his Son, declared Patron of the Catholic Church by Blessed Pius IX in 1870.
Related questions, answered
Did St. Joseph really appear at Cotignac?
The sanctuary's account is that on 7 June 1660 a young shepherd, Gaspard Ricard, parched on Mont Bessillon, met a man who said, "I am Joseph; lift this rock and you will drink," and that water was found beneath it. According to Catholic press accounts, the local bishop accepted the devotion and joined the site to the nearby Marian sanctuary in 1661, and pilgrims have come ever since. That is acceptance of a devotion, not a formal judgment on the apparition; we found no decree on its supernatural character, and the sanctuary's own account does not claim one.
Source: Sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Graces, Cotignac: the messageNational Catholic Register: Saint Joseph's Little-Known Appearance in France
Is there a shrine of St. Joseph in North America?
Yes. St. Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal in Montreal is a Catholic shrine dedicated to St. Joseph, founded in 1904 by St. Brother André Bessette, a Holy Cross brother and doorkeeper who was canonized in 2010. His tomb is there. The Oratory says nearly two million pilgrims and visitors come each year.
Source: Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount RoyalSaint Joseph's Oratory: Saint Brother Andre
Is St. Joseph the patron saint of fathers?
Catholics have long turned to St. Joseph as the model and protector of fathers, on the strength of his care for Jesus and Mary. The formal act is wider: Blessed Pius IX declared him Patron of the Catholic Church on 8 December 1870. We have not found a separate decree naming him patron of fathers as such, so that title is custom, not a Church act.
Source: Pope Francis, Patris Corde (2020)St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Custos (1989)
