The Bronx Marian Apparitions: Joseph Vitolo Jr. and Our Lady of the Universe (1945)

Autumn 1945. A vacant, rocky lot in the Bronx, between Villa Avenue and the Grand Concourse, with a ledge about 15 feet high. Joseph F. Vitolo Jr. lived on Villa Avenue, his home backing onto the lot. He was nine, a fourth grader at P.S. 8, the youngest child of a poor Italian immigrant family.

Monday, October 29. After dinner Joseph was playing on the ledge with other children. Then a lady appeared. The others could not see her. She told him not to be afraid and called him "Joseph", not his nickname. She handed him a candle and asked him to come back the next evening.

She returned carrying white roses and wearing a crown, and said she would appear on 16 more nights. Her message: pray the Rosary, and pray for peace in the world. On the third night she asked whether he knew Bernadette of Lourdes. He described her as "very human", about 5 feet tall and radiant, in a pink gown with a gold crown. Her voice was "music from heaven". Once her blue beads broke. "Our Lady stooped down, picked up all her beads," he recalled. One bead could not be found. Years later he wondered: "Maybe I'm the bead."

Word spread. On October 31 nine votive candles "could not be lit until Joseph arrived". Set in a cross, "eight of the candles flickered out one at a time leaving only the one in the center still aflame". By November 5 there were 8,500 people, and Joseph stopped going to school. On November 13 police closed four blocks.

November 14. The final night. Rain. Police estimated 25,000 to 30,000 people. Joseph knelt on the crest of a bluff, immovable for 55 minutes or more. Voices in the crowd said the rain did not touch him. Many said part of the sky opened up. One witness saw "an angel's head with butterfly wings." The lady told him "something wonderful would happen". As he was carried home, "the moon suddenly came out in the western sky, casting a blue light over the people and the lot."

Archbishop Francis Spellman arrived late one night by limousine and spoke privately with the boy. Fulton Sheen met him and gave him a dollar for lunch. The archdiocesan newspaper advised "caution". The Church never opened an investigation and never issued a statement. The press did not hold back. Life ran pages of photographs. Time was sardonic. The New York Times reported "30,000 Watch Boy Pray". Cures were claimed. None was medically documented.

Life itself recorded that those closest "could see the rain glistening on his dark hair". The Song of Bernadette was playing at a local theatre. Historian John T. McGreevy found nothing showing a fabrication, but argued the Lourdes template shaped how the public reacted. R.W. Marks called it a "hypnotic effect". Rev. Edward Beck called it "a rather sad story".

In 2009 a blogger reconstructed the final night. A cold front. Full cloud cover. A moon low in the southwest. A momentary break in the cloud, the blogger argued, could explain the opening sky. No hoax finding was ever made against Vitolo.

He attended seminaries, then left. He married Grace in 1963 and prayed at the shrine nightly at 7 p.m. He died on December 17, 2014. The shrine to Our Lady of the Universe still stands on a hill overlooking the Grand Concourse. Not approved. Not condemned either.