Catedral de Santa Ana de Thiès (Senegal)
In Thiès, the second city of Senegal, the main Catholic temple is the catedral de Santa Ana (Cathedral of Sainte-Anne), the heart of the diocese. It is not a sanctuary of the Rosary, but is dedicated to Santa Ana, mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of the Lord. The spiritist mission took root here in 1887, and from that seed was born the Catholic community of the region, now a minority but fervent one on mostly Muslim land.
🌹 Wonders and anecdotes
- The Congregation of the Holy Spirit (espiritans) was established in Thiès in 1887 with Father Albert Sébire; in 1890 the first six baptized were recorded in the parish of Sainte-Anne, origin of Catholicism in the region.
- The present building of the cathedral was consecrated in 1945, decades before the diocese existed, serving first as the parent parish of local evangelization.
- Pope Paul VI erected the diocese of Thiès on 6 February 1969, by means of the apostolic constitution "Pro summo," by tearing it from the Archdiocese of Dakar, of which it is suffranea.
- The title, Santa Ana, is deeply Marian: the Church venerates in it the mother of the Virgin Mary, and her feast is held on July 26 next to San Joaquin.
- The diocese covers places as symbolic as Touba, the capital of the Mourid Brotherhood, and Tivaouane, the Tibetan capital, in a Muslim region in more than ninety-five percent; Catholics are around one and a half percent of the population.
- Su primer obispo fue François-Xavier N’Dione (1969-1985); en 2025 el obispo André Guèye fue promovido arzobispo de Dakar, quedando la sede vacante.
Santa Ana, mother of the Virgin Mary
The cathedral of Santa Ana de Thiès is the mother temple of the Senegalese diocese, born of the 1887 spiritist mission and consecrated in 1945. Dedicated to the mother of the Virgin Mary, she is the beacon of a small and faithful Catholic community in a predominantly Muslim region; the diocese was erected by Paul VI in 1969.
"St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, alcanzus of your Daughter the grace of loving God with a simple heart and of keeping the faith patiently in the midst of trials.
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