Nuestra Señora del Carmen Sanctuary By: Laura Zabaleta

With my family, we decided to go to the Nuestra Señora del Carmen Sanctuary located in the center of Bogota (Cra. 5 # 8-36, Bogotá). It is a Catholic temple dedicated to the Virgin Mary under Carmen. In the middle of the XVIIth century the small church of the Carmen was constructed, that served like temple for the Monastery of San José of the Discalced Carmelite Mothers in Bogota, founded by Elvira de Padilla in 1606. Time later, president Rafael Núñez requested to San Juan Bosco and through Pope Leo XIII, to send a group of religious to Bogota, in order to establish schools of arts and crafts.

Next to it we can appreciate the statue of Saint John Bosco in honor of John Bosco, S.D.B., called in Italian Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco and better known as Don Bosco, was an Italian priest, educator and writer of the 19th century