Pope John Paul II raised the shrine to the status of Minor basilica via the Pontifical Decree Sacras Ædes on 27 July 1998.

was a Christian missionary who had built Saint Mary's College in Columbia, South Carolina, but it had been destroyed during the American Civil War.

In 1876 he bought the 500-acre former Caldwell farm and donated it to the Benedictines of Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania in hopes they would establish an educational institution in North Carolina.

On February 4, 1888, he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina and was consecrated bishop at the Baltimore Cathedral by Cardinal James Gibbons on July 1, 1888, becoming the first American abbot-bishop.

It had responsibility for parishes in the North Carolina counties of Gaston, Catawba, Cleveland, Burke, Lincoln, McDowell, Polk, and Rutherford.

[1] On July 27, 1998, the Vatican issued a decree elevating the abbey church at Belmont to the rank of a minor basilica.

The church features a baptismal font carved from a stone upon which African American slaves were once sold on the North Carolina market.

In April 1886 the state of North Carolina issued Saint Mary's College a charter authorizing the abbey/school to grant degrees.