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In late 1911, the Right Reverend Joseph Schrembs, Toledo’s first Bishop, corresponded with Sister Mary Bernardine McMullen and two companions, Sister Mary Anthony McMullen and Sister Mary DeChantel Lyons, and asked them to come to Toledo to establish the second of three Catholic hospitals in the new diocese. Land was purchased in 1916 on the corner of Madison Avenue and 23rd Street to build what would become a seven-story hospital. Noted Chicago architect, Meyer J. Sturm, was hired to design and construct the hospital using up-to-date methods of hospital construction. Costing approximately $300,000, Mercy Hospital of Toledo was completed in 1918. Bishop Schrembs dedicated and blessed the hospital on June 21 in a grand ceremony involving clergy of the diocese and the Mercy Hospital Guild as guests of honor.
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Founded by Saint Elizabeth Bayley Seton in Maryland in 1809, the Sisters of Charity arrived in Cincinnati in 1829 to open a school and an orphanage, becoming the first permanent establishment of Catholic sisters in Ohio. In 1852 the group separated from its Maryland roots to form a diocesan community and called themselves the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. The sisters later served as nurses in the Civil War as well as operated and staffed a number of Catholic elementary and secondary schools. As membership grew, their ministries and educational, health care, and social service institutions expanded in Cincinnati and elsewhere, including out of state. They include the Good Samaritan Hospital, College of Mount St. Joseph, St. Joseph Infant and Maternity Home, Santa Maria Social Service Agency, and Seton High School in Cincinnati and Good Samaritan Hospital in Dayton. Mount St. Joseph has served as the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity since 1884.
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The first women’s college chartered in the state of Ohio, Ursuline College opened in 1871 in downtown Cleveland as part of the educational mission of the Order of St. Ursula (O.S.U.). Founded in Italy in 1535 with an early presence in North America, this order established its first religious teaching community in Cleveland in 1850, led by foundress Mother Mary of the Annunciation Beaumont, O.S.U. The college’s growth prompted four moves in Cleveland and subsequently to the Pepper Pike campus in 1966. Ursuline holds the distinction as one of the first catholic women’s colleges in the United States organized and chartered explicitly for college education.
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Built in 1852 and dedicated a year later, St. Patrick Church is the second oldest Roman Catholic Church in Columbus. Founded as the English speaking parish, this church of Norman Gothic design served as the home for three future bishops. Located on Naghten Street, the “Irish Broadway” of the nineteenth century, St. Patrick’s parish provided a vital place for the acculturation of the neighborhood Irish immigrants into mainstream American society. The Irish heritage is remembered through the shamrocks that emblazon the heads of each pew. Severely damaged by “the Great Fire” in 1935, the church was quickly restored and serves today as a vibrant religious center for central Ohio. The Dominican Fathers have staffed St. Patrick Church since 1885.
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Fr. John Henni founded St. Aloysius Orphanage in 1837 to care for German-speaking Catholic children who were left abandoned by the cholera epidemics of the 1830s. The orphanage has occupied its main building since 1856. All of the orphanage’s other buildings were constructed by 1930. In 1864, additional land was purchased, making the orphanage a self-sufficient farm growing fruits and vegetables as well as livestock.
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The National Italian Catholic parish of Saint John the Baptist was founded in October 1896 by the Reverend Father Alexander Cestelli, D.D. Father Cestelli was born in Fiesole, Italy and came to America in 1888 to serve as a professor at St. Paul’s Seminary in Minnesota. In January 1896, founding Rector Monsignor John Joseph Jessing invited Father Cestelli to serve at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio as a professor of moral theology. In October 1896, the Right Reverend John Ambrose Watterson, D.D., Bishop of Columbus, appointed Father Cestelli as pastor of the Italian Catholic community. Sunday Mass was celebrated in the baptistery of Saint Joseph Cathedral until September 18, 1898, when the Most Reverend Sebastiano Martinelli, Apostolic Delegate to the United States, dedicated this historic church.
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The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur were founded in 1804 by Saint Julie Billiart to spread the message “Ah, how good it is to serve God.” In 1840, at the request of Bishop John B. Purcell in 1840, the Sisters travelled to Cincinnati, Ohio to help educate the city’s growing Catholic population. Choosing to serve the poor, the Sisters turned down land in Brown County and instead founded schools at Sixth Street in Cincinnati. Since the start of the 21st century, the Sisters serve in twenty-seven other states, the District of Columbia, and in South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Sister Dorothy Stang, while working for land reforms for the poor in Brazil, was martyred in 2004.
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The Cathedral of St. Peter In Chains has ministered to Catholics in Ohio for more than 175 years. In 1840, Bishop John Baptist Purcell recognized the need for a cathedral to serve his growing catholic immigrant community and asked architect Henry Walter to draw up designs in neo-classic Greek style. The cornerstone was laid in 1841 and the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains was dedicated November 2, 1845. It was promptly nicknamed the “White Angel” for its white marble façade. Abandoned in 1938 due to deteriorating conditions, it was renovated during the 1950s, and rededicated as the cathedral on November 3, 1957. The Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The Pope designated it a Minor Basilica in 2020.
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