From Welfare to Worship: The Sisters of Charity, the Santa Maria Institute, and the Founding of Cincinnati's Italian Parishes

Abstract

While Irish and Germans dominated Cincinnati's foreign-born population, an Italian minority formed during the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1890 the city's first Italian national parish, Sacro Cuore di Gesù was established, but not all Italians joined. Fearing the loss of Italian immigrants to Protestant evangelizers, Cincinnati Archbishop William Henry Elder asked the Sisters of Charity to establish a mission for serving Italians' spiritual and material needs. In response, two Italianborn Sisters of Charity, Sisters Blandina and Justina Segale, organized the Santa Maria Institute, a Catholic settlement house and social service center. As an extension of Santa Maria Institute, two new welfare centers (which became parishes) were formed in the 1920s: Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Walnut Hills and San Antonio di Padova in Fairmount. Through Santa Maria Institute and the city's three Italian parishes, the growing community of Italian immigrants was evangelized and received material aid, forging a close relationship between the Catholic faith and the Italians' new country.