Category: religion

It only seems fitting that having started this project by going to Mass at the church of St Rita of Cascia on the South Side of Chicago, that I’d finish at the shrine church a few miles away on the grounds of St Rita of Cascia High School. I didn’t know back then that St…

St Bernardine holds the title for the closest Catholic church I’ve never been to (until today). Daily Mass here is at 6.30a which is a heavy lift for someone who’s not so much not a morning person, but I forced myself out of bed and made the short drive over to the church.  I’d always…

Closing in on the one-year mark (and thus the conclusion of this project), yesterday, I went to Mass at Queen of the Angels church which is part of the two-church parish, Queen of the Apostles. This Mass was their official celebration of the patronal feast (there was also a dinner at a nearby restaurant after…

While I made it to St James on the feast day, for no good reason, I’m two days late writing it up. As I discovered back in July, I discovered that nobody really knows which of the Saints James their parishes are named for, but at the time, thepm; pastor of Historic Saint James at…

I went to a Sunday evening Mass for Good Shepherd Sunday (aka the fourth Sunday of Easter). The parish church was built in 1968 and reflects the architecture of that era with a round nave and the pews arranged in a roughly semi-circular pattern before the sanctuary. The parish is pretty much entirely Latino with…

When I was planning this project, one of the things I really wanted to do was to visit as many of the Black Catholic parishes of Chicago as I could. Black Catholic worship is such a spirit-filled activity that it shouldn’t be missed. Today I attended the Easter Vigil Mass at St Benedict the African…

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to go to a church for my Catholic Nerd pilgrimage, but I made it to St Richard church on the Southwest side of Chicago for a Good Friday communion service.¹ The area is part of the city’s expansion to the southwest after the second world war and…

Looking like a misspelling of “santita,” Saint Ita was an Irish saint and the church named for her was presumably originally an Irish parish although the neighborhood has changed a great deal and the Mass I attended was in Spanish. Part of a three-church parish which also includes St Thomas of Canterbury. These two churches…

Old St Mary’s has the newest church building I’ve seen so far (I’m pretty sure it’s the newest church building in the city and quite possibly the whole archdiocese, which is ironic given its name) although the parish is also simultaneously the oldest parish in the city. Of the new church buildings I’ve seen I’m…