Echoes of Catholic Minnesota

On March 17, 1873, the Irish of Minneapolis and surrounding areas gathered for Mass, filling the largest church in the city to overflowing. After hearing Father James McGolrick preach on the history of Ireland and the place of the Irish people in America, they poured out of Immaculate Conception to begin a St. Patrick’s Day parade through the city.

If you look closely at the north side of the library building at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, you might notice the words “Our Lady of Peace” etched in the lintels above some of the doorways.

At the corner of Buford and Cleveland in Falcon Heights stands a stone and copper building. The copper is new, but the stone structure that faces the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota was built in 1940 in anticipation of one of the crowning events in the history of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.