Defining Moment

The Franciscan Fathers arrive in Cincinnati to establish a community. Their parish ministry begins with St. John the Baptist Church and St. Francis Seraph, both in Over-the-Rhine. They quickly established a seminary and schools throughout the area. Cincinnati becomes home to the St. John the Baptist Province. Also that same year, the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor found St. Mary’s Hospital, the second Catholic hospital in Cincinnati.

On the night of August 20, the newly built Holy Angels Church in Sidney, Ohio, is destroyed by gunpowder. While the people who carried out this destructive act were never discovered,  it is believed that the Know Nothings were the perpetrators.

While on a tour of the United States, Archbishop Gaetano Bedini stops in Cincinnati. On Christmas night, hundreds of rioters gather around St. Peter in Chains cathedral, protesting any influence of the Vatican in America. One rioter dies in the protest. 

The Sisters of Charity found St. John’s Hotel for Invalids. This became the first Catholic hospital in the city with a teaching college attached to it. This private hospital has since grown and evolved in ministry and is now known as Good Samaritan Hospital.

St. Mary’s School in Dayton opens, the beginning of what is now the University of Dayton

Pope Pius IX issues a bull on July 19, elevating the Diocese of Cincinnati to the rank of an archdiocese.