We’re celebrating!
150 years ago, three Capuchin friars from Bavaria made their way to the United States on a mission . . .
. . . to implant the Capuchin Order in America in service to the thousands of German immigrants there. At the advice of fellow Capuchins who had established a home in Michigan and Wisconsin, they found themselves in Pittsburgh, PA, and their faith, courage and conviction were the roots of our Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Augustine.
On Saturday, November 18, 2023, friars, friends and families gathered to celebrate the fruit of their foundations. Our brother Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap., was the presider for the Mass, as many of the bishops for whom we work in Dioceses spanning our Provincial geography joined us for our prayers of gratitude.1,230 men have professed vows as Capuchins in the Province. While some chose to take other paths in their lifetime, most of them have lived their lives as our brothers, working throughout the regions to which they were called. They are not mere numbers, in any way, shape or form.
Our celebration of the 150th Anniversary of their arrival in 1873 marks the celebration of those gifts so many of us have personally received from our founders’ courage, their foresight and their tolerance despite countless obstacles.
It’s hard to imagine the world in which they found themselves in the Pittsburgh of 1873. What would families who could not raise their children have done without the Seraphic Work of Charity (eventually named Toner Institute) and the orphanages we sponsored? How could German speaking children have a place to learn English while being inspired with a Catholic education? How could the Catholic community in Pittsburgh, PA, Herman, PA, and Cumberland, MD – and soon thereafter in Victoria and Hays, KS and Metamora, IN – ever have served parishes teeming with German immigrants and their families?
With the help of Religious women, especially the Franciscan Sisters of Millvale, PA, and the Divine Providence Sisters at our beginnings, as well as the support of men and women we served, we were a force of God’s grace, bringing the Gospel to Life in a world in need of protection, education, community and hope.
Looking ahead from so firm a foundation, it is their Legacy we celebrate as we seek the same faith and resolve in our graced mission as Capuchin Friars.
See below for videos of Cardinal Sean's homily and our Capuchin Prayer of Padre Pio: Song of Love.
See all the photos from our brother Pablo Lopez, OFM Cap., on our Flickr album
150 Years Ago . . .
Shock waves of fear and anxiety rumbled through the peaceful Bavarian countryside in the early 1870’s. The confrontation between Germany’s civil government and the religious authorities, known as the Kulturkampf, was having far-reaching and damaging results. The Iron Chancellor Bismarck sought complete control of all education and church appointments by his viselike May Laws, which even threatened the suppression and expulsion of religious orders and congregations.
The superiors of the Bavarian Province of Capuchins had been thinking of opening a foundation in the United States as an outlet for their missionary zeal. The rapidly changing political climate in their homeland caused them to look abroad for a place of refuge should the friars be exiled. The Provincial of the Bavarian Capuchins had been corresponding with Abbot Boniface Wimmer, OSB, of St. Vincent’s Abbey in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Abbot Wimmer assured the friars that Bishop Michael Domenec of Pittsburgh was willing to give the friars an opening in his diocese. The Capuchin superiors decided to accept this invitation.
In the summer of 1873 three friars were chosen for this new foundation in the United States: Hyacinth Epp, thirty-seven-year-old member of the Bavarian Provincial Council, Matthew Hau and Eleutherius Guggenbichler. Hyacinth was named superior.
Before leaving their native land they visited the Capuchin friary at Altötting where the doorkeeper at the friary promised to pray for them and their undertaking. The doorkeeper later became St. Conrad, one of our Capuchin saints. The three friars sailed from Liverpool, England, on the S.S. Parthia and arrived in New York on Columbus Day, October 12, and, also symbolically, the feast of another Capuchin saint, St. Seraphin [of Montegrano]. They had arrived in a double role — the vanguard of a group of religious exiles and the first arrivals in a new missionary adventure. For them, as for so many immigrants in the 1800s, America was the land of beginning again.
. . . from our 1973 Centennial booklet