Parish History

"The daily newspapers say this is the way it was. A beautiful spring. The year was 1930. A president with an uneasy smile--Herbert E. Hoover--was assailed by the calamity of the depression. Breadlines. Soup kitchens. Jobless men. Bankruptcies.

The mayor of Chicago--William Hale Thompson was hurling threats at no less a personage than King George V of England.

The Cubs were striding towards another pennant--after the bitter loss to Philadelphia--last fall. Across town the embattled White Sox were still suffering the aftermath of 1919.

Within a few days the saintly pundit, Robert Bellarmine, would be canonized by His Holiness Pius XI. Archbishop George William Mundelein the first Cardinal of the West assigned Father F. J. Gillespie to found this parish on the far northwest side. So all was not grim--as we look back on these...decades.

The self effacing, dedicated, Father Gillespie soon won the hearts of the parishioners of St. Robert Bellarmine parish. By 1931, the cornerstone of a combination church and school was dedicated to Cardinal Mundelein. In sequence an addition to the rapidly burgeoning school--and finally a spacious and beautiful residence was built for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who staff the faculty--it was the final achievement of the founding pastor.

In the winter of 1955 after the lamented loss of Father Gillespie, His Eminence Samuel Cardinal Stritch appointed to the pastorate of St. Robert Bellarmine the Very Reverend John P. Dowling, superior of the archdiocesan Missionaries. Both Father Gillespie and Father Dowling made a happy sequence--Kindred spirits attested by the parishioners.

Today the pastor, associates, sisters and parishioners take great pride in the new church and rectory. The raging sadness of...decades ago please God has passed. Thanks to Almoghty God!"

Taken from the Dedication of the new church, 1970

One Parish, Three Churches

Major Events in Our History

Pastors of St. Robert Bellarmine

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