Queen of All Saints

Basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

is a historic church of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago The Archdiocese of Chicago ( la, Archidiœcesis Chicagiensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in Northeastern Illinois, in the United States. It was established as a diocese in 1843 and ...

located at 6280 North Sauganash Avenue in Chicago's upper middle-class

Sauganash Billy Caldwell, baptized Thomas Caldwell (March 17, 1782 – September 28, 1841), known also as ''Sauganash'' ( ne who speaksEnglish), was a British-Potawatomi fur trader who was commissioned captain in the Indian Department of Canada duri ...

neighborhood. Along with St. Hyacinth and

Our Lady of Sorrows Our Lady of Sorrows ( la, Beata Maria Virgo Perdolens), Our Lady of Dolours, the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows ( la, Mater Dolorosa, link=no), and Our Lady of Piety, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names ...

it is one of three

minor basilicas Minor may refer to: * Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities. ** A person who has not reached the age of majority * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Music theory * Minor chord ** Bar ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

History

In 1929 the Calvert Club, a Catholic area fraternal organization, pushed to establish a church in the Sauganash area. Its members petitioned the Archbishop of Chicago,

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...

George Mundelein George William Mundelein (July 2, 1872 – October 2, 1939) was an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Chicago from 1915 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1924. Early life and ministry ...

, who granted the request and appointed Father Francis A. Ryan to be pastor of the new parish dedicated to Queen of All Saints. The initial church structure was a portable wood-frame church that had previously served as St. Giles Church in nearby Oak Park. It was relocated to the northwest corner of Peterson and Knox Avenues and dedicated in June 1929 as Queen of All Saints Church. The area filled with residential developments after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and first attracted Irish and German immigrants and their descendants. The ethnic composition of the neighborhood has not changed since, although there has been substantial mixing between the two dominant ethnic groups. The Queen of All Saints School was founded in 1932 and like the church, has an enrollment largely of Irish and Germanic descent. On March 26, 1962,

Pope John XXIII Pope John XXIII ( la, Ioannes XXIII; it, Giovanni XXIII; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, ; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 19 ...

elevated the church to the dignity of a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

Architecture

The church, designed in a

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style by Meyer and Cook, was completed in 1960. The large window over the

choir loft A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

features eight different shrines of the Virgin Mary:

Our Lady of Czestochowa Our or OUR may refer to: * The possessive form of " we" * Our (river), in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany * Our, Belgium, a village in Belgium * Our, Jura, a commune in France * Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), a government utility regulat ...

Our Lady of Knock Knock may refer to: Places Northern Ireland * Knock, Belfast, County Down * Knock, County Armagh, a townland in County Armagh Republic of Ireland * Knock, County Clare, village in County Clare * Knock, County Mayo, village in County Mayo * K ...

, Our Lady of Einsiedeln, Our Lady of the Snows,

Our Lady of La Salette Our Lady of La Salette (french: Notre-Dame de La Salette) is a Marian apparition reported by two French children, Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat, to have occurred at La Salette-Fallavaux, France, in 1846. On 19 September 1851, the local bis ...

Our Lady of Guadalupe Our Lady of Guadalupe ( es, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe ( es, Virgen de Guadalupe), is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus associated with a series of five Marian apparitions, which are believed t ...

Our Lady of Lourdes Our Lady of Lourdes (french: Notre-Dame de Lourdes) is a title of the Virgin Mary. She is venerated under this title by the Roman Catholic church due to her apparitions that occurred in Lourdes, France. The first apparition of 11 February 1858, o ...

and

Our Lady of Fatima Our or OUR may refer to: * The possessive form of " we" * Our (river), in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany * Our, Belgium, a village in Belgium * Our, Jura, a commune in France * Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), a government utility regulato ...

. This display alludes to the theme of the universality of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

by highlighting that although these shrines are particular to a certain country or culture, the

Cult of the Virgin Mary In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This s ...

bridges over all these barriers, bringing together the different ethnic groups living in Sauganash area of Forest Glen. The original circa 1930s organ was replaced in 2006 due to its poor condition from age and an act of vandalism in the 1970s. The new instrument is a three-manual, 60-rank opus by Berghaus Pipe Organ Builders of

Bellwood, Illinois Bellwood is a village in Proviso Township, Cook County, Illinois, United States. Located west of Chicago's downtown Loop, the Village of Bellwood is bounded by the Eisenhower Expressway (south), the Proviso yards of the former Chicago & Northwest ...

List of Queen of All Saints Basilica Pastors

Father Francis "Packy" Ryan (1929-1934)
Monsignor Francis J. Dolan (1934-1969)
Father Patrick C. Hunter (1969-1978)
Father Robert Clark (1978-1991)
Father Charles Cronin (1991-1996)
Monsignor Wayne F. Prist (1996-2010)
Monsignor John E. Pollard (2010-2018)
Father Simon Braganza (2018-present)
www.qasparish.org/parish-history

Queen of All Saints Basilica in architecture books

Queen of All Saints Basilica is featured in a number of books on

church architecture Church architecture refers to the architecture of buildings of churches, convents, seminaries etc. It has evolved over the two thousand years of the Christian religion, partly by innovation and partly by borrowing other architectural styles as ...

, among them: * ''Chicago Churches: A Photographic Essay'' by Elizabeth Johnson (Uppercase Books Inc, 1999) * ''Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago'' by Denis R. McNamara (Liturgy Training Publications) * ''Chicago Churches and Synagogues: An Architectural Pilgrimage'' by George A. Lane (Loyola Press 1982), 2005) * ''The Archdiocese of Chicago: A Journey of Faith'' by Edward R. Kantowicz (Booklink 2007)

References

External links