St. Veronica Parish (North Philadelphia)

St. Veronica Parish Church, 6th and Tioga

St. Veronica is a Catholic Church and Parish in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania, neighborhood of Franklinville.

The Parish under Saint Veronica organized in 1872 of mostly Irish emigrants living in North Philadelphia. A wood-frame chapel was erected at the entrance to the New Cathedral Cemetery (Catholic), 2nd and Butler Streets. A larger chapel and school building for 600 students opened at 6th and Tioga Streets in 1894. St. Veronica Church held its first services in 1909. Both the school and church remain open today.

History

Among the first religious services held in the 18th century in North Philadelphia were those in Nicetown, which served Catholics living in nearby Frankford and Germantown and what would become Franklinville. Services were later held by priests from Old St. Joseph's and those traveling to and from Philadelphia at the home of John Michael Browne (1703-1750), of Tuam, Ireland, who came from the West Indies in 1742 and purchased acreage in what would become Franklinville.

Browne became known as a priest; his "mansion" stood on land that is now part of the New Cathedral Cemetery and remained into the cemetery's early years. When Browne died, he was interred, according to his wishes, in his orchard, in what was known as "The Priest's Lot," at 2nd St. and Rising Sun Lane. His remains were removed by church authorities and reinterred in the St. Stephen's Church burial yard in Nicetown on February 21, 1848.

After Browne's death, services were held, until 1780, at the home of Paul Miller, a sexton at Old St. Joseph's, near today's Eighth St. and W. Hunting Park Ave.

St. Veronica Parish, first chapel and rectory, at Second and Butler Streets Philadelphia. Lithograph, about 1880

New Church of St. Veronica, 1909. Built by Father Donnelly. At 6th and Tioga Streets. Catholic Historical Research Center Digital Collections

The New Cathedral Cemetery, today with about 38 acres, opened in 1868 on land originally owned by Browne that he wanted to become a burial ground. The first service of St. Veronica Church was held in a frame chapel in the Cemetery on June 2, 1872, at Second and Butler Streets. It was attended to by priests as a mission for Saint Stephen's until 1879.

Father John J. Donnelly was appointed rector in 1889 and he found the location of the chapel "not sufficiently central for the parish." He purchased a lot on the northeast corner of Sixth and Tioga Streets and a new Norman-Romanesque chapel and school, of Trenton brownstone, was erected and dedicated on April 22, 1894. The architect was Edwin F. During and the carpenter/builder was the father of John McShain, known as "the man who built Washington."

The cornerstone of the new church was blessed on November 3, 1907. It opened in 1909.

The school today is an Independence Mission School established "to provide a transformative Catholic education that develops students intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually and that provides children of all faiths across the City of Philadelphia with the opportunity to learn in an academically rigorous environment and to grow in a culture of love, setting them on the path to a promising future."

Two convents servicing St. Veronica are Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara and Sisters of St. Joseph Convent at St. Hugh of Cluny.

In 1993, two nearby North Philadelphia parishes merged with St. Veronica: Our Lady of Pompeii Parish (Italian), founded in 1914 in Franklinville at Erie Street and North 6th, and St. Bonaventure Parish (German), founded in 1889 in Fairhill, on North 9th and Cambria Street.

The Church of Our Lady of Pompeii is still standing. The Church of St. Bonaventure, which took 12 years to build with materials imported from Germany, opened in 1906. It was demolished in 2014.