Mount Saint Peter Church is a Catholic church at 100 Freeport Road in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. The church is located along the Allegheny River and is approximately north-east of the city of Pittsburgh within the Diocese of Greensburg.
The congregation was founded by Italian immigrants in the early 1900s and the current building was constructed by hand by parish members during World War II using materials from the then recently dismantled Richard B. Mellon 60-room mansion in Pittsburgh. The church was dedicated on July 4, 1944. In 1998, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ()
As of 2009, the congregation had approximately 5,000 members. The church is regionally known for its annual Festa Italiana, at which there is homemade Italian food, dancing, games for children, and gambling for adults. This festival is organized by volunteers from the church and takes place on the church grounds during the first weekend in August. The mission statement of the church emphasizes the congregation's Italian heritage.
History
The history of the Mount St. Peter parish is woven with the history of Alcoa and the emergence of New Kensington as an industrial city in the early twentieth century.Bonnie Wilkinson and Chris Magoc, , Multiple Property Site application for NHR status. MPS. United States Park Service Application. 1998, pp. E3–E4. In 1890, the Burrell Improvement Company considered the advantages of the level land south of its home in Lower Burrell. They named the area New Kensington, surveyed it, and laid out avenues, running parallel to the Allegheny River, and numbered streets running perpendicular to the river. Fourth and Fifth streets were the primary commercial streets. Once the land was surveyed and plotted, the company opened the land to bidding. The first large company to purchase land, the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, acquired a property by the riverfront., p. 3. Other companies also acquired sites for commercial and industrial development: Adams Drilling, Goldsmith and Lowerburg, New Kensington Milling, New Kensington Brewing, Logan Lumber, and Keystone Dairy, to name a few.Wilkinson and Magoc, , p. E4.
The presence of Pittsburgh Reduction Company (later Alcoa) provided a boon for development. On Thanksgiving Day 1888, with the help of Alfred E. Hunt, Charles Martin Hall developed an experimental smelting plant on Smallman Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1891, the company established its production facility in New Kensington.
By 1910, the city was also the home of a car manufacturing company, the New Kensington Automobile Company. In addition, the Pittsburg Motor Car Company had established a production plant for its Pittsburg Six model in New Kensington.Automotive Industries, Volume 22, January 1910, pp. 618, 864. By 1904, the American Tin Plate Company (capital stock owned by the United States Steel Corporation) had established the six facilities of the Pittsburgh Mills and six of the Pennsylvania Mills in New Kensington.John Moody. The Truth about the Trusts. New York: Moody Publishing Company, 1904, p. 147, 158.
Diocese of Greensburg
The Diocese of Greensburg, to which Mount Saint Peter now belongs, was established on March 10, 1951, by Pope Pius XII. Records show that the first Mass in the area was celebrated in the Allegheny Mountains in 1749 by a French priest serving as chaplain to French troops. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, the second priest ordained in territories that became the United States, arrived in Loretto, Pennsylvania in 1799. Father Boniface Wimmer came to Latrobe from Germany and established the first Benedictine presence in the region of Saint Vincent in 1846.Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg. Our History. Greensburg, PA. 18 April 2010.
Prior to the United States' Civil War, Catholicism grew slowly in America, but afterward, it became more widespread as Catholic immigrants from eastern Europe moved to the four counties, which include Armstrong, Fayette, Indiana, and Westmoreland, to mine coal and produce coke to fire steel mills in Pittsburgh. This influx of Catholic immigrants resulted in the creation of more than 80 parishes and missions in the counties between 1865 and 1917.
Founding and early days of St. Peter parish
By 1900, the burgeoning industrial town had 4,600 residents and two years later Reverend Bonaventure Piscopo, a member of the Apostolic Band for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, formed a new congregation in New Kensington to serve the immigrant work force, many of whom were Italian Catholics. The church was named after Saint Peter, the first pope. The parishioners of this new congregation were Italians living in and around New Kensington, Arnold, and Parnassus, which later became a part of the city of New Kensington. These immigrants needed a place to worship and in 1903, the St. Peter congregation began holding Mass with a resident pastor, Reverend Vincenzo Maselli in a small building on the corner of Second Avenue and Tenth Street (known as the downtown area) in New Kensington.Nichola Fusco. "Mount Saint Peter". Springdale, PA: Guideline, 1970, ASIN B001KV52B0, p. 8
Soon after, on September 28, 1903, the congregation relocated to the basement of St. Mary's Polish Church, which was also located in New Kensington. Here, the first parish register was created. The first recorded event in the new parish was a marriage on December 27, 1903. Soon after, the Burrell Improvement Company donated land on the corner of Ridge Avenue and Constitution Boulevard. On July 4, 1905, the cornerstone of St. Peter Church was laid and on September 25, 1905, Bishop Regis Canevin dedicated the new church.Centennial Committee. "Mt. St. Peter Church Centennial-100 years of faith". Pittsburgh, Pa: Broudy Printing Inc., 2004, pp 21.
In 1908, the number of attendees at St. Peter Church began to dwindle. Many of the priests who had served the congregation had been reassigned a few years earlier. In 1908, a popular priest, Father Sacchi, was sent to Mother of Sorrows Church in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Parishioners formed a committee to go speak to the Bishop on Father Sacchi's behalf. Although Father Sacchi was not allowed to return to St. Peter, Reverend James Vocca, who had also been at St. Peter prior to his reassignment, was brought back to the church.
At this time, the priests who were part of St. Peter were doing the best they could to keep the faith alive in their congregation. The priests were smart men who had attended school in Italy prior to their immigration, but most were unable to speak fluent English. At a time when immigrants were desperately trying to fit into the American life and be as American as possible, going to a church where the congregation was Italian was not the most desirable choice. Therefore, many Catholic Italians began going to churches and many others changed their religion altogether. Many of these Italians were becoming Protestant.Fusco, p. 10 The priests were poorly paid and most lived on about twenty-five cents per day. They had no permanent housing: many slept in the church itself, and preferred the altar floor because it was the only place in the church that had carpeting. It was also common for the priests to say Mass several churches on the same day. These circuits trips were sometimes as much as twenty-five miles away.Centennial Committee 2004, p. 22
Italian anarchist movement
Around 1918, the leaders of the Italian Communists and Anarchists in the United States settled themselves in New Kensington. The group was guided by the ideas of Carlo Tresca, a union organizer for Industrial Workers of the World, which were recorded first, in his newspaper La Plebe, or The Worker, and later in his anti-fascist paper, Il Martello (which translates to "the hammer").Grant Amyot. The Italian Communist Party. London: Croom Helm, 1981, , pp 4. The Italian Communists and Anarchists harassed members of the Catholic Church. Italians who did go the church were made to feel inferior and many became too intimidated to go to church at all. At St. Peter's, one priest was shot through a window while he was sitting at his desk. Another priest was threatened that if he did not leave New Kensington he would be killed. In 1918, there were only thirteen families who attended Mass at St. Peter on Sunday. This continued for several years until Carlo Tresca moved from New Kensington to New York City in 1925.
By 1929, St. Peter was crowded for all three Masses on Sunday morning. There were so many people that the balcony, the sanctuary, and both sacristies were opened seating. Eventually the priests opened the doors of the church and hundreds of people stood outside on the steps to hear the Mass. Despite all of these accommodations, there were still many people who were turned away because there was not enough space to accommodate them. There were about a thousand families who belonged to St. Peter parish, but the church itself only had about two hundred seats in the pews. In 1933, Bishop Hugh Boyle suggested the construction of a larger church and the congregation decided to construct a larger building.Fusco, p. 12. The new church building was constructed by the parishioners, who broke ground in May 1941 and three years later dedicated the new building.
World War II affects the congregation By May 1944, the parishioners had contributed to the war having given thousands of pints of blood to the Blood Banks; given money to the war relief campaigns; been active on the home front, and sent 808 men and women to the Armed Forces. There was a group that prepared and sent out a weekly special bulletin to the parishioners in the Armed Forces. These parishioners were happy to receive news from home on the progress of their new church and many of them sent home money to go towards the building fund. During the war, hundreds of dollars came in from these parishioners fighting in the war. Of the 808 parishioners who went off to war, seven died and their names were engraved on a piece of granite outside of the church: James DiMuzio, Arthur Capo, Nick Costelli, Justine DeFelices, Neal Chipoletti, and Anthony Zaffuto.
Relocating and building a church by hand The current location was found to be too small and the congregation was in need of a larger building. Parishioners from Arnold wanted the new church to be built in their town, arguing that most of the congregation lived there. Those from Parnassus wanted the church closer to them because there were a lot of Catholics but no Catholic church in Parnassus. The parishioners from New Kensington argued that St. Peter should remain close to its current location and one was found on the corner of Freeport Road and Seventh Street. This location was approximately from the previous St. Peter Church and was located on the top of a hill. The land was and had a large mansion and a few small buildings on the property.Centennial Committee 2004, pp. 29–30
The land had once belonged to Stephen M. Young, who had been a General in the United States Army during the American Civil War and was a friend of Abraham Lincoln.Abraham J. Baughman, History of Huron County, Ohio its progress and development, Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1909, p. 423–424. Young sold the property to Frank M. Curtis for $7,000 in 1902. It was sold to David A. Leslie for $17,000 in 1914. After Mr. Leslie's death in August 1938, attorneys spoke to Mrs. Leslie about selling the property and she agreed to sell for $20,000 cash. On December 1, 1938, the congregation made a down payment of $500 cash and few days later, the Building Fund Campaign opened for the new church with a committee of one-hundred volunteers. Each parishioner who was employed full-time should sign a pledge to give $60 over a period of five years towards the building of the church. The committee was split up into groups, and the volunteers went door to door almost every day for five years until enough money was collected.