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Italian Catholic parish · organized 1913 · 2213 Brooklyn Avenue · active, November 2026
Founding: Fort Wayne's national parishes served Germans, Poles, and Irish; none served the Italians. In 1913 Loreto Starace, a lawyer the parish history calls a lay apostle, appealed to Bishop Herman J. Alerding, who appointed Father Loreto Monastero to found an Italian parish. Saint Joseph Parish began in 1914 in a rented house at the corner of Fairfield Avenue and Bass Street, ministering to the Italian immigrants of the southwest side.
Building line: In 1916 Bishop Alerding bought property at Frary and Taylor Streets for the parish. The permanent ground came in 1924, at the corner of Brooklyn and Hale Avenues, where a brick combination church and school was built. The present church was dedicated by Bishop Leo A. Pursley on Sunday, 19 March 1961.
Present state: Active. The parish history marks the late 1980s as a second challenge, when the establishment of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish on the southwest side redrew the Catholic map of its own quarter of the city.
Sources:
- St. Joseph Parish, "The History of Saint Joseph Parish" (parish-published history, saintjosephcatholicfw.org).
- Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, church list: "St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Wayne Township, 1913, active, Italian Catholic"; ACPL congregational directory (2213 Brooklyn Ave.).