St. Augustine Parish

Founded 1928 to serve Black Catholics of South Bend — present church, 1501 West Washington Street, dedicated June 1941

Founding: Several African American Catholic families moved to South Bend from Pascagoula, Mississippi, in 1916; Today’s Catholic’s fuller account speaks of seven Black Catholic families arriving in the 1920s and finding themselves unwelcome in local parishes. Holy Cross Father George O’Connor, teaching at Notre Dame, began offering Sunday Mass for them, first in a small building outside St. Joseph Parish and later in a building on the west side. In 1928 the diocese decreed St. Augustine a parish, founded, in the diocesan archives’ phrase quoted by Today’s Catholic, to serve Black Catholics — “Negroes in all of South Bend.” It is the only historically Black parish in the diocese.

Washington Street church: By the 1930s the parish numbered about sixty members. Most members lived on the west side, and the parish chose its present site on West Washington Street. In June 1941 Bishop John Noll dedicated the church, stressing in his sermon that the 103-member parish had no color limitations; the Clio entry for the church gives the dedication date as 15 June 1941. The parish today is multiracial and rooted in the African American tradition, with about 250 registered parishioners reported in 2024, and it is the only Catholic institution on Indiana University South Bend’s African American Landmark Tour. For the parish’s civil-rights history, see the Black History file.

Sources:

1. Today’s Catholic, “Black Catholic Spirituality Fully Alive at St. Augustine,” 14 February 2024 — the Mississippi families, Father O’Connor, the 1928 founding and diocesan-archive wording, and the present parish.
2. Today’s Catholic, “Faith endures for black Catholics” — the 1928 creation of the parish to serve Black Catholics in the city.
3. Dukes and Garner, “St. Augustine Catholic Church,” Clio entry 57888 — the 1916 Pascagoula migration and the 15 June 1941 dedication by Bishop Noll.