National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Catholic life in the Lehigh Valley predates the parish: as the parish's own history records, 'Few Catholics were settled in Lehigh county as early as 1769,' and from 1837 Jesuit missionaries from the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Churchville (now Bally), Berks County, periodically tended to the German Catholics of the region. By 1852 Father Gustensuake of Easton was saying Mass once a month in the home of John Koehler on Ridge Avenue and Liberty Street — the very ground that the present sisters' residence and parish school still occupy. The parish of the Immaculate Conception took shape in 1856, when a tract 80 feet wide on Ridge Avenue and Allen Street was purchased for $300. The first resident pastor, Rev. Joseph Tuboly, arrived on June 22, 1857. On August 8, 1857, the first shovel of clay was turned for a small brick church, built by a contractor named Quier for $1,800. Bishop (now Saint) John Neumann, of Philadelphia, laid the cornerstone in September 1857 and dedicated the completed building on October 25, 1857. The collection at the dedication Masses that day totaled $17.29. The founding congregation numbered 36 families — all German — among them the Koehlers, Bohrers, Bruckmans, Deutschs, Gehringers, Kerners, Kaiers, Latzers, Laubes, Martins, Medernachs, Millers, Schmidts, Quasts, Scharles, Vogels, Wehrs, Wieamars, Yeagers, Wolfs and Wickels. Tensions between the Irish and German members of the congregation surfaced on St. Patrick's Day, 1866, and on April 8 of that year the two ethnic groups began to worship separately: Father Hugh Garvey shepherded the Immaculate Conception (Irish) congregation while Father Hilterman organized the new Sacred Heart parish on North Fourth Street. During Father Garvey's tenure the church property was transferred by sheriff's sale at the Keystone Hotel, purchased in the pastor's name by John Devenney. Foundations for a much larger, 'present splendid edifice' were begun under Father Edmond F. Prendergast, but the Panic of 1873 halted the work, and it languished for several years. Prendergast later became auxiliary bishop and then Archbishop of Philadelphia. The magnificent Gothic church that stands today was finally completed under Rev. Patrick F. Donegan, who served from 1877 to 1905 and engaged parishioner and contractor Hon. P. F. Boyle for the project; the parochial residence was also built during his pastorate. Rev. John J. Walsh (1905–1917) acquired additional land on the west side of Ridge Avenue and erected the parish school and convent, entrusted to the Sisters of St. Joseph. Major renovations in the 1920s installed marble altars and flooring, the Stations of the Cross (made in Munich), and stained glass windows imported from Munich depicting the life of the Blessed Virgin — windows still insured as fine art. Canvas paintings of the Annunciation, the Assumption, and the Coronation of Mary were affixed to the ceiling, flanked by the Twelve Apostles and what are believed to be portraits of St. Patrick and a Redemptorist priest. Through the mid-twentieth century, pastors included Rev. Edward J. Murphy (1917–1930), Rev. Edwin V. Montague (1930–1939), Rev. Joseph A. McGonigle (1939–1954), Rev. John G. Fitzgerald (1954), and Rev. James A. Magee (1954–1966). On February 1, 1967, Bishop Joseph McShea appointed Rt. Rev. Msgr. David B. Thompson, V.G., J.C.L., M.A. — then Chancellor of the new Diocese of Allentown and later Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina — as rector. Monsignor Thompson shepherded the post-Vatican II reordering of the interior (1968–1974) and, in 1974, submitted the parish's candidacy to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops for a proposed National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The committee agreed, and Immaculate Conception was officially designated the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, in December 1974 (GCatholic records the formal dedication date as October 5, 1974). The shrine's 25th anniversary was marked on December 12, 1999. Under Father John P. Murphy (1975–1980) the interior was repainted, ceramic statuary of the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ — created in Spain by an artist named Raventos — was installed in the sanctuary, and a replica of the original tilma image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was hung above Our Lady's side altar. Father Harold F. Dagle (1980–2008) oversaw a 1998 brick addition that added a chapel, an elevator, a lobby, and anterooms, and he commissioned Bethlehem artist Mark Yundt to create the altars of the Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Family, along with the crucifix behind the altar; the marble Last Supper sculpture rescued from the 1968 renovations was set into the new chapel's Blessed Sacrament altar, and a stained-glass window of Jesus and the children was relocated from the old baptismal room into the chapel. The social hall, stage and kitchen were also refurbished. Msgr. Albert Byrne served 2008–2014, and the current pastor, Rev. John M. Gibbons, was appointed in 2014.