Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish & Shrine

The parish's story begins in July 1894, when a Neapolitan sculptor produced a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel — a replica of an image venerated for centuries — commissioned by Emmanuela De Stefano in gratitude for her husband's recovery from serious illness. She and her friend Anna Maria Prignano housed the statue at the De Stefano farm on 25th Avenue at North Avenue, and on the site of their first Festa Della Madonna the first Mass was offered by the Servite Father Thomas Moreschini, then stationed at Assumption Church in Chicago. Hundreds of Italian Chicagoans made the pilgrimage to see the image on display at Lake Street and 19th Avenue. In 1895 Mrs. De Stefano purchased two lots on 24th Avenue, one block north of Lake Street, and built the community's first shrine: a modest frame structure of roughly 30 by 40 feet. By 1908 the little chapel had clearly outgrown itself, and — despite scarce funds and limited encouragement — the parishioners, with the consent of the Bishop, undertook a second church at a cost of $12,000. Ground was broken on the feast of St. Bartholomew, August 24, with Michael Stangaro and brothers as contractors and Bensoro of Melrose as architect. That church served the growing Italian community for nearly six decades. Ground for the present modern-style church was broken on February 26, 1967, and the cornerstone was laid on September 24, 1967. The new building comfortably seats 850 and the Miraculous Madonna was enshrined in a specially designed sanctuary. In 2006 the Archdiocese of Chicago designated the parish a diocesan shrine, formalizing its role as a center of devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel for the whole archdiocese. Today the campus — modern church, school, rectory, and convent — fills an entire Melrose Park village block and is supported by three large parking facilities; some 1,600 families now share in the spiritual inheritance of those 19th-century founders.