Father José Rodríguez Carballo, OFM, general minister of the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) worldwide, celebrates Mass Sept. 15 at St. Anthony Church in St. Louis commemorating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan friars in Teutopolis.

ST. LOUIS - More than 100 friars in the Sacred Heart Province of the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) gathered with friends and supporters for a jubilee Mass Sept. 15 at St. Anthony of Padua Church in St. Louis to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan friars in Teutopolis. Other jubilee celebrations were held earlier this year in Teutopolis, Chicago, San Antonio and Quincy.

The worldwide leader of the order, General Minister José Rodríguez Carballo from the general curia in Rome, celebrated the jubilee Mass, with Sacred Heart Provincial Minister Michael Perry and the order's General Definitor (councilor) Finian McGinn, OFM, from Oakland, Calif., as concelebrants.

Others attending the jubilee Mass, included Bishop George J. Lucas, representing Bishop Henry Damian Juncker of the Diocese of Alton, (now the Diocese of Springfield) who in 1858 had invited the friars to serve in the diocese; Msgr. E. Provenza, representing the Diocese of Shreveport; and Bishop Robert Hermann, administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Here are some highlights from the history of Sacred Heart Province:

Nine friars from the Franciscan province of the Holy Cross in Paderborn, Westphalia, Germany, were sent to Teutopolis in 1858 at the request of Bishop Juncker, to help minister to the needs of German-speaking Catholics in the diocese. The friars left Bremen, Germany, by boat on Aug. 27, arriving in New York City, Sept. 14. The next night they boarded a train, arriving in Alton Sept. 21. Two days later the friars arrived in Teutopolis, and in little over a week they were given charge of St. Francis of Assisi Parish, which Franciscans serve to this day.

In 1860 the Franciscans established St. Francis Solano Friary in Quincy, and two years later founded St. Francis Solano College, which was similar a high school then but would later become Quincy College. That same year they established St. Francis Friary, a novitiate, in Teutopolis and in 1862 opened St. Joseph's College in a new building at Teutopolis.

The friars founded St. Anthony's Friary in St. Louis in 1863, and in 1870 they founded the first friary in the South, St. Mary's in Memphis.

St. Francis Solano College (now Quincy University) became a boarding school in 1871, and received a legal charter from the state of Illinois, permitting it to confer degrees in 1873. In 1930 Quincy College was accredited to the University of Illinois as a junior college, and in 1939 it was affiliated by the Catholic University of America as a four-year college. In 1948 it was recognized as such by the University of Illinois. In 1954 it received full accreditation from the North Central Association. In 1993 it became Quincy University.

The old Franciscan Mission San Jose in San Antonio was placed in the care of the Sacred Heart Province and a friary established there in 1931. In 1932, the friars took over the care of Corpus Christi Parish in Chicago.

In 1937 Father Ambrose Pinger was appointed vicar apostolic of Chowtsun in China, and on Sept. 21 he was consecrated titular bishop of Capitolias by Cardinal Mundelein in Chicago. Chowtsun became a diocese in 1946. In 1958 the Chinese Communists imprisoned Bishop Pinger, keeping him there for five years, before he was released and returned to the United States. In 1959 Father Fulgence Gross was freed after being held a prisoner for six years.

A friary at West Monroe, La., was founded in 1940, and the Franciscans began missionary work in the diocese of Alexandria, in the northern part of the state.

In 1943 the Sacred Heart Province accepted a new mission field in Brazil, along a tributary of the Amazon, and sent its first four missionaries there.

At Province Brothers Trade School, later called St. Paschal Brothers School, in Oakbrook, from 1951 to 1966, 280 candidates would answer the call to the life of a Franciscan brother. The program moved in 1964 to Our Lady of Angels Seminary in Quincy, where 48 persevered as Franciscans, and four others joined the diocesan clergy. Our Lady of Angels closed in 1987, and now serves as the QU North Campus.

The Franciscans in 1953 dedicated St. Peter Church and Friary in Chicago's Loop.

In 1961, Father James Ryan, a missionary since 1943 in Brazil, was appointed ordinary of the prelature of Santarem, and on April 9 he was consecrated titular bishop of Margum by Cardinal Stritch in Chicago. That same year, Father Jude Prost, a missionary since 1942 in Brazil, was appointed auxiliary to the archbishop of Belem, Para, Brazil.

The Province closed its St. Francis novitiate in Teutopolis in 1967, moving it to St. Paschal's in Oakbrook for one year

but returned it to Teutopolis to St. Joseph Seraphic Seminary, to accommodate a large novitiate class. It was returned to St. Paschal's in 1969 where it remained until 1983. Thousands of Franciscan friars received their education and formation in Teutopolis from Sept. 16, 1862 to 1927. The minor seminary in Teutopolis closed Aug. 23, 1927, but reopened immediately as a school of theology, where hundreds of friars prepared for ordination. In 1927 the minor seminary was moved to Westmont, a western suburb of Chicago, where it remained until 1977.

The Province, along with the Servites and Passionists, founded the Catholic Theological Union (CTU) in Chicago in 1968, when it closed the St. Joseph Seraphic Seminary in Teutopolis, and relocated it at CTU, where it remains today.

In 1977, four friars set forth to a new missionary field in Zaire, Africa, but political upheaval there forced them to return home. The Province joined with Belgian Province of Ste. Marie Mediatrice (Brussels) to form St. Benoit l'African in Zaire in the mid 1980s, and three friars from Sacred Heart province joined the new province.

(Historical information courtesy of Sacred Heart Province of the Order of Friars Minor.)