History & Centennial

February 19, 2021 was the 99th Anniversary of Santa Susanna Church becoming the parish for Americans in Rome. Even though we are now happily at St. Patrick’s, it is still a day to remember as the beginning of the Paulist Fathers’ ministry to the American community in the Eternal City.

While visiting the U.S. Embassy to Italy in early 1921, Paulist Superior General Thomas Burke noticed the Church of Santa Susanna that sat next door. It seemed perfectly located for the Paulist Fathers’ desire to acquire a church, as Rome had a growing American community which might form the basis for a parish. At the end of 1921, following an official request from U.S. President Warren Harding, Pope Benedict XV authorized the Paulists to use the Church of Santa Susanna for the purpose of creating a church for American Catholics.

From February 19, 1922, when Paulist Father Thomas Lantry O’Neill became the first rector, he and the many Paulists and Santa Susanna Parishioners who followed, worked tirelessly and with great sacrifice to build up this parish and keep it going through difficult times.

On February 26, 1922, the first Mass was celebrated by Cardinal O’Connell of Boston and the church remained open to the general public throughout the day for the very first time since it was completed in 1603. Thousands of Italian visitors came to see the frescoes.

The Church was closed again in the spring of 1940 with a world war threatening and the American community leaving. The Cistercian nuns persevered and with great risk hid Jewish women and children in their monastery. In 1944, Paulist Father Don Forrester returned with the liberating Allied troops and supplied the nuns with food and support throughout the difficult years that followed.

The parish itself grew throughout the next three decades. Later, in 1986, with a sagging ceiling, the church was again closed for repairs that lasted seven years. During that time the Santa Susanna community worshipped in the Chiesa di Sant’Agnese in the Piazza Navona. Through the valued hard work, fortitude and extreme generosity of a great many individuals, the Paulist Fathers reopened the Church in 1993 with a pastoral visit from Pope John Paul II, who acknowledged it as the Church for Americans.

Since that time, until the Church was closed for a third time on July 5, 2013, we had all worked diligently to keep open the doors of our beloved Church and to build up our community of English speaking Catholics in Rome. We were committed to offering a special home for parishioners and pilgrims who sought to deepen their faith. Now we continue that mission in the Church of St. Patrick (Chiesa di San Patrizio), thankful for the hospitality of the Irish Augustinians.