Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli
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Father Samuel Mazzuchelli ( November 4, 1806 - February 23, 1864 ) was a pioneer Catholic Italian-American missionary on the 19th century American frontier, the old "Northwest Territory" where he ministered to Native Americans, French fur traders, and to Irish and German miners and farmers. He was a defender of the native peoples, an educator, a civic leader, an architect and builder of churches, a founder of more than 30 parish communities, a beloved pastor respected by all who knew him. From his own time to the present day, his memory has been revered and his intercession sought in prayer. He has been declared "Venerable" by Pope John Paul II, and the Cause for his Beatification by the Roman Catholic Church is under study.
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[edit] Background
Father Mazzuchelli was born in Milan, Italy on November 4, 1806. From a Milanese family of merchants, bankers, artists, and scholars, he seemed sure to succeed in any career. When he chose to become a mendicant friar of the Order of Preachers, or the Dominican Order, his family was predictably disappointed.
At the age of 17 he became a Dominican novice in Faenza, and in 1825 began studies in Rome. After three years, the young man answered an urgent call from the American bishop of Ohio and Michigan--Edward Fenwick--who needed help in his far-flung frontier ministry to Native Americans and new settlers. In response, the young Italian traveled alone to Cincinnati, where he began to learn English and adapt to American culture. At the age of 23, Mazzuchelli was ordained a priest, and in 1830 Fenwick sent him to be the only Catholic missionary in an area larger than the whole of his native Italy. Extending south from the Canadian border through the Great Lakes region (later the states of Michigan and Wisconsin), the territory was inhabited by scattered Woodland Indian settlements, some French Canadian fur trappers and traders. In the south of the region, near the Mississippi, Irish and Cornish miners and a few German farmers were arriving.
Among the Menominee and Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) peoples, Mazzuchelli was the first resident missionary since the Jesuits who had been withdrawn some 50 years earlier. To minister to them Mazzuchelli learned to travel on snowshoes or by canoe or on foot, sharing their frugal meals, and joining them in their hunting, ice fishing, and maple sugar gathering. He came to understand and value their sense of religion, their love of children, and their respect for the aged members of their communities. As the U.S. Government pursued its Indian removal policies, he protested the injustices to Congressmen and to President Andrew Jackson. Similarly, he deplored the enslavement of African-Americans.
In meeting the needs of various people, Mazzuchelli displayed his own remarkable talents. In 1833 he published a Winnebago prayer book, and in 1834, a liturgical almanac in Chippewa, the first printed item in Wisconsin. In 1836 he served as chaplain, at their request, to the members of the first legislature of the new Wisconsin Territory.
He served as architect and superintendent for the building of more than 20 parish churches in the upper Mississippi Valley, and built and founded St. Thomas College for men at Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, in 1846. He also designed and superintended the building of civic structures, such as the County Courthouses in Galena, Illinois, and in Fort Madison, Iowa. To assist him in his mission of preaching the Good News and of educating the people, he gathered the first members of a community of Dominican Sisters in 1847--known down to this day as the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. With the Sisters, he founded the St. Clara Academy for young women in Benton, Wisconsin. Through its charter, this frontier prototype of secondary schools became the forerunner of two colleges: Dominican University of Illinois, and Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin.
On his brief return to Italy in 1843-44, Mazzuchelli wrote and published his 'Memorie ... d'un Missionario Apostolico,' to acquaint Italians with the people, government, religion, and culture of the United States. In a chapter explaining freedom of religion, the priest explained how Americans had instituted by law "that straight line which separates civil power from conscience," so that "the independence of the civil from the religious is due to the independence of worship from the civil power."
Mazzuchelli became a loyal citizen of the United States, admiring its democratic principles, but he was never blind to social or governmental weaknesses such as the Indian policies or slavery or the ravages of the Civil War, speaking out fearlessly about matters of justice and peace.
Throughout his life, he was beloved by Catholics and non-Catholics alike for his zeal, courage, and selfless generosity, especially in tending to the sick during the outbreaks of cholera on the frontier. He died on February 23, 1864, as a result of exposure in bitterly cold weather when he had been summoned to visit the sick out on the prairie. After his death, there appeared accounts of his life and ministry in newspapers from California to New York, one writer stating "he who was once the only priest west of Lake Michigan has left the people of that vast region in mourning. He was a good man: faithful to his vocation, prompt and zealous in the performance of every duty, inflexible in principles, but so mild, affable and obliging that in him seemed to have been centered for a time all the reverence and respect of a heterogeneous and frontier people."
Descendants of those whom he served have kept alive their memory of him and their conviction that he was a saint. In 1993, he was named "Venerable" by Pope John Paul II as the first step toward possible canonization by the Roman Catholic Church.
[edit] Legacy
Father Mazzuchelli is buried at Saint Patrick's Cemetery in Benton, Wisconsin. Over the years a case for elevating Father Mazzuchelli to Sainthood has been pending with the church. In 1993, Pope John Paul II declared Father Mazzuchelli Venerable - the first step in the process of elevating an individual to Sainthood. As the 200th anniversary of Mazzuchelli's birth occurs in November of 2006, those hoping for Mazzuchelli to be elevated to Sainthood have undertaken a number of activities to help draw attention to that particular cause. The Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters have been particularly active in this campaign, as have the regional Knights of Columbus.
[edit] Parishes Founded by Fr. Mazzuchelli
Mazzuchelli arrived in the mid 1830's to what would later become the city of Dubuque, Iowa. While there, he organized the parish and named it Saint Raphael's - which later became the Cathedral parish when the Dubuque Diocese was formed in 1837. He assisted Bishop Mathias Loras during the first few years after the founding of the Diocese. He also worked quite extensively in what would eventually become the Diocese of Madison, founding in Wisconsin many parishes and churches-- Green Bay (the longest continuing parish in the State of Wisconsin), Kaukauna, Potosi, Prairie du Chien, Shullsburg, Sinsinawa, New Diggings, Hazel Green, Cuba City, and Benton; and also parishes where he did not build a church, such as Portage, Mineral Point, Patch Grove, Dodgeville, Diamond Grove, Mill Seat, and Elk Grove. He named three Catholic parishes after the three Archangels. These were Saint Raphael's at Dubuque, Saint Michael's at Galena, Illinois, and Saint Gabriel's at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. He built churches in the following Iowa towns: Dubuque, Davenport, Burlington, Garryowen, Iowa City, Muscatine, and Bellevue. The only church designed and built by him that is almost intact as he left it is now a National Landmark and is being restored-- Saint Augustine Church, New Diggings, Wisconsin.
- Saint Augustine Church, New Diggings, Wisconsin
- Saint Patrick's Church, Benton, Wisconsin
- St. Raphael's Cathedral, Dubuque, Iowa
- St. Michael's Church, Galena, Illinois
[edit] External links
- The FindAGrave.com entry for Samuel Mazzuchelli
- The Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters
- St. Raphael's Cathedral, Dubuque, Iowa.
[edit] Sources
- Mazzuchelli, Samuel. Memoirs. Chicago. 1967.
- McGreal, Mary Nona. Samuel Mazzuchelli: American Dominican. Notre Dame, Ind. & Sinsinawa, WI. 2005.
- Riordan, Robert. Medicine for Wildcat.2006. ISBN 0-9774934-0-7
- Mancini, Massimo. Da Milano al Mississippi. Bologna, Italy. 2005.
- Fuerste, Madelin. 1 Step Closer to Being a Saint. Dubuque, Iowa Telegraph Herald. Date Accessed: April 13, 2006. Dubuque: Woodward Communications.
