The region just south of Louisville is often referred to as “Kentucky’s Holy Land” because of the many Catholic institutions that were founded in the early history of the United States. Following the arrival of Fr. Stephen Badin in 1793 and Fr. Charles Nerinckx in 1805, the first Dominican priory and school in the United States was founded in Springfield, Kentucky. St. Rose Priory still serves the order, and the Dominican sisters, whose convent was added in 1822, later moved to Washington County, Kentucky to found Saint Catherine College.
After the creation of the Diocese of Bardstown in 1808, Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget established the first seminary, built the first cathedral, and founded some of the oldest Catholic parishes, monasteries, and colleges west of the Allegheny Mountains. With the help of Fr. Nerinckx, the Sisters of Loretto, originally the Friends of Mary at the Foot of the Cross, were founded in 1812. This first order of women religious founded in the West was, like the Sisters of Charity, dedicated to prayer and the education of poor children. The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth were formed in 1812 by Mother Catherine Spalding, who opened Spalding University in 1814 and Presentation Academy for girls in 1831, the first Catholic schools in Louisville. The sisters also established St. Vincent Orphanage and St. Joseph Infirmary in the 1830’s, the first social service and health care institutions in Louisville, and one of the oldest college preparatory schools in the country.
After Bishop Flaget moved his residence to the new cathedral in Bardstown in 1819, the colleges of St. Joseph and St. Mary were founded in 1820 and 1821. St. Mary’s College was the oldest college for men west of the Allegheny Mountains, and the third oldest in the nation. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd were founded in Louisville in 1842. Finally, on December 21st, 1848 the Trappist foundation was established south of Bardstown and was raised to the dignity of an abbey in 1851. The motherhouse of all Trappist monasteries in the United States, the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemane is part of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance and is most famous as the home of Thomas Merton, who made his solemn vows at the monastery in 1947.
Within such a rich Catholic environment, the parish of St. Martin of Tours contributed to the growth of the Catholic faith in its first decades. St. Martin’s first pastor, Fr. Leander Streber, introduced the Ursuline Order to the region in 1857 when he went to Bavaria and brought two sisters back to teach in the new parish school. By 1860, the first solemn profession and acceptance of vows of the Sisters of St. Ursula took place at St. Martin’s, including two young women from Louisville. That year also saw 84 members receive the sacrament of Confirmation. In 1863, the Xaverian Brothers established their first institution in Louisville with St. Martin’s school for boys.
When Fr. Streber resigned in 1881, a second German-born Franciscan was named pastor. Fr. Ludger Beck was sent to America for fear of expulsion by the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismark during the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf, and arrived at St. Martin’s in 1877 as an associate. When he was made pastor in 1881 the parish boasted 4,000 members and 622 students. It was, however, during the next pastorate that the parish reached its peak membership. Fr. Francis Zabler, also a Bavarian Franciscan fleeing the political climate of Germany, built a new school for boys behind the church in 1888 and engaged the Brothers of Mary as teachers. This building still stands and serves as the rectory and parish offices. Then, in 1896, with the population of the parish still growing, Fr. Zabler built St. Martin’s Parish School, a large building that survives as an apartment complex across the street from the church.
Among Fr. Zabler’s most lasting contributions to the spiritual life of the parish were the relics of Ss. Magnus and Bonosa. These two saints, martyred in Rome in 207 a.d., arrived at St. Martin’s from the Cistercian Convent in Agnani, Italy, where the government had confiscated their land and forced the sisters to leave. Fr. Zabler petitioned the Holy See for the remains of one of the saints, but was blessed with two. With the permission of Pope Leo XIII, the relics arrived on December 31st, 1901. They were placed in glass reliquaries beneath the side altars and their feast are solemnly celebrated each year.
After the death of Fr. Zabler and during the pastorate of Fr. Francis Felton, parish and student registrations declined and the use of the German language fell out of use due to anti-German sentiment during the first world war. German immigrants were required to learn English and to discontinue the use of the German language. In 1917, about 800 households were registered and school enrollment was around 400. That same year, the Brothers of Mary left the parish school after teaching the boys for nearly 30 years and the Ursuline sisters took over the instruction of both sexes. Until the renaissance of the parish in the 1980’s, St. Martin’s would be on a continual decline through much of the 20th century.
However, the parish made significant contributions to the spiritual life and social services of the city in the first decades of the 20th century. Following a parish mission in 1922, St. Martin’s associate priest, Fr. Aemilian Haimerl OSB, was inspired to study sign language and arranged for meetings and services to benefit the deaf community in Louisville. These activities would give birth to the Archdiocesan Catholic Deaf Office. During the great 1937 flood, the same year Louisville was elevated to the status of an archdiocese, St. Martin’s pastor, Fr. Francis Felton, brought communion by boat to members of the parish. In 1950, a son of the parish, Fr. Herman Felhoelter, was serving as an army chaplain in the Korean War when he and 100 other men were left to carry 30 wounded soldiers away from a rapidly approaching enemy. Refusing to leave the wounded behind, Fr. Felhoelter and his men perished when the Communist forces overtook them, becoming the first U.S. Army chaplain to be killed in that war.
By the 100th anniversary of the parish in 1953, membership was down to about 500 households, and school enrollment had dropped to 200. In 1968 the parish closed its school, which ended the 110-year partnership with the Ursuline sisters. In 1973, St. Martin’s pastor, Fr. John Dalton, served a parish with even fewer members and crumbling facilities. Foreseeing the demise of the parish, he decided to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the parish rather than waiting for the 125th milestone that might not ever come. By 1978 parish membership was down to 125, with only 25-30 people attending Mass on Sunday. When Fr. Vernon Robertson was appointed 12th pastor of St. Martin’s that same year, he was warned by Fr. Dalton that the parish was beyond saving.
Fr. Vernon Robertson, a former Anglican priest, felt strongly about the role inner-city churches have to play in their communities. With its indigenous Catholic congregation gone, surrounded by a neighborhood in decline, and situated among a largely non-Catholic, African-American population, Fr. Robertson insisted upon the relevance of a Catholic church in a poor, working-class neighborhood. In his first year, Fr. Robertson opened a Montessori School at St. Martin’s for pre-school children. To support the funding of this school, he opened a restaurant in the rectory named the Afro-German Tearoom in honor of the neighborhood’s past and present demographics.
Central to Fr. Robertson’s vision for the reinvigoration of St. Martin’s, however, was his emphasis on the reverent celebration of the liturgy. He established a choir, made repairs to the organ, and filled the Sacred Rites with Gregorian chant, polyphony, and hymns. With the sale of the parish school, Fr. Robertson was able to repair the crumbling church and to repaint the interior. Within the splendid architecture and acoustics of the church, the celebration of the sung choral Mass began to attract new Parishioners from throughout the city and beyond to include membership from over 80 zip codes. Eventually, with the expanding Mass schedule, including a Family Mass that began in 1980, Fr. Robertson began offering Mass in the Extraordinary Form in 1989. The first of these Tridentine Masses was celebrated on Assumption Day, 1989 with more than 1,000 people in attendance.
With the parish coming back to life throughout the 1980’s, charitable works were resumed at St. Martin’s through the support of the St. John’s Day Center for the homeless and St. John’s Garden for the elderly and handicapped. Fr. Robertson also began working with Glade House, an organization that helped those suffering from AIDS. When another home for AIDS victims was opened in Louisville in a former rectory it was named Robertson House in honor of his tireless work. Finally, and initially with the help of other parishes in town, Fr. Robertson founded the Schuhmann Center. Named in honor of the late Msgr. George Schuhmann, and opened in 1982, the Schuhmann Center aids homeless persons and others in need with clothing, food, and social service referrals to the present day. By the time of his retirement in 1992, Fr. Robertson left the parish with a rising membership of 400. Largely attributed to its reverent liturgical life, its strikingly beautiful architecture, and social outreach programs, the renaissance of St. Martin’s Church has continued through more than three decades.
Following Fr. Robertson’s pastorate, the religious works of the congregation continued to expand under Fr. Dennis Cousens. Beginning on April 14th, 1996, the St. Cecelia Chapel became a place of perpetual eucharistic adoration. St. Martin of Tours is the only church in the Metro-Louisville area that keeps its doors open to the public for the adoration of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament every day and night of the year. Fr. Cousins, with the help of the Filipino community instituted the monthly Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help. In 1997, the Schuhmann Center received its own building, and the Golden Arrow Center was founded to provide assistance to mothers and children in need. Working closely with the Schuhmann Center, and an outgrowth of the parish’s strong pro-life commitment, the Golden Arrow Center operates with the conviction that “if you help the mother, you’ll also help the child!”
In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, much-needed repairs were made to the historic church to house a growing congregation. These included a new roof, structural repairs to the tower, restoration of interior plasterwork, installation of an air conditioning system, repairs to the organ, and, among other things, a new bronze statue of St. Martin for the buildings façade. Nearly 40 years after the pastorate of Fr. Vernon Robertson, St. Martin of Tours boasts a growing membership of over 1,700 parishioners in nearly 700 families.
The Early Years: 1853 - 1901
St. Martin was among several Louisville parishes established for a virtual flood of immigrants, chiefly German and Irish, pouring in to city in the mid-1800s. The city’s first German Catholic church, St. Boniface was established in 1836, but soon could not accommodate the hundreds of German immigrants settling in the Butchertown, Germantown, and Uptown (now Phoenix Hill) neighborhoods. It was decided to organize a second church and in 1853, Bishop John Spalding appointed the Bavarian-born Father Leander Streber, an associate pastor at St. Boniface to organize St. Martin church to be located at Shelby and Gray streets. The new church would be named after Bishop Spalding’s patron, St. Martin of Tours. The church, a 75 by 50 foot brick building was dedicated August 20, 1853. But it soon became too small for its congregation and within six years, work began on enlarging the church to its present size, making it one of the largest in the city, according to a centennial history of St. Martin produced in 1954. The church, enlarged at a cost of $15,000, was designed in the shape of a cross and measured 185 feet in length and 53 feet wide in the body of the church with a width of 83 feet at the transept, or arms of the cross.
The Crest
Herladic tradition is typified by the use of symbolism to convey the story of those represented by each crest. Thus, the crest of the Shrine of St. Martin contains several significant elements. The first of these is the goose. This image is connected to the legend of St. Martin, who was reluctant to be made a bishop, and whom legend holds hid in a barnyard to avoid the appointment. It was the honking of the goose who gave his presence away, however, and God's will was fulfilled. The goose depicted on the crest of the shrine is a traditional grey-legged goose, a breed typical of the time and area of St. Martin of Tours. The two Fleur de Lis are symbolic of the two cities of Tours, France, and Louisville. The waves through the middle of the crest recall the Ohio River, on which Louisville is situated. Finally, the palm fronds and crown are symbolic of the martyrs St. Magnus and St. Bonosa, whose relics are venerated at the shrine. The color blue is reminiscent of Bavaria, from where many of the original members of St. Martin's had immigrated. The red harkens to the blood of the martyrs. The galero (clerical hat) and tassels represent the canons of the shrine.
The Bells of St. Martin's
The following slideshow documents the diagnosis of the necessary maintenance of the bells in the late 1940's into the 1950's. These documents outline the contractual details and dialogue leading up to their restoration during this time:
