The Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches

Episode 113

The Land of the Cross Tipped Churches is a region in west-central Ohio. German Catholics fled the wars and upheaval of their homeland in the early and mid 19th century, and many settled in the United States. A number of these groups settled in a region of western Ohio, and in the 1840s Archbishop Purcell invited the Fathers of the Most Precious Blood to come and minister to these German-speaking Catholics. Father Francis de Sales Brunner led 14 confreres over, and over the ensuing decades the Precious Blood Fathers built more than 60 churches, schools, a seminary, convents, and rectories in a relatively small area. Over the years as the construction became more elaborate until many of these churches had tall, slender steeples tipped with crosses. And since they were built so near to each other across a very flat landscape, the area became known as “The Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches.”

Books

• Catholic Church Tour:: Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches
• Faith and Action: A History of the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati, 1821-1996 (Urban Life and Urban Landscape)
• The American Catholic Almanac

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