St. Rita Catholic Church, Cass Street: Italian history in …

Workers on Friday used a large crane to lift a statue of the archangel Gabriel to the top of the rebuilt St. Rita Catholic Church on the lower east side. James B. Nelson and Chelsey Lewis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Go to a Catholic Mass anywhere in the world, and itll be nearly identical.

Steadfast rituals and beliefsfor hundreds of years: that deep-rooted sense of tradition is what has sustained parishioners like Milwaukeean Margaret Balistreri through the demolition of her Italian-American communitys spiritual home twice.

Our church is gone, but weve taken the important things: our traditions, our faith, our memories, our prayer life, our music, she said. In the long run, life goes on. We haven't been abandoned. Weve grown.

This rose window, six feet in diameter, is the only new piece of stained glass that crews will put in St. Rita Catholic Church. It will depict the Three Holy Women Parish logo, of which St. Rita is a part.(Photo: Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

So she didnt despair last year when crews tore down St. Rita on the east side, where Margaret married Anthony Balistreri and where she attended school as a girl. Instead she championed it, serving on the committee to direct the rebuild and assuaging other parishioners hesitations about change.

Weve always realized that a parish is not what surrounds you, its the people. Its the community, the Rev. Tim Kitzke recalled Balistreri saying.

The settled-on design was one that wove the history, traditions and icons of the Italian-American community in Milwaukee into every nook and cranny of the church.

The outer facade will mimic the structure of the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii, a Third Ward church built in 1904 at 419 N. Jackson St. and demolished in 1967 to make way for the construction of Interstate 794.

Nicknamed the little pink church for its rose-colored bricks, Pompeii served as the heart of 20th-century Milwaukee Italians social and religious lives. Articles from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel archives depict the communitys pain at losing a county battle to save the landmark. Church artifacts made their way into family homes and warehouses, but also more established locations: the Italian Community Center and St. Rita of Cascia Church, 1601 N. Cass St.

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Buy Photo

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

St. Rita became the new hub for faithful Italians after the demolition. Constructed in the middle of the Great Depression, it was meant to be a little sister of Pompeii a mission outpost to Pompeiis parish church. It grew to include a school and a convent, but both have sat vacant for years.

So as St. Rita plugged along part of the three-church east side Three Holy Women Parish since 2000 Kitzke and others looked at ways to revitalize the area and better use the land. Now developer Jim Tarantino of Capri Senior Communities has planned a 118-unit senior apartment complex with a newly rebuilt St. Ritaattached. Once its complete he will sell the church to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for $1.

For Tarantino, rebuilding St. Ritais more than a business endeavor. His parents are from Sicily and attended the little pink church. He knows how much a functional, beautiful sacred space that pays tribute to history would mean to people like them.

We look for ways to say thank you and honor our family. And I thought, for me to be able to do something like this its a way of saying thank you, he said.

Kitzke stood inside the skeleton of the new St. Rita onThursday, looking up for the first time at the vaulted roof.

Its like a little cathedral, he said in awe. Its amazing.

The final product will embrace artifacts and design elements from both the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii and the original St. Rita, while smoothing out the annoyances that made St. Ritaultimately unusable like the steps to the entrance that tripped up pallbearers and excluded wheelchair users, now replaced with at-grade front doors.

Preserving that cathedral-like feeling was crucial, both for the Italians who held Pompeii dear, but also in attracting millennials to the congregation.

We realized, yes we couldve totally torn everything down and made a more of a suburban type of church, but what Im discovering with the younger people that are coming back to church they like (traditional churches), Kitzke said.

Plus, theyre too young to have nostalgia. You know what they have? In the middle of a world in which things can fall apart ... they need a sense of the sacred.

A cross will go inside the new St. Rita Church when construction is completed. The cross is from the "Little Pink Church" that was torn down in 1967.(Photo: Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

The new build will incorporate 17 restored stained glass windows from the original St. Rita and before that, the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii; the bronze bell that once rang at Pompeii; and 10 statues of saints that watched over both churches. And something new: a 6-foot-diameter rose window depicting the Three Holy Women logo. As the sun rises each day the rays will refract through the window to the altar beyond.

But the star of the show is an 8-foot-tall bronze statue of the archangel Gabriel.

Crews raised the 1,000-pound angel to the top of the new facade Friday with a crane. Sculpted in 1904 by Italian artist Gaetano Trentanove, Gabriel stood atop the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii for the churchs entire lifespan and then was hoisted once again to the top of St. Ritain 1969.

Gabriel, who Christian tradition says appeared to Mary with the news of Jesus birth, isnt just another statue to longtime parishioners. He represents new beginnings. Hes the perfect symbol of what Kitzke hopes the new St. Ritadoes for the surrounding community: honor the traditions and heritage revered by worshipers a century ago, while welcoming a vibrant, diverse congregation into the church.

Thats what were trying to do build on and jump off of that sense of the old to welcome the new, Kitzke said.

Sure, parishioners will hear the Pompeii bell toll and greet Gabriel as they enter, but Kitzke isnt cultivating a church full of strictly Italian-American old-timers who reminisce about the little pink church.

St. Ritabefore its demolition was the church of choice for young Catholics on the east side: Kitzke made its Sunday Mass time the latest in the Three Holy Women parish. And he knows 20-somethings in their first jobs and on their own might feel a bit lost in the world. He wants the warm welcome the Balistreris share with their longtime friends each Sunday at the St. Ritaentryway to extend to envelop all.

Construction is underway at St. Rita Church on North Cass Street in Milwaukee.(Photo: Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Its kind of like the old Cheers mentality: Where everyone knows your name, Kitzke said.

Thats the vision for this new church modeled after the old traditions: millennials join the senior apartment residents next door and the Italian-American faithful whove moved to the suburbs and return each week to St. Rita.

The tight-knit immigrant community that migrated from the Third Ward to the east side in the 20th century is now scattered across southeast Wisconsin. But Margaret Balistreri said theyre closer and bigger than ever. The bonds of tradition and kinship and faith that tie them together will hold strong through the reconstruction of St. Rita, due to host its first Mass Easter of 2020.

I cant wait until we open the doors of this church and bring in the living church: the families, the children, the elderly, she said. Its such a wonderful new beginning.

Autoplay

Show Thumbnails

Show Captions

Contact Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow heron Twitter at @SCarson_News.

Read or Share this story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2019/09/23/st-rita-catholic-church-cass-street-italian-history-construction/2253656001/

Link:
St. Rita Catholic Church, Cass Street: Italian history in ...