History

Bellarmine Chapel (St. Robert Bellarmine Parish) at Xavier University
  
FOUNDED in April, 1927, to serve a small neighborhood community and to provide opportunity for priestly ministry for the Jesuits at Xavier, which had moved to Avondale a few years earlier.  The worship space for the parish, which was used also for the students, existed within a University administrative building, pending the construction of a larger church.  Only in 1962 was the present chapel built, ending our long years in the Schmidt Building.  The chapel interior was remodeled in 1998, and an addition was designed and built in 2004, providing more office space, a work room, and an expanded narthex which contains a permanent baptistry pool.
 
THE PARISH GREW through the 70's and 80's, having become known as a center of good worship and music in the spirit of the Conciliar reforms.  The archdiocese had adopted a policy of open membership in parishes, and so Bellarmine members came from many neighborhoods,  being drawn by our encouragement of  lay ministry, active social concern, and good preaching.  We have about 700 households right now, with an influx of perhaps 80 new members each year, and an egress of about the same number as people move away.  The youthful population of the local Church is very transient.  But a core of about 400 households are very stable in the parish. 
                                                                                                                                   
MASS SCHEDULE: at 9a.m., 11a.m., and 7p.m. each Sunday, with about 900 people in attendance total.  Two additional masses are scheduled for students, at 4p.m. and at 10p.m.  The parish is separate from Campus Ministry, with a separate staff and independent funding.