The Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches

American Catholic History

Noelle & Tom Crowe

History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Education

5 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 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." Nowadays road signs mark out a scenic byway that would take the pilgrim on a journey through the region, seeing 50 of the churches and other structures. The most prominent of them, the former convent of Mariastein, is now the home of the second-largest collection of relics outside the Vatican.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to American Catholic History, brought to you by the support of listeners like you.
0:11.0	If you like this podcast and would like to support our work, please visit American Catholic History.org
0:17.5	slash support. I'm Noelle Heister Crow. And I'm Tom Crow.
0:21.5	Today we're talking about the land of the cross-tipped churches.
0:25.4	The what?
0:26.3	The land of the cross-tipped churches.
0:28.4	That's what I thought you said, but it's just such an unexpected title.
0:32.6	Sounds like something in a fantasy novel.
0:34.4	I expect this episode to have like cloaked figures with hidden daggers,
0:38.2	lords and ladies full of intrigue, dark forces trying to take over the world,
0:42.3	and simple, faithful peasants who end up being the heroes of the story.
0:45.8	So basically it's like what George R.R. Martin would write if he were Catholic.
0:50.2	You're crazy.
0:51.2	I know.
0:53.5	Oh, I just love the sound.
0:55.0	I just love the sound of the title.
0:56.8	The Land of the Cross Tipped Churches.
1:00.2	It is a cool name.
1:01.7	But the story doesn't have hidden daggers or lords and ladies with intrigue.
1:07.2	But you were on to something when you mentioned faithful peasants being the heroes.
1:11.6	Right. And this is one of the reasons why I love this story. It's so paradigmatic of how
1:16.4	the faith spread in this country. Just immigrants coming over to live their lives in peace,
	...

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