St. Alphonsus Church

St. Alphonsus Church was the first of three great churches built by the Redemptorists for Catholics in the Irish Channel, serving the Irish while St. Mary's Assumption served the Germans and Notre Dame de bon Secours served the French. Designed by Baltimore architect Louis L. Long, its cornerstone was laid on June 10, 1855, the church was blessed on August 2, 1857, and consecrated on April 25, 1858. Interior ceiling paintings attributed to Dominique Canova and others were completed in 1866. Later additions included the main and side altars by Buscher of Chicago in 1868, the main altar painting executed in Rome by Franz Von Rohden and installed in 1872, and wood statues carved in Munich that arrived in 1884. Stained glass windows by F.X. Zettler of Munich were installed in 1889 and 1890, and the 1905 side wall altars executed by Pietro Ghiloni and the 1930 shrine to Our Lady were designed by architect Albert Bendernagel. In 1925 the three Redemptorist parishes were consolidated and St. Alphonsus was declared the parish church. During the late 1920s and the Depression years of the 1930s, as many as 35,000 people attended weekly Tuesday Novenas to Our Mother of Perpetual Help. After being closed in 1979, the church was reopened in 1990 by the Friends of St. Alphonsus as the St. Alphonsus Arts and Cultural Center.

New Orleans, Louisiana · United States