How Jesuits opened their doors to homeless immigrants after the Great Chicago Fire

Sun-Times reporter Mitch Dudek is right about seven lights still glowing in the Church of the Holy Family, 1080 W. Roosevelt Rd., but there’s more to the story of Rev. Arnold Damen, S.J., and his vow in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1871.

Fr. Damen and Jesuit priests and brothers opened the doors of the Gothic church and their new college next door to provide relief for homeless victims. One of the rare documents I’ve found in the course of my research on the history of Saint Ignatius College Prep was a New York Irish World illustration pasted in a scrapbook in the school’s archives. Dated Nov. 4, 1871, it is a vivid etching of Chicago’s Jesuits offering assistance “without distinction of race or creed.”

Why is this significant? In 1871, the city’s official Relief Society decided which Chicaogans were “worthy” of aid, leaving thousands of immigrants to fend for themselves. Then, as now, immigrants were regarded with suspicion as threats to urban life. Arnold Damen, born in Leur, Holland in 1815, was a city-builder who understood that the Jesuit church and its schools represented hope for working-class people and Chicago itself.

Journals in the archives of Saint Ignatius College Prep corroborate this extraordinary outreach, noting that orphans were housed in the school, now located at 1076 W. Roosevelt Road, and that its basement was used as “a depot for distribution of provisions & clothing.”

While Catherine O’Leary has finally been absolved of blame for starting the Great Fire of 1871, isn’t it time, after 150 years, to set the record straight about Fr. Damen and Jesuit outreach?

Ellen Skerrett, Morgan Park