Venerable Charles Samuel Mazzuchelli

Venerable Charles Samuel Mazzuchelli Also known as

Father Matthew Kelly

Profile

Dominican missionary priest to the United States and the Native American tribes around the Great Lakes. Assigned in 1830 to the island of Mackinac, and was the only permanent priest in the upper Great Lakes region. Founded the first Catholic school in Wisconsin. Transferred to Galena, Illinois in 1835, he desgined and established many churches throughout the region. He founded the Saint Clare Academy in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, a frontier school for girls that today has grown into Dominican University. Founder of the Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of the Holy Rosary of Sinsinawa. Known for his skill in music, painting, and architecture, he helped lay the foundations for the modern Church in the Great Lakes and upper Midwest of the United States. An old story says that the Irish nuns that helped in his work had trouble pronouncing Mazzuchelli, and wound up calling him Father Matthew Kelly.