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Excerpt from the book Evviva La Festa!

The Feast of Maria SS. Incoronata is a testimony to the power of faith to stand firm against the most seismic of societal changes. The venerable celebration has endured for more than a century at the same church despite the construction of an expressway that clove the parish in two and the inexorable displacement of a thriving Italian enclave by an equally vibrant Chinatown. 

Those upheavals have swept away most of the markers of Chicago’s Near South Side Little Italy: Wentworth Avenue now teems with Chinese businesses, vendors along Princeton Avenue hawk bok choy and oriental herbs, and signage throughout the neighborhood appears in both English and Mandarin. 

Even the feast’s once-namesake church has been transformed. Rededicated as St. Therese Chinese Catholic Mission in 1963, its entrance is guarded by two stone dragons and its rectory door is adorned with Far Eastern grillwork. 

But the Italian spirit of the church can never be uprooted. Its tenacity is revealed in a dedication stone that reads: “Madonna Incoronata, August 14, 1904”; a domed apse frescoed with Renaissance-style angels; glorious stained glass windows bearing vowel-rich family names; and statues of la Madonna and San Cristoforo that could easily be mistaken for the originals found in the mountain town of Ricigliano from whence the parish founders came.

Against all odds, the Feast of Maria SS. Incoronata springs annually from those roots, transforming Chinatown for one day into the Little Italy of yore. 

First celebrated in 1897, the feast actually predates the parish that once bore its name. The idea for the celebration took shape when the Rev. Orazio Mangone arrived from Ricigliano in 1896 to work among the paesani who were gravitating to the neighborhood. 

Organizing Chicago’s “Rigi” community into Club Maria SS. Incoronata e San Cristoforo di Ricigliano, Fr. Orazio spearheaded a fundraising campaign to commission a replica of the statue of the Blessed Mother that they venerated back in Italy. Nickel by dime, they achieved their goal of $600 — a princely sum at the time. 

When the statue arrived from Naples, Fr. Orazio cast about for a place to enshrine it. After spending a few months in a blacksmith’s shop, the hand-carved Madonna was welcomed into St. John’s Church on 18th Street thanks to the Rev. Daniel Riordan, pastor of the parish and an avid supporter of the Italian community.

The first feast was a modest affair. With 10 musicians and several hundred devotees in tow, the statue was carried in procession around the block, after which Fr. Orazio celebrated Mass in Italian.

The popularity of the feast soon attracted a wave of new Italian parishioners. With the help of Mollie Cleary, a longtime devotee of Maria Incoronata, Fr. Orazio set his sights on St. Augustan Anglican Church at 20th and State. The blessings of the archbishop and the financial support from Cleary paved the way for Fr. Orazio to establish an Italian-Catholic parish there.

Renamed Santa Maria Incoronata, the church held its first Mass on December 8, 1903, attracting a congregation of modest size. Within a few years, hundreds of Italian families congregated there every Sunday, and by the early 1900s, nearly a dozen Italian feasts were staged annually. 

With the untimely death of Fr. Orazio in 1903, the Scalabrini Fathers took charge of the parish, taking it and the feast to new heights. Land at 218 W. Alexander St. was secured with Cleary’s financial assistance, and Santa Maria Incoronata Church was built at its current location and dedicated a year later.

By 1954, the Feast of Maria SS. Incoronata was lasting a week and a half and attracting more than 6,000 people. But those halcyon days came to an end in the early 1960s with the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway, which cut through the heart of the neighborhood, displacing hundreds of parishioners.

As the burgeoning Chinatown overtook the area north of the expressway where the church is located, the feast was pushed to the brink of extinction. It miraculously rebounded, however, under the impassioned stewardship of the late Mike Rubino, who served as president from 1974 to 1998, and Rubino’s nephew Jim Distasio, who took up the mantle of leadership thereafter.

On the morning of the 116th anniversary of the feast, a cluster of candle houses waited patiently along the curb as family members embraced before entering the church for the High Mass. Within, they were greeted by a resplendent Madonna and Child, bedecked with flowers on the right side of the altar, while a gargantuan San Cristoforo stood watch from his post at the back of the church.

“As you walk in the procession today, Mary walks with you,” the Rev. Joseph Tito assured during the homily. “Mary is always with us, and she knew Christ. If you follow Mary, you will know Christ.”

Following brief salutations by Distasio at the end of Mass, the Blessed Mother exited through double doors to a cacophony of fireworks and confetti cannons as pink and blue balloons floated skyward. She then set forth down Alexander for a five-hour trek through the neighborhood. 

Among her entourage were the Sicilian Band of Chicago, family members with their candle houses and a group of children from nearby St. Lucy’s Church loosely organized into a Living Rosary. Leading the way was a David-sized version of San Cristoforo. It boggles the mind to consider that, back in the heyday of the feast, the 12-foot-tall goliath now permanently enshrined in the church was actually carried in procession, too. 

With water and snacks offered to weary sojourners along the route, including a generous sweet table set up by the Karagianes family on 25th Place, the procession made stops at upward of 40 homes, where a remarkable series of exchanges took place. Mother and Child would wait patiently on the pavement as family members brought their own children forward to touch, kiss and commune with the holy pair. 

“Our goal is to bring her as close to the people as possible so they can thank her face-to-face and build a relationship between her and their children, just like their parents did when they were children,” Distasio explained.

With her 2-year-old niece Lily James in her arms and tears in her eyes, Camille Marra Rubin said a prayer for her departed family members, touched the Blessed Mother, made the sign of the cross, and then gently led her niece through the same series of gestures.

The stop in front of the home of Distasio’s mother-in-law, Auxiliary President Lucille Salerno, was particularly poignant, as she would soon be moving to a newer home blocks away from the procession route. With her extended family chatting at a respectful distance, she lingered in front of the statue, consumed with sorrow, recalling loved ones and longtime club members who had recently gone to their eternal reward. Among them were her mother, Catherine Gurgone; aunts Elizabeth “Hazel” Nardi and immediate past Auxiliary President Josephine Parilli; and cousin Mickey Rose Nardi.

Upon the Blessed Mother’s arrival at St. Lucy’s, a trio of angels regaled her with prayer. “Break the captive’s fetters, light on blindness pour; all our ills expelling, every bliss implore,” Gianna Ciaccia, Joseph Ciaccia and Juliet Olson beseeched her. “Virgin all excelling, mildest of the mild, born for us thine infant, hear our prayers through thine.”

The threesome gleefully scattered rose petals to appreciative applause at prayer’s end. This year’s feast having fallen on the Blessed Mother’s birthday, parishioners Chris Notides and Maria Vinci presented her with a cake baked by Dina Stauber, who was born on the same date. 

After a pizza break in the basement of St. Lucy’s, the faithful carried the Blessed Mother up Princeton Street to St. Jerome’s, a historically Croatian parish, where men in traditional garb serenaded her in the language of their ancestors. Then it was back to St. Therese’s for a Benediction and buffet supper.

“It’s important to have traditions, and for those of us who grew up in this neighborhood, this is a very important one. It represents all of the graces that the Blessed Mother has bestowed upon us throughout our lives,” an exhausted-but-gratified Distasio said at the end of a very long day. “She is the glue that holds the family together, and she’s been a wonderful mother to us. She watches over us and protects us, and she has allowed us to celebrate her for more than a century. What a special woman to have kept us together for this long.”

Written by Paul Basile, Editor, Fra Noi