ABSTRACT
Italian Americans, like their relatives back home, continued the long tradition of veneration of the saints, including among their number the Virgin Mary, as intercessors between themselves and Christ. In the early days of Italian America, it was common for a group of fellow paesani, clustered in their own neighborhood, to institute a mutual aid society under the banner of their hometown’s patron saint. Many Italian Americans honor Saint Anthony of Padua with annual feasts, but the devotions have various origins and are played out quite differently in a number of Italian American communities. The statue of Saint Anthony had been kept in Saint Leonard Church until a stingy priest who wanted all its takings evicted it. Baltimore’s earliest Italian residents worshipped outside Little Italy at the Church of Saint Vincent de Paul, which held Italian masses as early as 1874.
