On Sunday, May 7 at 3:00 p.m., Most Blessed Sacrament Church in Bally, Pennsylvania will have its first public EF Mass since the post-Conciliar reforms. Founded as a mission outpost in 1741 by the Rev. Theodore Schneider (who called it St Paul’s Chapel), it was the third Catholic church in the colony of Pennsylvania. This original chapel still exists, accessible behind the sacristy of the current church, which was expanded in 1796 and again in 1837 when it was renamed Most Blessed Sacrament. Two years after founding the church, Schneider started a school, the St Aloysius Academy, which persists today at St Francis Academy and is the oldest continuously operated Catholic school in Pennsylvania. The town in which it resides was renamed Bally in honor of the Rev. Augustin Bally, a Belgian Jesuit who ran the parish from 1837 until his death in 1882. The church is located at 610 Pine Street.
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| The sanctuary of the church (click to enlarge.) |
