American Shrines: St. Jude

Claretian Fr. James Tort founded the National Shrine of St. Jude in 1929 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Chicago. Many of his parishioners were dependent on work in the nearby steel mills, which were subject to national economic conditions of the 1920s.

Fr. Tort had a strong devotion to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hope and hopeless or difficult causes, who was relatively unknown to the general Catholic population at that time. Night after night, however, he asked St. Jude for his intercession to help the workers of the parish. In an effort to lift the spirits of his parishioners, Fr. Tort began regular devotions to St. Jude, including the first Solemn Novena which was held on February 17, 1929.

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