Vacation/Travel Supplement

Kentucky’s ‘Holy Land’: Bardstown played key role in growth of U.S. Church

Completed in 1819, the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown, Ky., was the first cathedral built in the United States west of the Alleghany Mountains. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

BARDSTOWN, KY.—As you drive south on Interstate 65 out of Louisville and into central Kentucky, there is little evidence in the surrounding countryside that you are entering a region which played a key role in the early development of the Catholic Church in the United States.

But you would be doing exactly that if you got off the highway about an hour south of Louisville and headed over the rolling hills to the small town of Bardstown.

There, and in the area surrounding it, you will find the first cathedral west of the Appalachians, an even older parish church and rectory that also served as the first seminary in the American frontier, and some of the first religious communities in the United States.

In 1808, Pope Pius VII carved the new Diocese of Bardstown out of the Diocese of Baltimore, which at the time was the only Catholic diocese in the country.

One of the main reasons that Pope Benedict XVI visited the United States in April was to celebrate the bicentennial of these dioceses.

Originally, the Diocese of Bardstown stretched from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and from the Allegheny Mountains to the Mississippi River.

In the two centuries since its establishment, 40 other dioceses have been created from its original lands, including the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

So, in many respects, by visiting Bardstown, you are tracing the roots of our own local Church in central and southern Indiana.

Pope Pius chose Bardstown along with the more well-established cities of Boston, New York and Philadelphia as the centers of new dioceses in the United States because the late 1700s saw some 300 Catholic families from Maryland move west and settle there.

Although the new diocese was established in 1808, its first leader, Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget—a French priest who had fled to the United States from France during the French Revolution—didn’t arrive there until 1811.

Once he was settled, Bishop Flaget worked quickly to help his infant Church to grow larger.

This can be seen in the buildings of St. Thomas Parish, a few miles south of Bardstown.

The log cabin on the grounds that served as both the original home of Bishop Flaget and the first seminary on the American frontier was recently renovated, and everything you will see there, down to the wooden nails, is original from the time.

Visitors can tour the grounds any time by appointment. However, the parish property is only open to the public from noon until 2 p.m. on Sundays from May 1 to Nov. 1. The parish’s church, which dates from 1816, is also of interest.

For more information about the parish and its history, log on to www.st-thomasparish.org.

Three years after St. Thomas Parish built its church, the construction of St. Joseph Cathedral in Bardstown was completed. The Proto-Cathedral, as it is called now, continues to serve as a parish church almost 200 years later.

Much larger than St. Thomas Church, the cathedral—with its tall spire and interior marked by paintings that were gifts from popes and European royalty—must have been an impressive site to visitors who arrived at the small frontier town out of the seemingly endless forests of the time.

Also impressive is the fact that the building of the Proto-Cathedral was an ecumenical affair with Protestant Christians of the area lending their aid to a project they felt would increase the prestige of their town.

For more information about the Proto-Cathedral, log on to www.bardstown.com/~stjoe.

Other signs around Bardstown of the life of the Church 200 years ago include the motherhouses of the Sisters of Loretto and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, both founded in 1812.

More religious orders also established themselves in the new diocese in the following years, including the Jesuits and the Dominican friars and sisters.

Perhaps more well-known among these religious orders are the Trappist monks of Gethsemani Abbey, located about 12 miles south of Bardstown.

Founded in 1848, seven years after the Diocese of Bardstown became the Diocese of Louisville, the Trappist monks have maintained an apostolate of contemplative prayer and monastic liturgies for more than 150 years.

It was their way of life that attracted a young Thomas Merton to join the community in 1941. Merton, who was known to his fellow monks as Father Louis, became a major Catholic spiritual author in the mid-20th century. Perhaps his most famous book is his 1948 autobiography titled The Seven Storey Mountain.

Visitors to the monastery can enjoy the same prayerful silence of the monastery’s church and its surrounding countryside that attracted Merton.

They can also purchase the cheese and bourbon fudge that the monks produce and sell to support their monastic community.

These and other Catholic historical sites in the region around Bardstown have led it to be known as the “Kentucky Holy Land.”

But as the Trappist monks’ means of support suggests, the Bardstown area is also known for its bourbon distilleries, including Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark and Heaven Hill.

Visitors to these distilleries learn that the way bourbon was made 200 years ago is continued today.

An annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival (www.kybourbonfestival.com) and a Kentucky Bourbon Trail (www.kentuckybourbontrail.com) will interest some tourists.

Travelers to Bardstown might also consider spending time at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in which is preserved the home of a cousin of 19th-century composer Stephen Foster, who wrote what became Kentucky’s state song, “My Old Kentucky Home,” while visiting the area.

A musical based on Foster’s songs, Stephen Foster: The Musical, is performed several times a week in the park during the summer months.

For more information about the state park and the musical, log on to http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/recparks/mo.

Bardstown, a relatively short drive from many areas in the archdiocese, is home to a wide variety of historical attractions that suit many tastes, and all of them are nestled in the beautiful wooded hills of central Kentucky. †