HERE ARE PHOTOS of Saint Mary Church, in Carlyle, Illinois. A part of the Diocese of Belleville, this church is located in Clinton County, approximately 49 highway miles east of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri.
The church is dedicated to Our Lady under her title of the Immaculate Conception.
The parish dates from 1853, making it second oldest in the county. This originally was a German language parish.
This parish was subject to calamity on two occasions; the 1871 church was destroyed by a tornado in 1905, and this structure suffered from a massive fire in 1940. Click here for a detailed timeline of parish history.
Carlyle is the county seat of Clinton County, and is the site of a dam on the Kaskaskia River, operated by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. The dam forms the largest artificial reservoir in the state, Carlyle Lake, 26,000 acres in size, which is used for flood control and recreational boating.
Photos taken after the vigil Mass of the First Sunday in Advent. Seating capacity is approximately 1000, and this church was filled when I attended.
The sanctuary and altars are marble, made with stone imported from Italy, Spain, and Africa, and native stone quarried in Sainte Genevieve, Missouri, and Tennessee.
Side altar of Saint Joseph, foster-father of Jesus, with a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the left, and Saint Anthony of Padua on the right.
The back on the church is decorated with symbols taken from titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Litany of Loreto. The round medallions at the top include her titles "Gate of Heaven", "Tower of Ivory", and "Vessel of Honor", and the square symbols on the choir loft continue with other titles from the Litany.
Stained glass window of Saint Isidore Farmer and Saint Christopher.
The stained glass windows in the 1905 church came from Lewis Sealy, Sr., of Munich, Germany, and after the 1940 fire, were repaired by Sealy's sons who were then working for Emil Frei of Saint Louis.
Click here for more photos of Catholic churches in Clinton County.
Carlyle, Illinois 62231
Posted by Mark S. Abeln at 12/14/2008 08:53:00 AM
Dual Role Grandma Friday, October 28, 2011 12:57:00 PM
I have been there, and it is a little jewelbox of a church. The music was a beat or two behind the last time I was at Mass there, but everything else was very reverent.