Old St. Joseph’s, Philadelphia’s first Roman Catholic church, is a testament to William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” for religious and civic freedom. The chapel was erected in 1733 when the Jesuit missionary Rev. Joseph Greaton left Maryland for Philadelphia in favor of Penn’s Charter of Privileges for Pennsylvanians. Often called “the church in the alley,” Old St. Joseph’s began as a home-chapel, whose unassuming external structure likely served to shield congregants from the religious persecution faced by Catholics at the time. By 1734 the scandal of a public Mass had made its way back to the Provincial Council who determined that the civil and religious freedom granted in Penn’s Charter took precedence over the Penal Laws of England, making Old St. Joseph’s the only place in pre-Revolution America that a public Catholic Mass could legally occur.
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