Gesu Catholic Parish

Our Name

The full name of the Church is: THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS CATHOLIC CHURCH. This has been shortened to  "Jesus" and  was translated to Italian. (GESÙ is the name "Jesus" in Italian.)

Our History
Gesu Catholic Church was founded as a Church in 1896. The first Catholic presence in Miami was in 1567 when Jesuit missionaries arrived with the Spanish settlement founded by Don Pedro Menendez de Avila at the mouth of the Miami River.



The first Catholic family settled at the mouth of the Miami River in 1850. The family of William and Evelyn Wagner purchased several acres of land where the Jackson Memorial Hospital is located today. There, a small Catholic chapel was built and services were conducted until 1889. It was destroyed by fire that year. Another Catholic family, that of Joseph and Catherine MacDonald, asked Henry Flagler in 1891 for land on which to build a new Catholic Church. Henry Flagler, though a Presbyterian, donated the land in central Miami where the first Catholic Church was built. Gesu Church today occupies this original site.

The New Orleans Mission of the Society of Jesus staffed the new Parish in 1896 with Jesuits sent from Sacred Heart Church in Tampa. The first pastor was the French born Jesuit, Fr.Ambrose Fontan S.J. The Parish was established several months before Miami was incorporated as a city in 1896. Gesu is the first Catholic parish in all of south-Florida (below Tampa).

The first church was built of wood at a total cost of around $ 3,600. By 1922, the wooden church proved too small, and the larger one we see today was built on the corner of North East 1st Avenue and 2nd Street. It seats 800 parishioners. It is a beautiful building with polychromed crystal leaded windows made in Germany, relating events in the life of Jesus and Mary. All altars are made of Italian Marble.

The history of the parish is related to the City of Miami. Since its beginnings, the work of the Jesuits has been much more than just Sacramental in the middle of a busy downtown Miami.