Venerable Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli O.P. was one of the very first Catholic missionary priests in the Midwestern United States. Reverend John Ireland, Archbishop of St. Paul, called Mazzuchelli “the pathfinder in the wilderness.” Mazzuchelli’s work establishing relationships with the native peoples and new settlers as well as his continuous efforts to build church buildings and pastor the growing Catholic communities in the USA blazed a path for his peers.
 
Born Carlo Gaetano Samuel Mazzuchelli on November 4, 1806, in Milan, Italy, he was the 16th of 17 children in his family! When he was only 17 years old, he entered the Dominican order and changed his name to Friar Samuel. Answering a recruitment call by his order to serve in the new, missionary Diocese of Cincinnati in America, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Edward Fenwick, first Bishop of Cincinnati, in 1830.
 
After his first five years as a priest was spent at Sainte Anne Church on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron, Michigan, Bishop Fenewick assigned him to be the missionary priest of the whole of the Northwest Territory.
 
Father Mazzuchelli spent the rest of his years traveling this vast area on horseback, in native canoes, and on foot. He traveled and served communities from the Great Lakes region to the Mississippi and beyond. He encountered and worked alongside new immigrant settlers, miners, and farmers, as well as native tribes, political leaders, and other Christian denominations. He designed and built over 24 churches and other buildings, many local parishes remaining to this day! He started the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa and was described by those that knew him as a sensitive warm man full of mercy, truth and virtue, boldness and zeal. On July 6, 1993, Pope John Paul II allowed Fr. Mazzuchelli’s Cause for sainthood. His path toward Beatification and Canonization continues.