Clergy

Pastor: Rev. William M. Bowling
Permanent Deacons: Joseph J. “Jim” Creely III and James R. Turner

Pastoral Staff

Music Director: Dr. Louie Hehman
Bookkeeper: Cathy Summers

Mass Schedule

Sundays — Sun: 9 a.m., 4:30 p.m. (Spanish), 9:30 p.m.
Holy Days — See Bulletin
Daily — Tue, Thurs: 10 a.m.

Reconciliation

Sundays— 4 p.m. (Spanish), 9 p.m.

History

Holy Name began as a faith community of twenty Catholic families, most of whom gained their livelihood as Louisville and Nashville Railroad workers. The first Mass was celebrated in the rectory on March 1, 1891. By May, a beautiful, frame Gothic church was completed. The parish grew so rapidly that within two years Father John T. O’Connor, the first pastor, had to build an addition, doubling the seating from 160 to 320. With the transfer of the freight terminal of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad to South Louisville, the parish surged in membership.

By 1902, a combination church-school building was constructed. As the school grew, plans developed to build a permanent church structure; completed in 1912, it remains today.

From then on, the parish developed, among other things, a parochial mega-school, a musical establishment consisting of the Holy Name Band and choral clubs, the city-wide Corpus Christi observance, an influential Holy Name Society, a powerful St. Vincent de Paul ministry, and the “backside,” or barn-area ministry at Churchill Downs. The parish gave birth to Most Blessed Sacrament (1937), Our Mother of Sorrows (1937), St. Thomas More (1944), SS. Simon and Jude (1950), St. John Vianney (1951), and St. Jerome (1953).

The school was staffed by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth until it closed in 1992 because of a declining Catholic population. The Sisters of Charity remained involved in the outreach efforts of the parish, establishing the Doors to Hope Ministry in 2012, providing ESL, GED, Citizenship and Computer Literacy classes, and After School Tutoring. A Women’s Support Group met each week for ongoing education and advocacy. In 2018 Doors to Hope moved to the St. Simon and Jude parish campus.

Parish outreach efforts include ministry to the growing Hispanic population in the Louisville Metro area. Holy Name is the parish church for the University of Louisville and hosts the U of L campus ministry Sunday Mass at 11:00 a.m. when classes are in session. The Catholic Charities Father Jack Jones Food Pantry is located on the Holy Name campus, serving the needy in our area. Parishioners from Holy Name and many other parishes and organizations volunteer at the Food Pantry. Today, with about 550 parishioners, the intense efforts of earlier parishioners to build a parish are still bearing fruit.