Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church

Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church is the founding parish of Kansas City’s Mexican-American community on the Westside, established in 1914 by priests who had fled the Mexican Revolution. Its stone church building at 901 Avenida Cesar E. Chavez — dedicated in 1919 and permanently opened in 1922 — served for decades as the spiritual and cultural anchor of the Westside’s Latino neighborhood. Though consolidated into Sacred Heart Parish in 1991, the building has been preserved as a shrine and continues to draw the community for worship, feast day celebrations, and an active restoration effort.

History

Kansas City’s Westside Mexican-American community began to form around 1910, when workers recruited by the Santa Fe Railroad and Southern Pacific arrived to labor in the packing houses and rail yards clustered near the bluffs west of downtown. The informal settlement known as “La Colonia” took root around 23rd and Madison, and by 1914 the community numbered enough families to support a parish of their own.

The parish was founded on June 12, 1914, when Father Jose Muñoz and Father Arilo Corbato — a Carmelite priest driven from Mexico by the Revolution of 1910 — arrived in Kansas City and began organizing the community. The congregation’s first home was a rented storefront at the corner of Crane and Branner, blessed by the Bishop of Leavenworth; the inaugural Mass drew approximately 350 Mexican-American Catholics. This made Our Lady of Guadalupe the first Mexican Catholic parish in Kansas City.

In September 1919, the Diocese purchased a large stone church and rectory from the Swedish Immanuel Lutheran congregation for $18,000. The building, at 23rd Street and Madison Avenue, was dedicated on October 5, 1919, under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The congregation moved into permanent quarters at 901 Avenida Cesar E. Chavez (the street was later renamed in honor of the labor leader) in 1922.

The parish grew through the Pendergast era and the postwar decades as the Westside remained the center of KC’s Latino community. In October 1990, as part of a diocesan planning effort, the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph announced the consolidation of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish with nearby Sacred Heart Parish. The original church building closed as a parish in February 1991, and the merged congregation became Sacred Heart Guadalupe, now located at 2544 Madison Ave.

Community members responded immediately to the closure. Ramona Arroyo, Teresa Sauceda, and George Morales organized the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine Association, Inc., with the objective of maintaining the building as an active shrine. The Diocese approved and leased the building to the Association, preserving the site as a place of continuous worship and pilgrimage.

Architecture

The church building is constructed of large gray stones and presents a solid, unornamented mass consistent with late-19th-century Gothic Revival ecclesiastical construction — a legacy of its origins as a Swedish Lutheran church. The Diocese adapted the building for a Mexican Catholic congregation, and over subsequent decades the interior was transformed with devotional imagery central to Mexican Catholic identity.

Four stained glass windows depict the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the hill of Tepeyac outside Mexico City in 1531. The focal point of the interior is a large painted image above the high altar commissioned from a local artist, depicting the dark-skinned Madonna with a downcast head covered by a turquoise veil of stars — an iconographic rendering close to the tilma image venerated at the Basilica in Mexico City. Rows of pews lead to the altar, which is further adorned with statues and paintings of religious figures.

By 2024, the stone exterior had deteriorated significantly, prompting a community-led restoration campaign. The project, estimated at $900,000, was divided into three phases: the first addressed the stairs, ceiling, and damaged exterior stones; subsequent phases cover interior flooring and repainting, followed by full exterior stone repair.

Community traditions

The parish has always organized the community calendar around the December 12 feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico and of the Americas. The celebration begins in the predawn hours when parishioners gather to serenade the Virgin with Las Mañanitas, the traditional Mexican birthday song, a practice carried from Mexico by the original immigrant families and maintained uninterrupted through each generation. The feast day continues with a Solemn Mass, bilingual services, and mariachi music, drawing worshippers from across the broader KC Latino community, not only from the Westside.

The church is also a center for the novena — nine days of prayer in the lead-up to December 12 — and for community processions in which parishioners carry images and statues of the Virgin through the Westside streets.

The shrine draws pilgrims throughout the year and functions as a cultural landmark connecting the Westside’s present-day residents to more than a century of Mexican-American Catholic life in Kansas City.

Current status

The building operates as a shrine under the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine Association, Inc., in a lease arrangement with the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Active parish life for the consolidated congregation is centered at Sacred Heart Guadalupe, 2544 Madison Ave. The shrine holds regular Masses and is the site of the ongoing three-phase restoration effort that began in 2024.

See also

• westside-kc
• kc-mexican-american-food-tradition
• mattie-rhodes-center
• The KS.City Wiki