A block south of Chicago Ave. on N. Armour St. is Holy Innocents Church. Since I was already taking a walk on that part of Chicago Ave. in the city on Gaudete Sunday on a clear and practically warm day for December, I figured I’d take a look.

Holy Innocents is yet another of the city’s grand churches built in the early 20th century for Chicago’s enormous Polish population, and yet another design by Worthmann & Steinbach. Like St. Mary of the Angels, Covenant Presbyterian, First Lutheran of the Trinity and St. Barbara — all in Chicago.
Romanesque Revival with Byzantine elements, the building was completed in 1912 and renovated in 2005.

I arrived not long after the beginning of a mass in Polish. I sat in for part of it. The crowd wasn’t massive, but a number of congregants were scattered around the sizable interior of the church.
Unlike the Latin mass at St. John Cantius last year, I couldn’t pick out any words at all, so unfamiliar am I with the Polish language. No matter.

Besides Polish, the church offers masses in English and Spanish as well, which seems only fitting considering the modern population. Since the service was in progress, I wasn’t able to poke around the church, but I did notice — they’re hard to miss — a shrine devoted to Our Lady of Częstochowa on the left side of the church (as you face the altar) and another devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe on the right. Also fitting.