Seventy miles west of Orlando on the Gulf of Mexico is Tampa and the beaches of St. Petersburg-Clearwater. The white sand beaches, warm and shallow waters of the Gulf Coast, are often a welcome contrast to the cooler and deeper waters of the Atlantic and popular with families with young children. Tampa is one of the best hubs for Major League Baseball’s Spring Training Circuit, with the New York Yankees practicing in-town and the Toronto Blue Jays practicing in Dunedin, just outside of Tampa. Sports fans will also be drawn to the championship caliber Tampa Bay Lightening hockey team, Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team, and the annual college football Outback Bowl over the holiday season. The city also organizes unique festivals, such as the annual pirate festival – when pirates overtake the city for a week. The city’s Spanish colonial roots and legacy as the largest cigar making center in the world come alive in the historic Ybor City district, with its cobblestone and gas lit streets.
Tampa’s most famous renowned attraction is Busch Gardens – the park that is half zoo and half theme park – that is actually older than Walt Disney World. Many other attractions are clustered around the Hillsborough River, ringed by the Pedestrian-only Riverwalk. These include the Glazier Children’s Museum, the Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, and the Tampa Museum of Art. On nearby Tampa Bay, there are also plentiful opportunities to take in the modern Tampa skyline while gliding along the bay in a rented kayak or water bike. Just outside the downtown core are the Zoo Tampa, Florida Aquarium and Adventure Island. With enough advance planning, visitors can also schedule a tour of one of the most fascinating military bases in the U.S., MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
Tampa’s Catholic history goes back to the very early days of discovery in the New World. In fact, one of the early Spanish explorers upon arriving in Tampa Bay on the Feast of Pentecost 1539 christened the bay “Holy Spirit Bay.” Although a permanent settlement was never established in Tampa in these early days, there were periodic bouts of missionary activity, including what is believed to likely be the first recorded martyrdom in America. In 1549, Fr. Luis de Cancer sailed into the same bay and undertook a heroic missionary effort to evangelize the native peoples, even attempting to celebrate a mass for them on the feast of Corpus Christi. His efforts resulted in his martyrdom near a Tocabaga Village.
Tampa’s Catholic history comes alive at the impressive white marble and granite Sacred Heart Church, just a few blocks from the RiverWalk and surrounded by Tampa’s skyscrapers. Built in 1905 at the height of Tampa’s growth, the current church was built in the grand Romanesque design. It is a quiet oasis for prayer in the midst of the busy city. The church also captures the essence of Tampa’s Catholic history. When the original wood frame church was built in the 1850s, it was the first Catholic church in Tampa and was operated by the Jesuits. The church was named St. Louis, in honor of both the French king and Fr. Louis de Cancer. This was the headquarters for the Jesuit ministry across south Florida and its territory stretched from Tampa all the way to Key West. These Jesuit missionaries, based in Tampa, have been credited with establishing over thirty parishes across the state. In 2005, control of the parish was transferred to the Franciscans, who continue to administer it to this day.
Along the globe light and brick laid streets of Ybor City, what was once the global center of the cigar industry, is the old Salesian church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This was the first Salesian Church
The Franciscans have a very long history in south Florida, dating back to the first recorded Catholic missionary activity in America. On April 16, 1528, three years before Our Lady first appeared in the Americas to St. Juan Diego, over thirty five years before the more famous Catholic arrival on the east coast of Florida, and over one hundred years before French Jesuits started penetrating New England and English Jesuits accompanied English pilgrims to Maryland on the Ark and the Dove, 12 Franciscan priests accompanied the first European explorers to set foot in the continental United States.
Crossing the causeway from Tampa to St. Petersburg, this memorial of the first European landing is found in the Jungle Prada de Narvaez Park along the Boca Ciega Bay. A plaque marks the spot where this 600 man expedition landed. On the other side of the bay very close to St. Petersburg Beach is the parish church of St. John Vianney, which boasts lovely outdoor grotto with life size statues depicting the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima to the three shepherd children. It is a great stop for prayer after a day at the beach.
Just outside of downtown Tampa are two interesting sites. The first is the City of San Antonio. It was established in the late 1800s as a Catholic colony on Florida’s West Coast. It was the dream of one man, Edward Dunne. He was a devout Catholic who had served as Chief Justice in the Arizona Territory and he had received 100,000 acres as commission for a land purchase in Florida for a rich Philadelphia industrialist. He wanted to turn his tract into a safe haven and center of Catholic civilization in Florida, a refuge for the Catholics who were facing discrimination in other parts of the U.S. from the nativist riots of the mid century and also recalling the discrimination faced by Catholics in his native Ireland. He designed the town with the church and public square at its center and reserved parcels of land for a convent, monastery, school and orphanage. The town was named after St. Anthony of Padua. Today, visitors can still pray at the parish church – the third oldest Catholic Church in Florida – and visit the Benedictine monastery of St. Leo – with its Lourdes and Gethsemane grottos – and the Holy Name Monastery for the Benedictine Sisters.
The other destination of note outside of downtown Tampa is the Mary Help of Christians Center, operated by the Salesian Fathers. The campus includes a private school and retreat center. The parish church, built by the Salesians, was named after the Mary Help of Christians basilica that St. John Bosco built in Turin, Italy. There is a giant mosaic of the image of Mary Help of Christians rising above the main altar and a room in the rear of the church displays over 200 relics for veneration, as well as a full replica of the Shroud of Turin. The church is full of other eye catching mosaics that bring to life the stories of St. John Bosco and St. Dominic Savio.
CATHOLIC CONCIERGE 
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