St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

St. John the Evangelist Church, a little more than a block from Philadelphia City Hall (where the two major rapid transit lines, the Broad Street Line and Market-Frankford Line, cross), just south of Market on 13th Street, is one of the more active parishes in Philadelphia. (It offers five Masses each weekday, in the morning at 7:45 and 8:30 and at 12:05 and 1:05 and 5:15 p.m. to serving the numerous shoppers and workers in the dense Center City area, which has over 200,000 workers.) At one time, in an effort to serve a special population, it even had a Mass at 2:45 a.m. on Sundays for workers leaving their businesses at that time, called the "Printers' Mass," because of the many newspaper printing plants nearby.

It is also one of the few local parishes to offer confession on multiple days during the week, usually from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and on the vigil days for weekday holydays. This extensive sacramental schedule is offered even though the current number of homes registered in the parish is only 821 (due to the largely commercial nature of the surrounding area).

It is staffed by the Franciscan Capuchin order of priests (which began running the parish in 1991), but for most of its history was served by secular priests from the Philadelphia diocese and archdiocese. The pastor is Father John Daya. In addition to the daily Masses listed above, the Sunday schedule is 8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. (along with a Saturday evening Vigil Mass at 5:15 p.m.). Unlike the daily Masses, which are in the lower church, all the Sunday Masses are in the upper church.

The weekly church bulletin (with special schedules and listings of other events) is online.

The charter for the parish was granted on December 27, 1830, the feast of St. John the Evangelist, by the Bishop, Francis P. Kenrick, to the Rev. John Hughes, although the location for the church was not chosen until the following year. The church finally was consecrated on Passion Sunday (April 8) in 1832. The interior of the church, at the time (it was since damaged twice by fire), included a fresco painted by Nicholas Monachesi, who became renown as a local portrait painter and, in 1834, the United States premiere of Mozart's Requiem Mass was held at the church. It was later that year, on August 1, that the first fire on the block occurred.

...
Wikipedia