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About Us

Welcome to Bellarmine Chapel (St. Robert Bellarmine Chapel), a Catholic parish located at the center of Xavier University serving the campus and parishioners from over sixty zip codes in the Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana area.

Bellarmine Chapel is deeply committed to promoting lay leadership in our parish and has a strong tradition of action and outreach inspired by catholic social teaching. We are a growing and vibrant parish, deeply connected to Xavier University and the wider community. Our location on a university campus provides a unique opportunity to work with future leaders of the Church. Our livestream liturgies allow us to invite more people than ever to become part of this dynamic and exciting catholic community.

As a Jesuit parish, we are one of the many works connected to the Society of Jesus. Jesuits serve alongside our lay colleagues in our varied ministries. We care for the whole person: body, mind, and soul. Jesuits seek to deepen God’s life in each of us through prayer practices based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. Our spiritual formation in the Ignatian tradition informs our outreach. It continually ignites our zeal for Bellarmine’s extensive and growing social mission.

Our Mission

Bellarmine Chapel is a Catholic faith community that strives to live out the teachings and example of Jesus Christ in the spiritual tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola. We seek to be a parish where the Holy Spirit transforms lives in new and creative ways.

Nourished at the table of the Eucharist, we are sent on a mission to make disciples, serve those in need, work for justice, and welcome all with love.

Our Values

  • Following the spiritual pathway of St. Ignatius, especially the Spiritual Exercises and discernment
  • A strong connection to the wider Catholic Church, as well as other faith communities
  • Trust that the power of God will make our efforts successful as we, lay leaders and Jesuits, collaborate in the work and decisions of our parish
  • Continual faith formation across all generations
  • Helping our young people to form strong relationships and create a hope-filled future

  • Celebration of the sacraments
  • Gathering as a community of loved sinners and everyday saints in shared worship
  • Centrality of the Eucharist

  • Inherent dignity and worth of every person
  • Diversity in the broadest sense that transcends categories and labels
  • Service, compassion, charity, and generosity
  • Care for creation, our common home
  • Preferential love for the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized
  • Inclusion that welcomes and nourishes the gifts of everyone
  • Prophetic witness to justice and liberation, removing barriers to full human thriving

Our parish was initially formed in April of 1927 to serve the neighborhood community in the proximity of Xavier University.

Before the construction of Bellarmine Chapel, the parish shared space in the university’s administration building for events and liturgies.

The present chapel was built in 1962 and remodeled in 1998. An addition was designed and built in 2004, providing additional office space and an expanded narthex with a baptistry. Besides the chapel itself, we have a Parish Center on campus with staff offices and group meeting spaces.