The Catholic population of the early 1850s consisted of only a few families, augmented for a short time by a small number of laborers who were constructing the National Road.

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd founded a convent on the southwest corner of Broad and Sandusky Streets in 1865, and Mass was first regularly held on the West Side there.

By special privilege, the Catholics living nearby attended Mass in the private chapel of the convent on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

In 1871 Bishop Sylvester Rosecrans established St. Aloysius Seminary for the preparation of young men for the priesthood, on property purchased for the purpose from the Sullvant family.

The object of the people's endeavors was accomplished by Bishop Rosecrans when he found it necessary to close the Seminary in the summer of 1876, owing to lack of support.

[2] Eventually, Christy acquired a church, formerly occupied by the United Brethren, on the comer of Sandusky and Shepherd Streets, adjoining the seminary.

A contract was written for the purchase of the church, but the legal transfer was never made owing to a defect in the title, causing the property to remain in litigation for several years.

In the meantime Father Christy had the church remodeled and arranged according to the requirements of a Catholic place of worship, and on Friday, June 8, 1877, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he celebrated Mass there for the first time and dedicated the structure.

Father Hayes recognized the fact that the property then occupied by the congregation, formerly owned by the United Brethren, could not be legally held and must be sold to satisfy the claims of mortgages under the former ownership.

Arrangements were made to rent the building and continue possession of it for church and school purposes until other property could be acquired by the congregation.

On April 1, 1881, Father Hayes came into possession of the four lots and a residence situated on the northeast corner of Broad and Skidmore Streets, the present site of the church, rectory and convent.

After High Mass on Sunday, November 16, a meeting of the men of the congregation was held in the school room of the old building to develop plans to finish the new church, the foundations of which had laid covered for nearly two years, and Michael Harding was selected as the architect.

It was determined to finish the entire basement, and construct a temporary chapel with classrooms separated from it by a hallway running full length of the building.

Clarke determined to avoid borrowing large sums of money so the parish was not burdened with heavy debt and consequent interest payments.

[5] The church also offered the Tridentine Mass from 2001[6] until 2019, when Saint Leo Oratory was established to serve the needs of the traditional Catholic community of Columbus.

[7] Until a 2021 move, the parish high school building was home to the Jubilee Museum and Catholic Cultural Center, the largest institution of its kind in the United States according to Cardinal Francesco Marchisano.

[8] In January 2022, the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, otherwise known as Mercedarians, sent two priests to the parish at the invitation of then-bishop of Columbus Robert J. Brennan.