Saint Leo Abbey, located in Pasco County, Florida, traces its beginnings to 1882 when Judge Edmund F. Dunne founded the Catholic Colony of San Antonio.

Sent by Archabbot Boniface Wimmer of Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Father Gerard Pilz, O.S.B., arrived in 1886 as the first Benedictine in Florida.

He was dispatched to Florida in response to a request by Bishop John Moore of St. Augustine for a German-speaking priest to minister to the growing German-immigrant population of the colony.

[1] In 1888, Saint Vincent Archabbey transferred ministry to the colony to Mary Help of Christians Abbey in Belmont, North Carolina.

In the early part of the 20th century, St. Leo's Benedictines monks could be found in churches and missions throughout the northern half of peninsular Florida.

On June 4, 1889, the Florida Legislature approved the charter that allowed the Catholic religious order to build and operate a school that later became Saint Leo University.