The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish will celebrate the 131st anniversary of its devotion to the Blessed Mother on July 14. Festivities will begin with a 7:30 a.m. Mass in English and a 9 a.m. solemn Mass in Italian, followed by a procession with the statue of the Blessed Mother to a noon field Mass. A procession through the streets of the parish af...

The National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini will honor the life and legacy of America’s first saint with a birthday Mass at 4 p.m. on July 13. The shrine is located in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in a building that once housed Columbus Hospital. Cabrini and her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus built the hospital as we...

Freshly baked pastries, coffee, breakfast and deli sandwiches, pizza, wine, and more are all on the menu at the new Petterino’s Pasticceria in the heart of Chicago’s Loop and Theatre District. Corporate executive chef John Boudouvas joined us with a taste. Serving handcrafted UMBRIA coffee and a delectable array of freshly baked pastries, breakfast...

The Italian students at Ridgewood High School in Norridge were proud to play host to a delegation from Italy on May 23. Among the honored guests were Attilio Fontana, president of the region of Lombardy; Raffaele Cattaneo, the region’s undersecretary for European and International Public Relations; Maria Luisa Scalise, the region’s director of Inte...

Like other social clubs felled by the worldwide pandemic, the Burgio Woman’s Club could have dissolved in recent years. Instead, the 71-year-old nonprofit organization based in the Chicago area is experiencing a resurgence of new activity. “Our members really worked hard to keep it moving forward, and now we are stronger and more active than ever b...

Defining her identity and pinpointing where she feels most at home — in Italy or the United States — has never been easy for Raffaella Spilotro, the director of the children’s summer camp at Casa Italia in Stone Park. That’s because, for the first nine years of her life, Spilotro grew up in Capurso, a small town in the province of Bari, Puglia, wit...

The Italian Cultural Institute and Opera Festival of Chicago present an inspiring conversation about Giacomo Puccini, on the occasion of the 100th year anniversary of his passing. Specially, we will hear from world renowned tenor Jonathan Tetelman, who just finished singing the role of Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the Met, and Oliver Camacho, h...

Bernard Ghilarducci and Luigi Banducci are close friends who have been at the helm of the Chicago-area Mazzini Verdi Club since about 2007, when they started alternating two-year presidency terms. Ghilarducci’s current term as president started Jan. 1. A retired engineer, he has been a member of the club since 1980, when he and his wife, Fidalma, j...

After 27 years as a member of the Beato Giovanni Liccio Society of Chicago, current President Tony Sapienza is as active and enthusiastic as ever. The group’s mission is to promote and foster the teachings of its patron, Beato Giovanni Liccio, a 15th century priest from Caccamo, Sicily, who spent his life helping the needy and the poor, and to whom...

Kristina Knighten and her husband, Paul Cordier, were living in the United Arab Emirates and working as TEFL-certified teachers when they decided they were serious about buying their first home in America. Knighten, 38, was raised in the Chicago suburbs, and Cordier, 45, was raised in London but loved the idea of living in the Windy City after havi...