Funds sought to save log house crucial to Kentucky Catholic history

Published: 2003-12-30

BARDSTOWN, Ky. (CNS) -- A capital campaign has begun to preserve the historic structure where the roots of Catholicism in Kentucky -- and in an expansive area west of the Allegheny Mountains -- were planted about two centuries ago. That structure is a more-than-200-year-old log house located next to St. Thomas Church just south of Bardstown. The two-story building, constructed in 1795, is called the Benedict Joseph Flaget Log House -- named after the first bishop of the Bardstown Diocese, the forerunner to the Archdiocese of Louisville. It was in this house where Bishop Flaget once lived, where the early administration of the diocese formed in 1808 took place, where the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth had their roots and where the first seminarians of the new diocese studied. The house is a "symbol of the early period" of the Catholic Church in Kentucky, said Father Steve Pohl, pastor of St. Thomas Parish. Father Pohl also is one of 12 members of the Log House Restoration Committee, which is directing the restoration project and conducting the $1.2 million fund-raising campaign.

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