The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or "Conewago Chapel" as it was called in colonial times was a combination log dwelling and chapel built in 1741 under the direction of Father William Wappeler, S.J., a priest sent to look after the German Catholic immigrants, who began to settle here in the 1730s. The chapel was dedicated to St. Mary of the Assumption, but immediately it was called "Conewago Chapel." Even after that chapel was demolished and the present church erected, the name "Conewago Chapel" still remains. The chapel was enlarged in 1768 , and it became the headquarters of the Jesuit missionaries of the St. Francis Regis mission circuit, which embraced most of the vast territory in Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna and Western Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Jesuits identified it as the "motherhouse of all the Jesuits houses in Pennsylvania, save Philadelphia." It has also been called the "Gateway of the Faith."

 

"The Sacred Heart of Jesus" is the name given to the Church by Father James Pellentz S. J. one of the unfaltering band of missionaries who himself arrived here in 1758.  It thus became the first parish church in America dedicated to the loving heart of our divine saviour. Today, it is the oldest Catholic Church building in the United States made of stone. He became pastor ten years later and died here in 1800.  A man of vision and ability, he merited the close friendship of the Rt. Rev. John Carroll, America's first Prefect Apostlic and Bishop, becoming America's first Vicar General in 1791.  By 1784, the Conewago congregation had grown to over a thousand members and a new Church  was a necessity.  With the active help of the parishioners, the largest church within the new nation was started in 1785 and completed in 1787.  The spacious rectory was built at the same time.