St. Bonaventure Catholic Community was established by the order of the late Archbishop William O. Brady on October 21, 1958. He invited the Conventual Franciscans to organize the parish and Fr. Ambrose Finnegan, OFM Conv. was appointed as the first pastor.

The first Mass was celebrated by the pastor on February 8, 1959 in the gymnasium of the Cedarcrest Elementary School on the corner of 87th Street and Bloomington Ave. 1200 people were in attendance at the four Masses offered by Fr. Ambrose and Fr. Urban Wagner, OFM Conv.

In 1959 a Building fund was started. Each wage earner was asked to contribute $2.00 on the second Sunday of each month. On October 12th of that year construction started on the present parish offices. In November work began on what is now the Social Hall, but at that time it was the first church. On Sunday, June 19, 1960 Sunday Mass was held for the first time on the St. Bonaventure grounds.

Fr. Ambrose was able to see his dream come true when on September 10, 1967 Archbishop Leo Binz solemnly blessed the new church and offered the first Mass. The church seats 900 people gathered around the skylight covered sanctuary. Seating is arranged in three sections so that no one is more than fifty feet from the altar. A roof sloping toward the sanctuary focuses attention on the liturgy.

We are proud that a significant number of liturgical music selections which are sung among English speaking Catholics throughout the world were first heard here at St. Bonaventure. From the very beginning music has been an important and integral part of the liturgy. Loretta Kaley was the first music director, then in 1974 Marty Haugen moved into that position and stayed for nine years. It was during that period that Marty wrote a large number of original compositions for the parish which he later had published. The music continued under the direction of Mark Schultz who sang with Marty in the seventies and became Music Director in 1986. With the new Millennium Mark turned the helm over to Sue Morton, his assistant for the past year and a half.  Today, Karen Thompson is St. Bonaventure’s Music Director.

From the beginning when the Conventual Franciscans were asked to found the parish many friars have been a part of the community including these pastors:  Frs. Quintan and Howard in the 1970s, Fr. Edmund during most of the 1980s and Fr. Regis into the 1990s. Our current pastor, Fr. Bernie Zajdel, began serving us in 1997.