Al Capone: notorious gangster, St. John Eudes’ neighbor… Well, sort of. 

Mt. Carmel and Queen of Heaven are two cemeteries run by the Archdiocese of Chicago right across the road from each other. Al Capone’s final resting place is at the southern edge of the former. The latter contains a 7′ granite statue of St John Eudes on a 3′ pedestal in a small open-air shrine. 

We discovered this fun fact during a recent trip to the Provincial Archives in Quebec. 

We have found no explanation so far for how (or why) the shrine was built. However, the archives do contain a letter written from a priest of Chicago to Fr. Wilfred Myatt CJM, dated February 14, 1963. Fr. Myatt worked for a time at a Eudist seminary opened in Willowbrook, MD and supervised the project of translating 7 of St John Eudes’ major works into English. 

The letter simply states that the shrine has been completed, but a stained glass window is still in the works. That’s all we know! 

Here’s a map of the cemetery showing the shrine in area #40 

And here it is on Google Maps. Next time anyone’s in the Chicago area, we’d love some pictures!