The College of St Joseph the Worker has announced plans to purchase, exorcise and renovate a Masonic temple in Steubenville, Ohio, transforming it into a Catholic shrine, restaurant and theatre.
In November 2026, the Freemasons will host their final event at the Steubenville Masonic Temple before vacating the building. Students at the College of St Joseph the Worker will then begin converting it into what will be known as Immaculata Hall.
Acquiring the property required an assist from above, Wes Cimmarrusti, the college's chief marketing officer, told the Catholic Herald.
"Our president, Jacob Imam, had the bold idea to begin a daily prayer walk around the Masonic Temple and to continue until St Joseph and Our Lord placed the building into the College's hands," he said.
St Joseph, Cimmarrusti said, "has been extraordinarily faithful in his intercession for our College. We would not be here without him. It is therefore fitting that our journey toward acquiring this building began not with a development plan, but with prayer."
Once the purchase is complete, the college will have "a coherent campus in the heart of downtown Steubenville", he said.
To complete the purchase, the college must raise US$4 million by January 10, Cimmarrusti said. It has already raised "just over US$1 million".
"This is an ambitious undertaking, but it is also a tangible one. Supporters will be helping transform a former Masonic temple into Immaculata Hall: a Catholic shrine and a centre of cultural, intellectual and civic life," he said.
The College of St Joseph the Worker prepares students to become "effective and committed members of their communities by teaching them the Catholic intellectual tradition while training them in skilled and dignified labor", according to the college's website.
Graduates receive "a Bachelor of Arts in Catholic Studies, training in a skilled trade, assistance in finding a well-paid job, and no crippling debt", the website says.
The college already owns buildings on three sides of the soon-to-be former Masonic Temple, as well as the land at its centre, which is being converted into a traditional campus quadrangle.
After the college formally acquires the property, it will be exorcised before students begin the restoration work.
"Our own construction company will perform much of the restorative and transformative work on the building," Cimmarrusti said. "Our students will be paid wages while also gaining the skills, experience and formation that come from doing the work themselves."
In doing so, students "will not simply study the restoration of Christian culture in the abstract", he said. "They will place their hands upon a building and help reclaim, rebuild and beautify it for Christ and His Church."
"It is not enough for Catholics merely to affirm the idea of sanctifying the temporal order. We must build institutions, restore places, educate students, and participate concretely in that work," Cimmarrusti said.
The college has ambitious plans for Immaculata Hall.
The first is the creation of what it calls an "athenaeum", a place where "a community kept its books, heard its music, and argued about its highest things". The theatre will seat 500 people, "the size of which an orchestra and a paying audience can occupy the same room, and at which a lecturer, a string quartet, or a chorus needs no amplification to be heard".
In addition, the planned shrine will house first-class relics and a replica of the Shroud of Turin, according to the college's website. It will be open to the public and to pilgrims, creating "a space long closed to the town reopened and given back to God".
The final element of the redevelopment, Clement's Cafe, is intended to become the first high-end restaurant in downtown Steubenville.
"Because a concert hall without a table nearby empties the moment the last note ends, and because a downtown with no reason to stay after six o'clock is not yet a downtown," the college said.
"Contemplation, worship, and a good dinner have kept company for a very long time. We see no reason to separate them now."
