History

St. Clement Church history began in 1912 with a Mass celebrated in the home of Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Burch on East Baker Street in Plant City. The celebrant was the Rev. Alfred Latiolais, S.J., Director of Jesuit Missions in central Florida.

Jesuit priests first were assigned to central Florida in 1888, at the request of Bishop John Moore of the Diocese of St. Augustine. Yellow Fever had taken the lives of three Tampa priests within an eleven month period. Bishop Moore also was recovering from Yellow Fever, at the time, and had no more priests to assign to Tampa. He asked the New Orleans Jesuit Province to send a Spanish speaking priest to Saint Louis Church in Tampa.

The change from mission church to parish church was appreciated by the Catholic families of Plant City. The mission church had been a blessing to the small, isolated Catholic community in 1912, but by 1929 Plant City was a progressive town with a growing Catholic population. The limited religious and spiritual offerings of the mission church no longer met the needs of the Catholic families in the area.