ABOUT ST. SUSANNA AND HER Church
The Hieronymian Martyrology (a book giving martyrs’ names, dates and some facts about them) seems to establish the historical existence of Susanna as a virgin-martyr of the city of Rome n the third century, 295 AD. This very early Martyrology states: “In Rome, at the ‘Two Houses’ beside the Bath of Diocletian, the birthday of St. Susanna.” (“Birthday” refers to a martyr’s death day, natalitia, the day of the martyr’s birth into eternal life.”
Around the existence of Susanna there evolved a complicated story. Some of its details: she was the daughter of a learned priest, St. Gabinius; her uncle was Pope St. Caius (283-296); because of her vow of virginity, she refused to marry the heir an adopted son of her half-cousin, martyrdom became her shrine. There has been a church at the site of her family home since the third century. The details about St. Susanna come from a story of martyrdom which was composed about the year 500 AD. St. Susanna, as a native of Rome, was especially honored there. Her church is in the center of the city which sites the main railroad station.
Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922) assigned the Church of St. Susanna to the Paulist Fathers of American in order to provide for the special needs of Americans living in Rome and for ministry to English-speaking visitors to the city. Each Cardinal is assigned his own church in Rome. In recent times, the Popes have regularly assigned the Church of St. Susanna to an American Cardinal, most usually, the Archbishop of Boston, when made a Cardinal.
           Bishop John Wright first came to know of St. Susanna as a seminarian from Boston. He served the interest of St. Susanna Church when he was secretary to Cardinal William O’Connell,  whom Pope Pius XI made Cardinal of St. Susanna.
           So it happened very easily that, when Bishop John Wright was looking for the saint’s name for the new parish he was establishing in the eastern part of Penn Hills, he recalled his beloved St. Susanna Church in Rome. Bishop Wright, no doubt, liked giving his new parish a very distinctive name- the title for the parish which was Roman, American, and a bit Bostonian. And, in God’s mysterious providence it would turn out the Cardinal Wright would end his earthly course and go to his heavenly reward on August 10, 1979, the day before St. Susanna’s feast.