Melrose Park. Dominic Candeloro stated that, in the City of Chicago, few Italians have been elected to major offices because "The number of Italians in the larger electoral units has never been great enough to challenge successfully other ethnic groups, and the Mafia image has made it difficult for Italian politicians in larger districts" Candeloro added, "There has never been even a serious Italian candidate for mayor of Chicago." Jerome Cosentino, an ethnic Italian from Chicago, was elected Illinois State Treasurer, becoming the first to hold a statewide office in Illinois. Italian Chicago native Ralph C. Capparelli was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and served for 33 years (13th and 16th District) from 1971 to 2004. In 1996, Al Salvi ran for one of Illinois' US Senate seats, but lost. Religion The Italian community was and still is largely Catholic. Vecoli wrote that "A few Italian inner-city parishes remain, but most were either dissolved or turned over to incoming groups." This was a result in many moving out to the suburbs and the influx of Catholics from other ethnicities. The Church of the Assumption opened in the first Italian neighborhood in 1881. It was the first Italian Catholic church in Chicago. The Scalabrian Church of Santa Maria Incoronata served Italians living in what is now Chinatown. In the 1980s, the church became a mission of the St. Theresa Church as a way to serve Chinese people. Dominic Candeloro wrote that once the church changed into being a mission, it was no longer the "focal center" of the Italian community there. The religious institutions in the West Side of Chicago serving Italians included a hospital (founded by Mother Cabrini) and the Our Lady of Pompeii and Holy Guardian Angel Churches. The community at 69th and Hermitage attended the St. Mary of St. Carmel Church. The Italians in Pullman and Roseland attended the Scalabrian Church of St. Anthony of Padua. The local church in Chicago Heights was San Rocco, which opened in 1906 and was closed by Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in 1990. The Blue Island Italian settlement was served by the church of San Donatus. Italian religious street festivals have long occurred in Chicago and, as of the 1990s, several still continued. The Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo (Scalabrini Fathers) had several institutions in the western suburbs. The order operated institutions for ethnic and religious purposes.