Category: Sites & Stories Page 1 of 3

Author: Daniel Gorman Jr.

Coptic Orthodox Christians have a long history in Egypt, dating to the first century C.E. Tradition holds that St. Mark the Evangelist founded the church in Egypt, and that the modern-day pope of the Coptic Church is part of an unbroken line of patriarchs, dating to Mark.^[i] At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 C.E., the Egyptian faction rejected the prevailing argument that Jesus Christ was one person with two separate natures — one divine, and one human. Instead, Copts argued that Christ had a single nature in hypostasis — one person, one united nature from two, divine and human. This theology set the Alexandrian (Coptic), Syrian, and other Oriental Orthodox churches apart from the dyophysite (two-nature) Byzantine and Roman churches.^[ii]

When I interviewed Br. Antonios the Shenoudian of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery, he elaborated on the Coptic idea of Christ: “When we say that Christ is one, we believe that he is fully divine and fully human, but there was a union that had to happen in such a way that it preserved his humanity and his divinity, but we could no longer speak of them separately… Otherwise we couldn’t say that he took flesh.” Antonios’s metaphor for Christ is that, if you look at a person, you don’t assume that there are two persons in one physical form.^[iii]

Copts began to settle in Western New York in the 1960s, when Copts began to leave President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt en masse.^[iv] The community of St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church, which initially rented space in Rochester buildings, moved to the southwestern suburb of Henrietta at 530 Lehigh Station Road. When Pope Shenouda III visited North America in 1989, he visited Rochester and consecrated the church.^[v] St. Mark’s remains one of only eight Orthodox parishes in Monroe County.^[vi] St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery, founded in 2004, sits across the street from St. Mark’s at 525 Lehigh Station Road.^[vii] Roughly one hundred families attend either St. Mark’s or the monastery.^[viii] The Ss. Peter and Paul complex, a former Roman Catholic church that the monastery purchased in 2006, is roughly a twenty-minute drive to the north, at 736 West Main Street in Rochester. The Coptic parishioners at the two churches and monastery are mainly of Egyptian heritage, although Sudanese, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Christians began to attend St. Mark’s and the monastery in the early 2000s.^[ix] Fr. Shenouda Maher Ishak, a noted theologian and the pastor of St. Mark’s at the time, directed the monastery and St. Peter’s, while also serving at St. Mary and St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church in Syracuse, N.Y., until it received a permanent priest. As of this writing (Fall 2018), Fr. Shenouda is solely responsible for the Coptic monastery of St. Shenouda.^[x] He directs the monastery with the help of Br. Antonios, who is a theologian, a former hematologist at Strong Memorial Hospital, and the son of Egyptian immigrants who came to America to avoid the Nasser regime.^[xi] Pope Shenouda III appointed Br. Antonios as the monastery’s first novice in 2006.^[xii]

In 2003, the Coptic Church acquired 51 acres of land across the street from St. Mark’s.^[xiii] An essay called “Monastic Rule” from the monastery website provides an oral history of what happened next:

When H.H. Pope Shenouda III [then the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church] was making one of his pastoral visits to the United States in August 2003, Fr. Shenouda went to greet his His Holiness. When he greeted him, Fr. Shenouda asked him how the newly purchased land could best be used. His Holiness told Fr. Shenouda to pray and see what God’s will is for the use of this land. Shortly afterwards, on the Feast of the Transfiguration (August 19, 2003), Fr. Shenouda was on the phone with one of his spiritual children, who had never been to Rochester, nor knew anything about the land. Fr. Shenouda told him about the land, and this person very simply said in Arabic, “Abouna, this is a monastery. It’s a monastery, Abouna! And I’ll tell you who it’s named after — after the name of Abba Shenouda.”^[xiv]

One of the great Coptic saints, St. Shenouda directed two Egyptian monasteries and a convent (hence his title of archimandrite) in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. He amassed a considerable library of Coptic literature.^[xv] The invocation of his namesake resonated with Fr. Shenouda, who recalled themes from the saint’s life:

The rest of that day, Fr. Shenouda kept thinking about what that man said, and it all fit just as was described in the monastery mission, i.e. being in a village and combining the life of prayer and solitude with service, etc. So, after this event, when Fr. Shenouda … presented this idea to His Holiness Pope Shenouda as he was leaving the United States to return to Egypt, Pope Shenouda immediately gave his blessing.^[xvi]

In August 2004, Pope Shenouda III traveled to the U.S. on his next pastoral tour and visited St. Mark’s. The Pope presided over the laying of the new monastery’s cornerstone.^[xvii] The monastery would be one of only three Coptic monasteries in the United States.^[xviii] 900 Coptic Christians from Western New York attended the proceedings.^[xix]

Fr. Shenouda decided that the monastery would emulate the good works of St. Shenouda by performing community service, providing religious and Coptic language education, and opposing “paganism.” The “Monastic Rule” essay elaborates on this anti-secularization message:

We are surrounded by a society today where people are preoccupied with so many different aspects of their lives that they are not filled with the love of God and the correct understanding of Who He is[,] and how we are supposed to be living our lives with Him. So by the grace of God, and the prayers of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite and your prayers, as this monastery reaches out to this community this true faith and knowledge of God will be delivered to them. There is a lot to be done[,] and we are responsible to do this work through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.^[xx]

Permit delays had slowed construction of the monastery when, in March 2006, Fr. Shenouda learned that the Roman Catholic Church of Ss. Peter and Paul was going on sale. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester had opted to close three churches, including Ss. Peter and Paul.^[xxi] The purchase of Ss. Peter and Paul offered a chance to increase the visibility of Coptic Christianity and spread the monastery mission of public service and education into the city of Rochester. Unfortunately, the purchase would use most of the funds set aside for the monastery. After much prayer, and with the blessing of Pope Shenouda III, the monastery purchased Ss. Peter and Paul. The day that the monastery made its first deposit, June 29, 2006, was the Catholic feast day of Saints Peter and Paul. The closing day, February 9, 2007, was the Catholic feast of St. Cyril, which was interpreted as a sign from God.^[xxii]

Ss. Peter and Paul became a Coptic mission, while maintaining its historic architecture and artwork, the St. Peter’s soup kitchen, and clothing relief program.^[xxiii] The expense of Ss. Peter and Paul slowed work on the monastery, but Fr. Shenouda took things in stride. He told the Democrat & Chronicle in 2007 that God wanted his community to be involved in the 19^th Ward as well as Henrietta: “That’s why the Lord, before we built the monastery, prepared Saints Peter and Paul for us.”^[xxiv] The cover image for the monastery’s eventual website would reflect the providential role that Fr. Shenouda and his peers ascribed to God. The image fuses a photo of the monastery so with one of Ss. Peter and Paul, so that two buildings appear to be one. Jesus Christ, depicted in front of the crucifix and surrounded by stylized eagle wings, floats above the united buildings. A Biblical quote, Malachi 4:2, appears above Jesus: “But to you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings.”^[xxv]

The restoration of Ss. Peter and Paul received a moderate amount of local press coverage in 2007–12, culminating in the church’s addition to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places on June 20, 2012.^[xxvi] Former Catholic parishioner Craig Murphy and artist Sandra Bialaszewski restored the church’s century-old nativity figures, and the Coptic community staged the scene for Epiphany 2007 and 2008.^[xxvii] The nativity statues have since been placed on permanent display in the Ss. Peter and Paul sanctuary.^[xxviii] Although Orthodox churches traditionally use icons, not statuary, Fr. Shenouda concluded that this debate was a matter of ritual, and not theological, differences, so it was acceptable to retain Catholic artwork. Fr. Shenouda wanted to be open about the building’s history. Some of the remaining saint statues are not Coptic saints, but they are kept for the sake of historical preservation. The church organ remains, despite the use of a cappella music in Coptic worship. The high altar is from the German-majority Ss. Peter and Paul that preceded the current building’s construction. Another altar has “IHS,” a Jesuit slogan, carved upon it. Copts do not believe in the Immaculate Conception or Assumption of the Virgin Mary, but no art in the sanctuary embodies this theme, so no alternate depiction of Mary was necessary. One adjustment reflects Coptic theology: A statue of St. Joseph, Jesus’ stepfather, portrays him as a young man, but Copts believe Joseph was elderly and already had children from a past marriage when he married the Virgin Mary. Bialaszewski therefore painted Joseph’s beard white.^[xxix]

The events of 2011 captured the combined Catholic-Coptic heritage of Ss. Peter and Paul. In March 2011, the Rochester Coptic community hosted North American Copts for a weekend of lectures and services commemorating the celebrated priest Mikhail Ibrahim (1899–1975). Most of the events occurred at St. Mark’s, but a Sunday field trip went to Ss. Peter and Paul, so that guests could see the restored facility. The Fr. Ibrahim event was emblematic of the Rochester Copts’ connections to the transnational Coptic world, since guest speakers hailed from Cairo as well as California.^[xxx] In June 2011, the Coptic community welcomed former Catholic parishioners back to Ss. Peter and Paul for a centennial Mass. The Democrat & Chronicle described the nostalgia that returning Catholics experienced. Mary Holloway was quoted as saying, “Oh, it’s so beautiful I want to cry…. It hasn’t changed a bit, as beautiful as ever.” Bishop Matthew Clark, who led the Mass, remarked in his homily, “I know this building means a great deal to you and symbolizes the presence of Christ in your lives…. Let us remember our mothers and fathers in faith and recommit ourselves to building up the Body of Christ, and I hope revisiting this church will become a new source of strength for you.”^[xxxi]

St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery was finished in 2012. For several years, Wednesday prayers, one Sunday service per month, and Bible study classes were held at Ss. Peter and Paul, while Friday prayers and all other Sunday services were held at the monastery. The Wednesday service was discontinued in 2017, so only one religious service happens at Ss. Peter and Paul per month, but the site is used for other programs, such as church retreats. Monthly community dinners occur in the Ss. Peter and Paul rectory. St. Peter’s Kitchen is still open, but responsibility for the thrift store has been given to other charities in the 19^th Ward.^[xxxii]

Today, Fr. Shenouda and Br. Antonios are the only clergy who work at the monastery and Ss. Peter and Paul.^[xxxiii] The monastery’s website is currently being redesigned, but the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine offers screen captures of the website’s past iterations. Fr. Shenouda and Br. Antonios offered essays in English and Arabic about the Coptic language and Coptic Orthodox rituals. “Teaching tapes,” recorded church rites, and other audio files were available, but the Internet Archive did not capture these recordings. Individuals curious about these recordings should contact the monastery directly.^[xxxiv]

Endnotes

^[i] Daniel Gorman Jr., interview with Br. Antonios the Shenoudian, Thursday, 24 May 2018.

^[ii] John H. Erickson, Orthodox Christians in America, Religion in American Life, edited by Jon Butler and Harry S. Stout (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 17–18; Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[iii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[iv] Gorman, nterview with Br. Antonios; Mark Hare, “Who We Are: Orthodox Christians,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 29 Dec. 2008, A4, ProQuest Document ID: 442066662; Cindy Mindell-Wong, “St. Mark Meets Britney Spears: Copts Keep the Faith in Rochester,” Rochester City Newspaper (Rochester, N.Y.), 19 Mar. 2003, acc. 12 Apr. 2018, https://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/st-mark-meets-britney-spears/Content?oid=2127553; “Sabet K. Salib [Obituary],” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 1 Sept. 2016, ProQuest Document ID: 1815647531. For context, see: Erickson, Orthodox Churches, 124.

^[v] Lisa Hutchurson, “Pope of Coptic Church Visits Local Worshippers,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 16 Aug. 2004, acc. 28 May 2018, ProQuest Document ID: 441693003; Mindell-Wong, “St. Mark.”

^[vi] Mark Hare, “A Faith That Engages All Senses of the Soul,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 29 Dec. 2008, A1, ProQuest Document ID: 442070092.

^[vii] Hare, “Faith.”

^[viii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[ix] Hutchurson, “Pope of Coptic Church Visits”; Mindell-Wong, “St. Mark”; “Monastic Rule,” St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery (Henrietta, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 21 Apr. 2014, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20140421222015/http://www.michellabs.com:80/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=8&lang=en.

^[x] “Fr. Kyrillos Sadek Biography,” St. Mary and St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church (Syracuse, N.Y.), acc. 29 May 2018, https://stmarystminacopticchurch.org/father_kyrillos.html; Mindell-Wong, “St. Mark.”

^[xi] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[xii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[xiii] “Monastic Rule.”

^[xiv] “Monastic Rule.”

^[xv] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[xvi] “Monastic Rule.”

^[xvii] “News Beat,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 13 Aug. 2004, B2, ProQuest Document ID: 441689360.

^[xviii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[xix] Hutchurson, “Pope of Coptic Church Visits.” 

^[xx] “Monastic Rule.”

^[xxi] “Coptic Monastery of St. Shenouda,” Facebook, acc. 5 May 2018, https://www.facebook.com/brantonios/; Marketta Gregory, “Catholics to Shut Down 11 Churches,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, A1, ProQuest Document ID: 441800596, copy in SMA; Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios; Marketta Gregory, “Closures Sadden Resigned Faithful,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, A9, ProQuest Document ID: 441800986, copy in SMA; Mike Latona and Tamara Tirado, “City Churches Cope With Change,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), November 2005, copy in St. Monica Roman Catholic Church Archive [SMA]; Amy Kotlarz, “City Parish Holds Closing Mass,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), 13 Oct. 2006, https://www.catholiccourier.com/articles/city-parish-holds-closing-mass.

^[xxii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios; “The Roman Calendar for A.D. 2006,” Romcal: A Program to Generate the General Roman Calendar of the Catholic Church, acc. 2 Jun. 2018, www.romcal.net/output/2006.html.

^[xxiii] Hare, “Faith.”

^[xxiv] Marketta Gregory, “Place of Solitude, Faith,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 8 Aug. 2007, B1, ProQuest Document ID: 441961546.

^[xxv] Citation for Figure 1: Coptic Monastery of St. Shenouda Cover Photo, St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery (Henrietta, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 11 Jun. 2012, acc. 10 Aug. 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20120611092312/http://www.michellabs.com/.

^[xxvi] “Weekly List of Actions Taken on Properties, 6/18–22/2012,” National Park Service, June 29, 2012, acc. 29 June 2017, https://www.nps.gov/nr/listings/20120629.htm.

^[xxvii] “Corrections & Clarifications,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 28 Dec. 2007, A2, ProQuest Document ID: 441986157s; Meaghan M. McDermott, “Despite Parish’s Closure, A Tradition is Renewed,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 27 Dec. 2007, B1, ProQuest Document ID: 441985552; Meaghan A. McDermott, “Nativity Scene Has New Life,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 31 Dec. 2008, B3, ProQuest Document ID: 442068891.

^[xxviii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[xxix] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

^[xxx] Flyer for Fr. Mikhail Ibrahim Event [“FrMikhail_Mar26-2011event.pdf”], St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Monastery of Henrietta, N.Y. (March 26, 2011), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, https://web.archive.org/web/20180417181635/http://www.michellabs.com/joomla/images/events/FrMikhail_Mar26-2011event.pdf.

^[xxxi] Meaghan M. McDermott, “Former Parishioners Renew Fond Memories,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 27 Jun. 2011, ProQuest Document ID: 873715395.

^[xxxii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios; “Retreat Information,” St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery (Henrietta, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 21 Apr. 2014, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20140422113913/http://www.michellabs.com:80/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82&Itemid=10&lang=en; “Services Schedule,” St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery (Henrietta, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 21 Apr. 2014, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20140422113847/http://www.michellabs.com:80/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114&Itemid=20&lang=en.

^[xxxiii] Mark Hare noted in 2008 that Fr. Shenouda and Br. Antonios were the only clergy onsite [“Faith”].

^[xxxiv] “Church Rites,” St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery (Henrietta, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 22 Apr. 2014, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20140422113928/http://www.michellabs.com:80/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=9&Itemid=87&lang=en; Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios; “Old Bohairic Pronunciation,” St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery (Henrietta, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 6 Apr. 2017, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20170406155256/http://michellabs.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37&Itemid=31&lang=en.

Author: Daniel Gorman Jr.

The above map shows the site of the former Roman Catholic Church of Ss. Peter and Paul from 1912 to 2006. As of 2019, the church is a Coptic Orthodox church named for the same saints.

The story of Rochester’s Roman Catholic Church of Saints Peter and Paul began with ethnic and political tensions in the city’s Catholic community. Looking back on the church’s history, an anonymous newspaper writer wrote on July 1, 1893, “A number of the members of St. Joseph’s Church” pushed for the creation of a new church. “These members lived on the west side of the [Genesee River] and they were not pleased with the site selected for St. Joseph’s Church in Franklin Street [on the river’s east side]. They separated from that parish and organized the new church….”[i]

SPP Golden Jubilee Newspaper Cutouts (1893), Annotated by John E. Curran

This narrative is too simplistic. The Ss. Peter and Paul archive and Fr. Robert F. McNamara’s histories of the Diocese of Rochester provide a more thorough account of St. Peter and Paul’s origin. St. Joseph’s Church, founded in 1836, was located on Ely Street, on the city’s east side.[ii] The disgruntled German parishioners, who wanted a church on the west side of the Genesee, battled with local Redemptorist priests in 1838–42 for control of the new parish. When the laity decided to form their new church without pastor Simon Saenderl’s permission in 1843, New York Archbishop John Hughes intervened. Hughes’s creation of Ss. Peter the Apostle Church that year met most of the parishioners’ demands. The church was located on the west side of the Genesee, near the Germans’ homes, and the Redemptorists did not run the parish. In a compromise measure, neither the laity nor the Redemptorists, but rather the Archbishop owned the property.[iii]^{, [iv]} Fr. Ivo Leviz served as the first pastor.[v] The School Sisters of Notre Dame, who had been working in Rochester since 1853, took over Ss. Peter’s parish school in 1855.[vi]

The St. Peter the Apostle corporation was registered with local authorities as “St. Peter’s German Catholic Congregation” from 1843 to 1859, after which the church was reincorporated as the “Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church Corporation.”[vii] The reincorporation process was fraught. Factions supporting and opposing church authority (pro- or anti-bishop) vied for control of Ss. Peter and Paul in 1852–55. Based on the documents available in the Ss. Peter and Paul archive, it is unclear if “bishop” in this case referred to the Bishop of Buffalo or the Archbishop of New York; more research is needed on this point. Seven “Anti-Bishop” men were convicted in January 1853 of trying to forcibly enter the church.[viii] Fr. Francis X. Krautbauer, pastor from 1851–59, opposed the parishioners who wanted to incorporate the church under state law. Krautbauer struggled to maintain order and got into shouting matches with lay leaders.[ix] Eventually, Krautbauer left the church to “bring” what a 1961 parish history would call “lasting peace to the parish.”[x] It was not until 1862, however, that all of the rebellious parishioners made their peace with the clergy’s leadership of Ss. Peter and Paul. That year, Bishop John Timon of Buffalo wrote the following in his diary: “Met with rebels of St. Peter’s… all present reconciled… only two absent hold out. Deo Gratias.”[xi] Relations also improved between Ss. Peter and Paul and its parent church, St. Joseph, in this period. The two parishes hosted a “love feast” in 1854 to formally end their feud.[xii]

The fractious birth of Ss. Peter and Paul reflected the push by some American Catholics for trusteeism, or the control of American parishes by the laity, instead of clerics. It also reflected the trend toward liberal church politics that Pope Leo III would denounce in 1893 as the “Americanism” heresy.[xiii] A 1961 parish history of Ss. Peter and Paul took Pope Leo’s position, dismissing the parish’s advocates of trusteeism as “minority, malcontent groups of laymen who insisted on holding tenure of church property” who “plagued [the] parish almost from its inception.”[xiv] Likewise, a 1987 parish history, taking the Catholic Church’s side, dismissed the would-be German trustees as “dissatisfied laymen.”[xv]

When Fr. Joseph Sadler replaced Fr. Krautbauer as pastor in 1859, he oversaw construction of a new brick Ss. Peter and Paul on the same lot.[xvi] A new school building was also erected, but it burned down sometime between 1859 and 1861. A local newspaper commented on the scale of the fire: “Two of the members of Truck No. 1 were in the second story when the floor fell, carrying them with it, but they escaped, strange to say, without injury.”[xvii]

SPP Maple Street Church Interior (1900)

The 1961 parish history describes the years after the church’s reconstruction as “an era of peace and prosperity.”[xviii] Fr. Francis Sinclair, a German priest, succeeded Sadler as pastor in 1865, only one year after his ordination in Rome. Sinclair would remain with the parish until his death from a heart attack in 1907. Diocese historian Fr. McNamara reported in 1993 that Sinclair was the son, possibly born out of wedlock, of Baron Gottlieb von Schroeter, a Lutheran convert to Catholicism. Sinclair grew up in the home of one Herr Grueder, but the Baron did visit Sinclair in Rome and attended his 1864 ordination. When Fr. Sinclair was reunited with his Lutheran mother before his departure for America, she would not speak to him.[xix] Sinclair was the most successful of the church’s pastors to date. He steered Ss. Peter and Paul to its golden jubilee in 1893. When Bishop McQuaid and Archbishop Corrigan, head of the province of New York, came to lead the centennial Mass, it was a celebratory event, a far cry from Archbishop Hughes’s emergency intervention fifty years earlier.[xx] Fr. Sinclair also presided over the installation of a new organ at Christmastime, 1903.[xxi] A highlight of Sinclair’s career was his extended trip to Israel in 1900.[xxii]

Catastrophe struck Ss. Peter and Paul the night of Wednesday, January 6, 1869. Due to structural defects, the parish school’s second floor collapsed during the Epiphany Festival. The meeting hall on the second floor was full of parishioners. Eight people died and forty were injured.[xxiii] The Rochester Daily Democrat, using the hyperbolic language of nineteenth-century reporting, wrote that the policemen who responded to the accident saw “a series of sights that froze the very manhood in the veins of the strongest.”[xxiv] The bodies of the dead, plus some of the wounded, were taken to the rectory.[xxv] Bishop McQuaid, recently arrived in Rochester, heard the church bell sounding the alarm and hurried to the scene, where he administered last rites and tried to calm parishioners.[xxvi] A joint funeral for six of the victims occurred on January 8.[xxvii] Rochester city historian Blake McKelvey, writing in 1955, connected the accident to the city government’s failure to enforce building standards:

While much sympathy was expressed for the victims, the need for more adequate supervision of construction [in Rochester] was again deferred. Indeed, even the collapse of a five-story building on downtown State Street in 1878 produced only a new report full of earnest recommendations, which were again tabled and forgotten….[xxviii]

“The School House Disaster—Funeral of Six of the Victims–Condition of the Wounded–Coroner’s Investigation,” Rochester Union-Advertiser, Jan. 8, 1869, SPP Photocopy.

In 1870, two years after Bishop McQuaid formed the new Diocese of Rochester, Ss. Peter and Paul was a prosperous German Catholic church with 2,500 parishioners.[xxix] This population boom continued through the century’s end. The author of an 1898 Catholic newspaper article, which recounted the history of Rochester’s St. Patricks’ Cathedral, noted, “Ss. Peter and Paul’s church on King Street … is one of the most thriving congregations in the city.”[xxx] German parishioners formed a religious confraternity, or verein, called the German Catholic Union of Knights of St. Mauritius in 1873. When members of other verein visited Rochester the following year for their national conference, the Knights were integrated into a national network of Catholic associations. This informal network eventually became a formal nonprofit organization, the Knights of St. John, and Ss. Peter and Paul parishioners would remain active in the Knights through at least the 1950s.[xxxi] Additional confraternities, such as the Immaculate Heart of Mary Sodality for parish women and the citywide Rochester Deanery of the Holy Name Union, formed in the twentieth century.[xxxii] More research is needed to trace the development of Catholic social organizations in Rochester.

Fr. Emil Gefell, Fr. Sinclair’s successor as pastor, had attended Ss. Peter and Paul as a youth.[xxxiii] Before coming to Ss. Peter and Paul, he taught German and Italian at St. Andrew’s Seminary.[xxxiv] Once Gefell took over from Sinclair in October 1907, he initiated a major project — the relocation of the parish from Maple/Liberty Street and King Street to West Avenue (West Main Street today), where the firm of Gordon and Madden would build a new, Romanesque church.[xxxv] This church would feature two smaller shrines branching off from the central sanctuary.[xxxvi] The new church and a new school were finished in 1912.[xxxvii] An adjacent mansion (present address: 750 West Main Street) was purchased for a convent.[xxxviii] Another adjacent house was purchased for a rectory.[xxxix]

Ss. Peter and Paul 1838 Map Fragment.
Editor’s Note: While the original Ss. Peter and Paul church is typically described as being located on Maple Street, one may notice that the site was more accurately on Liberty Street, connecting to Maple.

Newspaper Clipping about West Avenue Site: “Where New Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church Will Be Built” (No Date, 1900s)

The high cost of building the new Ss. Peter and Paul prevented Gefell from buying interior decorations, so the church sanctuary was not finished until 1929, when Prof. Gonippo Raggi installed decorations.[xl] Executives of the Rochester, Buffalo, & Pittsburgh Railroad bought the old Ss. Peter and Paul to make it into a warehouse. However, they allowed Gefell to temporarily use the church for St. Lucy’s Church, Ss. Peter and Paul’s mission to Italian Catholics. St. Lucy’s eventually became its own parish in a new location, closing in 1970.[xli]

By 1940, the neighborhood around Ss. Peter and Paul was no longer as intensely German as in the nineteenth-century. Immigrants in the surrounding blocks were approximately 40 percent Italian, 20 percent Canadian, 15 percent German, 15 percent English-Welsh, and 10 percent Irish. Residents tended to work in blue-collar jobs as “wage workers.” More women than men held professional or semi-professional jobs, but only 20 of women in the neighborhood worked in those jobs. Very few residents graduated from college. The neighborhood’s African American population would grow after WWII, due to the Second Great Migration, but in 1940 only thirteen African American families lived near Ss. Peter and Paul.[xlii] Against this backdrop, the church celebrated its centennial in June 1943.[xliii] The cornerstones of the 1843 and 1859 churches were put on display for the centennial Mass, over which Bishop Kearney presided.[xliv]

A less pleasant surprise occurred on May 30, 1944, forty-eight years to the day since Fr. Gefell’s ordination. A fire broke out in the church’s basement storeroom. The Democrat and Chronicle reported, “Firemen were successful in confining the blaze to the storage room and the rear of the altar. The pastor said there would be no interference with church services in the structure.”[xlv] Time and again, the parish survived major fires on its premises.

Fr. Gefell retired in June 1950, although he continued to live at the rectory and celebrate daily Mass in the house’s chapel. Fr. Robert J. Fox, a native Rochesterian, became the new pastor. Fox supervised the restoration of the school, bell tower, and church sanctuary, including Prof. Raggi’s paintings, during his first year.[xlvi] Fox would supervise further renovations in Fall 1966, when a portion of the west side chapel’s ceiling collapsed and cracks were noticed in the east side chapel’s ceiling.[xlvii] Fr. Gefell lived to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of his ordination in 1956. He died at age 88 in May 1959.[xlviii] Heart problems plagued Fr. Fox during his tenure. He suffered his first heart attack on March 6, 1959.[xlix] His second heart attack occurred in July 1967 and proved fatal.[l] Bishop Fulton Sheen, who had administered last rites to Fox, presided over the funeral. According to the Catholic Courier, “Bishop Sheen’s eulogy centered around the idea of the priesthood as an emptying of oneself so that the church might be filled. It is only when the priest returns to his God that what he gave is once again replenished.”[li]

SPP Fr. Emil Gefell Portraits (1900 and 1950)

In the wake of Fox’s death, the Bishop tasked priests from the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (abbreviated SS.CC.), along with brothers from the same order, with running Ss. Peter and Paul.[lii] Sheen’s abrupt decision to put the order in charge took many parishioners aback.[liii]

Liturgical changes mandated (or inspired) by the Second Vatican Council appeared at Ss. Peter and Paul around this time. The church experimented with parishioners bringing their own communion bread and placing it in the ciborium, or ceremonial chalice, before Mass began. Indirect evidence indicates that this practice disgruntled parishioners. The August 11, 1968, parish bulletin excerpted an essay by Catholic writer Mary Perkins Ryan, assuring people that there were sanitary ways for many people to put bread in the ciborium, and lauding the participatory aspect of parishioners sharing bread from home.[liv] A bulletin from January 1970 cited Methodist luminary Charles Wesley, in addition to Catholic saints, in an article about singing as a form of prayer.[lv] In September 1970, pastor William Davis, SS.CC., launched a lay parish council, reflecting the Vatican II direction that laity receive a greater say in running churches.[lvi] Finally, like so many American Catholic churches, Ss. Peter and Paul began hosting “Folk Masses,” using folk music instead of traditional hymns.[lvii] When the Landmark Society of Western New York considered adding Ss. Peter and Paul to its registry in 1971, Landmark research assistant Amy Hecker wrote that the church “seems to embody a growing process worthy of dignity, and a sense of community.”[lviii]

Neither Vatican II nor the broader turmoil of the 1960s completely transformed the conduct of Ss. Peter and Paul’s parishioners. Unlike many American Catholic churches, Ss. Peter and Paul did not remove its communion rails.[lix] The Ss. Peter and Paul archive contains a set of photographs from the 50^th anniversary celebration of Sr. M. Rosamond’s vows as a nun (July 19, 1970). The nuns pictured, ranging from middle-aged to elderly, still wear habits and veils, in contrast to the American nuns who, in a few years, would shed their habits. Meanwhile, the formal dresses of women and girls in attendance seem deliberately old-fashioned, resisting the new styles and patterns of the late 1960s–early 1970s.[lx] Similarly, photos from the parish bingo workers’ dinner party on June 7, 1970, reveal the old-fashioned clothing of middle-aged and elderly parishioners.[lxi] These photographs hint at the ways that Catholic parishioners and clergy sought continuity in an age of discontinuity.

Photographs of SPP Bingo Workers Dinner Party (June 7, 1970) and SPP Picnic (1972)

The church’s documentary record for the 1970s is thin. Two notable events were the closure of Ss. Peter and Paul School in 1972 and the transformation of the school building into a tutoring center for the Rochester City School District.[lxii] By 1984, church attendance had declined substantially. The loss of white parishioners to the suburbs (“white flight”), the death of older parishioners, and the arrival of non-Catholic residents in the 19^th Ward were some of the factors responsible. The Immaculate Heart of Mary Sodality disbanded in 1983; the note discussing the dissolution does not say why the group decided to stop meeting, but it does note that three members had died in the past year.[lxiii] An undated document from the late 1970s–early 1980s, “Option for Future Ministry,” yields useful statistics about the 19^th Ward, although the document has a blunt, sometimes fatalistic tone. It is worth quoting at length:

The parish has a total population of about 7,000 people; Predominantly Blacks; About 20% Hispanic most of whom are bilingual. The Whites fall into 3 categories: Middle-aged homeowners who bought homes before the White-flight. Old people who have been there for years and don’t want to leave. Poor, uneducated who can’t find cheaper accomodations [sic] elsewhere. Active parishioners number about 200; 100 use envelopes; ave. 150 for worship.

[The 19^th Ward] is certainly one of the most neglected areas of the city. It has the usual inner-city problems: Poor trash removal; many abandoned buildings/boarded up houses; Vacant lots not cared for; drug selling is pretty open; Prostitution is flagrant. A recent Evangelization Census which included about 16,000 people (3 parishes) came up with these significant statistics: About 7,000 in SS Peter and Paul area; Approximately 50% consider themselves unchurched; Large numbers of alienated Catholics; A large elderly population; A large number of children under 18 and many much younger. Many mothers with small children/no husband/no support. Many unemployed men/some have turned to alcohol.

Needs: The presence of caring Christian persons; Prayerful concern for the plight of the many marginal people; A follow-up to the evangelization census; large scale, long term evangelization program; Persons with a strong desire to proclaim the Good News in new ways to people who have rejected what they heard before. People with a desire to serve others who won’t necessarily appreciate the service. So the service must be unconditional, without a thought of reward, spiritual or material; this is the most difficult part of the mission.

What is now being done: We are trying to evangelize, to build a servant community; We are trying to make ourselves known to the people; We are trying to communicate of Black people that SS Peter and Paul welcomes them; We are trying to discover which kind of service is most possible for us. We are at the very beginning of a mission, we haven’t begun to lay the foundation, we are just beginning to dig it.

What gifts are needed: Any gifts that will contribute to helping with evangelization, with building a community of people who will be a constant light in this area. Gifts for visibility and availability for service. Types of service might include: coffee house, day care, kindergarten, hospitality center, soup kitchen, alternative school for high school drop-outs, night school for high school equivalency, organize neighborhoods into catalytic communities/base communities, DRE, director of evangelization, adult education, sacraments programs etc.[lxiv]

SPP “Option for Future Ministry” & SSCC Rochester Summary by “Claire” [no last name] (n.d., circa late 1970s–early 1980s)

The Ss. Peter and Paul leadership ramped up its philanthropic and social justice initiatives in the 19^th Ward during the 1980s, hoping to reverse the trend of decline. Pastor Richard McNally reiterated in a 1984 essay that only 200 people attended Ss. Peter and Paul, but “we probably have a higher per capita number of young parishioners than many other places. This is due to a very conscious outreach by past and present staff members.”[lxv] The administrative staff had shrunk considerably; one other priest, two brothers, one nun and one volunteer from the Sisters of St. Joseph, and two lay men worked with McNally. Nonetheless, parishioners volunteered for many parish committees, helping to take up the slack.[lxvi]

In response to the 19^th Ward’s poverty levels and the Reagan administration’s cuts to food stamps in 1981–82, the parish launched a soup kitchen for the 19^th Ward and Bull’s Head (N. Genesee Street to W. Main Street) area, St. Peter’s Kitchen. Seminary intern Brother Rich Czerwien did substantial work in getting the kitchen off the ground.[lxvii] Brother Bob Di Manno, SS.CC., became much loved in the parish for running St. Peter’s Kitchen from 1982–86.[lxviii] Despite the fluctuating number of people running an increasing number of programs, McNally was optimistic: “There is lots of life here: if you don’t believe it, come here and work for a few weeks.”[lxix]

“Life” did not translate into fiscal stability. As the decade progressed, the parish began a new round of building renovations. The parish budget, covering a new parish-run daycare, new offices, St. Peter’s Kitchen, and a thrift store called PriceLess Clothing, was stretched thinly. By 1986, Br. Di Manno had to write pastoral letters emphasizing the importance of donations.[lxx] The city government recognized the church’s social initiatives with a certificate of merit in December 1986, but such an award did not help the parish’s financial situation.[lxxi] The parish sold its convent to a neighborhood resident, while retaining the mortgage, in the hopes of gaining some income. The new occupant turned the convent into a boarding house, but defaulted on payments and allowed the convent to fall into disrepair and become the site of criminal activity. As a result, the parish took back the building.[lxxii] Ultimately, the convent was sold to Main Quest, a drug rehabilitation facility for the Bull’s Head area, in 1994.[lxxiii] The DePaul Halstead Square Community Residence, a single-room occupancy program for people with mental health issues, took over the building in 2014.[lxxiv]

The 1990s saw Ss. Peter and Paul continue its social justice orientation, while pursuing new interfaith outreach and launching new projects intended to revitalize the local economy. This was a deliberate response to the parish’s 1989 Vision Statement, which, according to pastor and Sacred Heart priest David Reid, “affirm[ed] commitment to our present church building both as a place of worship and as a place that gives dignity and grace to our West Main Street neighborhood.”[lxxv] A 1990 position paper elaborates on this social-justice orientation and reveals parishioners’ opposition to gentrification. It also suggests that the current population of Ss. Peter and Paul was more comfortable with the neighborhood’s ethnic diversity than parishioners were during the peak days of white flight:

Guiding assumptions…. Working with the residents of the neighborhood, not just for the residents, is essential. We want to be partners in creating a non-violent, supportive environment for individuals, families, and children to live and grow…. We want to effectively act to improve the neighborhood while consciously ensuring that residents will not be displaced and that our efforts do not duplicate existing services or activities.[lxxvi]

“Proposal to the Parish Community of Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church from the SSPP Social Ministry Committee: Three-Year Plan for Strengthening Our Outreach in the SSPP Neighborhood,” Final Draft (Nov. 6, 1990), SPP Copy

In 1991, Ss. Peter and Paul began leasing church space on Sunday afternoons to Rev. Mary L. Robinson’s ten-member African American congregation, Miracle Outreach Church of God.[lxxvii] The defunct parish school became a mixed-use space. Much of the building was converted into low-income housing in 1989–90; Fairchild Place, later called Sojourner House, took over the housing program from the parish. The thrift store and St. Peter’s Kitchen remained downstairs in the parish school.[lxxviii] Damien Care Center, a free clinic, was launched in the basement under St. Peter’s Kitchen in 1992, but it only operated for approximately eighteen months.[lxxix] Ss. Peter and Paul launched a Neighborhood Community Center and hired a part-time community organizer, Evelyn Reaves, in 1993.[lxxx] The parish Social Ministry Committee’s rationale for the center was that, “As a membership-based community center, residents will be able to participate in the overall direction and activities of the center. We believe this is the most authentic way of creating participation and building a strong sense of community-ownership.”[lxxxi] The center did not remain open for long, inspiring parishioners to participate in other 19^th Ward volunteer groups.[lxxxii]

The parish celebrated its 150^th anniversary on June 27, 1993.[lxxxiii] Despite this milestone, Ss. Peter and Paul’s financial situation remained precarious. In the wake of the Diocese’s recommendation to form cost-sharing “clusters,” the church clustered with St. Francis of Assisi Church in November 1993.[lxxxiv] A promotional film, Saints Peter and Paul: The Message Goes Out!, describes the parish’s shift from focusing on spiritual needs to providing social services. The film gently asks for donors’ support.[lxxxv] Fr. Reid launched a capital campaign in 1995 to raise $500,000 for church repairs.[lxxxvi] Reid also consulted with clergy from around the country, including Kermit Krueger, pastor of Chicago’s United Church of Rogers Park, about renovating an aging church’s physical plant.[lxxxvii] Parishioner Craig Murphy coordinated much of the Ss. Peter and Paul rehabilitation efforts, recruiting Henry Swiatek, a professional art restorer, to work on the church’s paintings.[lxxxviii] The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts reassigned Fr. Reid to a church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1996.[lxxxix] Two years later, the Sacred Heart order withdrew entirely from Ss. Peter and Paul, as the order no longer had enough priests to staff the site. Consequently, the church returned to diocesan control.[xc]

In 2000, Ss. Peter and Paul, now under the leadership of Fr. Paul Tomasso, joined the Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward (RCC19). Formed by St. Monica, St. Augustine, and Our Lady of Good Counsel, this initiative shared costs, facilities, resources, and priests between parishes.[xci] Under this new configuration (in a plan approved on September 10, 2001), four diocesan priests — Brian Cool, Michael Upson, Raymond Fleming of Emmanuel Church of the Deaf, and Bob Werth — would rotate among the Community’s churches and celebrate Mass at all of them. Fr. Larry Tracy would help out as an extra priest when needed. Pastoral administrators, such as Ss. Peter and Paul’s Craig Bullock, would take over the parishes’ day-to-day business matters.[xcii]

This administrative reorganization reflected the Diocese’s call for “Pastoral Planning for the New Millennium” — an admission that the Diocese no longer had enough priests or resources to maintain its current operations.[xciii] Craig Bullock released a letter crediting Fr. Tomasso with saving Ss. Peter and Paul from closure.[xciv] Bullock told the Democrat & Chronicle in December 2000 that he was optimistic about Ss. Peter and Paul’s future.[xcv] His tenure proved to be short, however, despite his enthusiasm for the job and leadership of a major “Vision Retreat” in March 2002, the records of which read like anonymized oral histories of the parish in that era.[xcvi] Sr. Patricia “Pat” Flass, from the Sisters of St. Joseph, took over Bullock’s position of pastoral administrator in July 2002.[xcvii]

Dale Davis, Minutes from Ss. Peter and Paul Church Retreat, Mar. 17, 2002

The parish celebrated its 160^th anniversary in 2003 with a Mass led by Bishop Matthew Clark.[xcviii] Unfortunately, the improved budget and church attendance rate that Craig Bullock had predicted did not materialize. In September 2003, for instance, an average of only 83 parishioners attended Sunday’s two Masses.[xcix] Starting in May 2003, the 19^th Ward/Corn Hill/Bull’s Head Planning Group began another round of pastoral planning to consider RCC19’s future.[c]

In fall 2004, Bishop Clark issued his directives: The RCC19 churches must have a single pastor, one shared staff, and three weekend Masses in total. Fr. Fleming, Sr. Pat, and other RCC19 officials ran surveys and focus groups to give parishioners a voice in pastoral planning. The Planning Group then developed a downsizing plan, submitted it for diocesan review in summer 2005, and announced it in November 2005. Parishioners upheld the measure in a vote. Good Counsel and St. Augustine would close first, with Ss. Peter and Paul closing six months later. Parishioners would report to St. Monica, which would also become home to Emmanuel Church of the Deaf. A number of RCC 19 parishioners had petitioned the diocese to keep both St. Augustine and St. Monica open, but the Planning Group concluded that this was not feasible. St. Monica required the least renovations, compared to the other three churches. The diocese concurred. Some parishioners from the closing churches reported a feeling of loss, while others accepted the change, given the city’s declining Catholic population.[ci] Indeed, many of Ss. Peter and Paul’s parishioners no longer lived in the neighborhood around the church, which they considered unsafe. A number of Ss. Peter and Paul parishioners, crestfallen after the closure was announced, left RCC19 entirely and relocated to Holy Apostles Church.[cii]

Sr. Pat’s June 4, 2006, message to the Ss. Peter and Paul congregation captures the complex emotions surrounding the closure:

There are two temptations we must avoid. The first is nostalgia, which is basically a state of denial. The second danger is despair, which leads to apathy, resignation, and perhaps, cynicism.

The challenge is to avoid these two temptations, and try to imagine a renewed Church. After the Resurrection, Jesus was a different sort of being. He didn’t have the same “old” body. Our local Church is going through a dying process that we pray will lead to a new life. Jesus told his apostles not to cling to him. We can’t cling to the past, either.

I pray we will have courage to move forward with hope and confidence that God’s Spirit will guide every step we take.[ciii]

SPP Bulletins with Closing Essays (May–June 2006)

Fr. Ray Fleming, soon to be the pastor of the new St. Monica, presided over Ss. Peter and Paul’s last Mass on Sunday, October 1, 2006.[civ] Fleming told parishioners, “I challenge you to go beyond the bitterness, the anger and all of that stuff that gets in the way of serving and loving God.”[cv] Once Mass ended, Fleming ceremonially closed the building according to diocesan protocol, tying the main door shut with a ribbon and threading a rose through the handle.[cvi] Ironically, the Landmark Society of Western New York awarded a “Stewardship Award” to the church, recognizing its preservation efforts, after the final Mass.[cvii]

On February 9, 2007, St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church and the Coptic Monastery of St. Shenouda, both located in the southwestern suburb of Henrietta, jointly purchased Ss. Peter and Paul’s church, rectory, and school.[cviii] “As long as it’s in God’s hands, it will be in good hands,” Br. Antonios of the monastery told the Catholic Courier.[cix] As of Spring 2018, Ss. Peter and Paul is a Coptic mission, instead of a Roman Catholic parish.[cx] St. Peter’s Kitchen was spun off as a separate 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation.[cxi]

Under the supervision of Fr. Shenouda Maher Isak, the new pastor, Ss. Peter and Paul’s church artwork was restored, albeit with minor alterations, such as painting a white beard on St. Joseph, to reflect Coptic beliefs. St. Peter’s Kitchen and the clothing store remained open.[cxii] Former Catholic parishioner Craig Murphy and artist Sandra Bialaszewski repaired the church’s century-old nativity figures, and the Coptic community staged the scene for Epiphany 2007 and 2008.[cxiii] The nativity statues have since been placed on permanent display in the Ss. Peter and Paul sanctuary.[cxiv] The Ss. Peter and Paul complex became part of the National Register of Historic Places on June 20, 2012.[cxv]

The Coptic community welcomed Ss. Peter and Paul’s former Roman Catholic parishioners in June 2011 for a Mass honoring the building’s centennial. The Democrat & Chronicle described the nostalgia that returning Catholics experienced. Mary Holloway was quoted as saying, “Oh, it’s so beautiful I want to cry…. It hasn’t changed a bit, as beautiful as ever.” Bishop Matthew Clark, who led the Mass, remarked in his homily, “I know this building means a great deal to you and symbolizes the presence of Christ in your lives…. Let us remember our mothers and fathers in faith and recommit ourselves to building up the Body of Christ, and I hope revisiting this church will become a new source of strength for you.”[cxvi]

Endnotes

In the endnotes that follow, SMA stands for the St. Monica Roman Catholic Church Archives, 34 Monica Street, Rochester, N.Y., 14619. Open-access back issues of The Catholic Courier, in its various iterations (Courier Journal, etc.), are available at http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/ and http://lib.catholiccourier.com/.

[i] SPP Golden Jubilee July 1893 Newspaper Cutouts, with John Curran’s Notes, copy in SMA.

[ii] SPP Rev. Robert F. McNamara, “The Church of Ss. Peter and Paul: A Brief History of the Building” Draft (Sept. 26, 1986), 1, SMA.

[iii] “A Brief History of Saints Peter and Paul Church,” St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Monastery (Henrietta, N.Y.), Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 21 Apr. 2014, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20140421221948/http://www.michellabs.com:80/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=36&Itemid=19&lang=en; Daniel Gorman Jr., interview with John Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; “Historical Report for Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church” (June 1961), 1, SMA; Rev. Robert F. McNamara, The Diocese of Rochester in America, 1868–1993, foreword by Most Rev. Fulton J. Sheen, 2nd ed. (Rochester, N.Y.: Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, 1998), 42–43; McNamara, “Church of Ss. Peter and Paul” Draft, 1. See also the newspaper articles collected in SMA regarding the events of 1855.

[iv] St. Monica Church archivist John Curran makes an interesting point about this dispute, arguing that the German parishioners associated the Redemptorist priests with France, which had warred with the German states for decades [email to Daniel Gorman Jr., 25 Apr. 2019]. The topic of immigrant conflict in Rochester deserves further research.

[v] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; “Historical Report” (June 1961), 2–3.

[vi] “Historical Report” (June 1961), 16, 20. The first principal was Sr. M. Cajetana (20). The Brothers of Mary taught the boy’s classes from 1864–87, after which the sisters resumed teaching all classes (20). 

[vii] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; “Historical Report” (June 1961), 1.

[viii] Untitled newspaper clipping (“St. Peter’s Church…”), The Rochester Daily Union, Jan. 21, 1853, copy in SMA.

[ix] “Historical Report”; Joseph Schwab and John Reis, “Regular Annual Meeting of the German Catholic Congregation of St. Peter’s Church in this City,” newspaper clipping (no periodical name, Rochester, N.Y.), July 2, 1855, copy in SMA; “St. Peter’s Church Once More,” The Rochester Daily Union (Rochester, N.Y.), July 19, 1855, copy in SMA. 

[x] “Historical Report” (June 1961), 26 (quotes from here).

[xi] Quoted in “Short History,” 15.

[xii] “Historical Report” (June 1961), 16.

[xiii] Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion, 5th ed. (Boston: Pearson Cengage, 2013), 77–78; Russell Shaw, “‘Americanism’: Phantom Heresy or Fact?” National Catholic Register, acc. 5 May 2018, www.ncregister.com/daily-news/americanism-phantom-heresy-or-fact.

[xiv] “Historical Report” (June 1961), 12.

[xv] “Short History of Ss. Peter & Paul Parish Community, 1836–1987,” Roman Catholic Church of Ss. Peter and Paul (Rochester, N.Y., 1987), 14, SMA.

[xvi] “Historical Report” (June 1961), 3.

[xvii] “The Fire Yesterday,” newspaper clipping (no periodical name, Rochester, N.Y.), circa 1859–1861, annotated by John Curran, copy in SMA.

[xviii] “Historical Report” (June 1961), 3.

[xix] Robert F. McNamara, “Priest Revealed Lifelong Secret in Final Days,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, Jan. 30, 1991, 3A, copy in SMA.

[xx] “Fifty Years a Church: Jubilee Services To-morrow at S. S. Peter and Pauls,” newspaper clipping (no periodical name, Rochester, N.Y.), July 1, 1893, copy in SMA.

[xxi] “Solemn Organ Dedication,” Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church (Rochester, N.Y.), Dec. 20, 1903, SMA.

[xxii] “Historical Report” (June 1961), 27.

[xxiii] “Awful Calamity,” Rochester Daily Democrat (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, Jan. 7, 1869, copy in SMA; Blake McKelvey, “Accidents and Their Prevention: A Revealing Phase of Rochester’s History,” Rochester History 17, No. 1 (Jan. 1955): 6.

[xxiv] “Awful Calamity.”

[xxv] “Awful Calamity.”

[xxvi] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[xxvii] “School House Disaster — Funeral of Six of the Victims…” Rochester Union-Advertiser (Rochester, N.Y.), Friday, Jan. 8, 1869, 2–2, copy in SMA.

[xxviii] McKelvey, “Accidents,” 6.

[xxix] McNamara, Diocese, 127; Frederick J. Zwierlein, “Diocese of Rochester,” in Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13 (1913), Wikisource, CC BY-SA 3.0, acc. 5 May 2018, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Diocese_of_Rochester.

[xxx] SPP Catholic Newspaper Article on St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Diocesan Churches, Fall 1898 (No Paper Name), copy in SMA.

[xxxi] SPP Knights of St. John history, SMA.

[xxxii] “Holy Name Deanery Lists Annual Meeting,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Feb. 15, 1954, copy in SMA; SPP Immaculate Heart of Mary Sodality Attendance Book (1961–83), SMA.

[xxxiii] “Rochester’s Churches — 21,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), May 28, 1950, copy in SMA.

[xxxiv] “Dr. Emil Gefell to Observe 60^th Year in Priesthood,” The Catholic Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), Friday, May 25, 1956, copy in SMA.

[xxxv] William J. Brien “Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church, Rochester, N.Y.” (1953), 1, copy in SMA [Brien details the architecture and construction of the West Main Street church]; John Curran, editorial notes on St. Lucy’s Church, appended to SPP 1912 newspaper cutouts, collection in SMA.

[xxxvi] Jenkins Wurzer Starks Architects, P.C. [best guess], Ss. Peter and Paul Survey (1976), copy in SMA.

[xxxvii] “25^th Anniversary Pageant Planned by Catholic Church,” newspaper clipping (no periodical name, Rochester, N.Y.), May 16, 1937, copy in SMA; Brien, “Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church,” 2.

[xxxviii] “Brief History.”

[xxxix] “Where New Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church Will Be Built,” newspaper clipping (no periodical name, Rochester, N.Y.), n.d., copy in SMA.

[xl] “Brief History”; “Historical Report” (June 1961), 7. For discussion of Raggi’s decorations, see: “History & Architecture,” Roman Catholic Church of Ss. Peter and Paul (Rochester, N.Y., n.d.), SMA.

[xli] “Italian Mission is to Use Old Church,” newspaper clipping (no periodical name, Rochester, N.Y.), June 29, 1912, SMA. John Curran writes: “St. Lucy’s Church was a mission parish of Saints Peter & Paul serving a growing west side Italian immigrant population. Fr. Gefell had studied in Rome for seven years and was fluent in Italian. This as an extremely busy time for Fr. Gefell, who had just finished the planning and development of Saints Peter & Paul’s new church campus at its West Avenue location (later renamed West Main St.). Saint Lucy’s parish declined and was closed in the 1970s. It later became the Lily of the Valley church and was destroyed by fire around 2001. The former Saints Peter & Paul Church was razed and a completely new warehouse was built for the B., R. & P. Railways (later occupied by Seneca Paper during the 1990s and DataVault as of 2006)” [source: Curran, editorial notes on St. Lucy’s Church, appended to SPP 1912 newspaper cutouts].

[xlii] “Census Tract 26 in Ward II,” Rochester, New York, 1940: A Graphic Interpretation of Population Data by Census Tracts (Rochester, N.Y.: The Research Department of the Council of Social Agencies, 1942), copy in SMA.

[xliii] Untitled article, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Jun. 26, 1943, copy in SMA.

[xliv] “Centennial Rites Slated at Church,” Rochester Times-Union (Rochester, N.Y.), Jun. 25, 1943, copy in SMA; “Pontifical Mass Today to Mark SS. Peter and Paul’s Ceremony,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Jun. 27, 1943, copy in SMA.

[xlv] “SS Peter and Paul’s Church Damaged by Basement Blaze,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), May 31, 1944, copy in SMA.

[xlvi] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; “Funeral Held for Father Fox,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), July 21, 1967, copy in SPP Father Fox’s death scrapbook, SMA; “Historical Report” (June 1961), 8, 26; “Short History,” 23.

[xlvii] “Ornate Ceiling Cracks, Part Falls in Church,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Sunday, Oct. 23, 1966, 10B, copy in SMA.

[xlviii] “Father Gefell Dies at 88; Pastor Emeritus,” Rochester Times-Union (Rochester, N.Y.), Monday, May 11, 1959, copy in SMA.

[xlix] “Short History,” 23.

[l] SPP Father Fox’s death scrapbook, SMA.

[li] “Funeral Held for Father Fox.”

[lii] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; “A New Chapter for Historic Parish,” The Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), Friday, Sept. 1, 1967, copy in SMA; SPP History Pamphlet (“We are Called and Sent…”) (n.d. — 1970s), SMA.

[liii] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[liv] Excerpt from Mary Perkins Ryan, Has the New Liturgy Changed You? (New York: Paulist Press, 1967), in SPP Parish Bulletin, Aug. 11, 1968, SMA.

[lv] “Church Singing is Prayer,” in SPP Parish Bulletin (Jan. 25, 1970), SMA.

[lvi] SPP Parish Bulletin (July 26, 1970), page 3, SMA.

[lvii] SPP “Folk Song Mass” Program (n.d., circa 1970s), SMA.

[lviii] Amy Hecker, Landmark Society of Western New York, to Rev. Alphonsus McHugh, Roman Catholic Church of Ss. Peter and Paul (Rochester, N.Y.), Sept. 13, 1971.

[lix] Rob Cullivan, “Vatican II Lefts Its Mark on Liturgical Spaces,” The Catholic Courier 104, No. 39 (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, July 1, 1993.

[lx] SPP Sr. M. Rosamond 50^th Anniversary Celebration Photographs (July 19, 1970), SMA.

[lxi] SPP Bingo Workers Dinner Party (Jun. 7, 1970), SMA.

[lxii] John Curran, email to Daniel Gorman Jr., 24 Dec. 2018; Saints Peter and Paul: The Message Goes Out! (promotional film, VHS, 1993), SMA.

[lxiii] SPP Immaculate Heart of Mary Sodality Dissolution Note (Dec. 19, 1983), SMA.

[lxiv] SPP “Option for Future Ministry” by “Claire” [no last name] (n.d., circa late 1970s–early 1980s), SMA.

[lxv] Richard McNally, “Ss. Peter and Paul’s? I Thought They Closed It,” East Coast Newsletter (March 1984), 3, copy in SMA.

[lxvi] McNally, “Ss. Peter and Paul’s?” 3–4.

[lxvii] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; Mark Hare, “Breadbasket Politics,” City Newspaper 11, No. 42 (Rochester, N.Y.), July 15, 1982, copy in SMA; Jody McPhillips, “More than a Meal: ‘Our Philosophy is like Mother Theresa’s: What we get, we give,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), April 1982, copy in SMA; “‘Privileged Isolation’ Charged to Meese,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Dec. 1983, copy in SMA.

[lxviii] McNally, “Ss. Peter and Paul’s” 3–4; SPP Brother Walter LeCremieux, SS.CC., Vows Ceremony Program (Aug. 28, 1985), SMA.

[lxix] McNally, “Ss. Peter and Paul’s?” 5.

[lxx] SPP Brother DiManno Pastoral Letter (April 1986), SMA. See also: SPP Flyer (1987), SMA; SPP Parish Bulletin (Jun. 1, 1986), SMA.

[lxxi] City of Rochester Certificate of Merit for “Saint Peter and Paul Church,” signed by Mayor Thomas P. Ryan Jr. (Dec. 4, 1986), SMA.

[lxxii] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; Rich Czerwien, “Convent Position Paper,” SMA.

[lxxiii] “Brief History”; SPP papers related to convent sale (1986–94); Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[lxxiv] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[lxxv] David P. Reid in “Saints Peter and Paul Church Repair and Adaptation Campaign” Brochure (circa 1994), copy in SMA.

[lxxvi] Ss. Peter and Paul Social Ministry Committee, “Proposal to the Parish Community of Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church from the SSPP Social Ministry Committee — Final” (Nov. 6, 1990), page 2, SMA.

[lxxvii] David P. Reid to Mary L. Robinson, Oct. 9, 1991, SMA.

[lxxviii] Amy Kotlarz, “Ministries Continue in 19^th Ward,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Sept. 8–9, 2007, copy in SPP records, SMA; SPP “History & Architecture” Pamphlet (n.d., circa 1993), SMA; SPP and Housing Opportunities, Inc., Sublease, July 1, 1989, SMA.

[lxxix] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; David P. Reid to members of the Parish Council, “Re: Proposal to Have a Medical Clinic in St. Peter’s Kitchen,” Mar. 28, 1992, with editorial notes by John Curran, SMA; SPP Strategic Planning Document (circa summer 1995), SMA.

[lxxx] Community Voice 1, No. 1 (Rochester, N.Y.: Neighborhood Community Center at Ss. Peter and Paul, Apr. 1993), copy in SMA; Curran, email to Gorman, 25 Apr. 2019.

[lxxxi] Ss. Peter and Paul Social Ministry Committee, “Proposal,” page 3.

[lxxxii] Curran, email to Gorman, 25 Apr. 2019.

[lxxxiii] SPP “A Joyful Celebration of The Sacrament of Confirmation and Our First 150 Years, Ss. Peter and Paul Church, June 27, 1993” Program, SMA.

[lxxxiv] The Ss. Peter and Paul Cluster Team, memo to the Parish Council, Nov. 6, 1993, SMA. St. Monica archivist John Curran notes that St. Francis of Assisi had many Spanish-speaking parishioners. Fr. Reid was bilingual and therefore greatly valued at St. Francis.

[lxxxv] Saints Peter and Paul: The Message Goes Out!

[lxxxvi] “Historic Church Seeking Donors for Ambitious Capital Project,’ The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, July 20, 1995, copy in SMA; “Saints Peter and Paul Church Repair and Adaptation Campaign” Brochure.

[lxxxvii] Kermit Krueger to David P. Reid, Feb. 17, 1994, copy in SMA.

[lxxxviii] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[lxxxix] “Sacred Hearts Announces New Parish Assignments,” South Coast Today (New Bedford, MA), uploaded 5 July 1996, last modified 10 Jan. 2011, https://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/19960705/news/307059985.

[xc] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; John Curran, email to Daniel Gorman Jr., 26 Apr. 2019.

[xci] Mike Latona and Tamara Tirado, “City Churches Cope With Change,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), November 2005, copy in SMA; Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward Lent Schedule (“Be Still… and know that I am here”), 2003, SMA; Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward Lent Schedule (“Shatter the Hardness of Our Hearts”), 2004, SMA; Paul J. Tomasso et al., Draft Pastoral Plan for the Roman Catholic Communities of Bull’s Head, Corn Hill, and the 19^th Ward, copy in SMA.

[xcii] Curran, email to Gorman, 26 Apr. 2019; SPP Administrative Structure Chart (Sept. 10, 2001), SMA.

[xciii] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[xciv] SPP Craig Bullock Pastoral Letter (June 25, 2000), SMA.

[xcv] Meaghan M. [last name omitted], “Church Rejoices in Revival,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Dec. 24, 2000, 1B, copy in SMA.

[xcvi] SPP Vision Retreat Papers (March 2002), SMA.

[xcvii] Judy Graper to Robert Werth, “Re: Recruitment and Appointment of Pastoral Associate” (June 29, 2002), copy in SMA.

[xcviii] SPP 160^th Anniversary Mass Program (Jun. 29, 2003), SMA.

[xcix] Curran, email to Gorman, 26 Apr. 2019; SPP Administrator’s Report for Oct. 1, 2003, SMA.

[c] RCC 19/Bulls Head/Cornhlll Planning Group Leadership Team Meeting Minutes for May 27, 2003, SMA.

[ci] John Curran, “Basic Information for Saints Peter & Paul Parish Regarding Pastoral Planning for 2005–2010,” Roman Catholic Community of the 19th Ward (Nov. 21, 2004); Curran, email to Gorman, 26 Apr. 2019; Daniel Gorman Jr., interview with Br. Antonios the Shenoudian, Thursday, 24 May  2018; Gorman, interview with Curran, 20 Dec. 2018; Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019; Marketta Gregory, “Catholics to Shut Down 11 Churches,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, A1, ProQuest Document ID: 441800596, copy in SMA; Marketta Gregory, “Closures Sadden Resigned Faithful,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, A9, ProQuest Document ID: 441800986, copy in SMA; Latona, “City Churches.”

[cii] Curran, email to Gorman, 26 Apr. 2019; Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[ciii] Patricia Flass, “Saints Peter & Paul: Dear Friends…,” in SPP Parish Bulletin (Pentecost, Jun. 4, 2006), SMA.

[civ] Amy Kotlarz, “City Parish Holds Closing Mass,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Oct. 13, 2006, https://www.catholiccourier.com/articles/city-parish-holds-closing-mass. 

[cv] Kotlarz, “City Parish Holds Closing Mass.”

[cvi] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019. See also the video of the Ss. Peter and Paul closing Mass.

[cvii] Joanne Arany, Landmark Society of Western New York, to Raymond Fleming, Nov. 6, 2006, copy in SMA.

[cviii] “Coptic Monastery of St. Shenouda,” Facebook, accessed May 5, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/brantonios/; Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios; Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[cix] Kotlarz, “Ministries Continue.”

[cx] Kotlarz, “Ministries Continue.”

[cxi] Gorman, interview with Curran, 18 Apr. 2019.

[cxii] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

[cxiii] “Corrections & Clarifications,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 28 Dec. 2007, A2, ProQuest Document ID: 441986157s; Meaghan M. McDermott, “Despite Parish’s Closure, A Tradition is Renewed,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 27 Dec. 2007, B1, ProQuest Document ID: 441985552; Meaghan A. McDermott, “Nativity Scene Has New Life,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 31 Dec. 2008, B3, ProQuest Document ID: 442068891.

[cxiv] Gorman, interview with Br. Antonios.

[cxv] “Weekly List of Actions Taken on Properties, 6/18–22/2012,” National Park Service, June 29, 2012, accessed 29 June 2017, https://www.nps.gov/nr/listings/20120629.htm. 

[cxvi] Meaghan M. McDermott, “Former Parishioners Renew Fond Memories,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 27 Jun. 2011, ProQuest Document ID: 873715395.

Author: Daniel Gorman Jr.

St. Monica Roman Catholic Church has been at the corner of Genesee and Monica Streets since 1913.

St. Monica Roman Catholic Church was formed to serve 65 Irish Catholic families, many of them farmers.[i] In 1895, Bishop McQuaid split the new parish from Immaculate Conception, which had grown too large, and charged Monsignor John Brophy with caring for Catholics in southwest Rochester.[ii] Details about Monsignor Brophy are scarce. He was 30 years old when the parish opened in 1898.[iii] A 1984 Landmark Society of Western N.Y. report says that he was known for bicycling.[iv] Parish lore holds that he took a bicycle tour through the neighborhood when he learned that he would be leading a new church there.[v] St. Monica launched as a full parish in June 1898, even though the combined church-school building at 838 Genesee Street was not completed until January 1899.[vi] At the New Year’s Day, 1899, Mass (a Sunday, fittingly), Bishop McQuaid commented:

St. Monica’s Church is the outcome of an idea I have had for some time past of placing in the outskirts of the city small parish churches. Yet I must say that you have erected here a larger church building than I expected. Still if you were able to put up such a splendid building, you will, I think, be able to sustain it….[vii]

Charles L. McCarthy, “Foundation of Saint Monica’s Church of Rochester” (1949)

Three nuns from the Sisters of St. Joseph ran the school, with its total of 67 students. Although nuns worked at St. Monica from its inception, the church did not open a convent until 1907.[viii] Previously, the nuns had lived at the St. Patrick’s Girls Orphanage and walked a mile to school every day, as they could not afford the trolley fare.[ix]

St. Monica Historic Parish Boundaries (no date)

 In 1913, Brophy supervised the construction of a new St. Monica, which cost $75,201.26, and a rectory at the southwest corner of Genesee and Monica Streets.[x] This project better accommodated the more than 3,000 people who attended the parish.[xi] John T. Comes, a Pittsburgh architect, designed the new Italianate-style church, which held its first Mass on January 30, 1915.[xii] While Comes designed a bell tower, it was not built.[xiii] Tradition has it that Brophy and George Eastman, president of Kodak, went to New York City together to obtain an organ, but this story needs more evidence.[xiv] Nine years later, Brophy oversaw the installation of stencils, paintings of the saints, statuary, and paintings in the church.[xv] While the new church was under construction, a wooden annex was added to the original church to serve as a school.[xvi]

The parish continued to grow despite the Great Depression. Brophy supervised the opening of a new recreation center, featuring a gym, auditorium, and kitchen, in 1935.[xvii] The church maintained its rich culture of civil associations. A chapter, or praesidium, of the Legion of Mary formed at St. Monica in 1931, during a wave of Legion chapters forming in Rochester.[xviii] Parishioners worked with the Society for the Propagation of the Faith; in 1944, for instance, they donated $155 for adoptions, $34.02 in general donations, and $50 for “seals” to the Pontifical Association of the Holy Childhood, which funds missionary work.[xix] Additionally, the Works Progress Administration sent Arthur Purtell in 1936 to assess St. Monica’s archives for the Survey of State and Local Historical Records.[xx] Some of the documents Purtell describes, notably index cards of members and leather-bound church records, are not available for public review.

Works Progress Administration Survey of State and Local Historical Records for St. Monica (1936)

Three structural improvements — a redecorated church, a remodeled school, and a school addition — occurred in 1939.[xxi] Monsignor Brophy died the same year.[xxii] Bishop Kearney presided over Brophy’s funeral, for which the church was decorated with banners. Dozens of priests and nuns attended.[xxiii] Rev. William Bergan succeeded Brophy as pastor.

In 1947, the last full year of Bergan’s tenure, construction began on a new school, which would provide more classroom and office space, and replace the wooden school annex. Local African American architect Thomas Boyde, who built Monroe Community Hospital, contributed to the school design.[xxiv] Bishop Kearney blessed the school on its opening in 1949 and used the occasion to laud the patriotism of Catholic schools.[xxv] Specifically, one newspaper clipping said, “The bishop emphasize[d] the importance of Catholic education to the growth of American democratic principles.”[xxvi] This comment reflects the efforts of twentieth-century Catholics to overcome lingering religious and ethnic prejudice, and reiterate their commitment to democracy, despite their spiritual allegiance to the Vatican. Anti-Catholic sentiments would remain acceptable in public discourse until 1960, when presidential candidate John F. Kennedy made a concerted (and effective) attack against them.[xxvii]

Monsignor Gerald Lambert became pastor of St. Monica upon Bergan’s death in 1948. Lambert had previously run Catholic Charities for the diocese. In this position, he had directed health programming, settlement houses, Boy Scouts, St. Anne’s Home for the Aged, and the 1937–42 consolidation of diocese orphanages. Lambert and Rev. Eugene Hudson co-founded Camp Stella Maris, a Catholic summer camp at Conesus Lake that remains operational today.[xxviii] In the holy year of 1951, Lambert coordinated bus transportation for more than 1,000 St. Monica parishioners to visit special churches where indulgences were being distributed.[xxix]

More than seven million acts of Communion occurred in the diocese in 1958; 172,000 of these Communions were at St. Monica.[xxx] In their 1959 report, St. Monica’s trustees estimated that 2,000 families attended the church. The trustees called the church’s growth “steady over the years, in keeping with normal growth of City of Rochester.” “A few Negroes,” estimated at “4–5 families” and “perhaps five children in school,” attended the church; there was no mention of Latinx or Asian Americans. As of 1959, the church’s clergy had presided over 7,215 Baptisms, 5,610 first Communions, 5,754 Confirmations, 2,588 marriages, and 3,118 deaths.[xxxi] There is a gap in the church archive, unfortunately, regarding school attendance and the parish’s changing demographics in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

St. Monica Trustee Report (1959)
Editor’s Note: Two scanned copies of the 1959 trustee report are embedded here. The second copy has better print quality, but is missing the fifth page.

Still, a March 25, 1960, Catholic Courier Journal article reinforces the large population of not only St. Monica, but also the Diocese of Rochester, in the early Cold War. The prior Sunday, more than twelve hundred Legionnaires of Mary processed to St. Monica and renewed their membership.[xxxii] In 1973, the Courier Journal called the 1950s St. Monica’s peak, when the church was “about the richest in the diocese” and drew “5,000 people at Sunday Mass.”[xxxiii] After the Second Vatican Council, significant changes came to St. Monica. Like most Catholic churches, the communion rail was removed and the Mass was performed in the vernacular. Lambert retired in 1970, and Father Edward A. Zimmer succeeded him.[xxxiv]

White flight hit St. Monica hard. As the African American population of the 19^th Ward increased, wealthier white families departed, as Rev. Zimmer noted to the Courier Journal in 1973.[xxxv] Parish archivist John Curran recalls that real estate agents engaged in blockblusting tactics, circulating fliers in the neighborhood that amplified white racial fears and persuading white residents to sell their homes.[xxxvi] Upstate New York, a regional magazine, ran its own profile in November 1973 on white flight and St. Monica — a racially alarmist piece called “Parishes in Trouble: Diminishing White Catholic Congregations in Changing Neighborhoods.” The article begins with the dramatic story of how the church “began disintegrating as blacks migrated into the neighborhood.” The essay notes white St. Monica parishioners’ feelings of discomfort around black residents, and describes how a parishioner angry with local black youths threatened Zimmer, who was an advocate of racial integration.[xxxvii] Zimmer, both in this article and a Courier Journal piece on St. Monica’s diamond jubilee (December 1973), emphasized the positive changes in the parish, as young families had moved into the area and some racially biased parishioners had departed.[xxxviii]

Ron Robitaille, “Parishes in Trouble: Diminishing White Catholic Congregations in Changing Neighborhoods,” with photos by Jim Laragy, Upstate New York, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Sunday, Nov. 4, 1973

St. Monica saw an increase in women’s authority, to the occasional consternation of traditional (and male) parishioners. “Pastoral Associate” Sister Barbara Moore sometimes delivered homilies at Mass, in lieu of a priest. When Although Pope Paul VI was an opponent of female ordination, female students at St. Monica lobbied the parish administration in September 1972 to become altar “servers,” in addition to altar boys. While many boys voiced their opposition, the priests and other administrators agreed to the girls’ proposal, provided that they completed the educational requirements. Sure enough, nine girls finished the course, and St. Monica became the first Rochester church to have altar servers. The first two altar servers, Julie Webster and Linda Pugliese (who told the Courier Journal she was willing to protest, if necessary, to become a server), began their work in August 1973.[xxxix]

The church sold its convent in February 1973. The building became the Westside Health Center, a joint project by Zimmer and the Rochester Health Network.[xl] This clinic offered family medicine, lab testing, dental care, and X-ray scans to area residents.[xli] Out of necessity, the 21 Sisters of St. Joseph moved into the church rectory, and the priests moved to a house down the street.[xlii] This arrangement ended when nuns stopped teaching in the parish school in 1979. The nuns moved elsewhere, and the male priests reclaimed their rectory.[xliii] As early as 1973, however, sisters were working at other facilities in the city, reflecting the growing presence of women religious in American communities, instead of leading cloistered lives.[xliv] St. Monica’s school still had an SSJ principal, Sister Mary Ellen Cragan, in the 1980s.[xlv] 

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which by the 2010s was known for its political conservatism, endorsed this activist orientation in the early 1980s. In a study of 64 urban Catholic schools, including St. Monica, the League found that Catholic schools resolved budget troubles and experienced renewal when they served the whole community, not only Catholics. St. This commitment to urban activism and social services, in practice, meant taking the Catholic Church beyond white enclaves to help people of color, who suffered from disproportionate levels of poverty and de facto discrimination. Parent involvement in the schools was also crucial. St. Monica’s school, which had seen its enrollment drop into the low hundreds because of white flight, had a growing student body by 1983.[xlvi] The transition from a racially homogenous parish to a racially inclusive one rejuvenated St. Monica’s culture. Financial support from grocery CEO Robert Wegman and his wife Peggy was instrumental in keeping St. Monica School and other city Catholic schools open in this period.[xlvii]

The April 1985 parish review captured the 19^th Ward’s changing demographics. St. Monica was now:

a central city parish serving a racially and economically diverse geographical community. Parishioners tend to be white, middle-income persons, although an increasing proportion (45%+) are retirees on fixed incomes. U.S. census data indicates that the majority of persons age 50 and over in southwest Rochester have completed some or all of high school. Few persons in this age group have attended college. A majority of the younger (age 40 and below) parishioners joining St. Monica’s in the last ten years are professional persons and have attended or completed college.

The school even more than the church reflected the neighborhood’s changed demographics: “School serves app. 200 students (over 90% non-white and non-Catholic).” Financial trouble weighed upon the report’s authors:

Pastor and staff must be capable of operating programs and ministry within tight budget constraints. Ability to work with racial minorities and non-Catholic persons is essential. Ability to recruit, train and motivate volunteer personnel is essential due to lack of paid support staff. Pastor and staff should be comfortable with inter-parish (St. Augustine’s -St. Monica’s) cooperation and shared programming.

Nonetheless, the church leadership had plans for the future. In the long term, church officials hoped “to brighten our liturgical programs to continue to attract people… To provide high quality elementary education to area youth… To increase membership from area residents through local evangelization.” In the short term, church officials hoped “to put available space to the most efficient use… To seek a larger funding base… To promote continuing evaluation of present and projected programs to promote best use of assets.”[xlviii]

St. Monica Parish Review (Apr. 19, 1985).

Diocesan budget problems intensified in the 1990s. The diocese ended its financial and direct administrative support for St. Monica School in 1991, although the parish kept the school open until 2008. To help its financial situation, while still meeting neighborhood needs, St. Monica sold its old convent to West Side Medical Services.[xlix] This house clinic later evolved into Sojourner House, which sought “to help young women in transition,” as a 2003 church history booklet put it.[l] Specifically, Sojourner House provides services to single mothers and their children who are transitioning to a more stable home environment.[li]

In 1992, at the direction of Father Bob Werth, St. Monica joined a cost, facilities, and priest-sharing venture with St. Augustine and Our Lady of Good Council called the FIRST Cluster. The cluster was later renamed the Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward (RCC19).[lii] The churches in the cluster maintained their individual identities, however. St. Monica celebrated its centennial in 1998 with much fanfare. Former priests and nuns who had worked at St. Monica over the last few decades returned to the church to deliver guest homilies. A time capsule from the original St. Monica’s cornerstone was opened, revealing lost artifacts. The May 17, 1998, bulletin ran a historical overview of the parish.[liii] Werth, quoting Father Avery Dulles, S.J., wrote to parishioners that the church must embody multiple models — Institutional, Mystical Communion, Sacramental, Herald, and Servant — to do its work properly.[liv] Bishop Matthew Clark led a centennial Mass on May 17.[lv]

RCC19 Newsletters with St. Monica Centennial Information (1997–98)

In the early 2000s, RCC19 added Ss. Peter and Paul.[lvi] Per Bishop Clark’s mandate, the four RCC19 churches would have three weekend Masses at two locations, but only one priest would serve all the churches.[lvii] Sister Marie Susanne Hoffman, known as “Sr. Sue,” SSJ, was installed as St. Monica’s “pastoral administrator” to run daily affairs.[lviii] In fall 2004, the Bishop recommended a new round of pastoral planning for all urban churches, building on the late-1990s “Pastoral Planning for the New Millennium” initiative.[lix] The 19^th Ward/Corn Hill/Bull’s Head Planning Group, formed to consider RCC19’s future, recommended in November 2005 the closure of OLGC, St. Augustine, and Ss. Peter and Paul. Parishioners took a vote on this proposal and upheld it. After the closures, parishioners would report to St. Monica, which would also become home to Emmanuel. Some parishioners of the closing churches reported a feeling of loss, while others were resigned to the change, the given declining Catholic population.[lx] Father Ray Fleming of Emmanuel took over St. Monica after Sister Hoffman’s resignation and faced the task of forming a “New St. Monica” community.[lxi] Roxie Sinkler, a passionate African American social activist who was hired as a parish administrator, was widely credited with bolstering the new parish’s identity and prioritizing diversity. Her sudden death in 2011 inspired an outpouring of praise in local newspapers and from civic organizations.[lxii]

Roxie Sinkler Hiring Announcement Flier (Circa 2008-09)

Volunteer work also helped to create a new community. The “Blooming Optimists,” a group devoted to gardening and urban beautification, installed a flower garden near the entrance to the Susan B. Anthony District in October 2006. This act honored an old story about former diocesan priest Father Howard Geck, who died in 1993 at age 97. As a child, Geck was an elementary student at Ss. Peter and Paul’s school. In May, one student per day had to bring flowers for their classroom’s Marian shrine. When it was Geck’s turn, he had no flowers. Desperate, he asked an old woman on Madison Street if he might borrow flowers from her garden. Susan B. Anthony said yes. Nearly a century later, the former parishioners of Ss. Peter and Paul felt they were returning Anthony’s favor, while also getting to bond with the parishioners of the combined St. Monica.[lxiii]

St. Monica Blooming Optimists Documents (2006)
Editor’s Note: The final page of this PDF reproduces a newspaper article, but the periodical name is not included. We are placing it on here for the moment, and will be happy to modify the PDF if the publisher contacts us.

In 2008, St. Monica affiliated with the Westside Farmers Market, which remains a popular summer attraction at the parish. The same year, the church began to rent its old school to Rochester Academy Charter School.[lxiv] This revenue has been indispensible in maintaining the parish. The parish has staged two major retrospectives in the 2010s. In January 2011, GeVa Theatre celebrated former students of the Upstairs Youth Agency, a joint project of composer Tony Falzano and Sister Shelia Walsh, SSJ. The agency had produced several original musicals performed by local teenagers in 1977–83. Thirty-plus years later, Falzano, Walsh, and the now-grown students performed Second Time Around, a revue of songs from the old shows.[lxv] On August 19, 2012, St. Monica collaborated with local theatre group Women of the Well for a celebration of Rochester diocese nuns on August 19, 2012. Marilyn Catherine, a St. Monica parishioner and member of Women of the Well, wrote the script.[lxvi] The event emphasized the importance of women religious, despite the Catholic Church’s ban on female ordination.[lxvii]

Second Time Around Playbill (January 2011)

“A Celebration of Our Sisters,” St. Monica Church (August 19, 2012)

There have been a few scandals in the parish. When youths vandalized cars parked at the church in fall 2010, parishioners expressed an interest in restorative justice instead of criminal justice, although the families of the youths were reluctant to get involved.[lxviii] In 2013, Father Fleming notified the public about several hundred thousand expropriated dollars.[lxix] The theft raised concerns in the diocese about parishes potentially failing to follow anti-fraud protocols. Similar scandals had plagued the St. Mark and Our Lady of the Americas parishes in Rochester, and the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance & Christian Charity in Buffalo in recent years.[lxx] Marlo Santini, the former St. Monica business manager, was indicted in 2014 for stealing at least $50,000 in 2008–13.[lxxi] The number was later put at $240,000.[lxxii]

Today, St. Monica has a robust civil culture, with adult formation classes, programs focused on black and Caribbean Catholicism, youth groups, and sustainability/climate change initiatives.[lxxiii] The annual celebration of Our Lady of Fatima of Portugal echoes the Legionnaire events of 70 years ago.[lxxiv] In 2017, recalling his service for multiple parishes in the early 2000s, Father Fleming became the pastor for the merged churches of Immaculate Conception and St. Bridget’s. He continues to serve St. Monica and Emmanuel, as well.[lxxv]

St. Monica’s church sanctuary retains much of its historic artwork, although the facility was updated in March 1976 to accommodate the liturgical changes of Vatican II. Further renovations for greater accessibility and sustainability occurred in 2009–10 and 2013.[lxxvi] A large, neutral-colored screen has been placed behind the pulpit to increase the visibility of sign language interpreting.  The church no longer has an organ — the most recent organ was sold in 1999 to pay down the church’s debts — but a music ministry continues to accompany services. The church also has an adult contemporary choir, a Gospel choir, and a youth choir.[lxxvii]

Endnotes

In the endnotes that follow, SMA stands for the St. Monica Roman Catholic Church Archive, 34 Monica Street, Rochester, N.Y., 14619. Open-access back issues of The Catholic Courier, in its various iterations (Courier Journal, etc.), are available at http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/.

[i] St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report, SMA. Church historian Charles L. McCarthy notes, “At first there were but 65 families willing to support the new church — and many unwilling” (“Foundation of Saint Monica’s Church of Rochester,” 1949, SMA).

[ii] McCarthy, “Foundation”; Arthur T. Purtell, Church Records from St. Monica’s Church, Survey of State and Local Historical Records, Works Progress Administration, 1936, copy in SMA; St. Monica Historical Write-up, n.d. (Circa 1939), SMA; St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report; St. Monica 2003 Booklet, SMA; St. Monica Draft Parish History, n.d., SMA.

[iii] McCarthy, “Foundation.”

[iv] “Review of Buildings in the South West Area” (Rochester, N.Y.: Landmark Society of Western N.Y., 1984).

[v] Daniel Gorman Jr., interview with John Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[vi] Robert F. McNamara, The Diocese of Rochester in America, 1868–1993, 2nd ed. (Rochester, N.Y.: Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, 1998), 187; St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report; St. Monica 2003 Booklet; Draft Parish History, n.d.

[vii] McCarthy, “Foundation.”

[viii] St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report. The convent was located on Genesee Street, opposite the modern St. Monica school building [Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018].

[ix] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[x] St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report.

[xi] St. Monica 2003 Booklet.

[xii] McNamara, Diocese, 303; Robert F. McNamara, Questionnaire, Survey of Parish Archives and Architecture, Diocese of Rochester, 1992. See also: James Sarkis, “St. Monica,” Rochester Churches, accessed June 22, 2017. http://dorchurches.com/stmonica.

[xiii] Draft Parish History, n.d.

[xiv] McNamara, Questionnaire, 1992.

[xv] Draft Parish History, n.d.

[xvi] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[xvii] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018; St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report.

[xviii] McNamara, Diocese, 438.

[xix] Society for the Propagation of the Faith (Rochester), “Confidential Report of Monies Received, Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 1944,” in The Society for the Propagation of the Faith: Fides Vincit Mundum (Rochester, N.Y.: St. Bernard’s Institute, n.d. [1945]), 18, copy in Rush Rhees Library stacks, call no. BX1417.R6 C37 1945; John Willms, “Association of the Holy Childhood,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 7. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910), http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07399a.htm.

[xx] Purtell, Church Records.

[xxi] St. Monica 2003 Booklet.

[xxii] Draft Parish History, n.d.

[xxiii] Monsignor Brophy Funeral Photographs, newspaper clipping (periodical unlisted), 1939, SMA.

[xxiv] “Bishop Kearney Dedicates New St. Monica School,” newspaper clipping (periodical unlisted), Apr. 18, 1949, SMA; St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report; Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[xxv] “Bishop Blesses St. Monica School,” newspaper clipping (periodical unlisted), circa Apr. 21, 1949, SMA.

[xxvi] “Bishop Blesses.” See also: “Formal Rites Dedicate St. Monica’s School,” newspaper clipping (periodical unlisted), April 18, 1949, SMA.

[xxvii] See: John F. Kennedy, Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Sept. 12, 1960, NPR, Dec. 5, 2007, accessed Jan. 8, 2018, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600.

[xxviii] “Monsignor Lambert Named Pastor of St. Monica’s Church,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Jan. 22, 1948, SMA copy; St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report; “Camp Stella Maris Since 1926: A Brief History,” Camp Stella Maris.org, accessed Jan. 6, 2017, http://www.campstellamaris.org/about/.

[xxix] “St. Monica Pilgrims Top Holy Year Visits by Bus,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Nov. 23, 1951, SMA copy.

[xxx] Frank Kelly, “1958 Communions Total 7 Million,” The Catholic Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), Friday, Jan. 9, 1959, SMA.

[xxxi] St. Monica 1959 Trustee Report.

[xxxii] “Legion of Mary Rededication Rites Held, Expansion Reported,” The Catholic Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), Friday, Mar. 25, 1960, SMA.

[xxxiii] Barbara Moynehan, “St. Monica’s: From Convent to Health Center,” The Catholic Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), Feb. 21, 1973, SMA.

[xxxiv] John Dash, “St. Monica’s Will Note Its Diamond Jubilee,” The Catholic Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), December 12, 1973, SMA.

[xxxv] Moynehan, “St. Monica’s.”

[xxxvi] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[xxxvii] Ron Robitaille and Jim Laragy, “Parishes in Trouble: Diminishing White Catholic Congregations in Changing Neighborhoods,” Upstate New York, Sunday, 4 Nov. 1973, 4–9, copy in SMA; quote from page 4.

[xxxviii] Dash, “Diamond Jubilee”; Robitaille, “Parishes in Trouble.”

[xxxix] Pat Petraske, “‘Servers’ Join Altar Boys at St. Monica,” Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), August 22, 1973, NYS Historic Newspapers.org, accessed Jan. 11, 2018, http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/np00020004/1973-08-22/ed-1/seq-17.pdf; copy of photograph from article in SMA. 

[xl] Moynehan, “St. Monica’s.”

[xli] “Convent Remodeled for Health Center,” The Catholic Courier Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), Wednesday, Jan. 9, 1974, copy in SMA.

[xlii] Moynehan, “St. Monica’s.”

[xliii] St. Monica 2003 Booklet.

[xliv] Moynehan, “St. Monica’s.”

[xlv] Joan M. Smith, “Schools Are Part of Dramatic Change in Urban Ministry,” Courier-Journal (Rochester, N.Y.), March 23, 1983, copy in SMA.

[xlvi] Smith, “Schools.”

[xlvii] “Robert B. Wegman: A Great Merchant, 1918–2006,” Wegmans, last modified Jun. 18, 2007, acc. Sept. 20, 2018, https://www.wegmans.com/about-us/company-overview/robert-b-wegman.html.

[xlviii] St. Monica Parish Review, Apr. 19, 1985, SMA.

[xlix] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[l] St. Monica 2003 Booklet.

[li] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[lii] St. Monica 2003 Booklet.

[liii] Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward Bulletin, May 17, 1998, SMA.

[liv] Rev. Bob Werth, Cover Letter, in Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward Bulletin, May 17, 1998, SMA.

[lv] St. Monica’s Parish Centennial Mass Program, May 17, 1998, SMA.

[lvi] Mike Latona and Tamara Tirado, “City Churches Cope With Change,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), November 2005, copy in SMA; Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward Lent Schedule (“Be Still… and know that I am here”), 2003, SMA; Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward Lent Schedule (“Shatter the Hardness of Our Hearts”), 2004, SMA.

[lvii] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[lviii] Sister Marie Susanne Hoffman Installation Mass Booklet, n.d. (Early 2000s), SMA.

[lix] Daniel Gorman Jr., interview with John Curran, Dec. 20, 2018.

[lx] Gorman, interview with Curran, Dec. 20, 2018; Latona, “City Churches”; Marketta Gregory, “Catholics to Shut Down 11 Churches,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, copy in SMA; Marketta Gregory, “Closures Sadden Resigned Faithful,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, copy in SMA.

[lxi] Latona, “City Churches”; “St. Monica Ideas to Action Minutes [Incomplete] (Oct. 26, 2007),” SMA.

[lxii] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018; Roxie Sinkler Memorial Items (March 2011), SMA; Roxie Sinkler Center Dedication files (Dec. 2011), SMA.

[lxiii] “Father Howard W. Geck, Dead at 97,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, Dec. 9, 1993, SMA copy, featuring annotations about the Blooming Optimists by John Curran; Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[lxiv] “New St. Monica Year in Review Sept. 1, 2008 – Aug. 31, 2009,” SMA.

[lxv] Gorman, interview with Curran, Dec. 20, 2018; St. Monica “Second Time Around” Playbill (January 2011), SMA.

[lxvi] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[lxvii] St. Monica “A Celebration of Our Sisters” files (2012), SMA.

[lxviii] “New St. Monica Parish Meetings, January 15–16, 2011,” SMA.

[lxix] Amy Kotlarz, “Police Investigating Funds Missing from Rochester Parish,” Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Sept. 9, 2013, acc. 4 July 2017, https://www.catholiccourier.com/articles/police-investigating-funds-missing-from-rochester-parish.

[lxx] Amy Kotlarz, “Robbing Peter: Missing Money Prompts Focus on Controls,” Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), 19 Nov. 2013, acc. 4 July 2017, https://www.catholiccourier.com/articles/robbing-peter-missing-money-prompts-focus-on-controls.

[lxxi] Amy Kotlarz, “Charges Filed against Former St. Monica Business Manager,” Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), last updated 10 Sept. 2014, acc. 4 July 2017, https://www.catholiccourier.com/articles/charges-filed-against-former-st-monica-business-manager.

[lxxii] Patrice Walsh, “Police say woman who stole from local church had major debt,” 13 WHAM (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, 14 Apr. 2016, acc. 4 July 2017, http://13wham.com/news/local/police-say-woman-who-stole-from-local-church-had-major-debt.

[lxxiii] “St. Monica 21^st Annual Celebration of the Diocesan Caribbean Mass (June 12, 2011),” SMA; “St. Monica 23^rd Annual Diocesan Caribbean Celebration Program (June 9, 2013), SMA; “St. Monica Church Progress Report (January – December 2013),” SMA.

[lxxiv] “St. Monica Fatima Veneration Articles (Courier June–Nov. 2006” file, SMA.

[lxxv] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018.

[lxxvi] Amy Kotlarz, “Planned Projects Help Foster Unity,” The Catholic Courier Magazine (Rochester, N.Y., Jan. 2009), copy in SMA; Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018; McNamara, Questionnaire, 1992.

[lxxvii] Gorman, interview with Curran, Sept. 20, 2018; St. Monica Organ Sale Documentation, 1999, SMA.

Author: Daniel Gorman Jr.

This map shows the location of the New Progressive Cathedral (COGIC) from 2006 to present.

In November 2005, the Roman Catholic Community of the 19^th Ward, a cost-sharing venture of four neighborhood churches, concluded a process of pastoral planning. Three churches — Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. Augustine, and Ss. Peter and Paul — would be closed and sold. Parishioners would report to St. Monica, which would also become home to Emmanuel Church of the Deaf.[1] Once St. Augustine closed, the Diocese of Rochester sold the church to the New York Western First Ecclesiastical Junction of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), which converted the building into the New Progressive Cathedral.[2] Originally named the Progressive Church of COGIC, the congregation was first located at 537 Post Avenue in the 19^th Ward from 1981–84, and then at 270 Cumberland Street (near the Rochester Amtrak station and main post office) from 1984–2005.[3]

St. Augustine Closing Mass Information (2006), c/o the St. Monica Archive.

Royal Chamberlain, Photo of St. Augustine Stained Glass (2006), c/o the St. Monica Archive.

COGIC is a Pentecostal denomination. Pentecostalism emerged from the holiness movement of the late nineteenth century. Protestant holiness adherents believed in a theology of sanctification, or a growing disinclination to sin, leading one toward spiritual perfection. Biblical literalism and a belief in miraculous practices akin to those of the Biblical apostles — speaking in tongues, healing through prayer, etc. — characterized the holiness Christians. Two cases of spiritual gifts galvanized the movement. Theologian Charles Parham reported in 1901 that the Holy Spirit empowered him to speak in tongues. In 1906, his student, African American preacher William J. Seymour, reported that the Holy Spirit had given him and his multiethnic parishioners extraordinary abilities at the Azusa Street mission in Los Angeles. Seymour’s revival is generally accepted as the point at which Pentecostalism solidified as a separate form of Protestantism. marked the beginning of the Pentecostal movement.[4] Charles H. Mason, the African American founder of the Church of God in Christ, accepted Pentecostal theology in 1907. Under Mason’s leadership, COGIC became wildly popular, with millions of adherents by century’s end. Mason’s followers were primarily, but not exclusively, African American.[5]

In 1917, Mason tasked three female administrators, Sisters Maydie Payton, Charlotte Brown, and Maude Jackson, and a male Elder with running the first New York COGIC congregation in Lackawanna, near Buffalo. The number of churches in Western New York eventually grew so large that the church leadership split the region into two jurisdictions in 1969.[6] Today, the New York Western First Junction consists of 90 churches spread across much of Upstate New York.[7] Bishop Leroy R. Anderson ran the First Junction (including Rochester) from 1969 to April 2004, when Bishop James R. Wright Sr. took over from him as jurisdictional prelate.[8] Wright had founded Rochester’s Progressive Church in 1981, while he still worked as the director of the city’s Phyllis Wheatley Library.[9] As such, Wright has directed Rochester’s New Progressive Cathedral, in its three iterations, for almost forty years. He received a Renaissance Award from Mayor William A. Johnson Jr. in December 2005 and participated in the interfaith invocation at Mayor Robert Duffy’s inauguration on New Year’s Day, 2006.[10]

As detailed on the New Progressive Cathedral’s website, COGIC members believe in Biblical infallibility, the rapture at the end of time, spiritual gifts from the Holy Ghost, and a process of personal sanctification, or an increasing resistance to temptation after being saved. COGIC church doctrine also reflects a complementarian conception of gender.[11] Only men are ordained as ministers, but ministers’ wives are accorded great respect as the first ladies or mothers of their congregations. Mother Maritha J. Wright, Bishop Wright’s wife, is the First Lady of the New Progressive Cathedral. The Western First Junction has a separate Department of Women, with a female executive who serves under the bishop. From 2013 to the time of this writing (spring 2019), Mother Althea Chaplin has run the Department of Women. Women also serve as evangelists and missionaries in the community.[12] Distinct ministries for men, women, and youth are offered at the New Progressive Cathedral.[13] Esteemed City Court judge and civil rights activist Roy W. King served as the cathedral’s assistant pastor and chairman of the Board of Trustees from his retirement to his death in January 2018.[14]

The Western First Junction’s Bishop James R. Wright Sr. Institute of Christian Education, which frequently hosts events at Roberts Wesleyan College, regularly coordinates continuing education programs with the cathedral. The Institute supports the “development of children’s and adult’s social, health/wellness and academic-wellbeing, particularly in the Rochester city community.”[15] It has hosted several “NYW#1 Health Fairs,” featuring medical and holistic medicine tutorials, at the cathedral.[16] Rev. Dr. Kenneth and Lady Nicole Newman, who lead the COGIC New Hope Family Life Center in Rensselear, currently supervise the institute.[17]

Preaching at the New Progressive Cathedral tends to be dramatic and punctuated with organ music, reflecting the revivalist origins of the Pentecostal movement. Members of the congregation attend worship in formal attire, unless the service is a baptism, in which case the person to be baptized wears all white. It is common for church members to exclaim, dance, and participate actively in worship, rather than remain seated.[18] Every August, the Western First Junction hosts the “Annual Holy Convocation,” a multi-day conference with worship and sessions on a variety of Christian topics. The cathedral is the primary venue, but events also occur at downtown sites such as the Riverside Convention Center.[19]

Much of the New Progressive Cathedral’s programming prioritizes education, civic participation, and public health in the 19^th Ward. The church is a member of Rochester’s Interfaith Action network.[20] In the weeks before Election Day, 2008 — the day Barack Obama was elected president — Bishop Wright urged congregation members to vote. Thirty New Progressive Cathedral volunteers, led by St. Monica Roman Catholic Church administrator Roxie Sinkler, registered voters and publicized the upcoming election. Over 1,000 more residents of the surrounding four city districts voted in 2008 than in 2004.[21] After the infamous 19^th Ward mass shooting of August 20, 2015, Rochester mayor Lovely Warren led a “Clergy on Patrol” march from the cathedral to the Genesee Street Boys and Girls Club.[22] The Alzheimer’s Association Rochester & Finger Lakes Region held “Brain Health and Mental Health Seminar: A Community Aging Well Together,” a program for local Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers, at the cathedral in October 2016.[23]

In 2012, the cathedral petitioned the City of Rochester to open the Mary L. Wright Preparatory Charter School for Health and Legal Careers (Wright Prep) at their complex. The application to the New York State Department of Education emphasized the need to support a “student population similar to that in the Rochester City School District,” with particular attention to students who have fallen behind.[24] Wright Prep has not opened as of Spring 2020.

Endnotes

[1] Marketta Gregory, “Catholics to Shut Down 11 Churches,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, copy in St. Monica Archive, St. Monica Roman Catholic Church, Rochester, N.Y. [abbreviated SMA]; Marketta Gregory, “Closures Sadden Resigned Faithful,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, 19 Nov. 2005, copy in SMA; Mike Latona, “Newcomer Priests Settle in at Diocesan Posts,” The Catholic Courier (Rochester, N.Y.), Thursday, Mar. 24, 1994, 5A, copy in SMA.

[2] Amy Kotlarz, “Ministries Continue in 19^th Ward,” The Catholic Courier Weekly (Rochester, N.Y.), 8–9 Sept. 2007, 2, copy in St. Monica Archives, St. Monica Roman Catholic Church, Rochester, N.Y.; “Our History,” New Progressive Cathedral COGIC, Rochester, N.Y., acc. 29 Apr. 2019, https://www.npccogic.com/history.

[3] “Leaders,” New Progressive Cathedral (COGIC), Rochester, N.Y., acc. 29 Apr. 2019, http://www.nywfj.org/leaders.html; “Our History,” New Progressive Cathedral COGIC; 270 Cumberland Street today is home to the Prayer House of the Church of God by Faith, another Pentecostal denomination [“Articles of Faith,” Church of God by Faith, Inc., acc. 6 Jun. 2018, www.cogbf.org/index.php/about-us/our-fellowship/beliefs; “Prayer House Vision,” Northwestern New York Church of God by Faith (COGBF) District, acc. 6 Jun. 2018, www.nwcogbfdistrict.org/prayer-house.html]. A church called the Word of Life Fellowship Ministry occupies 537 Post Ave, but little information about the ministry is available online [“Jeff Anderson [Obituary],” Legacy.com, last modified Nov. 2014, acc. 6 Jun. 2018, https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/jeff-anderson-obituary?pid=173220099&view=guestbook; “Elsie Young [Obituary],” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 12 Jan. 2014, acc. 6 Jun. 2018, http://obits.democratandchronicle.com/obituaries/democratandchronicle/obituary.aspx?n=elsie-young&pid=169023184&fhid=27509; “Word of Life Fellowship Ministry,” Cmac.ws, acc. 6 Jun. 2018, http://word-churches.cmac.ws/word-of-life-fellowship-ministry/530/; “Word of Life Fellowship Ministry [Facebook Location Tag],” Facebook, acc. 6 Jun. 2018, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Word-of-Life-Fellowship-Ministry/113436122024341].

[4] Paraphrased from: Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion, 5th ed. (Boston: Cengage, 2013), 112, 125–28.

[5] Albanese, America, 128, 148–49.

[6] “Our History,” New York Western First Ecclesiastical Junction (COGIC), Rochester, N.Y., acc. 20 Apr. 2018, http://www.nywfj.org/about-us.html.

[7] “Events/Education,” New York Western First Ecclesiastical Junction (COGIC), Rochester, N.Y., acc. 20 Apr. 2018, http://www.nywfj.org/events.html.

[8] “Leaders”; “Our History,” New York Western First Ecclesiastical Junction; “Our Pastor,” New Progressive Cathedral COGIC, Rochester, N.Y., acc. 29 Apr. 2019, https://www.npccogic.com/our-pastor.

[9] “Leaders”; “Our Pastor.”

[10] “2005 Mayor’s Renaissance Award Winners,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 7 Dec. 2005, B4, ProQuest Document ID: 441806444; Joseph Spector, “Duffy Team Moves In,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 30 Dec. 2005, A1, ProQuest Document ID: 441808036.

[11] “The Affirmation of Our Faith,” New Progressive Cathedral COGIC, Rochester, N.Y., acc. 29 Apr. 2019, https://www.npccogic.com/about1.

[12] “96^th Annual Holy Convocation [Flyer],” New York Western First Ecclesiastical Junction (COGIC), n.d. [summer 2015], https://www.facebook.com/216936488977/photos/a.10151873921583978/10153198157053978/?type=3&theater; “97^th Annual Ministers & Workers’ Conference [Flyer],” New York Western First Ecclesiastical Junction (COGIC), n.d. [summer 2016], https://www.facebook.com/216936488977/photos/a.10151352576403978/10153702832813978/?type=3&theater; “Leaders”; “Our First Lady,” New Progressive Cathedral COGIC, Rochester, N.Y., acc. 29 Apr. 2019, https://www.npccogic.com/our-first-lady; “Mount Calvary to Host Women’s Day Services,” Finger Lakes Times (Geneva, N.Y.), 2 Mar. 2018, acc. 7 Jun. 2018, http://www.fltimes.com/briefs/mount-calvary-to-host-women-s-day-services/article_911f1765-2cb0-57df- a70b-bc7a34b888eb.html [link no longer functional]. 

[13] “NPC Ministries,” New Progressive Cathedral COGIC, Rochester, N.Y., acc. 29 Apr. 2019, https://www.npccogic.com/ministries-galleryPage.

[14] Will Cleveland, “Roy Wheatley King, former Rochester City Court judge, dies at 81,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 5 Jan. 2018, acc. 15 Apr. 2018, https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/01/05/roy-wheatley-king-former-rochester-city-court-judge-dies/1009301001/; William Morehouse, “Remembering Roy King,” His Branches, 11 Jan. 2018, acc. 15 Apr. 2018, http://www.hisbranches.org/site/remembering-roy-king/; Amber Roberts, “MLK Day Festivities Recognize Three Kings,” The Highland Echo (Maryville College, Maryville, TN), 30 Jan. 2013, acc. 15 Apr. 2018, http://highlandecho.com/mlk-day-festivities-recognize-three-kings/. 

[15] “Events.” See also: “Events/Education,” New Progressive Cathedral (COGIC), Rochester, N.Y., Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captured 28 Jun. 2016, acc. 26 Apr. 2018, https://web.archive.org/web/20160628144840/http://www.nywfj.org/events.html.

[16] “Events.”

[17] [Spring?] 2014 newsletter, Bishop James R. Wright, Sr., Institute of Christian Education, New York Western First Ecclesiastical Junction (COGIC), acc. 6 Jun. 2018, www.nywfj.org/uploads/1/3/9/6/13966548/institute_journal_cover_letter_newman_final_2014_1.pdf; Homepage, New Hope Family Life Center (COGIC), Rensselaer, N.Y., acc. 6 Jun. 2018, www.newhopeflc.org.

[18] Example: “Bishop Hartsfield preaching @ New Progressive Cathedral COGIC,” YouTube, uploaded by OfficialMTVideos, uploaded 16 Oct. 2011, acc. 6 Jun. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRlUd2JF4ZE; “Evangelist Patty Larke, Preaching @ New Progressive Cathedral COGIC – Part 1,” YouTube, uploaded by OfficialMTVideos, uploaded 19 Feb. 2012, acc. 6 Jun. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNNsiWiNKXo; “Prophet Weaver preaching at New Progressive Cathedral COGIC,” YouTube, uploaded by Christian Pavilioncogic, uploaded 2 Jun. 2010, acc. 6 Jun. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWESrBpvg8I.

[19] “92nd Annual Holy Convocation, August 15th–19th, 2011,” Our Lord’s Temple (COGIC), Ithaca, N.Y., uploaded 15 Mar. 2011, acc. 15 Apr. 2018, https://www.ourlordstemplecogic.org/mod/news/print.php?article_id=63; “Prayer, Praise Ring Out at Convocation,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 28 Aug. 2006, B3, ProQuest Document ID: 441871720.

[20] “News Beat,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 25 Oct. 2007, B4, ProQuest Document ID: 441975772.

[21] “COGIC Cathedral mobilizes over 1,000 new voters in Rochester,” PICO National Network, 15 Nov. 2008, acc. 15 Apr. 2018, https://www.piconetwork.org/news-media/news/2008/a-0403 [note: link no longer functional, so see https://web.archive.org/web/20160415173935/http://www.piconetwork.org/news-media/news/2008]; Jim Mandelaro, “Roxie Sinkler ‘Gave Her All’ to Rochester,” Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), 30 Mar. 2011, ProQuest Document ID: 859231336.

[22] Allison Norlian, “Clergy On Patrol Walks Through Genesee Street Neighborhood,” Rochester First.com, last modified 24 Aug. 2015, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, http://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/local-news/clergy-on-patrol-walks-through-genesee-street-neighborhood/220268104.

[23] “Brain Health and Mental Health Seminar: A Community Aging Well Together, Saturday, October 29, 2016, 8:30 AM–2:00 PM, New Progressive Cathedral, Church of God in Christ, 384 Chili Ave., Rochester, NY… [Flyer],” Alzheimer’s Association, Rochester & Finger Lakes Region, circa 2006.

[24] Mary L. Wright Charter School Proposal, 15 Aug. 2012, New York State Department of Education, acc. 17 Apr. 2018, http://www.p12.nysed.gov/psc/documents/marylwrightRedacted.pdf; quote from page 3.