Sunday, August 2, 2015

Bonus Post - A Little Diocesan History

Here is some bonus info about some of our Diocese's closed parishes, courtesy of my friend Philip D. Thanks Philip!

“So, as far as churches, the first thing to remember is the churches that we have lost here in the Providence diocese.  I'm told old St. Patrick's was still standing into the early 80s before it was finally torn down, but it had been condemned before that due to structural problems.  It was a Gothic style church built in 1850, and was located just Northeast of the State House, halfway down Capitol Hill, right above the RR tracks.  In any old photo of the State House from the East (or SE or NE) you can see St. Patrick's right there, just off the flank of the State House.  I understand it was structurally unrepairable, but I liked the image of having a large Catholic Church right there next to the State House, kind of keeping it in check--a very Rhode Island image.


Speaking of structural instability, St. John's on Federal Hill was torn down in the early 1990s for the same reason...Its land is now a small park right on the south side of Atwells Avenue, just west of the big square.  I've only seen one picture of it, but it appeared to be a sizable but undistinguished Gothic church.

Another large 1850s church that is gone is the original Immaculate Conception parish, which was located in the neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the giant central post office just north of the 95/146 split.  My wife's father and uncles and grandmother used to attend mass there.  It was torn down sometime in the 1950s.  I have looked, but I have never yet seen a picture of it.  

Another lost parish I don't know much about is St. Hedwig's--it was located on North Main Street right about where the Whole Foods is now.  It was a Polish parish, and it was demolished when that whole area was cleared in the early 60s--Providence's only attempt at "slum clearance"--of course, it was a majority black neighborhood at that point, wouldn't you know...this is also the reason why Olney Street Baptist Church looks like a brick box...


In more recent times, Woonsocket, Central Falls, and Pawtucket have seen major parish consolidations, and we've lost some beautiful churches--you may know about St. Anne's in Woonsocket, with its gorgeously painted ceiling--fortunately that has been saved intact as a "Community Center" even though masses are no longer said there.  But also lost was Our Lady of Victories on the north side of Woonsocket, which has been taken over by a protestant evangelical church last I checked.  In Central Falls, we recently lost Notre Dame parish, which had a huge early-60s church up on a hill in CF, easily visible from I-95, looking a bit like St. Augustine's in size and structure.  It too is now a protestant evangelical church.  I don't know of any impressive churches we've lost yet in Pawtucket, though I may have missed one, and there are other parishes that have been closed in CF and Woonsocket that I'm forgetting, but you can look into it.

Now St. John the Baptist in Pawtucket was built by the French as a French parish (trivia--just inside the sacristy door is a listing of masses from the 30s--all in French, of course, and all early in the morning, because at that time, the fast from midnight was mandatory if you wanted to receive Our Lord, so there were no evening masses at all).  It was built during what came to be called the "Sentinellist Controversy."  Basically, to make a long story short, the large number of French Canadians in Woonsocket, CF, and Pawtucket had not generally gotten along well with the long string of Irish bishops in Providence, even to the point where the bishop was threatening to stop Church sponsorship of French language and religious education classes for their children.  The French felt their concerns were not being heard or appreciated, so they began a series of appeals to Rome, and a series of escalating disobediences of the bishop, including the publishing of a regular newspaper "Le Sentinel" chronicling their concerns and the supposed malfeasance of the bishop.  The French were appealing to Rome to create their own 'cultural' diocese within Providence, with their own bishop who would look after their needs separately from the Bishop of Providence.  So, when they built St. John the Baptist in Pawtucket, they built it with the idea that it would become their Cathedral, so they built on a massive scale, including a huge pair of bronze doors at the entrance (which were sadly sold off and replaced with wood about 30 years ago).  So, after a long percolation period, Rome stepped in, said "obey your bishop" and placed everyone involved with Le Sentinel under an interdict until they publicly repented (Popes in those days did not mess around).  The separate diocese didn't happen, relations gradually improved, and eventually the French got one of their own as bishop (Bishop Gelineau, in 1972--still active here today, in his 90s!).  But St. John the Baptist had still been built, and it is still spectacular!”

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