| Basilica of Saint John the Evangelist | |
| Location | 279 Atlantic St Stamford, Connecticut |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Architecture | |
| Architect(s) | James Murphy |
| Administration | |
| Diocese | Bridgeport |
| Province | Hartford |
| Clergy | |
| Bishop(s) | Most Rev. William E. Lori |
The Basilica of Saint John the Evangelist is a Catholic parish church and minor basilica in Stamford, Connecticut, USA.
Contents |
Fairfield County was formed on May 10, 1666, by royal charter of King Charles II of England. The colony was composed of the towns of Stratford, Fairfield, Norwalk, Stamford, and Greenwich. While the area held great promise for many, Roman Catholics were expressly forbidden to settle within the colony, unless a public denunciation of the Catholic faith was made.[1] The first mention of Catholics within the colony is in Stamford in 1764, as indentured servants, and this in an advertisement in the local Stamford newspaper:
“Just Imported from Dublin in the Brig Darby, A Parcel of Irish Servants, both men and women, to be sold cheap by Israel Boardman, at Stamford.”[2]
Freedom of Religion was not practiced in Connecticut until after the passage of the state constitution in 1818.[3]
The Mass was first offered in Stamford in the home of Patrick H. Drew, by Father James Smyth of New Haven, in September 1842. The Catholic community of Stamford then numbered three families, all immigrants from Ireland. In that same year, a resident priest was assigned to Bridgeport, with care of the Catholics in other towns, including Stamford. By 1843, the Diocese of Hartford was erected, and the small Catholic community of Stamford benefited from the ministry of priests from Bridgeport, Norwalk and from the Jesuit community at Saint John’s College, Fordham, including Father Francis McFarland, a future bishop of Hartford.[4] In 1847, during the first months of the reign of Blessed Pope Pius IX, Saint John the Evangelist was given a resident priest. In 1849, Stamford’s small Catholic community purchased land, and, on July 4, broke ground for the original church of Saint John the Evangelist on Meadow Street. The small, one-story wooden framed church structure measured 60 feet by 40 feet, with some rudimentary gothic decorations, a small steeple and a bell.[5] By 1854, Saint John’s became an independent mission, with Father Edward J. Cooney, its first pastor.[6]
The construction of the small chapel and the independence of Saint John’s were the source of great pride for the local Catholic community, despite growing anti-Catholic antagonism and violence. Local newspapers recorded the increase in numbers among Catholics, and their church construction, but not always with congratulatory sentiments. The growing presence of the Catholic Church in the United States was an unhappy reality for many among the Protestant majority, and was not received with universal approval. A strong Nativist sentiment developed into an anti-Catholic movement, and succeeded in the election William T. Minor, a Stamford lawyer, as governor of the State of Connecticut in 1855. He expressed his anti-Catholicism in his inaugural address:
“But as a matter of policy connected with the privilege of citizenship to be conferred upon the alien, we have the right to enquire how far the allegiance due from the members of the Romish Church to their spiritual head, the pope, is compatible with the allegiance due their adopted country.”[7]
Organized attacks in the Stamford and Norwalk newspapers, in editorials and doctored “news” stories from around the world, portrayed the papal Church of Rome as the primordial enemy of democracy.[8] A seemingly never ending series of lectures at Stamford’s public theaters and halls, and sermons in various local Protestant churches by the likes of ex-priest revolutionary Alessandro Gavazzi, thrilled Protestant audiences and confirmed their certitude that the anti-Catholic legislation by Connecticut’s Nativist governor from Stamford was necessary.[9]
Following the Civil War, the Catholic population in Fairfield County grew rapidly: from the 1,100 Catholics in 1850 to over 15,000 persons in 1870! By 1870, this large and growing Catholic population was served by only eight priests, two of whom were at Stamford’s Saint John’s, administering the sacraments to the town’s 3,000 Catholics, as well as to those Catholics in the recently established missions in Greenwich, Darien and outlying villages.[10]
A new site was purchased for a larger church to accommodate the growing Catholic community in 1868. A few years later, the adjacent property and private home of the Candee family was purchased to serve as a rectory and, another parcel to be used in the future for the new parish school and convent.[11] The rectory and adjacent buildings had been used prior to the Civil War as a stop on the Underground Railroad, which assisted hundreds of African American slaves to freedom.[12]
The original plans for the church were drawn up by James Murphy of Providence, Rhode Island. He was the foremost architect of Catholic churches in the region, having designed and constructed fifty-six of the Catholic churches throughout New England. The new stone church of Saint John the Evangelist was finally completed and consecrated by Bishop Lawrence S. McMahon on May 30, 1886, the largest in the state at the time.[13][14]
Two new convents were constructed at the site of the new church on Atlantic Street, one a former hotel was converted first into a second parish school and later into a convent. The new Saint John’s School was completed in 1906 directly behind the new church by Father James O’Brien. The Sisters of Mercy continued to staff the school, educating tens of thousands of Catholic children, until its closure in 1973.[15]
Following World War I, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiments steadily grew in Connecticut. The Ku Klux Klan had been re-organized in 1915 in Georgia, preaching a radical doctrine of white, Protestant supremacy in America. All that was foreign—Black, Jewish and Catholic—came under its ban. The Klan was particularly virulent in New Haven, New Britain and Stamford. During the elections of 1924, Stamford played host to one of the largest of the Klan’s state meetings. Father James O’Brien, pastor of Saint John’s, led the way repeatedly warning the people of Stamford against the Klan, while defending his Catholic parishioners.[16]
By the late 1920s, the need for a Catholic hospital in lower Fairfield County was seen. Once again, Saint John’s Parish took the lead. The pastor, Father Nicholas P. Coleman, received permission from the Bishop of Hartford to begin the project. Father Coleman urged his parishioners to be generous donors to help supply the needs of Catholics in southwestern Fairfield County. For years the parishioners of Saint John’s worked and sacrificed, even during the Second World War, donating the lion’s share of the funding for the construction and outfitting of Saint Joseph’s Hospital, which opened its doors in Stamford in 1942, staffed by the Sisters of Saint Joseph de Chambéry. The hospital remained open until 1999 [Ann Callahan & Brian E. Wallace, The Promise of a Hospital, (Stamford, 1992), pp. 1–85].
Saint John’s Parish had been founded by impoverished Irish Catholic immigrants. It was the logical place for the Church’s pastoral efforts in favor of many Catholic immigrant groups who continued to arrive in southwestern Connecticut. An apostolate for the Italian immigrants was begun at Saint John’s in 1890; likewise, for the Polish and Slovak immigrants in 1900; once the Diocese of Bridgeport was erected in 1953, the Bishop of Bridgeport, Bishop Lawrence Sheehan, began the apostolate to the large and growing Hispanic community for southwestern Fairfield County at Saint John’s Parish; in 1972, an apostolate to the Haitian Catholics began, continuing to this day.[17]
Each of these Catholic communities now has its own church, yet the apostolic outreach to them, as well as to numerous other newly-arriving Catholic immigrants continues from all continents, attracted to Stamford which is now one of the most important financial and business centers of the country. As an example of the cosmopolitan and international makeup of Saint John’s, Confessions are heard daily before each Mass in Italian, Spanish, French, Creole, Portuguese, as well as English.[18]
By the late 1960s, the City of Stamford embarked on an aggressive program of Urban Renewal, which resulted in much of downtown Stamford being razed. Whole city blocks were leveled, thousands of citizens displaced by the destruction of neighborhoods, and businesses destroyed, all in the name of progress, guided by an aggressive but unrealistic plan that a new modern city would soon rise. It did not. Saint John’s was one of the few institutions left standing in the wasteland of downtown Stamford for decades. The only life downtown for years was seen in the arrival of parishioners for the weekend Masses at Saint John’s. Even the parish school was demolished in 1973, further reducing the parish’s membership.[19]
As part of this grand plan, the City of Stamford began an important social program of creating affordable housing in downtown Stamford. The United States government required seed money and land from a not-for-profit corporation, if it was to grant federal funds to any project. In conjunction with the Federal Agency for Housing and Urban Development (H.U.D.), the city turned to Saint John’s pastor, Father Bertrand Parent, asking assistance for the construction of affordable housing for Stamford’s poor. In response, the parish gave the required seed money and land so that Stamford’s poor might afford to live in the city’s downtown. In gratitude, the city named the three affordable housing apartments, comprising 360 below-market cost housing units, after the parish. Also, in gratitude for the parish’s assistance, the Bishop of Bridgeport and the Pastor of Saint John’s Church are ex-officio members of the board of directors of the Saint John’s Urban Development Corporation, the legal entity that oversees the housing complex. Saint John’s Towers, which are located behind the church, have served the poor of the city for 30 years, and which, in turn, helped preserve the parish during the harsh decades of Stamford’s blight.[20]
Saint John’s continues today as the parish for downtown Stamford. Its membership is composed of Catholics from around the globe as well as Catholics whose ancestors began the parish in the 1840s. The parish, likewise, serves an ever growing commuter population who come to Stamford daily in increasing numbers as the city continues developing into one of the major financial centers of the country.
On July 16, 2009, His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, raised Saint John’s Parish to the dignity and title of Minor Basilica.[21]