It’s 150 years for Holy Cross

eft photo by Ron Leir, right photo courtesy Thomas Conlon LEFT: Rev. Joseph Girone, pastor of Holy Cross Church, displays charter for church. RIGHT: The Rev. James Glancy (l.), a former Holy Cross priest, visits with Pope John Paul II. — Left photo by Ron Leir, right photo courtesy Thomas Conlon
LEFT: Rev. Joseph Girone, pastor of Holy Cross Church, displays charter for church. RIGHT: The Rev. James Glancy (l.), a former Holy Cross priest, visits with Pope John Paul II.

HARRISON –

With the big day upcoming, the memories of Harrison’s Holy Cross Parish are surfacing fast and furious.

Events associated with the history of the church that stand out include the annual fall Holy Name Parade where priests and male parishioners walked from Harrison to Newark and the 40 Hours Exposition held every September to honor the Blessed Sacrament.

Some recall the parish school exhibition in the ‘60s when each class presented musical skits and Msgr. William Costelloe, known as a stickler for proper pronunciation, hired a speech teacher to reorient the children for “speaking Harrisonian.”

Others remember how the Rev. James J. Glancy, a beloved priest with the “distinctive laugh” in residence for more than four decades, organized reunions of school alums and trips to destinations around the globe.

Or how the Rev. John O’Brien, also a 40-year priest in residence, somehow managed to complete the Mass in 15 minutes when it was recited in Latin, as opposed to twice as long in English.

All the collective reminiscences will come flooding back when an estimated 200 current and past parishioners, dignitaries and friends are expected to turn out for the church’s Sesquicentennial anniversary on Sunday, Nov. 1.

The festivities begin with a noon Mass in the church, Harrison Ave. and Frank E. Rodgers Blvd., to be concelebrated by Newark Coadjutor Archbishop Bernard Hebda, in conjunction with Msgr. John Gilchrist, Msgr. Hugh O’Donnell, the Rev. Msgr. Francis R. Seymour and Msgr. Joseph Plunkett of Our Lady of Czestochowa.

A gala banquet follows, beginning at 2 p.m., at The Fiesta in Wood-Ridge. Tickets are $55 for adults and $25 for children age 12 and under. Admission includes a dinner, cash bar, dancing to a DJ and copies of a souvenir ad journal containing a history of the parish.

The town’s senior bus will take those guests without means of transportation to and from the banquet hall, according to anniversary committee chairwoman Emmaria Galiano.

Members of the anniversary committee took pains to assemble an extensive chronicle which relates how shortly after the Civil War, the first parish church – known as St. Pius – was built on land at Jersey and Third Sts. (now occupied by Our Lady of Czestochowa Church) purchased by the Rev. Bernard McQuaid, pastor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral Parish, Newark, in response to a plea by Catholic residents of West Hudson, many of Irish descent, who were seeking a parish of their own to avoid the hardship of crossing the Passaic to attend services in Newark.

That was done with the stipulation that the new parish was to be served by the priests of St. Patrick and that a school was to be staffed by the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, also based at St. Patrick’s.

As the parish grew, in conjunction with the town, so did the need for a larger space and in 1871, the Rev. James J. McGahan, the first resident pastor of St. Pius Church, acquired 24 lots along Harrison Ave. from Isaac Halsey of Newark for $15,000 and, two years later, the cornerstone for a new church building was laid.

But a Depression and the priest’s death delayed the project, although a convent was built to house the sisters then in residence. And in 1886, during the tenure of the Rev. Maurice P. O’Connor, a new foundation was put in place for a new Gothic-style church that became Holy Cross, dedicated in 1890 but not fully completed until 1900. Among those parishioners helping raise the funds were Irish, German and Italian immigrants.

Under the Rev. George L. Fitzpatrick, a new school was built at Jersey Ave. and Fourth St. (now Frank E. Rodgers Blvd.) to accommodate the then-1,200 students in 26 classrooms, with a four-lane bowling alley in the basement. The first alums graduated in 1916. Fitzpatrick also opened a day nursery to care for children of mothers who had to work. Unfortunately, due to declining enrollments of regional parochial schools, the Archdiocese closed Holy Cross School in 2009. The school building was leased to a Newark charter school for a few years.

In 1948, Monsignor William A. Costelloe successfully pressed for the construction of a new convent.

During the 1960s, Monsignor Harold V. Fitzpatrick is credited with forming the Senior Citizens of Harrison and East Newark, although current parishioners recall the Rev. James J. Glancy as also instrumental in the group’s growth. In the ‘80s, Monsignor Hugh A. O’Donnell created a church restoration fund, raising some $400,000 to improve Holy Cross. In the ‘90s, Monsignor John J. Gilchrist established the St. Jude Novena as an annual tradition, revived the St. Patrick’s Day Mass for Peace in Ireland and added Masses for the Hispanic and Chinese parishioners. Portuguese language Masses were also added later.

“A pius and scholarly man, Father Gilchrist worked endlessly to keep the church and school in repair [and] was assisted in this endeavor by the construction unions he served as chaplain,” said parishioner Thomas Conlon.

It was during Gilchrist’s tenure that the last of the Sisters of Charity left Holy Cross but under a special arrangement with the Archdiocese, the Carmelite Fathers were permitted to take up residence at the convent.

With the appointment of the Rev. Joseph D. Girone as pastor in February 2010, the Archdiocese designated the parishes of Holy Cross and St. Anthony’s in East Newark as “linked” with shared clerical personnel and services.

Everyone has distinctive memories of his or her connection to the parish.

Betty Thiem remembers, as a young girl, playing in her backyard on a spring day and hearing the bells at Holy Cross ringing. Her mother, she said, correctly surmised that the then-pastor, the Rev. George Fitzpatrick, had died that day, April 26, 1941.

As a student at Holy Cross School, Conlon recalls thenpastor, the Rev. William Costelloe, being harsh on Scouts because they were not a Catholic organization. He can attest to that because, it was as a then-East Newark resident, he was chosen to be the borough’s “Mayor of the Day” as part of a school/municipality Students in Government program, circa 1960.

“When Costelloe found out, he expelled me and two other boys who were scouts from Holy Cross School,” Conlon said. “Our fathers spent the better part of that week at Chancery in Newark pleading our case and, ultimately, we were re-admitted.”

Several parishioners said it was Costelloe, in earlier years, who spearheaded a fight to keep the Warner movie theater out of Harrison as a potentially bad influence on the spiritual life of young parishioners.

Marianne Kernan can still hear Costelloe warning underperforming parish school students enroute to certain Catholic high schools that, “The Jesuits will straighten you out.” Still, she said, he wanted to do well by his young charges. “He bought the land for two playgrounds,” she said. And he was proud of his ‘Columbus Cadets.’ ”

Marilyn Sprengel recalled that the school offered a commercial business class, from which her mom graduated in 1933 and used that skill to land a secretarial job with RCA in Harrison.

Eighty-nine-year-old Regina Doffont, whose grandchildren represent the fifth generation of Holy Cross parishioners, said her mom attended St. Pius School. Doffont, who graduated from Holy Cross School in 1940, remembers that, “the church was always packed and there was a lot of singing. We always had four priests in the rectory and we were very fortunate to have them. Most of the nuns were very dedicated people and what we kids didn’t know at the time is that they were furthering their education by taking classes and getting advanced degrees.”

During WWII, Harrison hummed with many industries and residents from various ethnic backgrounds regularly attended worship services, she said. “I grew up on Cleveland Ave., across the street from a synagogue. Harrison was really small-town America then and I enjoyed growing up here.”