St Mary's Roman Catholic Church

From a 1998 article celebrating our church's 150th year anniversary
By former St Mary's Church Pastor: Fr. Salvatore Rosa



“Fight the good fight of faith.” This Parish was born out of the blood, sweat, and tears of Irish Catholics. Most parishes are born out of prosperity. Population grows, people are working, making good money, and so the decision is made to build another church and create another parish....but that’s not the way it was here at Saint Mary. What makes me proud to be at Saint Mary is the fighting spirit of the Irish Catholics who built it. They literally lived and died for their faith.

...... I want to talk to you about the history of Saint Mary, about the kind of people who built up the church and parish 150 years ago.

Saint Mary was founded in 1848, by Irish Catholics. 1848 won’t mean much to us unless we know about three things what was going on in Ireland at the time. 1. Famine 2.Evictions, and 3. Souperism. For five years (1845-1850), Ireland was struck by a terrible famine. The potato crop was destroyed by a blight, year after year, and there was nothing to eat. In addition to the famine, there was disease, cholera, throughout the land. Over a million people died during those years. And in addition, another million immigrated. The ships were called coffin boats, because so many undernourished sick, people died on the journey. But the Irish emigrated. They went to England, to Australia, and especially to the United States. John F Kennedy’s family, and Ronald Reagan’s family - they all came to this country during those famine years of 1845 - 1850. I find it interesting to note that 25% of all the presidents of the U.S.A have Irish ancestry.

I went to Ireland on my vacation this year. In my travels I learned a lot about what life was like for Irish Catholics in the 1840’s.

Tuamgraney is a small farming village in the center of the Ireland, in country Shonnnon. In the cultural center there, I was examining the ledger or daily journal, of the High Sheriff of the area for 1848. It was filled with evictions, notice. For every day, week after week, month after month, there were lists of families thrown out of their homes by the sheriff and his soldiers. Five families one day, eight families another day, twelve families the next day, and so on.

This was typical of the situation all over Ireland. The owners of all the great castles, estates and manor houses, were Protestants. For decades England had persecuted Irish Catholics because of their religion and had reduced their lives to grinding poverty. Catholics were tenant farmers. They did not own the land they worked on nor the houses they lived in. The Protestant landlord did. He could throw them out at his pleasure. And during the famine years especially, he died.

Because there was no food, families grew weak and couldn’t work the land. They had no strength. Or they were ill with cholera, or they couldn’t pay the rent on their cottage, or the landlord was tired of their excuses. Why should these poor, dirty, ignorant Catholics drain his resources? He sent a list to the sheriff, those families were evicted, and joined the countless thousands of homeless who roamed the land till they died of hunger and disease.

Another spot I visited was Glencolumbkille up north in County Donegal. There I saw an exhibition on Irish life in the 1800’s. In front of a small, thatch-roof cottage was this huge pot or cauldron. It was enormous, about the size of a stove. This huge pot held about 30 gallons of a very tasty soup made of a variety of meat and vegetables. The landlord provided the soup for all the poor of his estate or village. There was only one catch: in order to get the soup, you had to renounce your religion. You can imagine how great a temptation that was, especially during these years of famine, cholera, and homelessness. “He took the soup” was the expression the Irish used to say that someone had turned apostate and denied their Catholic faith.

Souperism was the practice all over Ireland. Every estate, manor, and castle, had its soup cauldron. Free food, free clothing, even free schooling for your children. If you would deny your faith. It was tried. The surprise is that it didn't work.

This brings me to a third place, I made it a point to visit while in Ireland. I went to the Catholic church in a little seaside town named Kilbaha in County Clare, in the west of Ireland. There in a side room, on exhibit for visitors to see, is what we would call a wagon. It’s a wooden box on wheels, 11 feet long, 9 feet wide, eight feet high, with windows on the side wall. The wooden box is mounted on 4 wheels. There are some stairs leading up the rear side of the box, which is open. All the other sides, and the roof, are closed over.

The wagon goes back to the middle 1800’s and the time of Souperism. It’s the story of Fr Michael Meehan and how he kept his flock true to their faith.

When Fr. Meehan first went to Kieboha he tried to build himself a church, which he named Saint Patrick’s. He bought an empty house for a few pounds, knocked out a side wall so people could fit inside, set up an altar and crucifix, and said Mass there. Within a week the local landlord brought him to court, and he was ordered out of the house. The roof was torn down, the walls were leveled, the altar and crucifix were destroyed. Saint Patrick church was a pile of rubble.

He said Mass in the open air, in the fields. But the problem was the wind and the rain, and the landlords, if they found out what property the Mass was said on.

Finally he hit upon a solution. He made this wooden box on wheels, left one side open so people could see in. Against the inside wall, he had an altar and crucifix. He rolled the wagon down to the seashore, and he pushed it out onto the water. Only the water wasn't there, because it was low-tide, and the water was now 100 yards further out. The sand was mucky and wet, but firm enough for his purposes. The people stood and knelt around the wagon, and there, he said Mass, preached, and gave out communion.

The Protestant landowners were furious and again brought charges against Fr. Meehan, but this time even the courts had to rule in his favor. True, the Protestants owned all the land, but Fr. Meehan was not on their land, he was on the ocean. And no one had a deed to the ocean. The sea was no one’s property, so he wasn't trespassing. Nor were those who came to be with him.

So, every Sunday for the next five years, Fr Meehan rolled his wagon down to the seashore at low tide and out onto mucky floor of the sea bed. Just as Jesus got in a boat and rowed out a little bit from shore to teach the people around Him, Fr Meehan rolled the wagon out from the shore, gathered his flock around him, and said Mass for them. One that whole peninsula where Kilbaha is located, only one family took the soup. Even today that area is 99.9% Catholic.

The wagon, old, beat up, in tatters, is a tribute to the strength of their faith.

These are the people who came to New Britain and founded Saint Mary’s.

They understood what Saint Paul was saying to them. “Fight the good fight of faith.” That’s the type of Catholic who built Saint Mary’s. Our Church is built on their blood, sweat, and tears.