Pastoral visit to Passaic church

PASSAIC  Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit to Holy Trinity Parish here on Sept. 23 to mark the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. During his visit, he celebrated the 10 a.m. Mass in the German language with two concelebrating priests: Father Antonio Rodriguez, Holy Trinity’s pastor, who is fluent in German, Spanish and English, and Father Kevin Corcoran, diocesan vice chancellor and the Bishop’s priest-secretary.

For more than 100 years at Holy Trinity, the 10 a.m. Sunday Mass has been said in German. Holy Trinity is the only parish in the Diocese with a Sunday German-language Mass and one of the only parishes in the Northeast that has a weekly German Mass. The tradition has continued over the years thanks to the parish’s longtime pastor, Father Rodriguez.

According to the parish history, German-speaking Catholics in Passaic organized on Trinity Sunday in 1900 and petitioned Bishop Winand Wigger for a national parish. The bishop agreed and the first church was built in 1903 on Jackson Street. A new church was built on the corner of Hope Avenue and Harrison Street in 1923-24.