Vigil Mass for Palm Sunday

PATERSON  Bishop Serratelli served as main celebrant and homilist of the Vigil Mass in Spanish on March 24 at 7 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist here in observance of Palm Sunday.

Concelebrants of the Mass included Msgr. Mark Giordani, St. John’s rector; Father Leonardo Lopez and Father Luis Alberto Hernandez, St. John’s parochial vicars; and Father Kevin Corcoran, diocesan vice chancellor and the Bishop’s priest-secretary.

St. John’s story began in 1820, when Father Richard Bulger of the New York Diocese was assigned to Paterson. He built the first church in 1821. Fifteen years later, Father Patrick Duffy built a new stone church on Oliver Street. Dean William McNulty built the third and current church, a Gothic stone house of worship, which was dedicated on July 31, 1870. On Dec. 9, 1937, Pope Pius XI named St. John’s a cathedral, or seat of the bishop, for the new Catholic Diocese of Paterson, which he established on that day.