‘A Jewel In the City’

BEACON PHOTO | JOE GIGLI

100 YEARS OF FAITH  Bishop Serratelli during the Conse­cra­tion at the 100th anniversary Mass in Our Lady of Pompei Church in Paterson with (from left): Father Kevin Corcoran, Deacon Javier Bareno (kneeling), Father Sal Panagia, Father Agresti and Franciscan Father Francis McHugh.

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PATERSON  Our Lady of Pompei Parish (OLP) here, which has been called a “jewel in the city” and a “tight-knit family of faith,” celebrated its centennial Oct. 16.

On that day, Bishop Serratelli was main celebrant and homilist of the 10:30 a.m. Mass to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of OLP as a parish. Current and former parishioners, who filled the church to capacity and beyond, attended the Mass. That morning, the Bishop also dedicated and blessed extensive renovations that significantly updated the look — and sound — of the church’s interior.

Concelebrating the liturgy were Father Frank Agresti, OLP’s pastor since 2011; Father Sal Panagia, former pastor and a retired priest; Franciscan Father Francis McHugh, parochial vicar at St. Bonaventure Parish, Paterson; and Father Kevin Corcoran, the Bishop’s priest-secretary. During Mass, Father Agresti presented parishioners with a blessing from Pope Francis to commemorate the platinum jubilee. A reception at the Brownstone in Paterson followed the Mass.

With deep Italian roots, the parish continues to welcome people of various ethnicities as the demographics of Paterson keep changing, while also remaining faithful to its founders’ roots and religious traditions.

“We at Our Lady of Pompei are a vibrant people, who are devoted to the parish. It’s a beautiful little parish that’s a tight-knit family of faith,” said Father Agresti, who noted that 400-family parish serves parishioners from many ethnicities, including Hispanic, Polish, German and Irish, but still mainly consists of faithful of Italian decent, including many of whom can trace their families back to its founding in 1916. “I admire that they continue to live their traditions and faithfulness. They have an Old World faith that holds on to the beauty of the Mass and the priesthood,” he said.

Today, most OLP parishioners live outside Paterson — anywhere from Woodland Park and Wayne to Lyndhurst and New York City. Yet they feel drawn to return to the small parish at the edge of the Silk City for Masses and various religious traditions and events. This includes an Italian procession on Christmas Eve with the Baby Jesus, as parishioners sing an ethnic hymn, “Tu Scendi Dalle Stella” or “From the Starry Skies Descending.” OLP also offers a full complement of ministries, including Bible study, youth group, religious education and children’s Liturgy of the Word, according to its bulletin.

Just in time for the anniversary Mass, the interior of OLP’s church received an eye-popping make over. It called for the removal of carpets and the polishing of the terrazzo floor underneath; the repositioning of the tabernacle in the center of the altar; the replacement of a painted crucifix over the tabernacle with the church’s original plaster cross that an artist restored; the return of an Our Lady of Pompei statue to a niche above the altar; and the installation of two new statues of St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena, which were created by an artist and positioned on either side of the altar. Also, crinkle wallpaper was removed from the walls of worship space and tile added in its place, Father Agresti said.

“The décor of the church was stuck in the 1970s. It needed an update. Now, the church feels bigger, brighter and cleaner. The sound bounces of the walls,” he said.

OLP started as a mission church of St. Michael Parish, Paterson, to serve the Italian community in the Stony Road area in the western section of the city, directed by Msgr. Felix Cianci, St. Michael’s pastor. The mission was elevated to a parish in 1916, the year that the then-new Catholic Extension Society, a national organization that helps small, rural and struggling parishes around the U.S., gave $1,000 to OLP to help build its original clapboard chapel. In 1924, the Capuchin Sisters of the Infant Jesus arrived at the parish to live in a convent on Caldwell Avenue and engage in social service work and religious education. Later, a property at 74 Murray Avenue was purchased for a new convent, according to OLP’s history.

In 1962, Father Silvius Mancini finally undertook construction of a much-needed new church — which the parish delayed several times — at the corner of Caldwell Avenue and Dayton Street. Bishop James Navagh of Paterson dedicated to the new church in 1963, the same year that the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception were transferred and replaced by the Capuchin Sisters, the parish history states.

OLP made national headlines in 1992, when priests and parishioners reported that a 30-inch statue of Our Lady of Fatima here changed color before their eyes, according to a story in The Beacon that May.

“The claims provide us with an opportunity to point out that statues and depictions of the Blessed Mother and saints do have a place in the Church’s devotion, insofar as they remind the faithful of the lives of the holy persons they represent,” said Msgr. Herbert Tillyer, then diocesan vicar general and now pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Parish, Parsippany.

In 2011, Our Lady of Pompei welcomed a special image, a replica of a painting in the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompei, as part of a pilgrimage, the Pompei Marian Mission, which traveled through several U.S. dioceses that June. Bishop Serratelli celebrated an Italian-English Mass in the church, which was concelebrated by priests of the diocese and a delegation of priests from Italy, according to a story in The Beacon.

One of the active parishioners, who attended the 100th anniversary Mass, was Mary Lotito, OLP’s director of religious education for 30 years. She and her husband, Richard, begin attending the parish 47 years ago, when they moved from Lyndhurst to West Paterson, which is now named Woodland Park. Their two grown children, Richard and Melissa, both received their Sacraments and served as altar servers here. Now, the religious education program teaches the children of former students, such as Lotito’s granddaughter, Carmella, who recently received her first Holy Communion, she said.

“Our Lady of Pompei is a jewel in the city of Paterson,” Lotito said. “We are a church family. We feel the Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the church when we are praying. We welcome people into the parish with open arms. We want them to feel what we are feeling,” she said.