New pastor in West Milford

WEST MILFORD  Bishop Serratelli made a pastoral visit on Saturday, March 2 to Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in the Hewitt section of West Milford Township where he served as main celebrant and homilist of the 5 p.m. vigil Mass for the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. At the Mass, the Bishop officially installed Father Kamil Stachowiak, as Queen of Peace’s pastor.

Concelebrating the Mass were: Father Daniel Murphy, retired diocesan priest and former pastor of St. Matthew the Apostle Parish, Randolph, where Father Stachowiak first served as a priest; Father Pawel Tomczyk, director of diocesan Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and Youth Ministry and director of Campus Ministry at William Paterson University, Wayne; and Father Stephen Prisk, diocesan vice chancellor and the Bishop’s priest-secretary. Bishop Serrratelli ordained Father Stachowiak, Father Tomczyk and Father Prisk to the priesthood as part of the diocesan ordination Class of 2015. Assisting with the Mass were Deacon Dave Cedrone and Deacon Charles Roche.

Born on Sept. 16, 1988 in Rawicz, Poland, Father Stachowiak completed studies at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, in 2012 and earned a master’s degree in theology from Pontifical University of John Paul II, Kraków, in 2013. His first assignment as a priest of the Diocese was to St. Matthew’s. In 2016, he was named parochial vicar of the Shrine of St. John Paul II/Holy Rosary Parish, Passaic. Father Stachowiak was named parochial vicar of Queen of Peace in 2017 and then Queen of Peace’s administrator in February 2018.Queen of Peace’s history began in the early years of the 20th century when the Franciscan friars from Butler opened a series of mission churches around Greenwood Lake. One of them was named St. Catherine’s, which in 1945 was formally established as a parish by Bishop McLaughlin with two of the other churches as its missions. Because of the growth in the area, a new parish church was built in 1951 on Union Valley Road and the name was changed to Our Lady Queen of Peace. The Fran­cis­cans served at Queen of Peace until 2004 when they turned the administration of the parish over to the Diocese.