“We are many parts, we are all one body.” So goes a familiar hymn we sing. That thought aptly describes St. Andrew the Apostle Parish from 1953 to 2003. With the 50th anniversary of the parish, naturally we think of the start of the parish and the chain of events that have created what it is today. Most importantly, we recall the hundreds of people who have worshipped here, contributed their money and energies and taken the spirit of St. Andrew’s to the wider community.

The story of the parish divides itself into different eras:
1952-1963: founding and life as a “traditional” and neighborhood parish.
1964-1980: emphasis on the parish’s religious education program and implementing the liturgical changes of Vatican II
1980- present: growth in the mission for peace and justice.

In the midst of these years monumental events occurred in the wider world in 1961-1965 -- Vatican II and the civil rights movement -- which also brought profound changes to the parish.

The parish was the dream of Msgr. Charles McEvoy, the pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish, and in 1951 he began the process to form St. Andrew’s. Initially, it was called a mission, but from the start Msgr. McEvoy indicated his intent was to have a separate parish. By 1952 he had appointed Salvatore Sandro and Edward McCall as the parish’s first trustees. A forum of a large number of residents from within the future geographical boundaries of the later parish was called for a “full and free discussion” about the proposed parish. The attendees were unanimous in their decision to form a parish and take on the expected $150,000 in debt that would be associated with the construction of the new church. In retrospect, some ask why was the original parish split. It is hard today to realize that the 1950’s were a time of housing and family growth. Parishes were bursting at the seams. Also before Route 81 was built, Salina Street was a major thoroughfare, making it dangerous for children to go from east of Salina to St. Anthony’s.

Groundbreaking

St. Anthony’s loaned the new parish money for the construction. Groundbreaking occurred on May 1, 1953; the church was opened and formally dedicated on Laetare Sunday, March 29, 1954 by Msgr. McEvoy. Among the list of 1954 donors are names still linked to the parish: French, Paolini, Sandro and Votraw. (See Addendum I for a partial listing of founding parishioners.)

Rev. Frank Harrison, later to be Bishop of the Diocese of Syracuse, was appointed the first pastor in May 1956. Milestones were quickly marked. The first Field Days on September 29, 1956 raised $9,291. By December of that year, 163 children were enrolled in Sunday School taught by the Daughters of Charity from Cathedral School. Father Harrison and his sister, Florence Timmons, served as the teachers for the Tuesday release time program for students in Grades 1-3 at Percy Hughes Elementary School.

In 1957 a loan of $40,000 from St. Cecilia’s Parish in Solvay allowed the parish to begin building a rectory, which was to cost $67,500. In six months Fr. Harrison moved from his temporary home at Pius X Residence (in the Loretto complex) to the new rectory.

Time as a traditional parish

The parish bulletins of those early years were filled with the announcements from the Holy Name Society, Altar and Rosary Society, Legion of Mary, and an adult and children’s choirs. Sunday 9 o’clock Mass was the children’s Mass where Fr. Harrison came down from the altar, stepped outside the altar railing and spoke directly to the children sitting as a group in the front of the church. Special religious observances like 40 Hours Devotion, Novena to the Sacred Heart, Stations of the Cross, Benediction, Spiritual Bouquets, and Plenary Indulgences were also part of the parish vocabulary. Social activities included dances, spaghetti suppers, card parties, and a Bowling League of eight teams that met at the Southside Bowling Alley.

A new organ and a large stained glass window by Henry Keck were installed in the choir loft in 1959. The marble altar, still used today, was donated by Ethel Kelley in 1961. Fr. Harrison prayed and worried as he watched volunteers lift the altar and marble altar railing in place. In 1963 stained glass windows were added to the rest of the church. Originally, there was only a small window of stain glass in the center of each of the side windows surrounded by frosted glass.

Rev. Frank Woolever was appointed an assistant at the parish in 1959. He energetically undertook the work of outreach to the parishioners now numbering some 250 families. In 1961 he formed units of the Christian Family Movement (CFM), groups of couples who met weekly in each other’s homes to discuss, pray and act on the Gospel message to love God and your neighbor. Some three-dozen couples were involved in CFM in the 1960’s and they were later active in the changes that came to the parish. One unique group was that composed entirely of what once was called “mixed marriages” – where one of the spouses was Catholic and the other was not.

Instead of building a school, the parish hired a bus in 1962 and paid the tuition for students to go to Cathedral School. By 1965, 63 students were enrolled in the program. The bus picked up and dropped off the students at the church parking lot. (This was before the days when public school districts provided free bus service for children attending Catholic school.) This decision was significant in the future of the parish as most parishes of the day did invest in a parish school. Given the demographics of the parish after 1980 when the population of children decreased dramatically, a school would have been a failed allocation of resources.

In reminiscences about the parish, Fr. Harrison described the parish he knew as “traditional.” Still during his tenure there were seeds of change showing. The congregation began responding to the celebrant of the Mass through Missa Recitata; soon these responses were in English. With the astounding call for convening of the Second Vatican Council, Fr. Harrison asked the parish to pray for its success.

The parish mourned at the 1963 announcement of Fr. Harrison’s appointment to St. Patrick’s in Binghamton. He was and is a loved and respected priest. One parishioner recalls how Fr. Harrison came into the church entry after Saturday Confessions on his last weekend in the parish and talked about his transfer. His eyes welled with tears as he talked about leaving. Six weeks later he was back for a farewell party where the parishioners gave him a “purse,” the name for a financial collection. As he thanked the people, he told them that he was turning the purse back to the parish to use for a new baptismal font.

Vatican II changes St. Andrew’s

In the fall of 1963, as the new pastor, Msgr. Daniel Lawler, took his post, revolutionary events were taking place in the wider world. The dramatic decisions of the Second Vatican Council were coming out; Catholics were stunned. They couldn’t believe the changes that were now predicted. Some found it traumatic that the Catholic Church they knew -- with the Latin liturgy, priest facing the altar, and bells rung at consecration -- was going away. Others, equally stunned, found joy in the realization that indeed as Pope John XXIII had predicted, a window into the church was opened and the cobwebs were being swept away.

In addition, the press of the civil rights movement caused unease among many who feared neighborhood change and other disruptions to their way of thinking and living. Msgr. Lawler, who also led Catholic Charities, presided over the initial changes in liturgy and action on behalf of human rights as they came to St. Andrew’s.

A first was a 1964 Civil Rights Day announced by Bishop Walter A. Foery that called for prayers and letters to Congress in support of the Civil Rights Bill. A Catholic Neighbor Committee (CNC), an outgrowth of another Diocesan initiative to involve parishes positively in extending civil rights to all Americans, was formed in 1963. A team of 12 from the parish attended lectures and discussion groups for several months to understand the roots of prejudice and how to overcome it. The team came back to the parish and sponsored meetings. One night before one of those meetings, Msgr. Lawler called the leaders of the team and told them he did not want the committee to tell him he should preach on civil rights. Despite his hopes, the committee at its meeting that night did tell him that he should give a sermon on civil rights. The following Sunday, Msgr. Lawler, a gifted and eloquent speaker, movingly preached on civil rights.

The CNC members called on every household in the parish in 1964 and asked them to come to a meeting about civil rights; more than 100 attended. Significantly, two people in the audience that night were John and Rosemary Heaney. Shortly, thereafter, they joined the Catholic Interracial Council. That, in turn, led to a lifetime of service to the community by the Heaneys that was recognized in 1994 with the parish’s Dorothy Day Award.

A time of firsts

Changes to the Mass came quickly. After a vote of the parish, the first Mass facing the people was offered on January 1, 1965; the first sung Mass in English took place November 7, 1965, followed by the use of English, at first only outside of the Canon of the Mass. Lectors became a regular part the Mass.

The first homily ever given by a layperson at St. Andrew’s occurred on September 25, 1966 when Robert Landers spoke about the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD), a religious education program in the American Church. Landers’s assignment fit with Vatican II’s call for the laity to enter into “partnership with the priest in the sacred things of God.”

In the midst of the continuing changes, there was also a change in assistant pastors. Fr. Woolever was transferred in 1965 to St. James Parish and was allowed to enroll in Syracuse University’s Continuing Action Training Program. Rev. William Lorenz became the new assistant to Msgr. Lawler.

CCD at St. Andrew’s was the result of another diocesan directive in 1965, which set in motion a new flowering for religious education in the parish. In response to the Bishop’s order, Msgr. Lawler formed a CCD Board. Among those he appointed were Mary and John Prucha, Bob and Ellie Long, Rosemary and John Heaney, Bill Green, Bob Landers and Ethel Kelley. Under CCD, for the first time, the parish assumed responsibility not only for children’s religious education but also for adult religious education. The CCD Board served for many years as a de facto parish council and made groundbreaking decisions that would have a tremendous impact on what the parish was to become. By December 1965 trained lay teachers took over teaching in the total religious education programs of the parish. At one point there was a debate whether the parish would open its release time program on Tuesday afternoons from 2:30-4 p.m. to only parishioners’ children at Percy Hughes School or to all students who wanted to attend. The Board opted to invite all students and ultimately 181 students gathered in six classrooms in the church basement and two others in the rectory. For 12 years Mary Prucha ran the elementary school program. Her 25 teachers included Mary Leo, Mary Sgroi, Teresa Smith, Ethel Kelley, Jean Frocione and Betty Jureller. For the high schoolers a strong program led by John Sgroi flourished for many years with nearly 50 students enrolled.

By 1966 the parish had grown to more than 400 families. The Christmas bulletin that year listed Mass at midnight, and 8, 9, 10, and 11 a.m. the next day. A parish forum and survey, created by the CCD Board, attempted to determine the needs of the parish that year.

A new entry was added to the original building in 1966 at a cost of $20,000 and some dissension among the parishioners. The negative reaction was perhaps a sign of what was to come and continues today: the laity wants more say in the church’s decisions. Expansion of the entry did allow room for a bookrack from which 500 paperbacks were sold from 1965-70. At a time of dramatic change in the church and also in the understanding of human psychology and education, there was a desire for new information which the books provided. During this time, the parish added the National Catholic Reporter to its newspaper handouts of The Catholic Sun and The Sunday Visitor.

Msgr. Lawler organized the first Parish Council in 1967 but its members were appointed. Later the parish moved to an elected Parish Council in 1976. In the interim, Msgr. Lawler transferred to St. John the Evangelist Parish in 1967 and the Rev. Joseph Kane took over for what was to be a 30-year appointment. There rapidly came another string of “firsts.”

A Liturgical Committee was formed in 1968. A Parish Forum was organized and given the responsibility to be the decision making body of the parish. Until the elected Parish Council took over in 1976, the forum attracted nearly 100 to its yearly town hall type meeting. Prayer of the Faithful was added to the Mass in 1967 as were folk Masses and neighborhood Masses in the home.

Tithing begins

Fr. Kane’s first proposal to the Parish Council was that the parish tithe 10% of its Sunday collection to the poor. It was an idea suggested by George Garlach. The Council endorsed the practice, which continues today. Some $250,000 has been donated through the tithing program since its start to charities like Unity Acres, Dorothy Day House and Vincent House.

Also in 1967 the parish decided to discontinue the parish Field Days. The proceeds from the fundraiser had never exceeded those of the first year and in fact, continually dropped until only $3,000 was raised in its last year. Instead, a religious education Mass and special collection were started in September to provide an opportunity for donations earmarked for religious education.

Religious Education

The parish hired the first full-time Religious Education Director in the Diocese, Bert Dumabok, in July 1968. Six non-religious and four religious were to hold the post. Through the 1970’s the position was full-time but when the decline in the number of children in the parish occurred the position become part-time. Following Dumabok’s resignation within two years, Alan Massey, Ph.D. was appointed and served through the mid-1970’s – a time of expanding and creative educational programs. Monthly children’s liturgies were held downstairs in the parish hall simultaneously with “adult” liturgies upstairs. Many creative approaches to worship were tried in the downstairs setting that were later adapted to full parish liturgies upstairs.

Numerous magnificent liturgical banners designed and produced by Mary Spadaro enhanced the liturgies. She set a standard that others followed for many years.

The religious education program added a dimension that was to achieve not only the education of children but also their parents. In 1968 family First Communion was initiated. Gone were the classes of second graders receiving First Communion together in May. Instead, parents, who prepared themselves to be their children’s sacramental teachers, taught their own children about First Eucharist and First Penance. The child and their parents selected the Sunday for the family’s First Communion and planned the liturgy for that occasion.

The number of the children in the parish declined during the 1970’s and when Sr. Judith Howley, CSJ was hired to replace Massey in 1976, she also took on other staff responsibilities especially outreach to the sick, elderly and those in need. “Judy” also introduced the Children’s Liturgy of the Word program.

Br. Robert Bimonte, a Christian Brother, replaced Sr. Judith in 1982 to serve as DRE and Director of Liturgy. When he resigned a year later to become Director of Parochial Schools for the Diocese, the Parish Council formed a Personnel Committee to assist in developing job descriptions for parish staff, recruiting and interviewing candidates, and making recommendations on appointments to the pastor. This standing committee also does regular evaluations of parish staff.

At the suggestion of the Personnel Committee, the Parish Council recommended the parish hire a team of three part-time parish ministers to assume Br. Bimonte’s responsibilities. Kathy Gosh was hired as DRE; Mary Jureller as Director of Liturgy and Sr. Christine Jose Laureta, OSF, (now known as Sr. Terri) as Director of Music. The three formed a team that meet regularly with Fr. Kane to plan and coordinate parish activities. The team also implemented the Rites of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program. Later parish ministers were Scott Rutan, Sr. Pat Bergan, OSF, and currently Diane Weinberger.

More than a neighborhood parish

As early as 1968 the parish began its shift from a neighborhood parish. Today more than 70% of the parishioners live outside the parish boundaries. The impetus that started the trend was the fact that people who moved outside the parish continued to come back to St. Andrew’s.

Fr. Kane was presiding over significant changes. He has described himself as “neither liberal or conservative, but open.” He was open to new ideas, to leadership from the laity and was willing to institute new practices about which many of his fellow priests teased and criticized him.

His homilies were enriched with background color from his travels in the Holy Land. He even brought water from the River Jordan to use in baptisms. We celebrated with “Joe” as he marked his 40th and 50th ordination anniversaries. And when he celebrated his parting Mass on December 26, 1997 we gathered to say “good-by” and cry tears of thanks for his witness to our community and tears of sorrow for our loss.

But Joe’s openness got him in trouble with some of his parishioners too. The enthusiastic adoption of reforms from Vatican II was difficult for many. A pastor who was sharing power with the parish and letting the congregation know from the pulpit that he didn’t have all the answers was too much for some. Slowly, parishioners began to leave for other parishes. Over the next 30 years there was a steady stream of people who left in protest for one reason or another.

A dual collection for the wounded in South and North Vietnam was one of the first political controversies that caused people to leave. But at the same time, the parish started to attract new members from all over the county because of these very controversial issues, its commitment of the reforms of Vatican II and leadership by the laity. Today the parish has members from Homer to North Syracuse and from Cazenovia to Westvale. St. Andrew’s started with about 200 families, rose in the 1960’s to 400 families and gradually dropped back to 200 families by the 1980. Today, there are 175 households on the parish registry, 72% of whom are from outside the parish boundaries.

An elected Parish Council in 1976 strengthened the role of the laity in decisions of the parish. Four committees on education, finance, liturgy and community/social action were formed.

Communion in the hand began on the Feast of Christ the King in November 1977. By 1978 with one priest and the need to depend on frequent visiting priests, Sunday Masses went from three to two, at 8:45 and 10:45 a.m.

Justice and Peace Committee

That same year a Human Development Committee was formed and grew into today’s Justice and Peace Committee. A moving force in these activities was Frank Woolever, who returned to the parish with his wife, Meme, in the mid-1970’s. Frank’s dedication to these issues led to the adoption of our sister community, Sweet Name of Jesus, in Nicaragua. By the late 1990’s 50 parishioners participated in the Committee’s activities. Through the years the Committee’s projects included:
Cooking for Unity Kitchen and Unity Acres
Soup suppers with emphasis on the poor and world poverty
Cambodian awareness and prayers and liturgies for the civil war there
Focus on the UN session on disarmament in 1982
Dorothy Day Dinner and Award Program starting in 1994
Bake sale for the children of Ethiopia
A death penalty forum
Donations for black churches
Sale of crafts from El Salvador
Discussions of the Gulf Wars I and II
Sale of fair-trade coffee from Central America, and
Sponsorship of refugee families including an 11-member African family.

In the spirit of this committee, Nancy Murray suggested in 1983 the parish adopt Jane Doe, an unidentified woman’s remains, from the Onondaga County Medical Examiner’s Office. She was named Eve St. Andrew and given a funeral and burial at St. Mary’s Cemetery.

In January 1981 the parish began a serious discussion on whether to remodel the church. Parishioners, in a series of lively meetings, considered a plan to put the altar on the side of the church and change the orientation of the pews. By 1983, a compromise solution allowed the altar table moved forward toward the congregation and the removal of the altar railing.

By the 1980’s the parish went through another demographical change. Children from the dozens of large families in the parish had grown up and moved away and were not replaced in equal numbers. Smaller families were the trend, and many of these were moving to the suburbs. By 1985, there were only two children in the 9th grade, not many for a Confirmation class. This trend insured that the religious education director position would be part-time for the foreseeable future. Today, 30 students are enrolled in the program.

Again the Diocese’s initiated a new program developed in the American Church to help form faith-sharing communities needed for the full implementation of RCIA, that would affect the parish. In 1984, 136 parishioners enrolled in the RENEW program. Nine groups were formed and meetings continued over the next three years to discuss faith and parish life. Special liturgies were celebrated. The parish began monthly collection of food for St. Anthony’s Pantry. Lenten soup suppers were shared on Fridays along with prayer and almsgiving.

Change in the liturgy was another issue on which parishioners disagreed. Folk Masses, the move of the organ from the choir loft to the sanctuary, and inclusive language all sparked controversy. In 1990 a proposal from Catholic Charities to allow construction of 25 units of low income housing for the disabled elderly on St. Andrew’s property near the rear of its five acres was withdrawn after a parish meeting. Strong neighborhood objections to more multiple family housing came especially from parishioners who lived in the neighborhood.

Reconfiguration begins

A new word surfaced in 1986 when the Diocese promoted a Day of Reflection on Reconfiguration. It was an omen of the eventual priest shortage, which is radically changing the church as we have known it. Those changes became a reality for the parish in 1997 with the appointment of Rev. Edward Reimer as parish administrator. For five years, Fr. Ed straddled the differing worlds of the neighboring parishes, St. Andrew’s and St. Therese’s where he was pastor. During his tenure the Parish Council and Sr. Pat, as the parish associate, assumed greater responsibilities. He was also assisted by Rev. Andy Szebenyi, SJ from LeMoyne College who regularly celebrated a weekend Mass.

In 1997 John Murray lead a visioning process for the parish as it discussed its future. Dave Turner and Eileen Clinton represented the parish in talks with the Diocese as its future was being considered once Father Reimer, left in 2001.

When Fr. Ed gave notice of his resignation from St. Andrew’s, a long dialogue ensued with Diocesan officials about the fate of the parish: would the parish continue? and if so, how? These questions were answered when the Diocese paired St. Andrew’s with St. Lucy’s Parish because of the two parishes’ shared philosophies of church and social justice. Rev. James Matthews took over as pastor in 2002 adding to his duties as pastor of St. Lucy’s. The trend of greater lay involvement in decision making and in the mundane work of the parish continues because of necessity.

Sr. Patricia Bergan, OSF, parish associate starting in 1989, began a parish organization in 1991 for senior citizens, the first such ministry in the parish. For a dozen years, the seniors have enjoyed outings via bus trips to the Adirondacks, plays, and local restaurants.

Gay/Lesbian Mass initiated

Another new ministry, one Fr. Kane says he is most proud of, was opening the parish to the Catholic Gay and Lesbian community for Sunday Mass twice a month starting in 1994. Through the years the church hall has also been made available to many other community groups:
As a local polling place for voting
As a gathering place for neighborhood mothers and the young children,
As a site for English instruction of 60 Somalians in 1995, and
As a weeks’ long home to Ploughshare protestors who had a visit from Singer Pete Seeger.

In 1995 the parish was honored with the Catholic Charities Parish Award for its many programs on behalf of peace and social justice. In 1997 the parish received an Appreciation Award from Dorothy Day House for its years of contributions from the Sunday collection tithing.

Two recent additions to the church were the elevator spearheaded by John Murray and Mary Kelly and the stained glass window behind the main altar, the idea of Nancy Murray. An elevator, costing $47,000, was installed in December 1995 to make the church and the basement accessible to the handicapped. As a parting gift to the parish on his retirement in 1996, Fr. Kane donated the stained glass window above the altar. The center point that draws in different lines is symbolic of how the diverse people of the parish meet at this place of worship and also someday perhaps in what Teilhard De Chardin called the “omega point.”

Keeping the parish going

But the people of the parish have always played active roles in parish life. Think of the contributions of the custodians like Jim Hanrahan, Baker Lewis, Howard Smith, George Blair, John French and Harry Nash, and also John Jureller who currently oversees the physical plant. Secretaries, who are parishioners, answer the phone, type and print the bulletin, and now keep the parish books – Dorothy Sachs, Virginia Fortunato, Susan Ethridge, and Jane Christiansen.

There are men like Jack Sessler, who since he joined the parish in 1954, regularly has taken the Sunday and now Saturday collection. Then there are those who faithfully gave of their Sundays over dozen of years to count the collection – Richard Kunder, John Heaney and John Leo.

A team of men and women have served as homilists: Nancy Ring, Peggy Thompson, Nancy Murray, Kip Hargrave, Marilyn Goulet, Dave Turner, Frank Woolever, Mary Jureller, Mike Flusche and Bill Preston. That practice started in the 1980’s but became more regular with the era of shared parishes for the Mass celebrant

There were and are the musicians who shared their gifts so tirelessly: Organist Willard Powell, Elaine Bassano, Meme Woolever, Sr. Terri Laureta, Mary Jureller, Daphne Stevens and Rosemary Lewis who sang the Holy Saturday Exultit Chant for so many years.

We give thanks for the lectors and Eucharist ministers who rise to take part in the liturgy each week on our behalf, and to the dozens who had served on the Parish Council over the last 28 years. The beauty of the altar these 50 years was first tended to by the Altar & Rosary Society. In recent years, Joy Sipple has provided the flowers and their tender placement.

Finally, a loyal band of parishioners has, during these past 50 years, gathered around the altar for daily Mass – among them Carmela Sandro, Richard and Marie Kunder, Rita Dauenhauer, and Rita Gokey. Today a new band gathers for weekly contemplative meditation instead of daily Mass.

So many people have brought life to our parish. In the words of St. Paul we “thank God for you all…you have shown your faith in action, worked for love and preserved hope in Our Lord Jesus Christ…and it was with joy of the Holy Spirit that you took to the Gospel.”