A welcoming parish remembers its roots

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

Members of a parish where everyone was welcome, no matter their ethnicity, celebrated the 50th anniversary of their unique church building Saturday.

It’s a place of worship that changed towns and broadened its focus – St. Anthony of Padua, a Slovak national parish in Webster, moved to Dudley in 1970 and became a territorial parish, histories say. Groundbreaking was on July 4, 1970 and the dedication on Oct. 3, 1971. The pastor wanted to build a round church where everyone would be close together.

In addition to celebrating this anniversary, parishioners and parish leaders celebrated two other special occasions with Bishop McManus at the Lord’s Day vigil Mass Saturday: their patron’s feast (with the blessing and distribution of St. Anthony bread) and the installation of Father Daniel E. Moreno as their pastor (with him leading them in the creed and taking an oath of fidelity in front of the bishop).

Bishop McManus said he was delighted to join them in the celebration and spoke of St. Anthony himself as a seeker of justice and peace.

Father Moreno tackled those topics in his homily. He spoke of current events - tragic deaths, racism, the abuse of power, demonstrations and destruction of monuments.

Destroying reminders of negative things does not change anything, he said, and asked whether anyone ever heard of Christians destroying places in Rome where Christians were tortured.

He called for imitating St. Anthony and Christ, using the past to see how to transform society today and working to heal wounds.

“The future depends on each one of us,” he said.

Speaking at the end of Mass, Bishop McManus reiterated the importance of unity among human beings.

He touched on the parish’s history, speaking of Webster residents from Czechoslovakia wanting a parish where they could celebrate their faith and culture. He said Father Joseph A. Ferenz, St. Anthony’s pastor for decades, would never have thought that a Colombian (Father Moreno) would one day succeed him.

“In the Catholic Church there are no strangers,” there is one Savior calling all to be his body, the bishop said. “Home is that place you go to when no one else will take you in,” he said, adding that the parish is home for Catholics and that many works of salvation are carried out in it.

He told parishioners he’s sent them young men – Father Moreno and Deacon Carlos Ardila, their seminarian intern – and expressed hope for more vocations.

Father Moreno spoke of pastors giving of themselves for the parish and especially praised Father Joseph A. Marcotte, who concelebrated that Mass and who had introduced him to St. Anthony’s some years ago.

“I thought, ‘I hope I can get this church once in my life,’” Father Moreno said. He thanked parishioners for walking with him and becoming family to him. And he thanked Bishop McManus for entrusting these people to him.

Parishioners are blessed to have Father Moreno, Therese White told The Catholic Free Press.

“He leads with his love for Christ,” she said. “It shows in everything he does, so he truly leads by example.” She expressed gratitude that her husband, Deacon William H. White, was assigned to St. Anthony’s, since it’s their home parish.

The parish offered a home to Mary Plante and her family when she was a child. (Now she’s religious education coordinator there.)

When her family moved here from New Jersey, St. Anthony’s was their last resort before leaving the Catholic Church, she said. She said Father Ferenz was the only pastor who would let them join his church; the other Catholic parishes in Webster were for specific ethnic groups. But Father Ferenz said St. Anthony’s was an American church and everyone was welcome, she said.

She said Masses were at one time celebrated in St. Anthony’s Church in Webster and at a movie theater in Dudley for Dudley residents. She showed a benefactors’ plaque in the church that includes the names of her parents – Edward and Ann Duffner.

Adam Ozaniak said he’s been in St. Anthony’s his whole life; his parents joined the parish in Webster after immigrating from Czechoslovakia. They took their problems – and their best produce – to Father Ferenz, a fellow Slovak who spoke their language.

Mr. Ozaniak said he was on the building committee for the new church, which people talked about designing in a colonial style. But, he said, Father Ferenz decided on the present model – a round church in which “everybody’s close” and can see and hear. Circling the worship space are classrooms and the hall.

The initial plan was to build another church in Webster, but Bishop Bernard J. Flanagan noted that the town already had four Catholic churches within a mile, Mr. Ozaniak said. So, he said, the new church was built in Dudley and the parish became a territorial one, which included members of St. Louis Parish in Webster who lived in Dudley.

Histories say that St. Louis, established in 1852, was the first Catholic parish in the Webster-Dudley area and the only territorial one. (Two decades before that, Father James Fitton, the first pastor St. John Parish in Worcester, had served Webster as a mission.)

Czechoslovakian Webster residents organized in the early 1900s to get their own parish in an abandoned Universalist church on School Street, a parish history says. The parish was established in 1917.

In the late 1960s there was talk of merging St. Louis and St. Anthony parishes, which each needed a new church building. For a while Father Ferenz ministered at both, after St. Louis’ pastor died following a fire that destroyed its rectory.