St. Michael’s Church History
The Parish of St. Michael has its roots in a gathering of 53 German speaking families who met at the beginning of 1960 to petition the Bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn to found a parish for German speakers. It was approved and by July 8, 1860 a small wooden framed church had been raised on Jerome Street. (The cost of the contraction was $2,576.00) In 1863 a small school was built with classrooms on the first 2 floors and the priest’s residence on the top floor. The school grew rapidly and the Dominican Sisters were invited to administer and teach in the school in 1872.
In 1897 the Capuchin Franciscans were invited to take on the parish. The first Capuchin province in the United States had a particular mission to serve German-speaking Catholics. One of the co-founders of that province (the Province of St. Joseph), Bonaventure Frey was the first Capuchin pastor at St. Michael. Capuchins expanded the rectory to house a fraternity of 5 friars. A new school was built on the corner of Warwick and Liberty on December 1, 1899. A new convent for Dominican Sisters was built in 1916 on Jerome Street.
A new Church was needed and ground was broken in June 8, 1920. The building was completed June 25, 1922. The style is called Romanesque Revival. It has a 125 foot bell tower that for nearly a century was the highest point in the neighborhood.
The neighborhood has always gone through demographic changes. By 1928 the decision was made to have English be the fundamental language of instruction and preaching instead of German. There have been waves of cultural changes. Irish families had grown in numbers in the 2nd half of the 19th Century. There had been waves of Italian immigrants before World War II though they were often served at Italian National Parishes like St. Rita. After World War II there was internal migration of Afro-Americans from the South to Northern cities. Likewise Puerto Rican migration to the mainland picks up its pace. Beginning in the 1970’s immigrants from Latin America beginning with Dominicans in the 1970s and a wider group from South and Central America in the 1980’s until today. Each brought the riches of their culture and language as well as their own religious devotions.
The Capuchins served St. Michael from 1897 until 2002. The friars would continue to reside in the friary on Warwick Street, they would have their inter-provincial Postulancy program at 284 Warwick Street. They handed over administration of the parish to the Diocese of Brooklyn-Queens. The Diocese appointed the Institute of Incarnate Word (I.V.E.- Instituto Verbo Encarnado). In 2006, as part of a diocesan pastoral plan St. Michael and St.. Malachy would merge to form a new parish of St. Michael- St. Malachy. The Capuchins returned in 2016 replacing IVE in pastoring the parish.
St. Malachy’s History
In 1853, Father Andrew Bohan came from Holy Cross in Flatbush and celebrated Mass in a hotel on the northwest corner of Atlantic Avenue and Vermont Street. Father Bohan obtained six lots on the northwest corner of Atlantic and Van Siclen Avenues which were transferred to Bishop Loughlin. In 1954, the construction of a church was begun. On April 9, 1854, Bishop Loughlin dedicated it under the patronage of St. Malachy. The church cost $2,300 to build.
In April 1862, Rev. Patrick Creighton became the first resident pastor of the parish. He renovated the little frame church and established the first Catholic school in the town. Securing a three story building on Atlantic Avenue and nine adjoining lots, he opened his school in August of 1868.
In 1929 a catastrophic fire destroyed St. Malachy's school building. The heroism of the sisters during the fire won recognition from the secular press. Father Higgins, the pastor at the time, acquired the former Home for Orphan and Destitute Children, which had been a receiving and quarantine station. When the Home was relocated to Rockaway, Father Higgins converted the building into the parish school. Also, during his pastorate, Father Higgins had the wood frame church building reinforced with brick and concrete.
In 1939, the next pastor, Father Daniel P. Kane, renovated the entire school. He beautified the parish grounds with the creation of outdoor grottos in 1941. It was during this latter year that a kindergarten was opened. Within a few years, the school was renovated and running again.
In March 1957, Father Henry G. Doheny, the current pastor, announced an ambitious $200,000 building fund campaign to construct a new 12 classroom school and an adjoining parish auditorium capable of seating 800 persons. By the time the new school opened in 1958 with an enrollment of nearly 600 students, the building campaign had raised $245,000. In April 1968, a new Convent was opened. Because the response of the people was so great, there was no debt on the building.
The complexion of St. Malachy was rapidly changing. The older established families of German, Irish and Italian descent were moving to Queens, Nassau and Suffolk counties and were being replaced by Spanish speaking parishioners. Father McElroy instituted a Spanish Mass early in his pastorate.
With the population shift in the parish, St. Malachy's financial status became adversely affected to the extent that both the school and church required diocesan subsidies to maintain their existence. Father Raymond W. Kutner, was installed Administer or the parish on September 8, 1978. He immediately set upon the task of reviving St. Malachy financially. More difficult was the necessity of making an immediate decision about the future of St. Malachy's School. In a move to save quality Catholic education for the children of the area, a majority of the Cluster Coordinating Committee voted to close both St. Malachy and the neighboring St. Michael schools and to reopen a consolidated school operated by both parishes. The new school was called St. John Neumann School located on the site of the former St. Michael's High School on Jerome Street.
St. Michael's parish and St. Malachy's parish now form the Parish of St. Michael-St. Malachy. St. Michael's Church is the principal worship site.
On May 29, 2015, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio sent a letter stating that the agreement the Diocese had with the Fathers of the Institute of Incarnate Word to pastorally administer the parish for the previous 13 years had expired and would not be renewed. The pastoral administration of the parish was given back to the Capuchin Friars effective on June 30, 2015.