Today, June 16th, is the feast day of Blessed William Greenwood, one of the Carthusian martyrs murdered by King Henry VIII. Because the monks and priests refused to show approval for the king's divorce and remarriage, and subsequent break with the One True Church, they died horrible deaths. Blessed William Greenwood died of starvation in Newgate Prison, and many others were hung, then disemboweled while still alive, and finally quartered. Check out this great website which will tell you a little more about a few of the martyrs at Tyburn. (It is the website of the Catholic Benedictine nuns located at Tyburn.)

Although their feast is not until the end of the summer (as one of the "Forty Martyrs of England and Wales"), and they died roughly 50 years later, this would be a good time to mention Saints Margaret Clitherow and Margaret Ward, pictured to the right in the painting above (left and right). Margaret Ward was executed for trying to rescue a priest from prison.

Margaret Ward was kept in irons for eight days, was hung up by the hands, and scourged, but absolutely refused to disclose the priest's whereabouts. At her trial, she admitted to having helped Fr. Watson to escape, and rejoiced in "having delivered an innocent lamb from the hands of those bloody wolves." She was offered a pardon if she would attend a Protestant service, but refused.

Margaret Clitherow (1556?-1586), whose feast day is March 25th (individually) also has a very interesting story. From Bert Ghezzi's Voices of the Saints:

St. Margaret Clitherow became a convert at her hometown of York in 1573 when it was dangerous to be a Catholic in England. Pope Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth in 1570, provoking an intense persecution of Catholics. Mass was outlawed, priests were regarded as traitors, and harboring them was a capital crime. Margaret disobeyed the law, keeping secret rooms in her house and at a neighbor's house where priests hid and celebrated Mass.

On March 10, 1586, sheriff's men raided Margaret's house. They found a schoolmaster with her children, whom they mistook for a priest, but he escaped through the secret chamber. The officers terrorized an 11-year-old Flemish boy who lived with the family. The frightened child led them to the priests' room, where they found vessels and books for Mass. So Margaret was taken to prison to await a hearing.

John Mush, Margaret's biographer, report that she accepted her persecution lightheartedly. She and Anne Tesh, her friend also betrayed by the boy, laughed so much that Margaret said, "Sister, we are having so much fun that I'm afraid unless we are separated we shall be in danger of losing the merit of our imprisonment." And just before she was to appear before the judge, Margaret decided to cheer the 35 other Catholic prisoners across the hall. "She looked out of a window towards them," writes Mush, "and she made a pair of gallows on her fingers and pleasantly laughed at them."

In the above picture, St. Margaret Clitherow is in the foreground, towards the center, just to the
left of the gallows, wearing the red and lavender dress. Margaret Ward is standing on the left,
just in front of the tree, with the red head covering. I presume the white-clad figures are 4
of the Carthusian monks martyred.

Margaret was charged with harboring and maintaining priests. When the judge asked her if she were guilty or not, she declined to enter a plea. The judge warned her that the law required the death penalty for anyone refusing to plead. He told Margaret that she would be stripped, arms stretched out and bound to stakes, and pressed to death with a sharp stone on her back. "I am not worthy of so good a death as this," was her reply.

Margaret believed that her death was inevitable. Had she pled to the charges, her husband and children would have to testify against her and her neighbor's guilt would have been exposed, possibilities she could not bear. Her love for her family intensified her suffering, but did not deter her. "I love my husband next to God in this world," she wrote.

"And I have care over my children as a mother ought to have. I trust I have done my duty by bringing them up in the fear of God, and so I trust now I am discharged of them. And for this cause I am willing to offer them freely to God who sent them to me, rather than I will yield one jot from my faith."

Thus, on the Friday in Passion Week, 1586, she was pressed to death under 800 pounds of weight. Fittingly, she must have thought, she died like Christ, with her arms extended, as on a cross.

Supposedly St. Margaret Clitherow was also pregnant at the time of her death. She was publicly stripped and humiliated, as Christ, prior to her barbaric execution. Later on, her two sons became priests and her daughter a nun in France.

The English martyrs are an inspiration to all of us. May we be granted the tremendous faith they had, and may we be willing to lay our lives on the line for the sake of the Truth if necessary. May we always be willing to defend our precious Faith.

Blessed Thomas Greenwood and Saints Margaret Ward and Margaret Clitherow, pray for us!

Well, I decided to look into that Cardinal Newman quote again, and it seems I hit jackpot! The mysterious quote is actually accurately attributed to him. However, the poor man is oft maligned and the quote completely decontextualized, as I suspected. How annoying is it when people misuse the words of great saints to suit their own warped purposes, like the closing of churches??? Oh, sooooo annoying! The good Cardinal Newman must be rolling in his grave.

Anyway, guess what I found? An article on EWTN written by...Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now our Holy Pontiff. Find the essay here.

In the article, our Holy Father says

It is known how Newman's insight into the ideas of development influenced his way to Catholicism. But it is not just a matter of an unfolding of ideas. In the concept of development, Newman's own life plays a role. That seems to become visible to me in his well-known words: "...to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often".
Throughout his entire life, Newman was a person converting, a person being transformed, and thus he always remained and became ever more himself.

(Continued:) In the idea of "development" Newman had written his own experience of a never finished conversion and interpreted for us, not only the way of Christian doctrine, but that of the Christian life.

So Cardinal Newman, himself a convert to the Catholic faith from Anglicanism, was referring to one's continual conversion and growth in the Lord. We are all called to conversion of life, as Benedictines know well since it's one of the vows that they take. Cardinal Newman was in no way implying that Truth somehow changes.

Today at a rally outside Holy Family Catholic Church in Sewell, NJ--in which the unholy "merger manual" was handed out and dozens of priests filed inside--a priest barked out to some of us protesters, "To live is to change. To be perfect is to change often." I responded, "Oh, did Christ say that, Father?" To which he responded, "Yes, actually. It was Cardinal Newman." I laughed audibly because I am all too familiar with the decontextualized, stock phrases whipped out of the back pocket of liberals. They like to quote well-regarded saints, etc. to justify their actions. Of course, the devil himself can quote Scripture for his purposes, as we all know. Since I must be running off to work in a few minutes I do not have long to research this phrase, but I did find this, also from Cardinal Newman. You may read the entire section here, but I will share with you one of the most relevant sections for our purposes:

For thirty, forty, fifty years I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of Liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when, alas! it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth; and on this great occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to look out upon the world, and upon Holy Church as in it, and upon her future, it will not, I hope, be considered out of place, if I renew the protest against it which I have made so often.

Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another, and this is the teaching which is gaining substance and force daily. It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion, as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy.

Honestly, does this sound like the kind of may who would advocate the type of liberal and superficial changes that Bishop Galante would implement? Does Cardinal Newman seem like the type of man who would advocate we change, change, change for the sake of change? Surely not. I will continue to research the "change" phrase, but I do find it odd that in fifteen minutes I cannot find it in context or with a date. The only thing I see, by and large, are liberal using this quote and attaching it to Cardinal Newman, which is of course a red flag. More on this to come.

Update 9/11/08: I again looked online for the quote and came up empty. I can find no definitive attribution to Cardinal Newman. I checked CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, for those of you unfamiliar) and elsewhere. Google gives me only a handful of references to the quote, and none of them are reliable or contextualized sources. Hmmm. I wonder if anyone said this, or if he said something like this once. I'm stumped.

Quote:

Parishioners from some of the 14 parishes slated to close in the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg say they were blindsided and not given adequate time to prepare for the Oct. 30 closures.

"Our parishes were not consulted. They simply were not. It was a blinding, jolting shock," said Marian Mientus, from St. Stanislaus in the Calumet section of Mount Pleasant Township.

Along with nearby Forty Martyrs, St. Stanislaus is slated to close, with members, records, assets and cemeteries going to St. Florian in the United section of the township. The three churches, within 1.5 miles of each other, already share a pastor and an office.

The link to this article was sent to savestmarys today by Kathleen: Link to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here. Thanks as always for all your contributions, everyone.

In the rest of the article you will read that the same ridiculous arguments are made as in this diocese, that the people were misled in the consultation process, and that churches that are being closed are in the black and not in the red. "One of the worst things you can see is that something that was in my parish is for sale on eBay," we read. This is beyond shameful. Thank goodness as Catholics we believe in an afterlife, because those responsible for these decisions will ultimately have to answer before the Triune God, his Blessed Mother, and all the angels and saints. We love the Church, which is why we are struggling for Her, but it is a sad, sad, very sad thing when we cannot trust our own bishop as far as we could throw him (which we can assure you isn't far). We fear the men and women who hold such power in their hands to steal the houses of God from the people whose ancestors built them. They are destroying lives, souls, communities and have no right to do what they are doing. No right by earth or Heaven.

We've received so many tips lately on savestmarys. Thank you to one and all, there is so much to do and we are continually heartened by the broad level of input and participation on the part of those in and out of the diocese. This most recent article was forwarded to us since it is so very valid in this and other diocese and truly epitomizes the crisis in the Church at this time. It is very interesting and disturbing.

These Forty Years of Loyalty and Dissent: Humanae Vitae on the 40th Anniversary

I regret to have been surprised with the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae just two days after my return from World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney Australia. I regret it, because it is a huge piece of what is happening in the Church and the world today, and I did not have time to prepare some commentary.

I cannot praise enough, nor recommend enough, Cardinal Stafford's laudable narration of his experiences and insights (cf. Humanae Vitae: The Year of the Peirasmòs -- 1968, By Cardinal James Francis Stafford). If only the whole Church were full of such pastors: wise insight into their pastoral experiences, cultured in their literary background, faithful to the Magisterium, and charitable in their assessments.

After my mind was blown away by the frankness and depth of his article, one aspect has struck me, even though it is an accidental point his article made. And it is this impression upon which I want to compound. It has to do with the unity, charity and brotherhood of the diocesan priesthood. Or better said, the complete lack thereof in our day. I think Cardinal Stafford does well to expose the causes.

My experience with clergy at every level of government of the Church is full of very unpleasant memories, and requires on my part a continual effort for forgiveness. And I forgive, as I need God to forgive me. Where I should have expected kindness, support, brotherhood, acceptance, advice and even fraternal correction, I have experienced every form of anger, lies and gossip, attack of my good name, varying degrees of hatred, exclusion, rejection and uncharitable criticism.

Did I merit such conduct, I must ask myself with all honesty? I think the answer is no, I did not. The hostility has come from heretics and liturgical abusers, and from a group of men who have done all to cherish one another, and defend each others' conduct which includes everything from impurity to abuse of alcohol to an absolute absence of a life of prayer to abuse of money to... well, we've all seen it in public and in private. But to this one could say, "That is an attack ad hominem, and proves nothing." OK, I agree.

Yet the reasons for this hostile conduct have been because: I refused to abuse the liturgy, I stood in the way of the Precious Body and Blood being washed down the drain, I preferred gold to glass for the species at Mass, I wanted to hear confessions every day before Mass, I adhered to a religious orders' Constitutions to the point of earning the contempt of my superiors, and I refused to say mass on a dirty coffee table in a living room. I earned ridicule because I pray the breviary every day (an obligation for priests under pain of mortal sin), because I employ Latin whenever possible in the liturgy, because I get up very early and because I don't watch TV. And after four years of the priesthood, I'm in my ninth parish, when each removal was a completely unilateral decision on the part of pastors, to whom I showed charity in exchange for their abuse. I could go on and on, but I think that's enough to make the point: If I were punished for evil deeds, I would deserve it. But the abuse comes from loyalty to the Catholic Church, in teaching and in practice.

A good priest friend of mine made an excellent observation a couple months ago: the first of all religious orders is the diocesan priesthood. It is truly a community, a brotherhood, or at least should be. Yet ever since the 1700's (I think of the rise of Illuminism, Freemasonry, St. Clement Mary Hofbauer, etc.), there has been an increasing decline in the unity among the clergy, and it is not rare to find in recent and late history true persecution of faithful clergy by unfaithful clergy.

Allow me to be clear: The problem is dissent. And dissent is a fruit of sin.

Cardinal Stafford mentions how the annihilation of fraternity among today's clergy returns especially to those priests, older now, who have rejected Humanae Vitae. He says, "The Archdiocesan priesthood lost something of the fraternal whole which Baltimore priests had known for generations."

The persistence of this dissent has not fizzled away, as he says, "Contempt for the truth, whether aggressive or passive, has become common in Church life. Dissenting priests, theologians and laypeople have continued their coercive techniques." The coercion takes the form of  the mentality of "dissent with us or we'll treat you worse than the trash," accompanied by group enterprises in which dissenters would rope in faithful priests against their will, and then give them no voice. This is why the Cardinal says, "No dialogue was possible in 1968; it remained impossible in 1978. There was no common ground." And there still is none. "Diocesan presbyterates have not recovered from the July/August nights in 1968."

I regularly avoid priest meetings in my local area. I have sat in on many, and have found that they are places where bad priests gossip and slander good priests, where the spirit of dissent is cultivated by discussions about how to get rid of the all-male clergy, the celibate clergy and how to justify homosexual conduct. When schools close by the handful, I have seen the clergy wrangling over "who gets the money" while no one even attempts to discuss "how are we going to educate our community's children in the Catholic faith?". I have sat in on meetings of ministry and apostolate where the discussion was all about numbers and money, and apostles lower on the power ladder would position themselves again and again to climb that very ladder. There is not rarely excessive drinking, criticism of Rome and of the Pope, a total hatred of Catholic forms of piety and devotion, contempt for rubrics.  Childish fighting, childish conduct, childish discussion and immature faith.

If I had the Catholic faith in common with my brother priests, I'd probably be criticized by my parishioners for neglecting them and spending so much time among such exemplary men. But we do not have the Catholic faith in common. I have little in common, in fact, with heretics, dissenters and haters of Rome , or with those who are apostles of sin.

I have no experience of a true fraternity of priests in a presbyterate or religious order; at least Cardinal Stafford new the day when he was a younger priest. Somehow in the back of my head, I can imagine what that might be like. Sure, there would be the occasional challenge of getting along with someone because of personality conflicts or minor defects; that's to be expected even in families. No, I'm not crying about my situation, just explaining why I don't go to all these gatherings of priests, and expressing a hope for reform in the Church.

Fortunately in my parish, there are two other diocesan priests, Fr. Bustamante and Fr. Perrone, and an occasionally varying collection of exemplary priests from the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross. We do form a sort of community, we discuss spiritual matters and encourage one another to be faithful. We share discoveries about the ancient liturgy, the Pope's latest teachings, the good example of the saints. And all that with lots of humor besides. We even do sports together and share meals.

Many faithful priests in the world are isolated by the type of coercion which the Cardinal mentioned. I meet them everywhere, including priests from around the world at World Youth Day, and many tell the same stories: abuse in exchange for fidelity. Yes, there are good priests out there; one Australian article stresses that there are many in fact. But dissenters in powerful positions put these faithful priests in very difficult positions and places, and places far from other faithful priests. It is not good for man to be alone, and every priest needs a presbyterate of brothers with whom to encourage, commiserate, bless, advise, laugh and pursue holiness.

May it please the Lord to send a great reformer to the Church. And may Catholic priests one day discover that they do, indeed, have Catholicism in common.

Fr. Paul Ward

St. Paul Intercession

They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise): I am more; in many more labors, in prison more frequently; in stripe above measure; in death often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils of the sea, in perils from false brethren: In labors and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness: Besides those things which are without; my daily instance the solicitude for all the churches (2Cor11:23-28)

St. Paul relates the hardships he has undergone to evangelize. He reminds us that he is an instrument of the Lord who lives in him. So, too, our hardships are an important part of the assault against the paganism of this world. We consecrate everything because Our Lord so wills in order to give honor and glory to God who is the foundation and essence of all that is good, pure and holy. All praise and honor to Jesus Christ, our Savior. The life we have in the Lord we recognize something totally beyond our merit. We only listen to the Spirit who confers life on us continually through the most powerful intercession of the Blessed Mother. If we keep that fixed in our hearts through divine grace we never have to worry (didn't St. Pio say so?) about any crisis in our life or in our parish.

Praised be Jesus Christ!
Now and Forever.
Fr. Jerome Charles Romanowski

Empowering the laity is something Bishop Galante promotes. In a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article (click here to read article), the bishop states that priests need to be "catalysts who will bring the laity in to share responsibility." Now I don't know about you, but I for one am only too happy to accommodate and agree with the bishop entirely on this point. Responsibility is good! My mother taught me well.

Five years ago, on March 15, 2003, the Times-Picayune of Dallas, TX reported that Galante said that "forty years after Vatican II the church is still suffering from a culture of clericalism in which 'a sense of privilege and entitlement' comes with ordination to the priesthood." He lamented that Church culture is still too secretive and that "we have to provide a sense of openness and ownership for everyone." Goody! I am thrilled to hear this. After all, a man who believes these things is sure to hear our concerns on the 27th and respect the sense of ownership that St. Mary's parishioners take. And our good pastor, Fr. Romanowski, is nothing if not not an honest and open man of God. But folks, it gets better!

Referring to the sexual molestation crisis, Galante said that bishops "underestimated the strength and wisdom of laypeople." The Catholic Church, said Galante, should be "a community of equals." Further, "You have to take us [clerics,bishops] off whatever pedestals may have been erected in our youth, and we have to be very happy to get off of them," he said. He feels that the Church ought to be more transparent and more power-sharing. His Excellency expressed that bishops cannot enact reforms and impose them on their colleagues.

As bishops have "underestimated the...laypeople," I fear that many of us have underestimated our bishop. After reading these things, I feel he truly must be a man of the people. Let us pray that our meeting with him next week will be truly fruitful!

(Here's the 2003 article if you want to read it yourself: Underestimating laypeople)

In every parish there are a few people who have a fierce attachment to their church. They provide the skills and energy, often behind the scenes, that support the spiritual work of the pastor. At St. Mary's, no living person better exemplifies this than Miss Antoinette Cesare.
Antoinette was nine years old when St. Mary's was built in 1922, and she recalls a lot about the church's early history:

She fondly remembers the day the bell was dedicated, a few months after the first Mass was said at St. Mary's. "The bell was on the ground in front of the church, and Bishop Walsh blessed it with Mrs. Elizabeth Diamond, a parishioner, as sponsor. Workmen carried the heavy bell into the church and then raised it up into the steeple with ropes and pulleys," she said. "I was small," she added wistfully, "but I can still remember it."

She recalls the Schad construction firm, which built St. Mary's Church. One of the builder's sons, James Schad, eventually became auxiliary bishop of the Camden diocese. Antoinette remembers Bishop Schad saying, "Because my father built it, St. Mary's has always been special to me."

Antoinette had this to say about the founders' roll: "During the early days, it was in a dark frame, but in the 1950s Father O'Connor had it put in a lighter frame to match the new paneling that we put in the church at that time."

These are just a few of the recollections Antoinette related last May when I visited her in the Cesare home. Overflowing with fresh irises from the family garden, the hip-roofed farmhouse was built by Antoinette's parents during the 1920s. In this house she has lived all her adult life--with her sisters, Angeline, Mildred, and Rose. (Their nephew, Mr. Stephen Michael Cesare, spends a lot of time here to ensure that all is well with his aunts.)

Antoinette's light complexion, blue eyes, and blond hair belie her southern Italian ancestry. However, the commingling of a Neapolitan phrase, now and then, with her rural south Jersey phraseology makes her Italian heritage abundantly clear.

She spent her early years helping her parents on the farm. As a teenager, Antoinette began to work at the Kimble Glass Company, where she remained forty-four years calibrating scientific glassware. Despite the demands of the family home and her work at Kimble Glass, Antoinette has made time for St. Mary's continuously over the past sixty-eight years. She still cleans the church and holds dear the forty-five years that she used to do it with Mrs. Betty Rein, whose health now prevents her from doing volunteer work. Furthermore, the eighteen years as prefect of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin, and the electronic carillon that she (together with her sisters) donated are just the tip of an iceberg of contributions that she has made to St. Mary's.

When I visited Antoinette and her sisters last May, I arrived at ten o'clock in a morning drizzle. When I left four hours later--surfeited with reminiscences and Old World edibles--the sun had come out, and it was a perfect spring afternoon in south Jersey. As I started to drive away, Antoinette stopped me and said, "Here's your umbrella, Billy."

Being called by that old familiar name reinforced what I had sensed all along during the visit: I was in the presence of a woman with a rich repository of lore going back many years--in a house whose inhabitants had enriched St. Mary's spiritual life incalculably.

Part 1: The Origins of St. Mary's
Part 2: 1922-1939: A Mission Church of Sacred Heart Parish
Part 3: 1939-1961: A Mission Church of St. Rose of Lima Parish
Part 4: Since 1961: An Independent Parish
Epilogue: Pastor's Vision for the Future
Acknowledgments: About this history

In 1922 the Third Sunday of Advent fell on December 17, the day St. Mary's Church was dedicated. Hundreds flocked to the new church on Dutch Mill Road to hear the Mass's theme, "The Lord is near, let us be joyful." The people of Malaga were especially joyful that wintry Sunday as they witnessed the spiritual beginning of their own church.

The Solemn high Mass was celebrated with the Most Reverend Thomas Walsh, bishop of Trenton, presiding. He voiced high praise for Monsignor James Bulfin, pastor of Sacred Heart Church (seven miles away in Vineland), who directed the building of the church, and for the people of Malaga whose monetary sacrifices made it possible.

St. Mary's Early Pastors

The dedication of St. Mary's marked its beginning as a mission church under Sacred Heart. Monsignor Bulfin served as pastor of St. Mary's even though he resided in Vineland. (St. Mary's did not have its own pastor and rectory until four decades later.) Monsignor Bulfin had a passionate devotion to Catholic education. "Without the religious training of our youth," he stated on numerous occasions, "our churches would not be needed."

In 1933 illness compelled Monsignor Bulfin to forgo pastoral duties, and Father Francis Jackson inherited his superior's responsibilities. The untimely death of Father Jackson only four years later, which many attributed to the stress of Sacred Heart's Depression-era fiscal problems, was deeply felt by St. Mary's parishioners. Father William Hickey, later Monsignor Hickey, replaced Father Jackson and served as pastor of St. Mary's during its final two years as a mission church under Sacred Heart, from 1937 to 1939.

Sisters of St. Joseph

During St. Mary's early years, the Sisters of St. Joseph traveled from their convent in Vineland to Malaga to prepare the children for first Holy Communion. Mother Albertine, Sister Mary Edmond, Sister Teresa Carmel, Sister Grace Stanislaus, and Sister Mary Barnabas, like those who followed them, were devoted to teaching the Catholic faith and responsible citizenship during those Sunday afternoon sessions.

Each spring, twelve to fifteen children received the Sacrament. This was a proud moment for their parents, who were grateful to the sisters for helping them perpetuate their faith and thus fulfill the main reason for building St. Mary's. They were grateful, also, to the sisters for reinforcing their children's language skills, enabling them to participate more fully in the mainstream of American society.

Feast of the Assumption

Because St. Mary's was named for the Mother of Jesus, the Feast of the Assumption became the parish's principal celebration. The mid-August festivities resembled those of a typical Italian village; that is, a High Mass, followed by a parade to honor the community's patron saint and a public gathering featuring food, music, games and fireworks.

Parishioners blessed with long years and clear memories can still remember the festivals of the 1920s and '30s when the Associazione della Assunta, which was organized principally by Mr. Giovanni (John) DiMatteo, managed the annual event in the absence of an on-site pastor. They can still recall the sight of the statue of La Madonna (Figure 2), festooned with ribbons on which worshipers had pinned dollar bills, being hoisted to the shoulders of young men for the parade down Delsea Drive. (Traffic was no problem then.) They can recall the sound of the Red, White, and Blue Band as it marched behind La Madonna. They can recall the enticing aroma of zeppole (cruller-like fried dough) and other delicacies being readied on the church grounds for the return of hungry paraders.

Volunteer barkers urged people to "step right up" and test their strength and skill at knocking over bogus milk bottles with a baseball. (The white bottles, made of wood with metal interiors to impart stability, were arranged in a pyramid thirty feet behind a counter.) "Three balls for a nickel," the barker cried, "and one of these beautiful prizes (mainly stuffed animals) is yours!!"

Young Raynard Infante from New York City, a relative of several families in the area, impressed the local population with his Neapolitan love songs, which he sang from the gandstand in the area where St. Mary's outdoor shrines now stand. Another favorite amateur singer was Mr. Giuseppe (Joseph) Alvino, one of the church's founders, who rendered "Oh Sole Mio" with a fervor that old-timers still talk about. (Both Raynard Infante and Mr. Avino are shown in Figure 3.)

After a respite from the mid-day parade, members of the Red, White, and Blue Band took their places on the bandstand and entertained the crowd during the afternoon and evening. The music consisted of Italian melodies and patriotic songs, mostly Sousa marches. The band's electrifying "Stars and Stripes Forever" presaged the festival's finale: the fireworks.

As band members put their instruments away, firework technicians sent up aerial bombs that exploded in a cascade of color. This lured the crowd to the southern edge of the church grounds (where the rectory now stands). From that point, people could see the lighting of fireworks mounted on wooden structures on the knoll where the firehouse is now located. Fireworks at ground level, including spinning wheels and Niagara Falls, alternated with aerial displays depicting patriotic themes, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Mayflower, and the American flag (then forty-eight stars).

The fireworks (and the two-day festival) ended at about eleven o'clock with the detonation of an ear-splitting battery of explosives buried two feet below the ground--enough to destroy a small army. With the acrid smell of fireworks still hanging over the church grounds, those who came in cars and trucks sounded their horns in appreciation while others tramped home humming the songs that the Red, White, and Blue Band had played.

Bountiful Times End.

Suddenly, in 1929, St. Mary's parishioners, like all Americans, were hit with the devastating effects of the Great Depression. Cash incomes dropped as the price of produce plunged to just a few pennies more than the cost of the container in which it was shipped to market. But the Depression did not stop these energetic settlers from garnering food, fuel, and shelter for their children and their farm animals from southern New Jersey's rich, sandy loam; its red-cedar swamps; and its unspoiled, game-filled woodlands.

In addition to being innately resourceful, these sturdy men and women were capable of buoying each others' spirits during grim times. No one was more noted for this than the grandfatherly man who devoted the last eighteen years of his life to St. Mary's and the Malaga community.

St. Mary's First Custodian

Unlike most of St. Mary's early parishioners who were young, newly married immigrants, Signor Giuseppe DiMatteo (Figure 4) was an Italian widower who was seventy-three years old when the church was built in 1922. Today, some older residents can still remember Giuseppe, affectionately called "Zio Pepe" by all the children in the community, even those who were English-speaking. Giuseppe had immigrated from Campania in 1914, the year his son, Mr. Giovanni (John) DiMatteo (1879-1947), and daughter-in-law, Mrs. Antoinette Cairone DiMatteo (1887-1950), purchased the family farm on what is now West Boulevard.

Biuseppe spent his years in American on the farm, helping to rear his eleven grandchildren and working in the family vineyard. Using his pruning shears, sickle, and zappa (an Old World cultivating hoe), he nurtured the vines so they formed multitudinous, small green grapes in the spring.

As the season progressed, Giuseppe continued to coax the vines. The little grapes grew in the summer sun and matured into plump, purple fruit during the cooler, shorter days of September and October. The family made grape jelly with part of the crop, and Giuseppe would make wine with the rest.

A medium-built, muscular man, whose body belied his age, Giuseppe did more than till the vineyard; he also served as custodian of St. Mary's from its beginning until its death in 1940. The church grounds were not landscaped at the time, so Giuseppe used his sickle and heavy hoe to tame the growth outside during spring, summer, and fall. In addition, he kept the inside of the church in order.

In winter, the church was unheated during the week. Giuseppe would arrive early on Sunday to start a fire in the wood-burning furnace downstairs so that the church would be warm when the priest and worshipers showed up for the nine o'clock mass.

Giuseppe carried out most of his duties behind the scenes, except for the ringing of the bell, which he did with zeal exactly thirty minutes before Mass. Twenty minutes later, with early arrivals already in the pews, he would ring it again. During that era, St. Mary's bell was connected to a heavy rope that came down from the steeple into the church through a hole in the ceiling. (The hole in the ceiling above the choir loft is still visible.)

Standing in the main aisle below, Giuseppe would grasp the rope with both  hands and pull on it with the weight of his body. His initial efforts would cause the bell and its supporting mechanism to start swinging back and forth. The rafters would creak, and the bell would produce a soft ding. As momentum increased, the bell's hammer would strike its side more forcefully, and the dingdong of the bell would reverberate across the surrounding countryside.

For eighteen years Giuseppe summoned the populace of St. Mary's for spiritual renewal.

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Part 1: The Origins of St. Mary's
Part 2: 1922-1939: A Mission Church of Sacred Heart Parish
Part 3: 1939-1961: A Mission Church of St. Rose of Lima Parish
Part 4: Since 1961: An Independent Parish
Epilogue: Pastor's Vision for the Future
Acknowledgments: About this history