University Parish of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village

St. Joseph's is a Roman Catholic church located at 371 Sixth Avenue, New York City, USA. It is the oldest Roman Catholic church building in Manhattan.

History

St. Joseph's Parish was founded by Bishop John Dubois in 1829. The cornerstone of the Church was laid on June 10, 1833. At the time St. Joseph's Parish began, the population of New York, numbering 203,000, was concentrated in the southern half of Manhattan. Parish boundaries then stretched from Canal Street to 20th Street, and from Broadway to the Hudson River. Early church records indicate that St. Joseph's first congregants were predominantly Irish-Americans.

St. Joseph's was the sixth parish that was established in Manhattan, among those still in existence in the Archdiocese of New York. Parishes that preceded it were St. Peter's on Barclay Street (1785), St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on Mulberry Street (1809), St. James on Oliver Street (1827), Transfiguration on Mott Street (1827).

The church has been extensively renovated over the years. Two fires, one in 1855 and the other in 1885, caused extensive damage to the interior. The interior of the church was restored in 1972. At the time, a fresco of the Transfiguration, after Raphael's original in the Vatican, was discovered under layers of paint and restored. Structural restoration work was performed in 1991 and 1992.

When then-pastor Aldo Tos retired in 2003, the Archdiocese of New York asked the Dominican Order's Province of St Joseph to assume the responsibility of staffing priests for the parish. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9907E3D71E38F93BA25752C1A9659C8B63 New York Times] , accessed February 12, 2008.] The Dominican Order had already been staffing the nearby Catholic Center at New York University. The result was a merger of the parish with NYU's Catholic Center in December 2003, giving the church it's current name "University Parish." [ [http://media.www.nyunews.com/media/storage/paper869/news/2003/11/20/UndefinedSection/Catholic.Center.Will.Stay.Put-2390841.shtml Washington Square News] , accessed February 12, 2008.]

The church today

Since the merger, many NYU students, faculty, and staff became parishioners of the church.

The Catholic Center provides a wide spectrum of activities, programs, lectures and outreach programs. It is the center of five NYU student clubs and for five groups of students and non-students.

In addition to its campus ministry and other missions, the parish has been hosting a soup kitch on Saturdays continuously since the 1980s. [ [http://washingtonsquarecatholic.org/index.cfm?load=page&page=202 Parish website] , accessed February 12, 2008.]

Pastoral staff

*Pastor: Fr. John P. McGuire, O.P.
*Parochial Vicars: Fr. Christopher Johnson, O.P., Fr. John Barnabas Davis, O.P., Fr. Vincent DeLucia, O.P.
*Pastor Emeritus: Rev. Aldo J. Tos

References

External links

[http://www.washingtonsquarecatholic.org/ University Parish of St. Joseph & the Catholic Center at NYU website]