This Day in Brooklyn Catholic History

This day in 1922 marks the dedication of St. Peter Claver Church, the Diocese of Brooklyn’s first African-American parish. The parish was (and is) located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a growing center of African-American life in New York City since the First World War. Many of the first parishioners were migrants from the Jim Crow South looking for work, and a good number migrated from the West Indies. In 1920 Bishop Charles E. McDonnell appointed Father Bernard J. Quinn, a former army chaplain, to found a separate parish for Black Catholics. Quinn served as pastor for twenty years. During his military service in France, he got acquainted with the writings of a French Carmelite who would be canonized in 1925. At St. Peter Claver, Father Quinn started one of the very first shrines in New York City dedicated to St. Therese of Lisieux. Novenas at the parish were attended by Catholics from across the city, Black and white. By the end of the 1920’s it was estimated that over a million people had visited the parish for this reason. In recent years St. Peter Claver has merged with two other Bed-Stuy parishes and has been renamed St. Martin De Porres. This 1942 photo of the church interior reflects the African heritage of its parishioners. Quinn’s canonization cause is currently under consideration.