Alumni Cross Acknowledges Catholic Schooling Past, Present

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A unique gathering at Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx culminated with the blessing of a 15-foot gray concrete cross in the school’s quadrangle.

The refurbished cross had graced the façade of Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem during the school’s 30 years of existence until it closed in 1976.

The May 16 blessing was a Bishop Dubois alumni project, a celebration of the past and present.

The inscription on the monument reads, “Grateful Alumni of Bishop Dubois High School, 1946-1976, dedicate this cross to the Marist Brothers, NY diocesan priests, lay faculty, staff and students.”

The cross was stored for about six years in a Harlem firehouse (143rd Street station) after being salvaged while the school building was being demolished in 2002. It was later transferred to the academy.

Father James Healy, a 1959 graduate of Bishop Dubois and pastor of St. Paul the Apostle parish in Yonkers, led the blessing of the cross with holy water.

“Dubois for me was memories of fantastic teachers—the fathers were fantastic and the brothers were spectacular,” Father Healy said during the 25-minute Saturday afternoon ceremony.

The Dubois Marist Cross is now mounted on a slab of sleek black granite. More than 20 alumni attended the ceremony.

Three other priests assisted with the blessing: Msgr. Patrick Barry and Msgr.Dermot Brennan, both retired priests of the archdiocese, and Father John Martin, M.M., a retired Maryknoll missioner. Father Martin attended Bishop Dubois during part of his high school years; Msgr. Barry and Msgr. Brennan were teachers there.

Ceremony speakers shared the special spiritual and educational foundation they received from attending Bishop Dubois High School—important life lessons based on Catholic Church teachings.

Mount St. Michael Academy was chosen as the new site for the cross in large part because it is run by Marist Brothers, as was Bishop Dubois High School. Both are all-boy schools. Mount St. Michael, which opened in 1926, is a college preparatory school for grades 6-12.

The founders of the Dubois Marist Cross project, all Dubois graduates, are: George Febles, Class of 1958 and his brother, John Febles, Class of 1962, and James Kilkenny, Richard Palandrani and Nicholas Visconti, all 1962 graduates. Visconti is a retired deputy fire chief from the 143rd Street station. Palandrani was the project architect.

“This has been a very long journey. It started in 2002,” Visconti said of the genesis of the idea to refurbish the cross and find a new home for it.

Organizers said funds are still needed for the $25,000 project.

Dubois High was located on West 152nd Street at Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan. Mount St. Michael is located at 4300 Murdock Ave. in the North Bronx.

After the ceremony, participants were invited to a reception inside the school, and later for a gathering at a nearby restaurant “to continue the conversation in good will,” as Dr. Anthony Miserandino, president of Mount St. Michael Academy, phrased it. “It’s a great commonality of the two schools—the teachings of the Marist Brothers,” Dr. Miserandino noted.

The ceremony occurred while a track meet was getting under way on the campus not far from the dedication site—students from Mount St. Michael and other area Catholic schools participating in a friendly competition among the present generation of Catholic high schools.