‘Best Days Are Ahead’ for 100-Year Staten Island Parish

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Father Thomas Devery has been pastor of Our Lady Star of the Sea on Staten Island for almost two years, and he understands the importance of the parish’s rich history and continuing to build on it.

“We just want to build on the legacy of what’s been going on for 100 years, and our best days are ahead of us,” he said.

Cardinal Dolan was the principal celebrant of a Mass Sept. 25 to mark Our Lady Star of the Sea’s 100th anniversary. The jubilee will continue at a gala dinner-dance at the Hilton Garden Inn on Staten Island on Sunday, Oct. 2.

“We’re excited,” Father Devery said. “It’s a huge parish with wonderful people. You can see there is a great spirit in our parishioners who are willing to get involved, especially with the youth.”

There are 5,500 parish families with 4,000 people attending Mass each week, 640 children enrolled in the parish elementary school, where Jeannine Roland is principal, and 900 children registered in the religious education program, coordinated by Camille Quaglia. An athletic center and soccer field are home to about 1,500 parish athletes.

Parish groups include the Knights of Columbus, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Bible study and prayer groups, and the parish provides meeting space for organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

“It’s a close-knit community despite it being one of the largest parishes. It’s what makes the parish stand out,” said Mrs. Debbie Emigholz, parish manager since 1995, who attended Our Lady Star of the Sea School with her siblings and married her husband in the old parish church in 1981.

“There is so much for parishioners to get involved in, and it’s also our priests. We have been blessed with wonderful pastors and parochial vicars.”

Father Devery is hopeful in the coming months that Our Lady Star of the Sea will help parishioners keep and build on their faith, and bring others back to church. He also thinks the parish can assist in fighting the growing number of heroin overdoses on Staten Island.

“We want to raise awareness and show people life is worth living,” Father Devery said. “There is an alternative to this. We have to love and forgive one another.”

Our Lady Star of the Sea began as a small mission church of nearby Our Lady Help of Christians Church on the South Shore of Staten Island. With a growing population on Staten Island, Our Lady Star of the Sea became a parish in 1930, three years after Dorothy Day was baptized into the Catholic faith at neighboring Our Lady Help of Christian Church.

A co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement to assist the poor and homeless, she attended Mass regularly at the first Our Lady Star of the Sea Church. A stained glass window of Dorothy Day, whose cause for canonization is open, is in the current church.

To meet the population growth that took off with the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1964, the parish completed its second church in 1982 and opened its current church with a seating capacity of 1,100 in 2010. A parish school opened in 1959 with 500 children, and an addition was constructed to meet the demands of the growing enrollment in 1969.

In 2002, an athletic center with two basketball courts and a soccer field were added to serve the 1,500 children participating in parish athletics at that time.

“We had a plan of how we were going to get ready for the 21st century and what we needed in order to have all the facilities to provide to our parishioners,” said Msgr. Jeffrey P. Conway, who served as pastor at Our Lady Star of the Sea for 21 years before stepping into the same role last year at St. Patrick’s parish on Staten Island.

Our Lady Star of the Sea is “a great parish,” he said.

Seven pastors have served at the parish, and four remained for at least 19 years Father James F. Malloy, 1916-1935; Father Joseph V. Hyland, 1935-1954; Msgr. James A. O’Mara, 1954-1974; and Msgr. Conway, 1994-2015.

The parish now has three full-time priests—Father Devery and parochial vicars Father Basil Akut and Father David Rider—and a retired priest, Msgr. Vincent Bartley, serving as a weekend associate, to serve as celebrants for eight weekend Masses.

The priests plan to continue serving their parishioners, who have volunteered to contribute to the parish. Father Devery noted how parishioners rallied to assist each other and help rebuild Staten Island after Hurricane Sandy hit in October 2012.

“People get involved and are loyal and dedicated,” Father Devery said.