Future Is Bright at West Nyack Parish

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St. Francis of Assisi Church in West Nyack was too small almost as soon as it opened its doors Dec. 16, 1989. It wasn’t long before the beautiful nouveau Romanesque building with the campanile-style tower was bursting at the seams.

“I was ordained in 1990 and some of the talk among the priests in those early years was about St. Francis already being too small after it was built. It only had a capacity of 350 in the original church,” explained the parish’s present pastor, Father Robert McKeon.

Father McKeon credited Father Dennis Fernandes, who became pastor in 1984 and served until his death in 1994, with the vision to build the current edifice. An interesting characteristic of the church is a gorgeous flower-decorated courtyard with a life-sized bronze statue of St. Francis of Assisi holding a dove at the center.

Previously Mass had been celebrated in the functional if far less inspiring parish hall. Father McKeon credited the parish’s next pastor, Msgr. Edward Weber, who served a long tenure at the parish while also serving as regional vicar for Rockland County, with expanding the capacity of the building to accommodate a growing congregation while keeping the original Assisi-like architectural flavor of the building intact. Today St. Francis of Assisi has some 2,640 registered families.

“Msgr. Weber realized, ‘Wow, we need to get a bigger space here or we’re going to have to add more Masses because it just continued to grow. So in 2005 they finished the expansion of the church, which almost doubled the size,” Father McKeon said.

“But the smart thing about (the expansion) was when they initially built the church, they created the courtyard between the hall and the church. And then when they expanded the church in ’05, they basically enclosed the courtyard and so the back wall of the church is now the side wall of the hall. And it’s actually a movable wall so what we do on Sundays is open up the back wall of the church into the hall so that it creates even more seats for Mass.”

A constant stream of new arrivals, particularly Irish, German and Polish Catholics moving to the suburbs from the Bronx into Rockland County fed the tremendous growth in the parish, during the ’80s and ’90s. The parish also has a sprinkling of Filipinos and Hispanics among the congregation.

St. Francis of Assisi is a young, family-oriented parish. There are 1,351 children registered in religious education classes under its director Nancy Doran. The church even offers a program for special needs children. There is also a thriving youth ministry under Jim Russell.

“Our 10:15 Sunday Mass gets anywhere from 700 to as high as 900 people,” said Father McKeon. “And then the 12 noon Mass probably gets anywhere from 400 to more than 500, sometimes 600 people. With all those kids in our religion program we do have a lot of young families. But it’s pretty diverse age-wise.”

Needless to say, St. Francis of Assisi has a plethora of adult parish ministries, including the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (R.C.I.A.); M.O.M.S., a program of self-awareness and awakening to the spirituality of motherhood; a bereavement ministry; a consolation ministry, which reaches out to families or individuals during times of mourning to help them plan funeral liturgies; a separated and divorced ministry; St. Francis Bread, which organizes food donations and distribution to a local food pantry, and a women’s book discussion group. Sister Patricia Hogan, O.P., coordinates many of the parish ministries.

“I think when we added it up it was in the 30s, 36 or 38 ministries,” Father McKeon said. “All are active.”

The parish, established by Cardinal Francis Spellman in 1964, celebrated its 50th anniversary June 14 in grand style with a special Mass presided over by Cardinal Egan.

“It was fantastic,” the pastor enthused. “People were like, ‘That was such a great Mass!’ Cardinal Egan had me celebrate the Mass because his knee was bothering him. So I celebrated but he presided. He gave the homily and it was excellent. Because of his knee, he actually sat down so it was like a father talking to his children.

“We had a whole weekend of events. Friday night we had a big gala dinner and then Saturday we had the Mass with a nice reception after and then Sunday we had a parish picnic. Because it was Father’s Day I was a little worried that we wouldn’t get many people but for the first time doing it we had about 150 people so I was happy.”

As to the next 50 years, Father McKeon is optimistic. “You know everything can always be improved but I’m happy with where we’re at now,” he said. “The parish was really in great shape when I came so it’s just a matter of carrying on that same tradition and mission.”