In beginning this new chapter for the Catholic Church in New Haven, we respect the great history of prayer, faith, development, and change that has assisted in the formation of each of the churches that will be brought together into the new “municipal model.” As we look forward to a revitalized and vibrant Catholic experience in the city, then, we also continue to remember and value the esteemed past of these parish communities.

SAINT AEDAN

Established 1900
In 1872, the town of Westville became a mission of New Haven’s St. John the Evangelist Church. Father Hugh Carmody of St. John celebrated the first Mass in Westville at Franklin Hall on Fountain Street. Shortly thereafter, an Emerson Street mission chapel, named for St. Joseph, was erected. It was later dedicated by Bishop Francis P. McFarland. In 1895 Westville became a mission of St. Lawrence parish, West Haven. Numbering about 375 communicants, the Westville mission was made a parish dedicated to St. Joseph on June 10, 1900, with Father John D. Kennedy appointed first pastor.  Father John McGivney bought land at Fountain Street and McKinley Avenue for a new church. Bishop John J. Nilan dedicated the sturdy new building to St. Aedan on April 2, 1922. The parish patron had been changed because Westville had become part of New Haven, which already had a church named for St. Joseph. By October 1950, St. Aedan built and opened an elementary school on McKinley Avenue, staffed by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. On October 26, 1957, a bigger school and new convent were dedicated by Archbishop Henry J. O’Brien.​ The church merged with St. Brendan Church in 2016 to become SS. Aedan & Brendan Parish, with the St. Brendan campus being sold in 2017.

SAINT ANTHONY

Established 1904
The parish of St. Anthony was established in 1903 by Bishop Michael A. Tierney in response to a surge of Italian immigrants in the Hill section of New Haven. Appointed founding pastor was Scalabrini Father Bartolomeo Marenchino, C.S.   At the corner of Gold Street and Washington Avenue, a beautiful church of Vernacular Renaissance design was dedicated by Bishop Tierney on March 5, 1905. On August 30, 1936, Bishop Maurice F. McAuliffe dedicated St. Anthony School on Gold Street, complete with medical clinic. The school, serving 300 pupils, was staffed by the Missionary Zealatrices of the Sacred Heart, who took up residence at St. Anthony’s Home for Orphans.  Depressed times and an exodus of parishioners to the suburbs closed St. Anthony School in 1971.​

SAINT BERNADETTE

Established 1938
In October 1914, the Morris Cove section of New Haven was placed under the new St. Vincent de Paul Parish, East Haven. The first Mass in Morris Cove was celebrated on May 29, 1932, at the Nathan Hale School. On July 5, 1934, Bishop Maurice F. McAuliffe blessed the cornerstone of St. Bernadette Church, a brick structure with a seating capacity of 450. Formal dedication occurred on October 20. The Morris Cove mission was made a parish in June 1938, when Father Edward J. Shea was appointed first resident pastor. Another parochial milestone was reached on September 4, 1952, when Father Hewitt welcomed three Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Catherine of Siena from Fall River, Massachusetts. The St. Bernadette assignment was their congregation’s first Connecticut mission. In September 1955, Father Charles Hewitt launched a fund drive to build a parish school. Staffed by the Dominican Sisters, the two-story school was dedicated on August 15, 1957, by Archbishop Henry J. O’Brien. In 2020, the school was closed and the church was merged with St. Pio of Pietrelcina Parish, of East Haven.

SAINT FRANCIS

Established 1868
Irish immigrants had been gathering in Fair Haven well before the mid-19th century. Mostly impoverished laborers, they initially celebrated Mass at St. Patrick Church with its pastor, Father Matthew Hart. In 1864, he bought the centrally located Clark property on Ferry Street as a future church site. St. Francis parish was born on October 4, 1868, when Bishop Francis P. McFarland appointed Father Patrick A. Gaynor as first pastor. A basement church was ready for dedication on October 4 to coincide with the pastor’s appointment. On August 1, 1869, the congregation, which by now was mounting to 1500 people, witnessed the dedication of their upper church. Father Patrick Mulholland added to the parish plant in 1881 with the opening of a school, the cornerstone of which was blessed by Bishop Lawrence S. McMahon on July 10. The Sisters of Mercy staffed it until 1985. The School Sisters of Notre Dame served in the parish from 1987 to 1988. In 2017, the church was merged with St. Rose of Lima Church to form our Lady of Guadalupe Parish.

SAINT JOSEPH

Established 1900
On April 20, 1900, St. Joseph Parish, New Haven, was established by Bishop Michael A. Tierney from the territories of St. Mary, St. Patrick and St. Francis parishes. The new and sizable congregation had been ably served from about 1894 at a Lawrence Street chapel of ease erected by St. Mary parish. As the construction of the new St. Joseph Church proceeded on Edwards Street, founding pastor Father Michael J. Daly continued to use the chapel of ease. The land upon which St. Joseph Church was being built had been purchased from the Dominican order, which had planned to erect a house of studies on the plot. St. Joseph’s cornerstone was blessed on September 11, 1904, and the handsome Romanesque edifice of brick was dedicated on October 22, 1905. In 2017, the church was merged with St. Mary Church to form St. Mary Parish.

SAINT MARTIN de PORRES

Established 1942
St. Martin de Porres Parish grew out of New Haven’s Blessed Martin Center. The idea had originated in 1937 when the pastor of St. Brendan, Father John McLaughlin, organized the Blessed Martin de Porres Confraternity at his parish. The society consisted of black Catholics from the Cape Verde Islands. When growth necessitated moving the meetings from 
St. Brendan to a former Dixwell Avenue police station in 1942, the official name of Blessed Martin de Porres Center was given. Father Peter L. Gerety, later Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, was appointed pastor. On May 16, 1943, the first Mass was offered at Blessed Martin Center.  Bishop Maurice F. McAuliffe presided at the liturgy. The center’s chapel was located in the basement.  A mission style church was later added to the building. On June 26, 1949, then Bishop Henry J. O’Brien dedicated the church. In 1955, old St. Mary School was purchased. The building became the new Blessed Martin School under the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. St. Martin School closed in 1988.

SAINT MARY

Established 1832
St. Mary, New Haven, dates back to 1651, when Father Gabriel Druillette, S.J., became the first priest to serve the city. In 1796 a French priest ministered to refugees of the Caribbean. After 1829, when ecclesial jurisdiction passed to Hartford, the Catholic congregation received a resident pastor, Father James McDermott. Five years later, Boston's Bishop Benedict J. Fenwick, dedicated Christ Church, the second Catholic church in Connecticut. In December 1848, a Congregational meeting house was dedicated as St. Mary's by Bishop William Tyler, Connecticut's first bishop, after a fire destroyed the church the previous one on June 11. A school and orphanage staffed by the Sisters of Mercy opened in 1851 when ambitious plans for an impressive new church edifice to be located in New Haven's finest residential area were launched. The present church was dedicated 20 years later in 1884, and the following years saw St. Mary's influence extend far beyond its parochial boundary. In 1882, assistant pastor, Father Michael J. McGivney, founded the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal benefit society to protect widows and children of working men and foster their faith and social program. Beginning humbly in the church basement with a handful of dedicated men, the Knights have miraculously multiplied to 1.6 million members worldwide. In 1886, pastoral care of the Church was entrusted to the Dominican Friars of the Province of Saint Joseph, who would minister there until late 2021, when the Dominicans relinquished their pastoral ministry, as well as the priory space, to priests of the Archdiocese. In preparation for the church's centennial in 1986, between 1981 and 1984, the old church was completely renovated, receiving a new roof, new electrical wiring, a cleaning of the exterior stone, a rosewood floor from Thailand acoustically suited to a grand new organ, life-sized, hand-carved statues, a new floor plan bringing the people closer to the altar and a Carolingian crucifix that replicates one commissioned by the Knights for St. Peter's in Rome. Most conspicuously, a new Gothic bell steeple crowned by an 11-foot Celtic cross now rises 240 feet above the town, its three great bells singing out three times daily. On Founders Day, March 1982, the remains of Father McGivney were re-entombed, making the church a shrine for Knights who visit from all over the world. In 2017, the church was merged with St. Joseph Church to form St. Mary Parish.

SAINT MICHAEL

Established 1889
St. Michael was created by Bishop Lawrence S. McMahon in response to the influx of Italian immigrants to New Haven. Bishop McMahon had assigned priests to serve the Italians in their temporary places of worship – St. Patrick Hall, the Union Armory, and the Boardman building. For decades after its founding, the parish had been staffed by The Congregation of The Missionaries of St. Charles/Scalabrinians, founded in 1887 by Blessed John Baptist Scalabrini who visited this church in 1901. Father Vincenzo Astorri, C.S., was assigned as first resident pastor of St. Michael the Archangel parish, formally established on September 1, 1889. Father Astorri soon bought a former German Lutheran church on Wooster Street.  The property was speedily renovated and dedicated in the fall of 1889 under the protection of St. Michael. As New Haven’s Italian population increased dramatically, Father Louis Lango, C.S., moved to secure more worship space. He purchased a Baptist church that had been a Congregational meeting house on Wooster Place. The Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Sebastiano Martinelli, dedicated the new St. Michael Church on April 23, 1899. In 1936, Father Leonardo Quaglia, C.S., opened a parish school at 125 Green Street, staffed by the Apostles of the Sacred Heart. In 1940 the parish built a separate school at 234 Green Street. In 1966, St. Patrick Church merged with St. Michael church. St. Michael School merged with St. Stanislaus School in 1993. Both closed in 1995. The church is still strongly associated with Italian-American heritage and culture and is supported by parish groups such as the Santa Maria Maddalena (Saint Mary Magdalene) Society and Saint Andrew the Apostle Society.

SAINT ROSE of LIMA

Established 1907
On September 18, 1907, Bishop Michael A. Tierney established St. Rose Parish, appointing Father John J. Fitzgerald as founding pastor. Father Fitzgerald celebrated the first parish Mass at Grand Avenue's Polar Star Hall on September 29, 1907. From October 1907 until April 1908, St. Andrew Methodist Episcopal Chapel on Townsend Avenue was leased for Sunday Mass. The basement of St. Francis Church was then employed until a temporary parish church was built on Saltonstall Avenue. The first St. Rose was dedicated on May 10, 1908. Property was acquired for a larger church on Blatchley Avenue, and construction began. On October 6, 1912, the cornerstone was blessed. Bishop John J. Nilan dedicated the new St. Rose on April 20, 1913. A few years later, on September 3, 1916, a new parochial school was blessed, staffed by the Sisters of Mercy. In September, a four-room school had opened in a building on the corner of Richard Street and Saltonstall Avenue. The Sisters of Mercy left the parish in 1990. In 2017, the church was merged with St. Francis Church to form our Lady of Guadalupe Parish.

SAINT STANISLAUS

Established 1901
The New Haven Polish immigrants in the late 19th century first attended St. Boniface Church. On February 2, 1896, they formed the Society of St. Stanislaus. On September 12, 1900, Father Stanislaus F. Musiel was appointed to New Haven. He celebrated the first Mass on September 16 at St. Boniface Germania Hall on Wooster Street. On December 28, 1901, St. Stanislaus was made a parish. Father Musiel bought property at the corner of Dwight and Edgewood Avenues and refurbished the building for use as a chapel. On January 1, 1904, the parish had passed to the care of the Polish Vincentian Fathers. Father George Glogowski, C.M., bought a former Swedish Lutheran church on St. John Street, which was dedicated as a Catholic church on October 23, 1904, by Bishop Tierney. In 1910 Father Anthony Masurkiewicz, C.M., arranged for the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth to teach in a burgeoning church basement school. A new St. Stanislaus Church was dedicated on April 27, 1913. In October 1921, a new parochial school was dedicated on State Street. In 1993, St. Stanislaus School merged with St. Michael's School. Both closed in 1995. The Parish celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2001.