History of Sacred Heart Cathedral His Holiness Pope John XXIII History of Sacred Heart Gathedral Rochester, New York 1911 - 1961 A HISTORICAL SKETCH by Robert F. McNamara Professor of Church History ST. BERNARD'S SEMINARY Rochester, N. Y. THE CATHEDRAL Rochester 1961 His Excellency Most Rev. James E. Kearney, D .D. Bishop of Rochester Foreword After half a century of religious activity, I am sure the story of our beautiful Cathedral will be very welcome. While it is true that the story of a Catholic Church is a deeply spiritual experience written in the hearts of those who worshipped here both within the sanctuary and in the pews, we still have the saga of those whose devotion and labors created, developed, and finally brought to cathedral magnificence this Church dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Scholarship and piety give to the pen of Father McNamara the gift of enriching th~s simple story for our edification. I thank God for the privilege of being a part of the story for so many years. + James E. Kearney Bishop of Rochester Preface After the parish picnic on July 9th, we spent the evening proof­ reading the galley sheets of Father McNamara's parish history. Reading his account of the laying of the cornerstone of the original church, Sunday, July 9, 1911, we suddenly realized that the event had taken place exactly fifty years before, to the very day. Laying the copy aside, we made a sentimental pilgrimage across the street and stood in the gathering darkness before the cornerstone, thinking long thoughts about the past. That weather-beaten cornerstone, discolored by the elements, now stands as a mute witness of many things. It saw Father George Burns as a young man of thirty-eight passing each morning on his way to church to say Mass; it saw him making his rounds in the infant parish, busy about the work of the Lord. It saw the few hundred pioneer parishioners of 1911 increase to several thousand by the 1920s; to over 6000 by 1961. That cornerstone saw the construction of the new church across the street and the same pastor, now in his fifties, still serving his people with the same fidelity and selflessness which characterized his early years as an assistant at the old Cathedral. Later it saw Mon­ signor Burns, enfeebled by age, going over to the beautiful church he had built, to say Mass and administer the Sacraments to his flock. And it was a silent observer when the coffin of the beloved prelate was carried down the steps of the Cathedral. As Father McNamara states correctly in the first page of his history, "One might almost say that for forty years Father George V. Burns was the parish." His name runs like a golden thread through the book, connecting scattered incidents and the names of hundreds of priests and people together. High Altar Sacred Heart Cathedral 1957 The history you are about to read is a worthy tribute to a good priest and pastor. My mother, who knew Father Burns at the old Cathedral, and later as a parishioner of Sacred Heart in the 1920s, had a genuine respect and affection for this kind man. Her feelings were a faithful reflection of the sentiments of the thousands of Catholics, young and old~ who made Sacred Heart their spiritual home. In his story of fifty eventful years, Father McNamara has cap­ tured very well the spirit of the Sacred Heart people and the changing tempo of the times in which they lived. He traces the spiritual progress of two generations of Catholics residing in one section of the Tenth \Vard and he narrates their days of happiness and the days when sorrow crossed their path. The many hours Father lVIcNamara spent in research, in visiting pioneer parishioners, and in the actual composition of his history were worth the effort, as you will agree when you have finished his book. As we finished it, an incident from Our Lord's life came lo mind - the words which He murmured one day in the hearing of His apostles, half in soliloquy, half directly, as the vision 0£ the harvest of souls was suggested to Him by the sight of the fields ripening for the sickle: "One man sows, and another reaps. The harvest I have sent you out to reap is one on which you have bestowed no labor; others have labored, and it is their labors you have inherited." We priests and people of Sacred lleart are trustees of a great inheritance, given to us by the hardy pioneers of 1911 and their pastor. We now enjoy the fruit of their labors and of their priva­ tions. As we begin the long march to the day this parish will~ God willing, celebrate its centenary, may God give us the strong, simple~ generous faith of these men and women. Rochester, N. Y. + Lawrence B. Casey July 12, 1961 Rector, Sacred Heart Cathedral CHAPTER in the name of the Father "I LIKED IT IN OWEGO," Father Burns, Pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Rochester, told his assistant, Father Mason, in one of his rare confidences. "I liked it in Owego. In fact, I would have been quite happy to stay there." Owego Catholics who read these lines will no doubt be grati­ fied by them. To long-time parishioners of the present Cathedral the words may cause something of a shock. It would be very difficult to conceive of Sacred Heart parish without thinking of its .founder. One might almost say that for forty years Father George V. Burns was the parish. It all began in 1910. In that rather uneventful year of our national history, President William Howard Taft stood at the helm of the American ship of state, and Boss George Aldridge was the un­ crowned king of the Flower City. If there was anything at all which excited the country at that time, it was probably the incredible air­ plane flights of inventor Glen H. Curtiss. The City of Rochester was expanding slowly but perceptibly. Since 1900 its population had increased from 160,000 to 218,000. Especially after 1891, when George Eastman located his factory at the corner of Lake Avenue Boulevard and Lewiston Avenue ( now Ridge Road, West), commercial and domestic construction had be­ gun to veer off into this northwesterly direction. Several new resi­ dential streets were opened to the north of Driving Park Avenue, and the new residents, many of them Eastman employees, erected sub­ stantial middle-income homes. Of course there was still much more1 elbow-room, especially to the north of the Ridge. Here St. Ann's Home for the Aged, opened just five years before, stood out in high relief amid the Town of Greece farmlands. In the 1860s or early 1870s, when the Ridge-Lake Avenue area was still more countrified and remote, a few Catholic families had settled around Hanford's Landing. They did not escape the pas­ toral eye of Father John 1\1. Maurice, rector of Our Mother of Sor- 9 rows Church on "Paddy Hill.,, He used to drive down at intervals, gather the neighborhood children together, and teach them their catechism. In 1876, the first bishop of Rochester, Bernard J. Mc­ Quaid, erected the chapel he called the "Church of All Souls" in the present Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. Thereafter the pastors of Holy Cross Church in Charlotte took over the care of the faithful of Han­ ford's Landing, and for their benefit had a Mass celebrated each Sunday in the cemetery chapel. By 1889, however, the northward trend of residential build­ ing obliged Bishop McQuaid to cut off a new parish-Holy Rosary Parish-from St. Patrick's Cathedral. And by 1910, Rochester's second bishop, Right Reverend Thomas F. Hickey, saw that Holy Rosary would soon have to cede its northern reaches to still another new parochial foundation. Immediately to the west of the district of which we are speak­ ing was the parish of St. John the Evangelist, Greece (Ridge). St. John's is now in the center of a teeming suburban development. In 1910, however, it was a quiet little country parish. The pastor was Father George W. Eckl. Knowing that this eager young priest had some leisure time, and knowing perhaps that he had a flair for census-taking, Bishop Hickey requested him to make a door-to-door canvass of the upper Tenth Ward in order to see whether its Catholic population was large enough to be formed into a separate congrega­ tion. Each day thereafter, through the fair season of the year, Fa­ ther Eckl and his driver hitched up the buggy and drove into town to make the rounds. One call which the young priest made proved particularly memorable. When he asked the woman who answered his knock whether she was a Catholic, she said she was not. "But come right in," she added. "I've been waiting twenty years to meet a priest." In due time she sought and received instruction in the .faith from her clerical caller. It was the first yield of the new parish's harvest. Father Eckl was actually surprised to find that so many Catholics-most of them of Irish antecedents-lived in the neighbor­ hood under survey. Bishop Hickey shared that surprise when he re­ ceived the final report. One hundred seventy-five Catholic families already inhabited the district; and the rate of its residential con­ struction indicated that this number would grow indefinitely. There was no reason to delay the establishment of a new 10 parish.