NEW CANAAN — At the beginning of the pandemic, Fr. Rob Kinnally urged his parishioners to pray for protection to their patron, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, an Italian aristocrat who entered the Society of Jesus and died in 1591 at 23, while caring for victims of a plague that swept through Rome.
The parish, which has a strong devotion to St. Aloysius, Our Lady and St. Joseph, had their prayers answered. There was never a transmission of COVID at St. Aloysius during the pandemic and he said, “I give our saints a lot of credit for keeping us safe through this whole thing. We never shut down, and the doors were always open for people to pray.”
Early on, the parish live-streamed its Masses, relying at first on Fr. David Roman’s iPhone and Facebook The Masses became so popular that even now, there are many people from the region and around the world who continue to watch them each week.
From the very beginning, St. Aloysius has been faithful to his parish, which this year celebrates the 125th anniversary since it was founded after a group of Irish Catholics left St. Mary Parish in Norwalk on Long Island Sound and headed into the hill country of New Canaan. Every Sunday, they would make the arduous journey back to Norwalk for Mass, some traveling on foot.
“We pray to St. Aloysius who has given us 125 years of grace and service and all kinds of blessings,” Fr. Kinnally said.
In 1917, the New Canaan Messenger reported: “The first Irish immigrants … walked to Norwalk to attend Mass. They thought nothing of the hardships entailed in fulfilling their religious duties as is known from reliable testimony, and neither the heat of summer nor the cutting cold of winter would keep them from setting forth early on a Sunday morning for Norwalk.”
Eventually, Fr. Kinnally says, a mission parish was established in New Canaan and the priest came as his schedule allowed, to celebrate Mass in private homes and what is now the New Canaan Historical Society Town House. Then, in 1862, the first Catholic Church was built on Forest Street. On June 1, 1896, the New Canaan Mission separated from St. Mary Parish, and Fr. John McMahon was appointed the first pastor of St. Aloysius.
A second church, which is still on the campus, was built and dedicated on July 15, 1917, and 50 years later the current Cherry Street church was dedicated, and the old church became the rectory and parish center.
Father Kinnally, who is in his sixth year as pastor and is chancellor of the Diocese of Bridgeport, says, “My experience has been nothing but wonderful. These are very faithful, caring, generous people. It is an amazing community, and I am very proud of what they do. They share with one another and with the larger community. I am very blessed.”
He describes being pastor as a grace-filled experience in the tradition of many previous priests, two of whom are his close friends — Msgr. J. Peter Cullen and Msgr. William J. Scheyd.
“We are very good friends, and I rely on them for history, and they are so supportive of me,” he says. “Among the three of us, there are 37 years of being pastor — Msgr. Cullen with 17 years, Msgr. Scheyd with 14 and me with six.”
The parish has almost 3000 families, most from New Canaan and some from Northern Westchester, with close to 1000 children in religious education. Well over 100 people attend the two daily Masses. Father is particularly proud of the parish tithing program by which 10 percent of donations are given to charities identified by parishioners, including hospitals, clinics, ministries of Catholic Charities, schools, and missions in South America.
“We are a very large congregation, and I have a great relationship with our other brother and sister pastors in town,” he says. “To the larger community, we offer a sense of parish, that there is life here, that you will find support and that you have people present for you.”
The vibrant parish life has many ministries, including a bereavement program, a Men’s Ministry and Walking With Purpose, along with an active youth ministry and a semi-annual Emmaus Retreat program.
Students at St. Aloysius School, from kindergarten to eighth grade, attend Mass regularly and have opportunities to pray three times a day, he said.
“Our music program is amazing, and there is a strong tradition of good music thanks to Dr. John Michniewicz,” Father said. There are adult, youth, and cherub choirs in addition to the StAY Teen Choir & Praise Band.
The teen Mass typically attracts 600 people on Sunday at 5 p.m., and members of the senior community often go because they are energized by the young people, Father says. There is also a 6:30 a.m. Mass for teens once a month at which they receive a takeaway breakfast before heading to school.
“We have a lot of folks who do a lot of amazing things,” he says. “They are important to the life of the Church in a culture that says people are moving away from religion. Our community has shown that you need a personal relationship with Christ and a community relationship with people in prayer. We have to come together in Eucharist. The Lord says to do this, and that’s what we do every day.”
The parish recently embarked on a capital campaign, which it hopes will finance work on aging buildings on the campus, more space for parish ministries, a larger indoor gathering space, and an outdoor area.
“It will be a re-imagining of our campus,” Fr. Kinnally says. “We also want to put a cafe in the middle of the campus, which will be managed throughout the day so people can gather for coffee and a light lunch and provide coffee for people after Mass. We want a place where people will feel comfortable and can pray the rosary and have outdoor prayer services. It will also be available to the community if, say, they want a room for a meeting or just to sit outside and have lunch.”
This year, the St. Aloysius’ 125th-anniversary feast was celebrated on June 19 after the 5 p.m. Mass with Bishop Frank J. Caggiano, followed by a procession and a parish party with music and food.
Marking the occasion, Fr. Kinnally said in a message to his faith community: “We give thanks to God for 125 years of parish family life under the patronage of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. From moments of grace in the three different church buildings that have been our spiritual houses over a century and a quarter, we all have some treasured stories of countless prayers said, thousands of candles lit, hundreds of happy brides and grooms walking down the aisle, generations of babies being brought to the baptismal font, the funeral rites for our dear ones, school graduations, First Holy Communions, Confirmations, a First Mass or two, years and years of Christmas pageants, and the hundreds of thousands of Masses that have been offered.
“More than anything, Saint Aloysius Parish has been a place where generations have celebrated the love of Christ that is made present in a community….125 years after the Vatican approved our desire to name the parish after Aloysius Gonzaga, the young Jesuit seminarian who gave his life in service of the poor and the sick, we pray that we will imitate him in his desire to serve the Lord by serving one another. And then, we pray that one day we will meet all of the Saint Aloysius parishioners from 1896 and beyond in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
