Editor’s Note: The following article was first published in 2003 as part of the “One Family in Faith” celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Diocese of Bridgeport. Sources for the story include the excellent “The Catholic Church in Fairfield County, 1666-1961,” the landmark work of writer and historian Msgr. Stephen M. DiGiovanni.
By Beth Longware Duff
The history of St. Augustine Cathedral dates back to the mid-1800s, predating the Diocese of Hartford by four months and the Diocese of Bridgeport by 110 years.
During the period stretching from 1830 to 1920, the Church in Fairfield County began laying down roots in earnest. Rapid growth due to immigration benefited the Church, which accounted for more immigrant members than any other denomination in the state.
It is clear from historical records that Catholics endures what today would be considered almost insurmountable obstacles to be able to worship. Catholics in Bethel traveled over 20 miles to Stamford to attend Mass, while their brethren in Norwalk would travel over 14 miles to Bridgeport and back again to do the same, prior to construction of local churches.
During the period stretching from 1830 to 1920, the Church in Fairfield County began laying down roots in earnest. Rapid growth due to immigration benefited the Church, which accounted for more immigrant members than any other denomination in the state.
Prior to the restrictive immigration laws of the 20th century, the U.S. took more than 20 million immigrants, of which more than nine million professed to be Catholic.
Combined with an influx during the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-52, this growth boosted the county’s population by 10,000 persons. More than half that number were foreign born. The majority of them were Irish with smaller number of Germans and French Canadians.
Not surprisingly , most of the priests were also Irish, many recruited directly from the seminaries in Ireland. Of the 52 priest working in the diocese in 1860, only five were American-born.
By the mid 1800s the face of Connecticut was definitely changing and most of the ever increasing wave of immigrant settled in cities where the jobs were. In 1843 with the number of Catholic within the state growing steadily, Bishop Fenwick’s petition to create a second diocese within New England was approved by Rome, and the Diocese of Hartford was established in November of that year. It ministered to Catholic living in Connecticut and Rhode Island under the guidance of Bishop William Tyler.
The decade 1850 to 1860 was an extremely important one for Connecticut, both socially and economically; socially because the once homogeneous Yankee society ceased to exist as a result of immigration; economically because of the displacement by industry of agriculture as the basis sofa the state’ economy.
In 1850, the Diocese of Hartford comprised 30,000 souls in Connecticut and Rhode Island. By 1870, that number had risen to 200,000. During the same period, Catholics in Fairfield county increased in number from 1,100 to 15,000.
The majority of Catholics were immigrants, poor educated an impoverished. Unable to contribute financially, the immigrants donated their labor to build churches and schools.
Most of the priest were Irish and recruited directly from seminaries in Ireland.
First Catholic Church in Fairfield County
By virtue of its larger Catholic population Bridgeport was selected as the site of the first church in Fairfield County. In 1830, 17 Catholics gathered on Milne Street to worship in. the private home of James McCullough Six year later the group purchased a plot of land for the sum of $525 on which it planned to construct Bridgeport first Catholic Church. But that site was rejected.
Bishop Fenwick during an 1837 visit chose a replacement lot on the corner of Washington Avenue and Arch Street. St. James the Apostle Church was erected there and dedicated in 1842.
The first rector of St. James Church, Father Michael Lynch was responsible for the spiritual needs of the Catholic communities and was assisted by Jesuit priests from Fordham College.
The parish was established in 1842, originally named St. James Parish. As the first Catholic church in Fairfield County, it predated the establishment of the diocese of Hartford by four months.
Bishop Benedict Fenwick of Boston dedicated the first Roman Catholic Church in Fairfield County under the patronage of St. James the Apostle on Arch Street in Bridgeport on July 24, 1843. The “snug, handsome brick building,” as it was described by a local newspaper, measured a modest 40 by 60 feet, and congregants traveled from as far away as Norwalk to worship. The first rector of St. James Church, Father Michael Lynch was responsible for the spiritual needs of the Catholic communities and was assisted by Jesuit priests from Fordham College.
As the Catholic population in lower Fairfield County grew over the next 20 years, fueled largely by a wave of Irish immigrants, a larger spiritual home was needed. The second pastor of St. James, Father Thomas Synnott, purchased an abandoned quarry in the city from which parishioners dragged stone blocks to build their new church on Washington Street.
The cornerstone was blessed in August 1864, on the Feast Day of St. Augustine of Hippo. It was opened and dedicated, and the dedication (and name change) took place on St. Patrick’s Day 1868. The church was praised for its graceful stone arches and plaster decorations, its carved white marble altars and railings – all of which bore decorative shamrocks, St. Patrick’s symbol of the Holy Trinity and the devout Irish immigrants’ sign of their Catholic faith.
Hailed by The Bridgeport Standard as “the largest church edifice in the state,” it was built of stone from the abandoned Pequonnock quarry in Black Rock that had been purchased for the parish by its pastor.
Huge stones were dragged to the site by parishioners, Irish immigrants known as much for their ability to do backbreaking manual labor as for their deep dedication to the Catholic faith. The cathedral was opened for public worship on St Patrick’s Day, 1868, and rededicated to Saint Augustine. The transformation from St. James to St. Augustine was complete. A tower housing a 4,000 pound bell was completed in 1894.
When the diocese was founded in 1953, St. Augustine was chosen as it spiritual center. Rooted firmly in the history of Fairfield County, the cathedral’s story closely parallel that of Catholicism in the region.
St. Augustine remained the principal parish in Bridgeport until the mid 1950s, becoming the mother church from which all other parishes and Catholic institutions in the county began. With the establishment of the Diocese of Bridgeport in 1953, St. Augustine became the Cathedral for the first Bishop of Bridgeport, His Eminence Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, and the spiritual center of the diocese.
Despite this elevation to greatness, St. Augustine continues to serve a parish community of families. Its membership comprises descendants of the original Irish immigrant families and American-born Catholics who built it, as well as a new multi-faceted immigrant community drawn from the Caribbean, Central and South America, Southeast Asia and Europe. Its block-long campus is also home of the Catholic Academy of Bridgeport, St. Augustine campus, and Kolbe Cathedral High School.
