St. Margaret of Cortona's Church (Bronx, New York)

The Church of St. Margaret of Cortona
The Church of St. Margaret of Cortona
General information
Town or city	Riverdale-on-Hudson, The Bronx, New York City, New York
Country	United States
Construction started	1890 (for first church) [1]
Completed	1891 (for first church) [1]
Client	Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

Last updated February 23, 2019

St. Margaret of Cortona's Church is a parish church under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 6000 Riverdale Avenue, Riverdale-on-Hudson, The Bronx, New York City, New York.

The Roman CatholicArchdiocese of New York is a Latin Catholic archdiocese in New York State. It encompasses the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City and the counties of Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester in New York. The Archdiocese of New York is the second-largest diocese in the United States, encompassing 296 parishes that serve around 2.8 million Catholics in addition to hundreds of Catholic schools, hospitals and charities. The Archdiocese also operates the well-known St. Joseph's Seminary, commonly referred to as Dunwoodie. The Archdiocese of New York is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province of New York which includes the suffragan dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Ogdensburg, Rochester, Rockville Centre and Syracuse.

Riverdale is a residential neighborhood in the northwest portion of the Bronx, a borough in New York City. Riverdale, which has a population of 47,850 as of the 2000 United States Census, contains the northernmost point in New York City.

The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, in the U.S. state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; northeast and east of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of Queens, across the East River. Since 1914, the borough has had the same boundaries as Bronx County, the third-most densely populated county in the United States.

Parish history

Prior to 1887, Catholics in the Riverdale section of the Bronx attended either St. John's in Kingsbridge or St. Mary's in Yonkers. The parish was established in 1887 by the Rev. James F. Kiley, with initial services being held in St. Vincent's Free School (now Le Gras Hall on the Campus of Mount Saint Vincent College). The first permanent church was erected on the Southeast corner of Riverdale Avenue and West 260th Street and dedicated August 16, 1891 by Archbishop Corrigan.^[1] Fr. Kiely was succeeded as pastor by the Rev. Michael J. Murray, who also attended to the Visitation Convent chapel in the parish.

The Church of St. John is a parish church under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 3021 Kingsbridge Avenue, Bronx, New York City. The parish was established in 1877 and has had long ties with the Religious of Jesus and Mary as their main base in New York.

Michael Augustine Corrigan was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the third archbishop of New York from 1885 to 1902.

The current church and rectory were built in 1964 on the Northeast corner of Riverdale and West 260th Street;^[2] the new church was dedicated in June 1965.^[3]

in 2015, the parish of St. Gabriel's merged with St. Margaret's.^[4]

St. Gabriel's Roman Catholic Church is a parish located in the Riverdale section of The Bronx, New York. The parish was created in 1939 by Francis Spellman, then the Archbishop of New York, as the successor to the St. Gabriel’s Church on East 37th Street in Manhattan, which was razed in 1937 to accommodate the construction of the Queens-Midtown tunnel. The pews, altars and statues of the original church were relocated to the new structure, and many of the church’s Irish-American congregants also moved to the Bronx to be near their parish. The Right Reverend Francis W. Walsh, pastor of the Church of the Assumption in Peekskill, New York, and president of the College of New Rochelle, was named pastor – a post he held until his retirement in 1969.

St. Margaret's Parish School

In 1875 the Sisters of Charity opened St. Vincent's Free School on the grounds of Mount St. Vincent for the children of the Irish poor, who worked as domestics on the numerous estates that populated Riverdale at the time.

The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul of New York, most often known simply as the Sisters of Charity of New York, is a religious congregation of sisters in the Catholic Church whose primary missions are education and nursing and who are dedicated in particular to the service of the poor.

The College of Mount Saint Vincent (CMSV) is a Catholic liberal arts college in the northwest corner of the Riverdale section of The Bronx, New York, adjacent to the Yonkers border. It is the northernmost location in New York City. It was founded by the Sisters of Charity of New York.

In 1910 Fr. Murray built a school, called Lavelle Hall, but because of financial restraints, could not open it when built. Instead it was leased to the New York City School system in September 1915. When the building of P.S. 81 was completed in 1926, then pastor, Rev. Thomas J. Doyle opened the parish school in September 1926. In 1915, the congregation numbered "464 men, women and children."^[1]

Pastors

Rev. James F. Kiley (1890-1905), "founder and first rector"^[2]
Rev. Michael J. Murray (1905-1919), assisted by the Rev. Edward J. Holden^[1]
Rev. James Aylward (1919-1925)
Rev. Joseph Doyle, (Later Monsignor Doyle) (1925-1962)
Rev. Kilcoyne (late 1950's)
Monsignor William Foley, -2008
Rev. Brian McCarthy, 2008 -

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References

History of St. Margaret of Cortona parish, researched and written by Kevin T. O'Reilly on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the parish

Coordinates: 40°54′30.96″N73°54′11.85″W / 40.9086000°N 73.9032917°W / 40.9086000; -73.9032917

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[Lafort-1] 1 2 3 4 5 Remigius Lafort, S.T.D., Censor, The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X. Volume 3: The Province of Baltimore and the Province of New York, Section 1: Comprising the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn, Buffalo and Ogdensburg. . (New York City: The Catholic Editing Company, 1914), p.388.

[smcschl-2] 1 2 "History of St Margaret's School", St. Margaret of Cortona School

[3] DosSantos, Juliann. "Charity Begins at Home for St. Margaret of Cortona Parish", Catholic New York, December 12, 2012

[4] Timothy Cardinal Dolan. "Decree on the Merger of St. Margaret of Cortona, Bronx, NY and the Parish of St. Gabriel, Bronx, NY", November 2, 2014