August 19, 2017 When Czars Resign When I read about the president’s entire Arts Council resigning, I cheered. Who expected that a handful of America’s culture.
Buffalo Mass Mob Visits West Side’s “Hidden” Parish – Buffalo Rising. On the last block of Dewitt Street, just south of Forest Avenue, after years of seeing the neighborhood slowly decline around it, Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church (Coronation, for short) now finds itself in a changing landscape. Opposite the end of Dewitt, a new development is rising on the site of a closed pharmaceutical plant. A couple of blocks away, on Niagara Street, the Crescendo recently opened and other adaptive reuse projects are in the works. In the other direction, Grant Street is seeing a reversal of decades of disinvestment. Not far away, the Hotel Henry recently opened to great fanfare. Not far away in the other direction, the Railyard Lofts project will soon be getting underway.
View all the Shows sorted from most popular on TVGuide.com. See a full list of Shows, view rankings and more on TVGuide.com. Our Choir Auditions page is the place to help you find the perfect outlet for your singing ambitions. Ads here are for groups listed in the VAN. Applying to Fordham University? Get up-to-date admissions statistics, SAT scores, student reviews, and more from The Princeton Review.
In preparation for this Sunday’s Buffalo Mass Mob at Coronation church, after years of walking past and wanting to stop in, I recently visited a Mass there. The church was surrounded by cars. A few men were outside talking.
Inside, I was surprised by the large crowd — unexpected for a Catholic church on a sleepy urban side street. For a moment I thought I had gotten the wrong weekend, and was walking in on the Buffalo Mass Mob in progress. But clearly that wasn’t the case — the Buffalo Mass Mob service will be the 9: 0. AM English Mass. What I was seeing was the only regular Mass in Vietnamese in the Diocese of Buffalo, and the many Vietnamese- American families from all over the Diocese who regularly attend. Vietnamese Our Lady. Other foreign- language Masses I’ve attended were in a language from the Indo- European family, so I could at least follow along, but in this case I was completely lost. The only thing I recognized was the final blessing.
Even the bulletin for the Vietnamese Mass was entirely in Vietnamese, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Still, I could recognized that it as a well- done bulletin. The parish’s priest, Father Peter Hai Nguyen (Reader: note this article on the name Nguyen), told me that he produces the Vietnamese bulletin himself. Vietnamese bulletin.
I caught up with Father Nguyen after one of his daily 8. AM Masses. I asked him about growing up Catholic in Vietnam, where Christianity is tolerated though not embraced by the communist government.
Because of the government’s stance, he told me, he wasn’t able to study for the priesthood in his home country. Initially, he was even denied permission to study for it abroad. But after a couple of years of persistence, and help from family friends in the government, he was allowed to leave to attend seminary.
These roadblocks to Vietnamese Catholics studying for the priesthood are not uncommon: another Diocesan priest from Vietnam, Father Joseph Nguyen, has a not dissimilar story of a difficult path to fulfilling his calling. Father Nguyen was able to give me a picture of the history of the parish, by filling in some of the gaps that I missed in my own research. Coronation parish got its start a decade before most Americans had heard of Vietnam. Created in 1. 95.
Annunciation and Nativity parishes, Coronation was the last new parish created in the City of Buffalo. This was at the city’s population peak, when the post- war baby boom was bursting the seams of all the city’s churches.
Originally the parish served mainly Irish- American families, joined by Polish- American families, and then by Italian- American families. At mid- century, moving to the upper west side was like moving to the suburbs, away from the sights, sounds, and smells of the densely packed ethnic and industrial enclaves.
Until they could raise enough money to get construction underway, the church met at the Ellen Terry Theater on Grant Street at Potomac (demolished in 2. The entire campus was designed by Mortimer Murphy, who, as diocesan architect, designed many of the mid- century churches in the Diocese. In this case, Murphy and his family were also parishioners. Watch Women Who Kill (2017) Hd. Because of springing from the same hand, the Coronation campus has an architectural consistency and integrity not found on most Catholic parish campuses that evolved over time and architectural eras. For the same reason, the stained- glass windows also show a strong coherence among the windows, and with the architecture of the church. Murphy characterized the architecture of the church as “Tudor Gothic.” Interestingly, his original rendering, unveiled in 1. Groundbreaking was held on May 8, 1.
Construction crews wasted no time, having the school ready for classes in the fall of the following year, and the church ready to house its first Mass on Christmas Eve. Original Church rendering. Father Herlihy. Coronation’s early years are closely associated with Rev.
Bernard Mc. Laughlin, who later became Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Buffalo. At the time of his death in 2. Catholic bishop in the US. As a young priest, Mc. Laughlin was founding pastor of Coronation parish. Two decades later, when he was appointed bishop, the congregation gave him a gift of a beautiful, ornate cathedra, or bishop’s chair (the root for the word cathedral).
When Mc. Laughlin retired as a bishop, he returned the chair to Coronation, where it remains on display on the altar platform. Perhaps reflecting the Irish ethnic complexion of Coronation parish in the early years, Father Mc. Laughlin was followed as priest by Father David Herlihy. It was the tenure of the next priest, Father Radon, halfway through the parish’s life, would prove to be a pivotal one for Coronation. A letter writer to the Buffalo News said of Father Radon, “his wisdom and foresight .
Yes, Coronation church took plastic. News stories of the time claimed they were the first church to do so, anywhere. An interesting episode in the church’s history occurred during Father Radon’s time as priest. George Richardson was a one- armed, bearded man who lived next to the church. When he died in 1.
The house was run down, but the parishioners pitched in to fix it up with donated labor and materials. I interviewed Father Nguyen there, and can attest that it now looks nothing like the “before” pictures on display just inside the door, along with a photo of Mr. Richardson and his eponymous whiskers. Rectory Collage. Father Radon. Father Radon also helped secure the parish’s future in another critical way. It he, Father Nguyen told me, who was principally responsible for inviting the Vietnamese to form a Catholic community at Coronation. This was during the period of peak Vietnamese immigration, in the two decades after the United States’ withdrawal.
According to a Buffalo News article from 2. Most of the older immigrant parishioners came from Vietnam in the years following the fall of Saigon in 1. At Father Radon’s death in 2. America. The parish that gave the Vietnamese immigrants a helping hand was, in turn, rescued by them. As Father Nguyen told me, and as was elaborated in a 2.
Buffalo News article, Vietnamese immigrants help save parish – Coronation church on upper West Side thrives. At the time of the article, attendance at the Vietnamese- language Mass was 4.
English Masses were drawing around 5. Yet there was no sign of resentment by these mainly older parishioners toward the Vietnamese. Those quoted in the article were grateful for the families that were keeping the parish vital.
As of the last round of parish restructurings — the so- called “Journey of Faith and Grace” — all of the Catholic Churches on Buffalo’s west side have either closed, merged, consolidated, or been placed in the care of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a religious order. Except one: Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the only parish that remains a “free- standing” parish. Father Nguyen at the altar. But how long will that last? What is the future for Coronation Parish? While Father Nguyen doesn’t have a crystal ball, he is very aware of the trends and his eyes are wide open.
Despite the church’s efforts, detailed in the 2.