“Please Join us in our New Home”

(Above) Notice attached to the door of the former parish of St. John the Evangelist.

The church and parish of St. John the Evangelist is no more. It is the end of a parish founded in 1840. But it is also the end of a modern liturgical and artistic dream – a new church built and decorated 1970-73 to witness to the “new Spring time” of the Council and its liturgical vision:

(Msgr. George A. Kelly, the first pastor of the new church)then describes what he audaciously calls the “Fifth Spring of the Parish.”  St. John’s had to start all over again  “as if it were 1840.” Kelly writes that “1973 not only marks the end of four years of stress and unhappiness but hopefully the beginning of a new parochial dream.” 1)

Well, as some feared at the very beginning, this dream of the clergy has come to a crashing end. The Archdiocese has had to sell its headquarters – in which the new St. John’s has been located since 1970 – becuse of its dire financial condition.

Prior to the closing of the Catholic Center there was a final Mass for the clergy, executives and staff( parishioners unconnected with the headquarters are not mentioned):

Archdiocese of New York Staff Gather for Final Mass at New York Catholic Center

The facade on 7/28/2025 with the Catholic symbols ripped off.

(Above)The now desolate interior. (Below) The forlorn entrance to the church (with an unobtrusive crucifix above the doors already removed).

(Above) The latest bulletin of Holy Family parish.

These Manhattan parish names keep getting longer and longer and the parish territory larger and larger. I can think of the names of two additional Catholic institutions that could be added here, just limiting ourselves to churches/chapels that were still in existence in 1980. The archdiocesan headquarters is now in rented quarters near St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The pastors who have succeeded Fr. Gerald Murray at Holy Family both have or had senior functions in the archdiocesan administration. Who knows, perhaps Holy Family parish itself will one day be folded into St. Patrick’s!

1. The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, “The End of the Churches: the Parish of St. John the Evangelist” (5/27/2024); “The End of the Churches: the End of a Dream” ( 8/23/2024).