Singing at St. Patrick's

These past few months I have had the privilege of doing some supplemental singing with the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church choir. The director of Seraphim, my community chorus, is Director of Music at St. Patrick’s, and arranged for some of us individually and for the whole chorus to do some singing in this magnificent church.

This year St. Patrick’s celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding. It is a big gothic old style Catholic Church located in Youngstown’s south side. In a city built on steel, the neighborhood was ethnic, blue collar and middle class. They even considered making it the Cathedral for the newly formed Diocese of Youngstown (a function it temporarily served when St. Columba’s Cathedral burned down in the early 1950’s).

But the neighborhood has been in decline for years and years, and has been long considered classic inner-city surrounded by urban blight. But like several other old neighborhood Catholic churches in the area, the faithful who moved to the suburbs refused to give up their church. Through perseverance and innovation, St. Patrick’s held its own, and has experienced a renaissance of sorts as it has moved into the life of the neighborhood offering a hand up to those who live around it, and cleaning up much of the urban decay that once surrounded it.

While the actual experience of singing with such warm and welcoming people in an historic church has been exciting and fulfilling, it has also been bittersweet.  I have heard numerous stories from long time parishoners recollecting memories of a lifetime attending St. Patrick's.  While the history of the church itself is fascinating to history buffs like myself, it is the individual stories that are the foundation of this church's one hundred years.

Even for us non-parishoners, the old church sparked way too many memories. Although I have lived in the Youngstown area all of my life, I had only been in St. Patrick’s once before at the wedding of a friend. That being said, the church reeks of old style Catholicism which to those of us raised Catholic tends to be one great blur. Whether it was attending Sacred Heart Church with my grandmother, or standing as my cousin’s best man in the old St. Mathias Church (torn down for freeway development) or attending my Uncle Tony’s funeral in Sharon, these types of churches are ingrained in our DNA. The reaction to them is visceral: pleasurable to some, but painful to others.

More poignant was the drive to and from St. Patrick’s. There’s the old South High School, my parents’ alma mater. There’s my grandmother’s house on Judson in which my mother was raised. There was the duplex on Prestwick Drive that I spent the first 8 years of my life. There is where the Newport Theater used to be. There is where the South Side Library used to be. There is where Isaly’s used to be. There is where Sears and Strouss used to be. There is where Gorant’s used to be. There is where Burkland’s used to be. There is St. Dominic’s where I went church growing up. There is where I rode the Jack Rabbit and Wildcat at Idora Park , now torn down and decayed. There is where Vivo’s Florist (now Something New) used to be. There is where Colla’s Barber Shop used to be. There is where the A&P used to be. Rimedio’s Market used to be in that plaza. We would buy Italian sausage there. There is the old Princeton Junior High where my aunt served as school nurse. There’s my Dad’s old dental office…that one is tough.  Here is where my life used to be.

My father told me, even as he was dying, to never look back, always look forward. I often wondered whether that was what he actually believed…a rule to live by that served him well; or whether looking back was just too painful. At the end of the day, I suppose it was a little of both.  One thing I know for sure, singing at St. Patrick's was definitely a little of both.

Last night the church centennial committee brought the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra to St. Patrick's for its first performance outside of Powers Auditorium in 25 years.   Hosted by the Mayor Williams and Bishop Murry, it was a musical journey through the past, and an affirmation for the future not only of St. Patrick's, but for the Mahoning Valley as a whole.  Another reason why it is great to live in the Mahoning Valley.

Here is wishing this outstanding congregation another successful 100 years. "Cent'anni"