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The Pastorate of Rev. Thomas Fenarty
Fr. Thomas Fenarty assumed his duties in the
parish on February 15, 1937 and immediately began to
carry out the plans of Fr. Walsh which had been inter-
rupted by his sickness and death. Necessary repairs and
improvements to the parish buildings were made. Addi-
tional Masses were added to the schedule. A Perpetual
Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal was be-
gun. By September 1938, the school enrollment stood at
877 pupils, taught by 19 Sisters. The Sisters of the
school also helped run the teenage girls' society, The
Children of Mary Sodality, which even published its
own newsletter known as "The Chimes." The moderators
in 1948 were Fr. Francis J. O'Hara and Sr. M.
Katherina, S.C.H.
A significant part of the parish life has been the
Catholic War Veterans (CWV). Founded nationally in
1935 by Msgr. Edward Higgins of Astoria and the Rev.
Edward Lodge Curran, St. Sebastian's Post ^870 was
founded on July 8, 1946 by the Rev. Clement J. Walsh,
a curate here, who served as a military chaplain in
World War II. The Ladies Auxiliary of the CWV also
came to play a prominent role here. On Easter Sunday
night in 1947, over 300 members of CWV posts in
Woodside picketed the Sunnyside Gardens Arena during
a rally sponsored by the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Com-
mittee, which was alleged to be a Communist-front orga-
nization. In February 1948, the CWV sponsored well-at-
tended lectures here and throughout Queens on the evils
of Communism. A featured lecturer was a future pastor
of St. Sebastian's, the Rev. Edward Lodge Curran.
It seems appropriate that the CWV should have
played so prominent a part in our parish history, for St.
Sebastian's and Woodside have contributed a great deal
to our nation's armed forces in this century. A plaque on
the front of the school commemorates the 119 parish-
ioners who fought for our country in World War I, and
especially the six who died in that conflict. A monument
to the dead of World War I, World War II and the Kore-
an War stands in the plaza at Woodside Avenue and 60
Street. And at the corner of the parish property at 57
Street is the notable Vietnam War Memorial, commemo-
rating the fact that more young servicemen from Wood-
side died in Vietnam than from any other postal zone in
the United States. The memory of all our war dead is
still honored every year on Memorial Day with special
services and a parade which ends at the famous "Dough-
boy" statue in Doughboy Park. |
Nor was our parish out of touch with the latest
in Catholic social teachings in the thirties and forties. A
noteworthy event in American Catholicism during this
era was the creation of a few "labor schools," designed
to teach Catholic social doctrine to unionized workers.
The earliest labor school in the Brooklyn Diocese was
the Jesuit-run School of Social Studies in Crown
Heights. St. Sebastian's Holy Name Society sponsored
a lecture series here in early 1946, presented by notable
experts such as Dr. George A. Brenner and Jesuits
William J. Smith and Philip Dobson.
These lectures proved to be the forerunners of
further social justice activity here. In October 1946,
Bishop Thomas Molloy established the Social Action De-
partment of the Diocese of Brooklyn. In 1947, this de-
partment established the Brooklyn Institute of Labor Re-
lations, and in 1948 the Queens Institute of Labor Rela-
tions, with the Rev. William F. Kelly as director. The
purpose of the labor institutes was, as The Tablet noted
at the time, to "present the Christian point of view on
modern social and economic problems, and to develop
Catholic awareness of the need for justice and charity in
the social order." These institutes instructed thousands of
workers for several years via eight regional centers, in-
cluding one at St. Sebastian's. These courses were of-
fered for a nominal fee and were affiliated with St.
Francis College.
Fr. Fenarty began plans for the building of a lar-
ger church, a better rectory, and an extension on the
school. Unfortunately, the reality of the Great Depres-
sion and of World War II delayed these plans. After the
war, only the school extension moved ahead. By the
time of Fr. Penalty's transfer to the pastorate of Holy
Cross Parish in Brooklyn, the situation was again radi-
cally changed. The plans for an 850-seat church were
rendered inadequate by the burgeoning postwar popula-
tion. This was the dilemma facing the new pastor, the
Rev. Edward Moran. |
