By Patrick McNamara

As Pope Benedict XVI set foot in JFK Airport, he entered a diocese with a long and rich German tradition that predates the diocese’s founding. Altogether some 26 German parishes have been founded in our present diocesan boundaries, 15 in Brooklyn and 11 in Queens.

The story begins in October, 1841, when Father Johann Raffeiner, an Austrian veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, founded Most Holy Trinity parish on Montrose Avenue in Williamsburg for the area’s growing German population. In 1833, he had organized New York City’s first German parish, St. Nicholas, in Manhattan. Altogether he was involved in the founding of 30 German parishes.

GERMANS IN EAST NEW YORK: This 1905 photo shows the predominantly German clergy and community at St. Michael’s parish, East New York, during a street procession.

As Germans moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, Father Raffeiner purchased land in Williamsburg where he started a church and school. When the diocese was founded in 1853, the two largest immigrant groups were the Germans and Irish. Raffeiner was appointed Vicar General for the Germans. For much of the next 75 years, Brooklyn would have two Vicars General, one Irish and one German.

One of Raffeiner’s greatest accomplishments was bringing the Sisters of St. Dominic to Brooklyn. In August, 1853, four Bavarian Dominicans arrived on the docks of New York, planning to work in Pennsylvania. When these plans were sidetracked (the priest who was supposed to meet them never showed up), Father Raffeiner brought them to his parish, where they established their motherhouse and taught school. In 1876, the motherhouse was moved to Amityville. By then, the Dominicans had a sizeable network of schools, hopitals and orphanages across Long Island.

Long before the phrase “mega-church” was coined, many German parishes fit that description: All Saints in Williamsburg, St. Michael in East New York, St. Fidelis in College Point, St. Leonard and St. Barbara in Bushwick, St. Matthias and St. Aloysius in Ridgewood. Betty Smith, the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, offered an almost exact description of her childhood parish, Most Holy Trinity, in the book:

Francie thought it was the most beautiful church in Brooklyn. It was made of old gray stone and had twin spires that rose cleanly into the sky, high above the tallest tenements. Inside, the high vaulted ceilings, narrow deepset stained-glass windows and elaborately carved altars made it a miniature cathedral.

The parish, called Brooklyn’s “German Cathedral,” encompassed a rectory, parochial school, high school, convent, and orphanage on one block. From 1869 to 1872, it even published a daily newspaper (in German).

The title of “monsignor” was not introduced to America until the late 1800s, and the first Brooklyn priest to receive this title was a German. Father Michael May had succeeded Raffeiner at Most Holy Trinity and as Vicar General. When Brooklyn’s first Bishop, John Loughlin, died in 1891, May administered the diocese until the arrival of the second Bishop, Charles E. McDonnell.

LOCAL GERMAN LEADERS: From top, an artist’s sketch of Father Johann Raffeiner, who was responsible for establishing 30 German parishes; Msgr. Michael May, the first monsignor named for the Diocese of Brooklyn; and the first Auxiliary Bishop for the Diocese, George Mundelein, who later became the cardinal-archbishop of Chicago.

Brooklyn’s first Auxiliary Bishop, consecrated in 1909, was also of German descent. George W. Mundelein (1872-1939) became one of the most significant figures in American Catholicism. In 1915, he was named Archbishop of Chicago, where he erected some 600 buildings. In 1924, he became the first cardinal west of Philadelphia. In 1926 he hosted the 28th International Eucharistic Congress, which drew over one million people. Until World Youth Day in 1993, it was the single largest gathering of Catholics in North America. Cardinal Mundelein caused a minor international incident in May, 1937, when he referred to Adolf Hitler in a speech as “an Austrian paper hanger, and a poor one at that.” He is the only Brooklyn priest to have a town named after him: Mundelein, Illinois.

Today most of the descendants of the original German immigrants have moved away. Only one parish, St. Matthias in Ridgewood, offers Mass in German. The most visible part of the German Catholic legacy, of course, is the beautiful churches they erected, which serve the needs of new immigrants. Other important parts of that legacy are hospitals like Mary Immaculate in Jamaica, which the Dominicans founded in the 1920s. Most Holy Trinity School, renamed St. Joseph and St. Dominic Academy, is the longest continuously operating school in the diocese. Cathedral Preparatory Seminary, which Bishop Mundelein founded in 1914, is the last school of its kind in the United States. The Holy Father’s visit is only the latest of many reasons to celebrate the German Catholic experience in Brooklyn and Queens.

Dr. Patrick J. McNamara is the assistant diocesan archivist for the Diocese of Brooklyn.