What Happened to My Old Parish? by Phil Lawler

by Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, Apr 23, 2026

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is also the lead news analyst at CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.

When I moved back to my native Boston area as an adult with a young family, we found a home just a couple of blocks from the house where I had lived as a child—and where my parents still lived. The proximity to the children’s grandparents was a bonus, but the house was perfect in several other respects. It was in a nice neighborhood, which I knew well. The town was adjacent to the city, and my downtown office was a quick train ride away. The home was within easy walking distance to a library and to an unusually beautiful parish church.

The town had never been affluent (which is why we could afford to live there). There certainly wasn’t much money to spare among the Irish and Italian families who lived there in the late 19th century. But their little contributions multiplied, and in 1900 the current church was dedicated: a lovely building, with a magnificent upper church (the reredos, I was told, had once been at St. Patrick’s cathedral in New York), and a lower church that was less grand but not unattractive. …

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