CORPUS CHRISTI CHURCH 1906-1981 529 West 121st Street New York, NY 10027 Telephone (212) 666-9350

When Corpus Christi parish was preparing to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the Reverend E. Harold Smith, who was then an associate pastor of the church, was commissioned to write a brief history of the parish. The choice of author was fortunate, for in addition to his knowing the parish very well from his long service in it, Father Smith was a trained historian. The result of his work was the brochure, The History of Corpus Christi Parish, 1906-1956. The celebration this year of the parish's seventy-fifth anniversary calls for another telling of its history. But it seemed pointless to attempt a new writing of the history of the first fifty years, since that had already been done so well. Consequently, in the account which follows all that pertains to those years is simply a necessarily shortened form of Monsignor Smith's study. We are grateful for his kind permission to use it.

1906-1956

In the year 1906, the territory adjacent to Columbia University had no Catholic church. To the south, the nearest was the Church of the Ascension at 107th Street and Broadway, to the east, St. Thomas the Apostle at 118th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, to the north, St. Joseph's at 125th St. and Momingside Avenue, and Annuciation Church at 131st Street and Convent Avenue. There was no parish to the west, because the western boundary of that territory was the Hudson River.

Early in 1906 the Most Reverend John Farley, then the Archbishop of New York, decided to establish a parish in the environs of Columbia. Agents acting in the name of the Archbishop purchased the present site of Corpus Christi, and Father John H. Dooley was appointed the first pastor. Father Dooley was bom in New York City in 1866 and ordained at St. Joseph's Seminary, Troy, New York, in June 1892. At the time of his appointment to Corpus Christi he was pastor of St. Sylvia's Church in Tivoli, New York. The new parish was legally incorporated on March 7, 1906 under the title, Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church, Borough of Manhattan, New York.

At that time the apartment building at the northeast comer of 121st St., and Broadway was being constructed. The owner agreed to hasten the work on the corner store and the apartment over it, and to rent both to the new parish as, respectively, a temporary chapel and a residence for the pastor. The first Masses in the new parish were celebrated in the temporary chapel on the first Sunday of May 1906. The congregation present on that day numbered two hundred and twenty-six.

The cornerstone of the new church, school, and rectory was laid on Sunday, November 11, 1906 by Monsignor Michael J. Lavelle, rector of ' St. Patrick's Cathedral and one of the two vicars general of the Archdiocese. Work progressed rapidly, and on June 30, 1907 the new church was dedicated by Archbishop Farley, who also celebrated the Mass of dedication. The new structure was a three-story combination building with a basement. It consisted of an adequate, small church which seated about five hundred people, a school with ten classrooms and an assembly hall, and a rectory. The parish school opened in September 1907 with a faculty of two Sisters of Charity of Mount Saint Vincent-on-Hudson and one lay teacher. In 1914 the school had an enrollment of two hundred twenty-six children with a faculty of three Sisters and four lay teachers. The love and zeal with which the teachers served the pupils were reciprocated by the children and their parents.

The first decade of the history of the parish coincided with the ten years immediately preceding the entrance of the United States into the first World War. It is difficult for us who live in a period that seems to consist of one crisis after another to sense the tempo of those days, but it is not surprising that life moved placidly and serenely in the Corpus Christi of that time.

Corpus Christi has never been a large parish. In 1908, it was estimated that sixteen hundred adults and two hundred children attended Mass here on Sunday. In 1910, when Notre Dame Church was erected, that number necessarily decreased. The debt on the parish was then $200,000, and even to meet the interest charges was not an easy undertaking. For it must not be forgotten that the vast majority of American citizens, Catholic and nonCatholic, had not attained to the economic status which they later reached. In those years pastors could not reasonably expect more than an average weekly offering of twenty cents, with a dollar envelope collection on the first Sunday of the month.

Thus it was that in 1910 Father Dooley felt constrained to write to Archbishop Farley for permission to lease for twenty years four lots on West 122nd Street immediately to the rear of the church. A garage was to be erected there that would furnish the church an additional revenue annually of $4000. The venture was to be without expense to the parish.

The first World War and the economic boom of the 20's that was to end disastrously for many in 1929 occurred during Father Dooley's pastorate. He availed himself of the favorable climate afforded by the early twenties to reduce the parish's debt. $45,000 was realized in 1922 as a result of this debt reduction campaign. The depression years 1929-1933 were difficult years in all parishes. They were, for the reasons already given, doubly so in Corpus Christi. Some sources of revenue, for example, the rent from the garage, ceased entirely for the time.

Father Dooley had undoubtedly sensed in some manner at least, the unique position Corpus Christi parish occupied as a Catholic church and parish in one of the most distinguished academic neighborhoods of the world. The building that had served for almost thirty years had become obsolete. Replacement, rather than repair, was demanded. The new rectory, built in 1928, had been only the first and not the most important step. The financial state of the country from 1929 to 1933 precluded the possibility of even thinking about new buildings.

By the end of 1933, Corpus Christi's pastor was in failing health and had come to the last year of his life. He may have felt, not without reason, that younger hands than his and bolder planning that characterized his generation would be needed for the new Corpus Christi. If he did, he reasoned well. Events have justified his conclusion.

Father Dooley remained, however, the same person he had ever been-sympathetic, full of good counsel and words of encouragement for all, the exemplar of that ]5uoyant optimism that was the fruit of his deep faith and spirituality. Someone who knew him well once remarked, "There was always salvation with Father Dooley." He died on December 9, 1934. On the morning of his funeral the streets outside the church were thronged with people who could not gain admittance to an overcrowded Corpus Christi. They bore sad and silent testimony that a vigilant and kindly shepherd had left his flock.

On New Year's Day in 1935, Father George Barry Ford, the counselor to Catholic students at Columbia, attended the annual New Year's reception given by Cardinal Patrick Hayes, who had succeeded Cardinal Farley as Archbishop of New York. Father Ford was asked by the Cardil-al if centering the activities of Columbia's Newman Club in a parish would be to the advantage of the Newman work. The reply was in the affirmative. On January 15, 1935 the Cardinal appointed Father Ford to succeed Father Dooley as pastor of Corpus Christi.

The new pastor was born in Utica, New York, studied at Niagara University and St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, and was ordained to the priesthood on June 6, 1914 in St. Patrick's Cathedral. After assignments in parishes of the Archdiocese, he volunteered his services as chaplain in the army during the first World War. At its close, Father Ford remained in the service for five years, as executive officer in the Chaplains' School. Since 1929 he had been at Columbia, as counselor to Catholic students, and head of Newman House, located at 635 West 115th Street, the' center of activities for Catholic students at the university.

Father Ford's six year residence in Corpus Christi parish and his knowledge of the needs of the Catholic students at Columbia had persuaded him that both the parish and the counseling work would benefit by making the parish church the center of religious influence. To accomplish this, however, a new Corpus Christi church and school were imperative. This would necessitate the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars in addition to the debt which already rested on this parish. To the archdiocesan consultors, it did not appear that this was a financially sound venture, so the necessary permission to proceed with the proposed plans was denied. The Archbishop himself, however, was impressed by the reasons advanced by the pastor and was willing to trust his administrative and financial abilities to see the project through to a successful conclusion. Hence, the original refusal was rescinded and permission for the new combination church, school, and convent was granted.

In September 1935, the old building was demolished and work on the new structure was begun.

(Ed. note: At this point Father Smith's brochure continues with a description of the new church, taken from the souvenir program distributed at the time of its dedication. Since a booklet dealing with the church and its art, written by Professor Joseph Masheck in commemoration of this seventy-fifth anniversary,. will be published in early December, that section of the brochure is omitted here. It should be mentioned, however, that the architect of the new Corpus Christi was Wilfred Anthony. Before establishing his own firm, Anthony had been associated with the firm of Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson. While that firm is best known for its Gothic structures, e.g., the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, it also did a great deal of Georgian work. Georgian was the style chosen by Father Ford for Corpus Christi.)

The work of construction took one year, and the new church was dedicated on Sunday, October 25, 1936. The solemn Pontifical Mass that morning was in many respects one of the most impressive religious ceremonies that took place in New York City during the years between the two world wars. The Most Reverend John A. Duffy, then the Bishop of Syracuse, was a personal friend of the new pastor, and he accepted the invitation to celebrate the Mass. His Eminence Cardinal Hayes presided. Dr. John P. Monaghan, at that time still a member of the Corpus Christi staff, preached the sermon. Member of the neighboring educational institutions, led by President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia, attended in their academic robes. The presence of so many notable persons at the Mass was an evidence of their esteem for the second pastor of Corpus Christi whom they had come to know and respect during his years at Columbia. The music of the Mass was entrusted to the outstanding choir of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, New York City, under the direction of Warren C. Foley.

With the completion of the new building came the opportunity to bring into the life of Corpus Christi parish some of the liturgical observances which theorists had been advocating for a generation, but which, for various reasons had been more talked about than put into practice. Foremost among these was the parish Solemn Mass each Sunday and on the greater feasts, which since 1936 has been the norm at Corpus Christi.

To give the Solemn Mass a musical setting which would enhance the beauty and splendor of its liturgy , a choir of men and boys was formed under the direction of William F. McDonald. This group was first heard at the Vespers on the day of the dedication of the new church. Since that day the Corpus Christi choir has striven to set the highest standards in its selection of music, and to attain as fine a level of performance as possible.

There is a saying among church musicians that the greatest danger to Catholic Church music comes from some zealots who would have the congregation do all the singing at Mass, with the consequent abolition of the trained choir, and the giving up of all the masterpieces which have been composed over the centuries for the celebration. At Corpus Christi a sincere and, we hope, a successful attempt has been made to avoid extremes in this matter. so that the congregation can take an active part in the celebration of the liturgy, and the choir be given the opportunity to enhance the Mass with the glorious music which demands trained competence for its proper execution.

 

During the summer of 1956, the musical resources of the parish were enormously increased by the installation of a splendid new organ to take the place of the electronic instrument which had served since the building of the new church. The new organ was the work of Walter Holtkamp of Cleveland, and its type of sound and open pipe work represented a new departure for Catholic churches in New York. With the addition of the organ, the fabric of Corpus Christi Church reached completion.

 

Shortly after the new church was built, a practice was introduced that perhaps more than any other single thing served to identify the parish for many who did not know it at first hand. This was the custom at the Low Masses on Sunday of the congregation's reading aloud in English the entire Mass with the exception of the Canon and the last blessing. It is interesting to note that during the Second World War practically a third of each graduating Midshipman class at Columbia University was Catholic. This group of Catholic young men was among the most enthusiastic participants in this custom. Many remarked that as a result of this reading the Mass had taken on added meaning and significance for them.

 

(Ed. note: It should be pointed out that in spite of the popularity of this practice, and its undoubted success in acquainting the people with the liturgy at a time when it was celebrated only in Latin, the custom of having the entire congregation say all the parts of the Mass except the Canon and the last blessing obscured the difference of the functions belonging to the various participants. Fr. Smith discreetly observed that "it has never been claimed by anyone associated with Corpus Christi that this is the ideally unchangeable method of assisting at Mass and that it should be adopted everywhere in precisely the same manner." As a matter of fact, it was given up at Corpus Christi in 1959, and a better method of participation was introduced.)

One might justifiably conclude that Corpus Christi would have a strong appeal for those persons seeking the best in church music as well as for the enthusiastic supporters of the use of the vernacular in public worship. That is true. An English prelate, Monsignor Richard Smith, who preached the Lenten course in Corpus Christi in 1950, commented on this fact. In his judgment it was a tribute to the parish in general and to the pastor in particular, that so much time and energy, as well as the financial means, were "pended to furnish so few what they were seeking as part of their spiritual sustenance. For it must not be forgotten that even if Corpus Christi were crowded every Sunday for the Solemn Mass-which is not the fact-fewer than six hundred persons would be present.

 

In 1935 the Corpus Christi Chronicle, a monthly publication, began to be published under the auspices of the parish. From the first it was the aim to edit a small publication that would be positive in its approach, that would endeavor to avoid over-simplification of complex issues, and that would reproduce some worthwhile articles that were appearing in other parts of the Catholic World, but for various reasons were not easily accessible to Catholics in the metropolitan area.

 

The Chronicle never subscribed to the belief that the reasons it advanced for the various positions it took were compelling. On the other hand, during its twenty-some years of publication, it never had to shy away from cone troversial questions or controversial persons. Each of the editors of this monthly knew in advance (and sometimes later from experience) that with the request to undertake the editorship there was implicitly contained the promise of an unswerving support that was never found wanting. It was never intended that the Chronicle be only a parish publication. The appreciative comments that came from non-Catholics as well as Catholics, from various parts of our country, indicated that there was place for a Catholic publication that would do even more effectively what the Chronicle attempted under severe limitations.

During the year when the new Corpus Christi was being built, the school was suspended and the pupils were enrolled in various other schools in the neighborhood. When the school reopened in September 1936, its administration and instruction were in the hands of a different religious community from that which had conducted the old school. The new religious were the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, Wisconsin. There were strong reasons for inviting this community to staff the school. It was a large community, with some fifteen hundred Sisters, and at that time its members were engaged exclusively in teaching. Most of the sisters had, or were in the process of getting, higher academic degrees than the baccalaureate. Father Ford had come to know the community from its sisters who were studying at Columbia, and he wished to have the new Corpus Christi School placed under the direction of a group whose educational ideals and accomplishments would ensure the excellence of the school. The wisdom of his choice has been shown by the reputation which the school has achieved, by the success of its graduates in the schools, colleges and universities which they later attended, and by the fact that the curriculum and methods were considered by many in 1936 to be merely ultra-modern fads are now so usual in good schools as to be taken for granted.

 

1957-1981

In early 1957 and later in that same year two announcements appeared in the parish bulletin which signified that a major change had taken place in Corpus Christi during the late fifties. Each announcement spoke of a reception for new parishioners, the first, for the Catholic residents of the newly opened General Grant Houses; the second, for the Catholic residents of Morningside Gardens, which had opened a few months later. Behind these announcements lay a story which was not always pleasant. The area on which both of these housing developments were constructed was a large section of the parish, from 123rd to 125th Street, and from Broadway to Amsterdam Avenue. Many parishioners had lived there, and were forced to move when the old houses were demolished. As one looks back in 1981, it would probably be agreed that, so far as Morningside Gardens is concerned, the new buildings were not only far superior to what they replaced, but that they have attracted to this area people who would otherwise never have had any association with Corpus Christi.

There is less agreement now that the sort of housing constructed in the General Grant Houses, with its concentration of large numbers of people in high-rise apartments built in a relatively small space is desirable. However, it was certainly regarded as very good by the city planners of the fifties. In any case, the dislocation of the residents of the old buildings caused much resentment, and was at least temporarily disadvantageous to Corpus Christi, since it is estimated that the number of parishioners was thereby reduced by one fourth. It is true that the former residents were given first choice to rent in the Grant Houses or to buy apartments in the Gardens co-operative. But the majority did not choose to come back from the places to which they had moved.

If one may judge, however, from what has happened in other parts of New York, there is little probability that the population of the Morningside Heights area would have remained the same if the buildings demolished for the two developments had not been disturbed. Moving from the city to the suburbs was common in places where there was no forced dislocation and there is no reason to think that the situation would have been different in Corpus Christi parish. At all events, the church now has many parishioners both in the Gardens and in the Grant Houses, though not so many as those who left at the time of the new construction.

The arrival in those same years of many Spanish-speaking people in New York City, most of whom were Catholics, raised the question of their pastoral care. Previously, in this archdiocese, as elsewhere, those who did not speak English were provided with national parishes, where the language with which they were familiar was spoken. The diocesan authorities decided that the Spanish-speaking should be incorporated into the existing territorial parishes, and given there in their own tongue all that they needed for their spiritual wellbeing. Corpus Christi had more than a few of these newly arrived people, and in October 1957 one of the Sunday Masses became the "Spanish Mass," with sermon and hymns in that language. There was already a priest on the staff who had sufficient ability in Spanish to hear confessions and otherwise provide for the needs of the Spanish-speaking.

Early in 1958 Father Ford submitted to the Archbishop, Cardinal Spellman, his resignation as pastor of Corpus Christi. It was not for the first time. He was a man of ideas which did not come to be generally accepted until long after he proposed them, and one of those was that pastors should not hold office until death, but should resign after suitably long service. Among the Catholic clergy of those days such a proposal was almost unheard of. Therefore, it is not surprising that on the previous occasions when he had asked to resign, his request had been refused by the Cardinal. And indeed, when he submitted his resignation again, early in 1958, the Cardinal told him that he might leave his pastoral work at that time, but his office as pastor of Corpus Christi would not be filled as long as he lived. That was not the arrangement which Father Ford had wished for, but he accepted it and left the parish in February 1958. Shortly afterwards however, the Cardinal changed his mind and accepted the resignation. In May 1958 Monsignor Gustav J. Schultheiss, P.A. was appointed pastor of Corpus Christi.

Monsignor Schultheiss had been ordained in September 1934. After ten years of parish work, he was successively procurator of the archdiocesan seminary at Dunwoodie, secretary to Cardinal Spellman, and a chancellor of the Archdiocese. To succeed a very popular predecessor is never easy, and, in addition, in the eyes of many of his new parishioners Monsignor Schultheiss represented that ecclesiastical officialdom with which Father Ford had often had difficulties. But it was not long before they realized that he had not come to Corpus Christi to destroy what Father Ford had so carefully built. That realization, together with the new pastor's great kindness, competence, and seemingly inexhaustible energy in caring for the parish, removed the reservations which many had felt on learning of his appointment.

His term of office at Corpus Christi was very short. In June 1960 Monsignor Joseph Farrell, pastor of Saint Peter's Church on Staten Island, died. Saint Peter's was the oldest and at that time the principal parish of Staten Island, and Cardinal Spellman asked Monsignor Schultheiss to accept appointment there. He left Corpus Christi in July 1960, to the regret of those who had come to know and esteem him. Later he became pastor of Saint Raymond's Church in the Bronx, and more recently of the Church of Our Lady of Victory in lower Manhattan where he now exercises a very active and fruitful ministry.

Monsignor Schultheiss was succeeded as pastor of Corpus Christi by Father Arthur A. Campbell. Ordained in 1930, he had served for twenty-eight years in St. Catherine's Church in Pelham, New York, and for two as pastor of the parish of St. Joseph and St. Thomas on Staten Island. A few months after coming to Corpus Christi he was named a domestic prelate. The Second Vatican Council took place during his pastorate and he led the parish enthusiastically in implementing the conciliar reforms, but it may be fairly said that in two respects he anticipated them. Up to 1961, for all its long history of excellence in liturgical music Corpus Christi became a church of silence during the summer months. The Sunday High Mass ended in June and was resumed in late September. That was a custom followed in most Catholic churches.

Thomas Merton wrote in his Seven-Story Mountain that the first time he attended Mass at Corpus Christi there was "of course" no music, because it was summer. One might have expected that Corpus Christi would have been an exception to what Merton took as a matter of course, but that was not so until the first summer of Monsignor Campbell's pastorate, when the Sunday High Mass was extended to the entire year. In the matter of parish councils Monsignor Campbell also anticipated the reforms of Vatican II. In November 1962 a "Council of Laity" was established in the parish. It is quite true that the laity had always had an important share in the conduct of Corpus Christi as of many other parishes, but the establishment of the council gave structure and order to what had often been sporadic and less effective.

The liturgical reforms begun by Vatican II were implemented at Corpus Christi, sometimes not very gracefully, for the Council had given only general principles of reform and the work of drawing of satisfactory norms of liturgical celebration from those principles went on long after the Council had ended. The rightly acclaimed introduction of the vernacular liturgy caused more than a little difficulty in the area of music. Through what one fears was a deliberate misreading of the Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the curious view gained currency among many Catholics that Gregorian chant and the Latin works of the polyphonic masters had now to be relegated to the concert hall, and the texts used in the liturgy to be sung only in English.

Granted that such an understanding of the Council's intention was wrong, there was a real problem for churches such as Corpus Christi; how to devise a sung liturgy in which vernacular texts set to good music could be given their proper place without loss of the marvelous Latin compositions? In this, the balanced and enlightened judgment of William McDonald was invaluable. If the parish came to a satisfactory solution of the problem, as it did, it was largely because Monsignor Campbell had the wisdom to follow the advice of his choirmaster.

A problem of a different sort was created by the expansion of some of the neighboring educational institutions. Apartment houses in the area were acquired by them in order to provide for the housing needs of faculty and students, and many parishioners of Corpus Christi who were not connected with the institutions moved away. This change was not entirely to the loss of the parish, for some of the new residents were Catholics and became communicants of Corpus Christi, but they were fewer than those who had left, and often remained in the parish for only a relatively short time. The financial situation of the parish was becoming precarious, especially since the parish school was still being maintained at a very low tuition which had to be supplemented by the declining income of the church. Fortunately the parish had some modest reserve funds, which had come through bequests, but they were too modest to yield the large returns which would have offset the decline in ordinary revenue.

In the summer of 1966 Monsignor Campbell was made pastor of the Church of Saint Ann in Nyack, N.Y. His successor was Monsignor Myles M. Bourke, the present pastor, whom Cardinal Spellman appointed to Corpus Christi on August 1, 1966. For the previous nineteen years he had been professor of New Testament at the archdiocesan seminary in Dunwoodie. He was ordained in 1942 and joined the seminary faculty after his graduate studies in Scripture and a short assignment at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Since the pastorate of Father Ford, Corpus Christi had been known for its ecumenical sympathies, but Vatican II was needed before many of the ideals cherished in the earlier days could be put into practice, especially in the area of worship. Monsignor Campbell had made a beginning, but the ever-increasing involvement of the Roman Catholic Church in the ecumenical movement afforded wider opportunities to the new pastor.

A few weeks after Monsignor Bourke's arrival at Corpus Christi, the Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the Very Reverend John Butler, asked him if there was any way in which the longstanding friendship between Corpus Christi and the Cathedral could be given some liturgical expression. The Dean was about to leave the Cathedral to become Rector of Trinity Church, but he assured Monsignor Bourke that the Canons of the Cathedral would gladly carry out whatever was suggested, should it have to take place after his departure.

The consequence of this gracious offer was that in January 1967 the Cathedral choir sang the Anglican evensong service in Corpus Christi, with Canon Harold Landon and Canon Peter Chase presiding. It was the first time that an Anglican service had been celebrated in a Roman Catholic Church of the United States. It was also the beginning of what may now be called a tradition at Corpus Christi of having clergymen of different Christian churches preach at the parish's services. Because of this, the spiritual lives of the parishioners have been enriched by such men as Canon Edward West, Dr. John Macquarrie, Dr. Reginald Fuller, Bishop Robert Terwilliger, Dr. Samuel Terrien, and Dr. Geoffrey Wainwright, to name only a few.

Three years after Monsignor Bourke's appointment, the parish suffered a heavy loss in the death of William McDonald. He had been choirmaster of Corpus Christi f or thirty-three years, and through a combination of great talent and unremitting work had provided the church with music of the highest quality. Fortunately, his achievement did not die with him. Largely because of events beyond anyone's control, the boy's choir no longer exists, but the present director of music, Louise Basbas, and a choir of professional singers enhance the liturgy of Corpus Christi with music whose excellence sets a Standard not often met elsewhere.

Several contemporary composers have been commissioned to write settings of the Mass texts for the choir and for the congregation. In addition to the liturgical music, a series of concerts, sponsored by the organization Music Before 1800, of which Mrs. Basbas is the founder and director, is offered on Sunday afternoons from October to June. Outstanding vocal and instrumental artists take part in these concerts, and the distinguished music editor of New York magazine has described the series as "probably the most reliably rewarding of New York's early-music series."

Mention has been made of the financial situation of the parish in the middle sixties. It would be untrue to say that it has been ameliorated to the point where it no longer causes worry; far from it. But it has surely improved, largely because of a decision taken in the early seventies to attempt to put the parish school on a better financial basis by raising the extremely low tuition. At that time, the reserve funds of the parish had been exhausted because of the expenses of the school, and unless such a measure was taken there was no way in which the school could continue to be maintained by the parish. Needless to say, the decision was not taken lightly or without regret. The parents of the school children agreed that they were prepared to make the sacrifices which the new tuition scale would require of them. In the years since then they have cooperated splendidly with the new policy. Because of it, the school remains an important and highly esteemed institution of the Morningside Heights area.

The Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa still constitute a part of the faculty, although the administration is now in the hands of an extremely capable lay principal, Miss Veronica T. Cook, and the majority of the teachers are laypersons. In spite of their greatly reduced available personnel, the Dominican Sisters have generously supplied the school with teachers to the best of their ability, and it is the hope of all that the school will never be without the presence of this Congregation of religious to whom Corpus Christi parish owes an unpayable debt of gratitude.

The parish was saddened on August 1, 1978 by the news of the death of its beloved pastor emeritus, Father Ford. He had lived twenty years after his retirement, and most of them had been years of activity. But he was close to his ninety-third birthday when he died, and the sadness was tempered by gratitude for the many years which God had given him and for the marvelous accomplishments of his life. His funeral Mass was celebrated by His Eminence Cardinal Cooke at Corpus Christi on August 5th, and burial took place on August 7th in his native Utica.

A memorial fund was established to which parishioners and other friends of Father Ford contributed forty thousand dollars, the major part of which was used to refurbish the school auditorium and to provide for the liturgical music. In October 1979 the renovated auditorium was dedicated as a memorial to Corpus Christi's late pastor.

Monsignor Smith's history of Corpus Christi parish ended with an expression of confidence that the future of the parish would be bright because the blessing of God had so manifestly rested upon its past. Twenty-five years later one is able to express that same confidence, and for the same reason.

ASSOCIATE PASTORS OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Richard T. Adams (1971-1975)