St. Susanna Church is a Roman Catholic parish of the Archdiocese of Boston located in Dedham, Massachusetts. The pastor is Father Stephen S. Josoma, and Laurence J. Bloom is the deacon.[1][2] It is known as "one of the most liberal parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston."[1]

The parish was founded in 1960 due to overcrowding at St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Dedham.[3] By the 1930s St. Mary's was one of the biggest parishes in the Archdiocese with over 6,000 parishioners and 1,300 students in Sunday School.[4] During the middle of that decade there were four priests and six nuns ministering to the congregation.[4]

In the 1950s it became clear that a second parish was needed in Dedham,[nb 1] and so St. Susanna's was established in February 1960 to serve the needs of the Riverdale neighborhood.[7][8] When St. Susanna's opened it had 300 families, while 2,500 stayed at St. Mary's.[9]

During construction, masses were held at Moseley's on the Charles.[8] The first pastor of St. Susana's, Father Michael Durant, lived at St. Mary's while his church was being constructed.[10] The first mass was said in the new church on February 11, 1962.[8] The church was named by Cardinal Richard Cushing after his titular church, Santa Susanna, in Rome.[8]

In 2000, average attendance at Sunday mass was 1,671, making it the 63rd most active parish out of the 357 parishes then in the archdiocese.[11] It performed the 314th most sacraments in 2001–2002.[11]

The parish garnered the attention of national media during Advent 2018 when the Nativity scene outside of the church showed the Baby Jesus in a cage and the three wise men separated from the others by a fence labeled "deportation." The scene was a statement on the Trump administration family separation policy and on the condition of refugees more generally.[12]

Notes

  1. ^ The population of the town as a whole more than doubled between 1930[5] and 1970.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b "Catholics in the age of Francis". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2015-09-01.
  2. ^ "Current Bulletin" (PDF).
  3. ^ "Boston Catholic Directory. Saint Susanna, Dedham". TheBostonPilot.com. Retrieved 2015-09-01.
  4. ^ a b Smith 1936, p. 102.
  5. ^ Guide Book To New England Travel. 1919. Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  6. ^ State Data Center/Mass. Inst. for Social & Economic Research. "Population of Massachusetts Cities and Towns, 1940-1990" (PDF). Boston Metropolitan Planning Agency. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 6, 2004. Retrieved 2006-12-10.
  7. ^ "Saint Susanna". Archdiocese of Boston. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  8. ^ a b c d Dedham Historical Society (2001). Images of America: Dedham. Arcadia Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7385-0944-0. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  9. ^ Berry, Jason (2012). Render Unto Rome. Crown Publishers. p. 109.
  10. ^ St. Mary's Church, Dedham, Massachusetts, 1866-1966, Our Centennial Year. Hackensack, N.J.: Custombook, Inc. Ecclesiastical Color Publishers. 1966.
  11. ^ a b "How the achdiocese's parishes compare". The Boston Globe. December 10, 2003. p. 16. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
  12. ^ Heald, Jimmy (December 7, 2018). "St. Susanna's makes national news with its Nativity scene". The Dedham Times. Vol. 26, no. 49. p. 1.

Works cited

External links

42°16′05″N 71°11′06″W / 42.268°N 71.185°W / 42.268; -71.185

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
Town of Dedham, Massachusetts
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