Two Catholic churches in the Stoney Road section of Paterson and Woodland Park, N.J., became one parish on Divine Mercy Sunday this year, on April 12, when Our Lady of Pompei (OLP) and St. Bonaventure parishes were merged into the newly formed Padre Pio Parish.
Father Manuel Cuellar, Padre Pio’s pastor since that day, knew that bringing distinct, bilingual parish communities into one cohesive Catholic parish wouldn’t happen immediately.
Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney officially installed Father Cuellar as pastor of Padre Pio on Sept. 12. The new pastor used the last few months to weave the parish communities into a tapestry of God’s presence among the faithful. Padre Pio has been providing three Masses at each of the parish’s two churches, while also helping connect each former parish into the shared ministries of the singular Padre Pio Parish.
“We are one now,” Father Cuellar said. “Instead of two or four, we are one.”
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The newly formed parish is officially named for St. Pio of Pietrelcina, also known as “Padre Pio. With the merger streamlining the administration of St. Bonaventure’s and OLP parishes, each with its own histories and traditions, both churches have remained open with adjusted Mass schedules to ensure the parish continues to meet people’s spiritual and pastoral needs.
During this merger, Father Cuellar has encountered people who often want to hold onto their traditions. Yet he sees the steps his parishioners have taken to embrace each other and unify.
“People were attached to their own buildings. People were attached to their own cultures. They wanted the same Mass times at the beginning. Now, I think they understand it in a better way.” Father Cuellar said. “Instead of two different communities, I see one now trying to be together, trying to celebrate together, trying to get to know each other,” he said.
Father Cuellar’s installation Mass provided an impactful example of how two parishes with a combined 260 years of distinct traditions have become one.
The installation Mass for Father Cuellar was held at the St. Bonaventure Church site and celebrated in English and Spanish. The liturgy utilized two different sets of lectors and music ministries working together to create one unified faith experience.
“It was such a beautiful Mass. You really felt the love,” said Raysa Gonzalez, a parishioner who came from OLP and assists with Mass planning and the team of lectors.
Gonzalez added, “We had goosebumps because the music is a combination of the Spanish and the English. I had people from the English Mass that do not speak any Spanish come up to me and tell me that even though they didn’t obviously understand the words in the readings that I was saying because it was in a different language that they don’t speak, they were able to feel the readings.”
Father Cuellar says the installation Mass also connected people whose exposure to fellow parishioners usually comes only from attending the same liturgy every week, which doesn’t normally increase the chance of meeting other church members.
“If they come to the 10 a.m. Mass, they know the people there, but they don’t know the other people from the 7.30 a.m. Mass, from the noon Mass or the 5.30 Mass on Sunday,” he said. “But now this event helped everybody to be together,” he said.
A Colombian-born, bilingual priest, Father Cuellar has especially helped bridge the gap between the English- and Spanish-speaking members of the combined parish. As parochial vicar at OLP in 2024, he helped establish a Spanish-speaking Mass, which St. Bonaventure already had for about 10 years.
Father Cuellar has also helped combine ministries across parishes and languages, often turning important Masses involving the sacraments of initiation into bilingual experiences that touch every parishioner’s faith journey.
“We had a lot of kids do their first Holy Communion. Some of them even got baptized, and it was a mix because it was in Spanish and English,” Gonzalez said.
Father Cuellar has also encouraged members of both parishes, representing both languages, to come together in ministries like the lectoring. Gonzalez has joined a bilingual Liturgy Committee from both former church communities that is helping shape people’s experiences of faith in both languages.
“A parish becomes truly alive when its members recognize that each of us has a unique role to play in the mission of the Church,” Father Cuellar wrote in a bulletin announcement about forming the Liturgy Committee.
He has also used a pilgrimage and mission to help earthquake victims in his native Colombia as a chance to unite the parish. They raised more than $3,600, which helped empower those in need during the trip he and 22 others took in early September.
While Father Cuellar credits the countless parishioners who have embraced two parishes becoming one, those parishioners feel the newly installed pastor has been the main force that God has used to connect these parishes as one body of Christ.
“Father Manuel has such a blessing to guide us through the change, through the combination, through the different languages of the different communities and putting it together,” Gonzalez said. “Father Manuel has a good balance in respecting everyone’s ways in a way that no one feels excluded. It makes you really want to be part of this parish, this community,” she said.
