The Church of St. Ann, which hosts one of Hoboken’s most widely-attended festivals each year, turns 100 years old Sunday, May 7. Parishioners have planned a special mass at the church at 12 noon and a dinner at The Cameo in Garfield to celebrate. While the church’s seven-day annual summer feast, which organizers say is attended by more than 100,000 people, is what they’re best known for, it also has developed a large devoted congregation, its own school, and a plethora of social services in its 100 year history. Although it has developed into a multi-ethnic congregation, it continues to pay homage to its Italian roots. Every Sunday, Father Francis Sariego, whose father hailed from Italy, addresses the flock in Italian either before, during or after the mass. Sariego says that the Italian portion of the ceremony is not just inserted to keep congregants on their toes. “Language speaks to the culture and the animus of a people,” he explained. “When you speak to people, you can feel them relating to you. Remember, Italians speak with their hands. If you tied our hands, we could not talk. Speaking in Italian helps the message come alive.” Sariego, who lived and worked in Italy for 17 years, also explained that many of the Italian Americans who come to the church are not only deeply religious, but also very traditional about the way that they worship. “Addressing the people in Italian also is an opportunity to remember,” he said. “The Italian and Italian American people here are people who still hold onto traditional roots. If you are in the country itself then you move along with the times. Here it’s a cultural, historical and very real approach to faith.” Although Sariego has only been the pastor of St Ann’s for the last two years, he says that he can feel the strength that has been invested in the congregation from 100 years of prayer. Church, a sprite 75 Even though Hobokenites have met to worship in a church devoted to St, Ann, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus Christ, for 100 years, the church which now stands at Seventh and Jefferson streets was actually built 75 years ago. Prior to that, church officials say that mass was originally held in a small chapel located on Seventh and Adams streets, until property was purchased at the corner of Seventh and Jefferson streets in 1903. The original structure that was located where the faithful met from 1903 was moved to 713 Madison St. to make way for a larger structure approximately 20 years later. After serving as the church’s parish and a youth hall for 40 years there, it eventually burned down in 1965, church officials said. Since the current structure was completed in 1927, many of the church’s pastors have worked with the congregation to add to the building. While bronze chandeliers, a garden and a playground were added in the 1940s, and a new organ and new marble stations of the cross in the early 1950s, perhaps the biggest impact on the community came when the church opened St Ann’s parochial school in 1955. “A dream was realized with the construction of the parochial school of St Ann,” said Ann Musto, who taught in the school for 37 years and now serves as the church’s historian. “We started with three grades: kindergarten through second grade. Each year, another year was added.” From that point, the school grew from approximately 65 students to the more than 400 who attend today. Along the way, it merged with several other local parochial schools to become the Hoboken Catholic Academy. In the 1970s, the church made a number of improvements that made visits more enjoyable. On the practical side, an air conditioner was installed. “That was a most welcome addition,” explained Musto. Also, the carillon bell system was installed in 1973. “You can hear those bells from one half a mile away,” explained the enthusiastic historian. “That is half the city.” Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the priests who oversee the church continued to make improvements, adding at least four new stained glass windows to honor previous pastors who had worked with the congregation and St. Jude. Recent improvements Recent improvements include the construction of a shrine to St. Ann; the statue that is paraded around by a host of women during the annual feast is kept in an official area to perform baptisms. To clear a way for the baptismal font, church officials had to remove one of the church’s two confessionals. Fifty percent less space to hold traditional confessionals has not been a problem, says Musto, since face-to-face confessions have become more popular in recent years. More improvements are sure to come in the future, but right now church officials are concentrating on the 100th anniversary celebrations. “To be the pastor of a faith community that is celebrating a milestone is a privilege and also a responsibility,” said Sariego. “It is a privilege because you are there to see how the faith has been the strength of the place itself for all these years. And it is also a responsibility. The responsibility is just in realizing that the legacy is something that has to be continued.”
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