Ever since Father Richard Carrington was an altar boy in grammar school, he knew that he wanted to become a priest.
“I always loved serving the Mass and those kind of things,” said Carrington, who also credits the influence of many of the priests he knew while growing up.
Now, at 50, Carrington, who started his career in Union City and currently works at St. Joseph of the Palisade Church in West New York, is celebrating his 25th anniversary of ordination into the Holy Priesthood.
“The most important part of the job is the spiritual side of the work,” said Carrington, referring to offering Mass and spreading God’s word. “Not running raffles or working BINGO.”
Since he was ordained on May 29, 1976 at sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark, Carrington has spent all but two of his 25 years in Hudson County parishes. He is currently finishing his 17th year as a naval chaplain in the U.S. Naval Reserves.
Counseling Hudson County
Watching a fair-skinned, rosy cheeked man of English and Irish decent speak in fluent Spanish to one of his parishioners over the phone is quite amazing. Carrington finds Spanish to be a useful second language.
“I studied Spanish in high school but didn’t pay too much attention to it,” said Carrington.
However, Carrington soon began to pay attention while in the seminary, working at parishes in Newark, Paterson and St. Joseph’s of the Palisades, where he works now, among other locations.
Carrington spent the first four years of his career at St. Joseph’s Church in Union City. He then moved to St. Thomas Church in Bloomfield for two years, St. John’s Church in Jersey City for five years, Our Lady of Grace Church in Hoboken for 10 years and has spent the last two years at St. Joseph of the Palisade Church in West New York.
St. Joseph of the Palisade Parish is the largest parish in the Archdiocese of Newark, which boasts more than 200 parishes in Hudson, Bergen and Essex counties. “We have 4,000 registered parishioners and an estimated 4,000 that aren’t registered,” said Carrington, who as administrator of the church takes care of the day-to-day operations of the parish, which included paying the $98,000 gas and electric bill last month St. Joseph’s holds 15 masses in three different locations each weekend; the church on 64th Street and Palisade Avenue, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel and the St. Joseph’s of the Palisade High School.
Melting pot
After working in the county for 25 years, Carrington was able to see the different ethnic groups that moved through the county over the years.
“It was interesting to see the demographic changes in the county,” said Carrington, who was born in the Bronx, but moved to Ridgefield Park, where he grew up, when he was 6 years old. “When I first started working in Union City in 1976, most of the children were either Italian-American or Cuban. Now you have a mixture of everything. This is a real United Nations.”
One great feat
Many of the parishioners that have followed Carrington around Hudson County have credited the restoration of Our Lady of Grace Church in Hoboken, which now stands as a New Jersey Historic Landmark, as Carrington’s greatest accomplishment.
“It was a massive undertaking,” said Carrington, about the $1.3 million restoration project.
The restoration included bringing in a new altar, restoring the existing altars, restoring the facade entrance, placing the outside brick and painting and replastering the inside walls.
Even as the church was being rededicated on Dec. 7, 1998, the workers were still adding some finishing touches to the building.
“It was the dream of my predecessors and the parish community to restore the church,” said Carrington. “With everybody’s help, we got everyone’s act together and we finally got it done.”
Serving the Navy
Carrington decided to enlist in the U.S. Naval Reserves in 1984 because after being deferred from Vietnam, he felt it an obligation.
“I thought that it was my obligation to do something for the nation,” said Carrington, who was promoted to Commander in 1997.
Carrington now works with the U.S. Coast Guard in Staten Island. However, besides sometimes being stationed in places as beautiful as Hawaii, Carrington said that being a Naval Chaplain is not much different than working for any other parish.
“You administer to the needs of the servicemen and their families,” said Carrington. “You are not there for the government.”
Carrington found his colleagues to be the best part of his service.
“The most rewarding part was getting to work with chaplains of different faiths,” said Carrington, mentioning that the Naval Reserves just recently hired its first full-time Muslim Chaplain.