TIVERTON — In the cozy vestibule where the main entrance to St. Christopher Roman Catholic Church meets the bottom of a narrow staircase leading to the church’s choir loft, a first-time visitor happened to arrive simultaneously with a long-time parishioner, both evidently heading upstairs. With a gentlemanly gesture of his hand, the visitor offered, “After you, Miss.”
“Oh, no,” she insisted with an appreciative smile. “You’ll be waiting all day for me. I crawl up these stairs.”
Since first joining St. Christopher in 1966, Connie Carreiro has been scaling this staircase, drawn upward by the lure of the Tiverton church’s music ministry. Over the intervening decades, Carreiro has sung for more priests than she can remember, most of them from the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (known colloquially as the Holy Ghost Fathers), which shepherded St. Christopher until 2003. Ever since, diocesan priests have been assigned here.
Carreiro likely won’t soon forget this particular sunny Sunday morning, Sept. 14, when she and her fellow musicians welcomed the 10th Bishop of Providence, Bruce A. Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., for a special Mass to help celebrate St. Christopher’s 100th anniversary as a diocesan parish.
Its current pastor, Father Phillip J. Dufour, was busy beforehand making last-minute preparations, but paused briefly to remark, “It’s wonderful to have the Bishop here for his first visit to St. Christopher, especially on a day—the Exaltation of the Holy Cross—that’s so important to him that it’s in his Episcopal motto, ‘Because by your Holy Cross.’”
Dufour concelebrated the Mass alongside Bishop Lewandowski. Deacon Timothy Flanigan, M.D., a physician by trade and an active St. Christopher member for the past three-and-a-half-decades, served as the Deacon for the Mass.
“In this community,” Deacon Tim professed afterward, “the faith is really strong. And real. It’s an everyday faith lived out.”
Perhaps that’s a byproduct of St. Christopher’s having had considerably more than a century to take root in tranquil Tiverton. Church archives indicate that, while a grand total of three Catholic families lived here full-time during the 1890s, Catholics from nearby Fall River, Massachusetts, increasingly began to purchase summer homes in this East Bay idyll. However, with no Catholic church in the vicinity, Tiverton Town Hall briefly hosted summertime Masses led by a Father M.E. Cook, until he and his faithful flock established a rudimentary parish building on Highland Road, Tiverton’s first-ever Catholic church, dubbed St. Peter’s By the Sea.
This served the part-time purpose for 13 years, but by 1908, the more permanent Catholic presence that had gradually settled in Tiverton required an enduring home in which to practice. They found and built it two years later on a suitable plot along Main Road, even more littoral than the ironically inland St. Peter’s By the Sea, which would later be sold. Dedicated July 1, 1910, the new St. Christopher Church would officially become part of the Diocese of Providence in 1925.
From St. Christopher’s front steps, one can easily locate the Sakonnet River, its namesake bridge, plentiful sailboats plying the waters, quaint oceanfront New England homes—a serene backdrop.
“The beauty of living here,” he added, “this community is so gorgeous. We’ve got our problems. But our problems are small, and our joys are big. People have very deep faith. It’s beautiful to see. A lot of people have raised their kids here; their parents are here. It’s imbedded in the community. As Catholics, we have a real faithfulness to the church.”
Yet, that faithfulness appeared to weaken in some as recently as two decades ago, a troubling trend not unique to this town, but one that now seems to be reversing course. Tiverton’s St. Christopher and St. Theresa Parishes share one pastor, several programs and resources.
“They really work together beautifully, arm-in-arm, all in it together,” Deacon Tim said of the parish partnership. “It is stronger now. People are excited about it.”
Choir member Connie agreed.
“Everybody’s friendly. Everybody knows everybody,” she said. “Since Father Dufour’s been here, a lot more families with children have been coming to church. There are always four or five little ones every Sunday. He’s made a big difference in this parish. Because he’s younger and his homilies are great. He’s friendly, knows everyone by name. They just took to him.”
“You have a wonderful pastor here,” Bishop Lewandowski told the assembly before blessing the post-Mass feast in the church hall. “God of all ages, 100 years in your sight is like the blink of an eye. Still, we are grateful for those hundred years. Though your graces and mercies are innumerable, we count our blessings today. Because 100 years of Masses, baptisms, weddings, funerals, confirmations, anointings, confessions, feasts, and festivals … a hundred years of giving you praise, glory, and honor. Lord, a hundred years is quite a wonderful accomplishment. Give us another hundred more. Bless us, your people of Tiverton.”
Slow though the progress might be, another hundred years doesn’t sound unrealistic now to the faithful of St. Christopher.
