WEST WARWICK — How much do you love your church? Consider for a moment how attached you may have grown to it, a byproduct of all the fond moments you’ve experienced and cherished memories you’ve accumulated over the years inside the physical structure where you attend weekly Mass. To what lengths would you go to help finance it?
In his Letter to the Hebrews (11:1), St. Paul defined faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” What if you’d never even seen your church? Would you be willing to take the same considerable financial risk to support a building in which you’ve made no emotional investments … because it doesn’t yet exist?
Such was the faith, more than a century ago, of many of the first members of St. Anthony Church in West Warwick that they offered up their own homes as collateral for a $10,000 loan that helped underwrite its original construction. The conviction of things not seen, indeed.
But why? Several area churches existed – a number still do, in fact – in the vicinity of St. Anthony. None, however, offered Masses in Portuguese, the native tongue of so many of this community’s residents. Diocesan leadership at the time initially balked at the idea of erecting yet another church in the area until the residents offered to put up their own money.
“I think it took a heck of a lot of courage for them to do that. They had strong faith. And family was very strong in those days,” observes Bill Rogers. He would know, because he actually knew many of those first families. Just two weeks shy of his 92nd birthday, Rogers has called St. Anthony his home parish his entire life – a life nearly as old as the church itself. Even when he left for several years to serve in the United States Air Force, he still considered St. Anthony his home parish.
Over the years, Rogers has contributed to his church in various ways, including as a religious education teacher and lector. For the better part of the past 50 years, he’s also sung in the church choir, a role he continues to play to this day. He’s also added another one. “I’m a gopher,” he explains with a laugh. “I go for this, I go for that, I go for whatever Roberta needs. She needs something, she calls me, I go for it.”
As St. Anthony’s parish secretary for all but one year since 1987, Roberta Rybka has been calling on Rogers, her fellow choir member, for any number of favors, including photographing her wedding. Like Rogers, Rybka has been a devout St. Anthony parishioner for virtually her whole life. She’ll turn 70 in January. “I received all my sacraments here. I was married here. My children were baptized here. Been a member of the choir since I was in fourth grade,” she cites as evidence. “It’s like a parish family, really. Rather than just the parish of St. Anthony’s, we started to refer to it in the bulletin as the parish family.”
“We are truly a family here,” remarks Deacon Alex Marchetti. “Everybody accepts people that they don’t know that are new to the church. It’s a very welcoming community.” Marchetti experienced that loving embrace first-hand more than four decades ago when he became a regular congregant after marrying his wife, whose ancestors were among St. Anthony’s founding families. For the past five years, Marchetti has also been assigned as one of St. Anthony’s two deacons.
“The Portuguese people here are much older now, and they still try to do what they can, but their kids and their grandkids continue the traditions.”
While the St. Anthony family remains largely Portuguese in heritage (either fully or partially), that distinction historically extended to its pastors as well. Of the eight men who’ve served in the role, only its current shepherd, Rev. Brian Morris, claims no Portuguese lineage. However, Father Morris quickly endeared himself to his new flock upon arriving in 2023 by learning the liturgy in their ancestral language. Morris credits its other deacon, Portuguese-speaking Carlos Botelho, with helping him do so.
“Funny story, actually,” Father Morris shares on the morning of November 16, just before a Mass celebrating the church’s centennial. “When I was at St. John’s Seminary in Boston, my first pastoral assignment was at another St. Anthony, in Cambridge, which is also a Portuguese parish. I remember going there thinking, ‘I’m not going to need any of these [Portuguese] language skills.’ Eight years later, I’m being called into the bishop’s office, and he tells me, ‘You’re going to St. Anthony’s in West Warwick.’ God definitely has a sense of humor.”
Morris arrived at a time of administrative change both in the Diocese and at St. Anthony, which also had to merge – or “share the pastoral yoke,” as Rybka describes it – with nearby Christ the King in 2022. As has been the case with other local churches, the combining of two parish cultures has proven beneficial for both sides.
In his homily during St. Anthony’s centennial Mass, Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., explored a theme of clashing or colliding forces as potential opportunities for God to bring about similar positive change in our individual lives.
“This is the place where we are on a collision course with Jesus,” the bishop stated, “and when we collide with grace, Jesus can heal us, reconcile us, repair us, redeem us. This is where we’re blessed. I’m sure we’re counting 100 years of blessings. Brothers and sisters, we’re also celebrating today what I would call a personal apocalypse. It means I’ve collided with Christ and He’s shone the light on what needs to change in me, what needs conversion, purification, sanctification.
“For 100 years, people have been coming here and life as they knew it changed forever because you’ve collided with God’s Word and He’s going to make you more kind, more loving, more gentle, more compassionate, more merciful, more caring, more generous ... Happier, healthier, holier.”
After a century, the St. Anthony family continues to evolve, and Rybka believes it will endure. “I’ve seen more Mass attendance here,” she points out. “People are finding that there’s something missing in their lives. And the young people are searching, and if we open that up and be a place for them to come and search, I think they’ll find it.”
