About Us

            Having been incorporated in March, 1720, Pequannock Township is the oldest of the 39 municipalities in Morris County, and the oldest in the Paterson Diocese. Once encompassing much of the northern half of Morris County, the township assumed its current size of 6.9 square miles in 1923 with the separation of Riverdale Borough. During the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the township was essentially rural and agricultural, and predominantly Dutch.  The First Reformed Church of Pompton Plains was formed in 1736 as the Reformed Netherlands Dutch Church.

            The ministry of the 18^th century Catholic missionary, Father Ferdinand Farmer (1720-1786) of Old Saint Joseph’s Church in Philadelphia brought him twice a year into northern New Jersey. This intrepid missionary, “the Apostle of New Jersey,” would certainly have traveled through modern Pequannock since he records in his Baptismal Register fourteen Baptisms at the forge in Pompton (modern-day Riverdale) between 1781 and 1786. It was at Pompton (a part of Pequannock Township until 1923) that the first effort to organize a church in the township was attempted. Between 1881 and 1887, the Official Catholic Directory listed a Saint George’s Mission at Pompton as “building.” But the building never actually materialized and the effort was abandoned after the opening of the mission church at Pompton Lakes in 1908.

            By the beginning of the 20^th century, the nature of the community had begun to evolve. Early Catholics in Pequannock found their way to churches in Mountain View (Wayne), Pompton Lakes, Butler and Little Falls. After the establishment of Saint Joseph’s, Lincoln Park in 1922, that became the closest Catholic church. In the 1920s and 1930s two efforts were mounted on behalf of Pequannock Catholics. One involved a Sunday bus service from Pequannock to Saint Joseph’s. The other saw the beginning of religious education classes in an empty store at 211 Turnpike. Both failed from lack of interest. With the establishment of a new Paterson Diocese in December, 1937 interest in a Catholic church became more focused. Miss Margaret Smith wrote to the new Bishop, Thomas H. McLaughlin in August, 1938, asking about the possibility of a church in the township. The Bishop replied that “when sufficient evidence is presented for the establishment and maintenance of a church and pastor we shall be glad to consider the matter.”

            In 1945 the administration of Saint Joseph’s passed from the Franciscan Friars to the diocesan clergy, and Father John Hewetson, the brother of the diocesan Judicial Vicar, Monsignor Joseph Hewetson, became pastor. Father Hewetson liked a challenge, and he systematically approached the possibility of a new parish in Pequannock. He secured the Engine Company # 2 Firehouse, and on June 30, 1946, with more than 200 in attendance, Mass began to be offered regularly in Pequannock Township. In 1946, the Sunday Masses continued – but only for the summer months – an indication of the popularity of summer cabins on the Pequannock River. But, the following May, Mass resumed on a permanent year-round basis.

            On October 22, 1948 Father Hewetson hosted a meeting at the firehouse to discuss whether Pequannock residents wanted their own church. The results of the meeting were very positive. A committee was formed, a pledge campaign was mounted, and within a few weeks some $10,000 was pledged toward securing property and building a new church. In the next several months the work of Father Hewetson, both with parishioners and diocesan officials, was indefatigable. Finally, on June 24, 1949 the decision was made to advance the mission in Pequannock to full parish status and build a church on a lot on Newark-Pompton Turnpike opposite Jacksonville Road which had been purchased for $6,000.

            There followed a flurry of activity including a campaign to raise $75,000 in pledges; the groundbreaking on September 5, 1949; the First Mass in the unfinished new church on February 12, 1950; and its formal dedication by Bishop Thomas A. Boland on June 18, 1950. It was Bishop Boland, Paterson’s second bishop, who opted to name the new parish, “Holy Spirit.” No evidence has ever been found to explain the name of the new parish. Perhaps it was a reflection of the upcoming 1950 Holy Year; or perhaps as the first of some twenty new churches that would be built in the diocese in the decade of the 1950s, the Bishop saw the new church in Pequannock as the beginning of a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the local church.

            For all his efforts to get Holy Spirit off the ground, Father Hewetson’s connection to the parish ended at this point. On July 8, 1950, he was transferred to Saint Joseph’s, Newton, and two months later, on September 6, Father Joseph R. Brestel, the parochial vicar at the Cathedral, was named first pastor of Holy Spirit. Father Brestel’s four years at Holy Spirit were a flurry of organizing activity. He organized religious education programs, purchased the property adjacent to the church, and constructed a rectory. On December 2, 1954, Father Brestel was named Pastor of Saint George’s, Paterson and he was succeeded by another Paterson native, Father John H. Dericks.

            The twelve years of the Dericks administration saw the greatest growth in the parish, both numerically and physically. Father Dericks quickly added two parcels of land to the parish footprint and built Holy Spirit School, which opened with four grades in September, 1956. From the beginning, the parish school was staffed by the Religious Teachers Filippini, for whom a convent was also built in 1959. So great was the increase of students in the area, that the Paterson Diocese opened De Paul Catholic High School in Wayne, and the Pequannock Township public schools were forced to build their own high school when the sending arrangement with Butler High School ended because of over-crowding. For a brief time in 1956-1957, both the new high schools – De Paul and Pequannock – utilized unused classrooms in the not-yet-full Holy Spirit School! In 1960, Father Dericks led parishioners in constructing a wing on the church to alleviate the crowding at Sunday Masses. And by the end of the Dericks era, Holy Spirit Parish welcomed Father James Gacquin as their first parochial vicar.

            But the biggest change of the Dericks years is one that Father Dericks had little to do with. In  November, 1962, Bishop James J. Navagh, Paterson’s fourth bishop, separated the western part of the parish, and created a new mission – later parish – of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Pompton Plains, effectively reducing Holy Spirit by one third.

            Succeeding Father Dericks as pastor in 1966 was Father Eugene B. McQuaid, who had briefly been the founding pastor of Saint Clement Pope and Martyr in Rockaway Township. A native of Ireland, McQuaid’s pastorate at Holy Spirit was to last twenty-eight years. McQuaid added to the physical dimensions of Holy Spirit was an addition to the school of an auditorium -in 1970. But, arriving in Holy Spirit within months of the close of the Second Vatican Council, much of McQuaid’s energies were directed to the implementing of the Council’s directive on the local level. This meant slowly embracing liturgical and other changes with a great deal of pastoral sensitivity. Among the many changes was the introduction in 1974 of the Nicholas Varsalona, the first of several permanent deacons to be ordained for the service of the parish. McQuaid’s success in these efforts was recognized in March 1980 when Bishop Frank J. Rodimer appointed McQuaid Episcopal Vicar of Morris County, and again the following year when Pope John Paul II elevated him to the dignity of monsignor.

            Having reached the age of 70, Monsignor McQuaid retired from the pastorate in June 1994, the first Pequannock pastor to do so. There followed not only a pastoral but also a generational shift as forty-six-year-old Father Alfred J. Lampron, parochial vicar in Saint Virgil’s, Morris Plains, was named to succeed him. He was to remain at Holy Spirit for a dozen years during which the parish celebrated its golden jubilee in 2000. Much of his energy in those years was centered in the promotion of the parish’s liturgical and life and participation in social justice endeavors.

            In 2006, Father John Tarantino was named Administrator of Holy Spirit and would remain for six years until being named Pastor of Resurrection Parish, Randolph. In the early years of the 21^st century, Paterson’s seventh bishop, Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli embraced a plan of “twinning” some of the parishes in the diocese due both to the number of priests available, and to the financial stability of some of the parishes. Under this arrangement, for the next four years, Holy Spirit would be “twinned” with Saint Joseph’s Parish, Lincoln Park, sharing the cost of a pastor. Under this arrangement Father Philip LeBeau was Administrator of Holy Spirit from 2012 until his untimely death in 2014. He was then succeeded in both parishes by Father Thomas Mangieri, who served as Administrator of Holy Spirit from 2014 to 2016.

            By 2016 it was deemed possible again to provide a separate pastor for each of the two parishes, and Father David Monteleone, the parochial vicar at Saint Joseph’s, Mendham was named Pastor of Holy Spirit. At this point Holy Spirit was one of the fifteen remaining parishes in the Paterson Diocese with a parochial school. Father Monteleone’s interest and support of that school helped to secure his appointment in 2021 as pastor of Saint Philip the Apostle, Clifton, one of the other parishes with a school.

            In 2021 Paterson’s eighth bishop, Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney appointed his priest-secretary, Father Stephen J. Prisk as Holy Spirit’s seventh pastor. At thirty-two (a year younger than Monsignor Brestel was in 1950), and with a diverse background acquired as a student in Rome, a parochial vicar in Mendham, and a chancery official in Paterson, Father Prisk is Holy Spirit’s youngest pastor in its nearly three-quarters of a century existence.