St Michael's Church

From The Peopling of New York City

In an enlightening interview with Rev. Msgr. Edward V. Wetterer, the Pastor of St. Michael’s Church, was shed his progressing goal of a community history presentation, along with insight into the overall language camaraderie present within the church, and the community services St. Michael’s adheres to despite receiving no funding. St. Michael’s Church, located off the intersection of Barclay Avenue and Union Street, extends its loving help beyond the physical perimeter to neighboring locations forming a more integrated community. Aiming for November 1, 2008, Rev. Msgr. Wetterer is working to coordinate a community history presentation that will date back to the arrival of the Quakers and to the Underground Railroad in what is now the United States.

The work leading towards the community history presentation is an integrative process in which Rev. Msgr. Wetterer has met with imams from a variety of mosques, with leaders from a synagogue, and with a leader of the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church off Prince Street in Flushing. A meeting with a professor from St. John’s University specialized in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism will also occur in the near future as well as an encounter with a sister from the Convent and Academy of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Brentwood. In addition to celebrating the community’s history, St. Michael’s is celebrating its 175th anniversary. Saturday, April 26, 2008, St. Michael’s hosted an International Food Tasting party. Food from Colombia, El Salvador, Ecuador, Paraguay, the Philippines, and China were available for tasting at the celebration. If you want to learn more about the International Food Tasting party or other services offered by St. Michael’s visit stmichaelflushingonline.org.

St. Michael’s Church has a Chinese and Filipino choir. There are two separate social outreach programs, conducted in Spanish and English although they are becoming more integrated now. Members of the church visit the sick, care centers, patients in hospitals, and nursing homes. And, every Sunday, volunteers visit the homebound. Many different communities utilize the Catholic school building, which is located right behind the church. At the school, ESL is provided at the church’s expense. And, the school provides education to students of various ethnic backgrounds. Although it is the case that non-Catholics pay more than Catholics to attend a Catholic school, Revered Wetterer explains that there is one tuition fee for both Catholics and non-Catholics. The students who attend the school, regardless of their religion, have the opportunity to attend confession twice a week.

There are Sunday services in both Spanish and English at St. Michaels, but services are only conducted in both languages on rare occasions such as Good Friday. Pastor Wetterer stated that bilingual services tend to lean more toward one language than the other and are not conducive to serving either side.

Language becomes a problem when a pastor is not able to function in multiple languages. Also, a significant percentage of the congregation is Filipino. They speak both Tagalog and English, but Pastor Wetterer would prefer that they use English. Tagalog further isolates them from the community, and the goal of the church is to be unified. A common language is a way of bringing multi-ethnic congregates together.