The Manhattan Times

Where we worship: Good Shepherd Roman Catholic Church – a history that mirrors Inwood

by Daniel P. Bader

Good Shepherd, the Roman Catholic church on Broadway and Isham Street, has been a part of Inwood for a long time. The Romanesque building, built in 1936, is just the latest house for the parish community, which traces its heritage back to 1912.

The inside of the church is cavernous.

Unlike, say, St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue and 50th Street, or other Neo-gothic revival churches like Intercession Church on W. 155th Street, Good Shepherd has no internal columns.

“There’s no obstructions of the people or the altar,” says Rev. Robert Abbatiello, who flashes a small smile. “No place to hide.”

Wearing thin wire-framed bi-focal glasses, he’s dressed in a brown monk’s robe, tied at the waist with a cord. Prayer beads dangle against his left leg, and he’s wearing sandals.

He and fellow priests Arlen Harris and Philip Bohan are Capuchin Franciscan Friars, a holy order founded by Saint Francis of Assisi, an Italian merchant who lived in the 11th century and was called by God to eschew worldly goods and live in service to humanity.

Good Shepherd, like many Catholic churches, has two altars. The “High Altar” is the farthest from the main doors of the church and is surrounded by four ornate marble columns, each topped with a representation of one of the four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Atop the columns is a roof covering the altar. Looking up from in front of or behind the altar, the ceiling of the structure is painted blue with a dove – the Holy Spirit – depicted in the middle.

The second “Altar of Service” is a step lower, closer to the congregation.

Originally, Good Shepherd had only the High Altar, and the seating capacity was greater. After Vatican II, a council that modernized the practices of the Catholic Church in the 1960s, priests no longer had their back to the congregation. The service altar, unlike its older counterpart, allows the priest to stand behind it, facing the parishioners.

Unlike many churches, the choir does not sit in a balcony above the doors, behind the congregation. At Good Shepherd, the organ and choir are arranged in a semi-circle behind the High Altar. The pipes of the organ, recently rebuilt, are hidden behind an ornate screen that is flush with the walls of the church. Mirrors are hung so the organist can see what is going on in the service and start the music when appropriate.

“It’s a great place to celebrate, it’s got great acoustics,” Abbatiello said. “If you have a full choir … when I’m out there and I heard the organ playing I think: ‘This is great!’”

He drops the sandals and slides onto the organ bench, and flips a switch.

The empty church fills with sound as he plays, transitioning into “Ode to Joy” before stopping.

He describes himself as a “chordy” player who likes to embellish up and down the keys.

“It’s a great escape,” he says, sliding back into his sandals.

The friars are relatively new to Good Shepherd. They took over the administration of the church and the services to the parishioners in 2006.

“The Paulist Fathers were here from the foundation,” Abbatiello said. The Paulists, founded in 1858, were formed to convert Protestants to Catholicism. The order now preaches the gospel through multi-media, such as the web and movies, and dedicates itself to bringing people back to Catholicism.

According to a short history of Good Shepherd written in the 1980s, the first parishioners met in a chapel located where the Christie Field House now sits on W. 218^th Street.

In 1911 Father Thomas Daly purchased the land Good Shepherd is built on for $115,000. Three years later a 650-seat white stucco church with a steeple topped by a cross was completed. It sat between two elm trees, about 40 feet from Broadway.

The parish registry grew, reaching 1,300 members in 1918 and kept expanding with the flux of Irish immigrants to the neighborhood. With the arrival of the subway in 1932 and the migration of Manhattanites northward, it became clear that the parish would need more space.

In the midst of the Great Depression, the church paid off its debts and began construction on the new church. In 1935 the old Good Shepherd Church was lifted up in one piece, placed on rollers, and moved west one block to Cooper Street. It is no longer standing.

At its high point, the congregation at Good Shepherd Church was 17,000 strong. Including the school staff, the church had 50 employees ministering to the congregation.

Today, said Abbatiello, the attendance over the entire weekend is about 1,300 – roughly the size of the congregation in 1918 – spread over six masses, two of which are in Spanish.

“In the last year or so the population is up. That’s a good sign,” said Abbatiello.

The newest priest at Good Shepherd, Abbatiello, who was born in Yonkers, was assigned to the parish in 2008. He learned Spanish years ago during an assignment in the Dominican Republic – and has picked it back up over the last year.

The friars found a congregation already very involved in helping the poor. Each month Abbatiello said between 3,400 and 3,700 people are served at Good Shepherd’s food pantry – even with dramatic cuts in city aid.

“It’s trying to do a lot with a little,” Abbatiello said. “So far no one has been denied.”

Five nights per week Good Shepherd is a shelter for six homeless women who receive a small meal or snack each night when they arrive.

The church itself is open every day, even if there are no services scheduled.

Tuesday and Wednesdays it opens at 9 a.m. – on Wednesday is the exposition of the Holy Sacrament, where the blessed host that has been transformed into the body of Christ is displayed for parishioners to pray before.

“There are people who come all through the day to come and pray,” Abbatiello said.

Socially and faithfully, he hopes to bring people together with his time at Good Shepherd.

“The Church and parish isn’t quite the social and spiritual center it used to be,” Abbatiello said. “[Socially] people have so many options. People have a lot of ways of satisfying that need. The spiritual you can’t find anywhere else.”

The time, he said, might be ripe to try though.

“There’s a strong feeling, I think, of everyone wanting to be together,” Abbatiello said.

The Manhattan Times is the bilingual newspaper of Washington Heights and Inwood.