History :

The history of St. Catherine of Siena parish is the story of its people - those who led and those who followed.

It is a story of people who, each in his or her own way, gave their time, talent and treasure that Christ might be made manifest in the community.

The story begins on Thursday, May 8, 1913, when the Most Rev. John J. Nilan, D.D., Bishop of Hartford, commissioned the Rev. Nicholas P. Coleman to organize a parish for the welfare of the Catholic residents of the Riverside area.

Just three days later, on Pentecost Sunday, May 11, 1913, Father Coleman looked out from a portable altar in the little, two-room Mianus School located on top of Riverside Hill.

The Annual Report for 1913 indicates that fourteen women volunteered to teach 114 children catechism. Catechism was taught in Riverside, Mianus School, and North Mianus School.

Father Coleman chose as the patron Saint of the new church the much-cultivated St. Catherine of Siena, who had devoted her life to keeping what the Lord Himself called the first and the greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind” and who had been equally generous in fulfilling the second: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself for the love of God.

In October 1936, the Rev. Joseph A. Ganley became the second pastor of St. Catherine’s Church coming here from St. Cecilia. He had been principal of St. Augustine’s School in Bridgeport before taking up his first pastorate at St. Cecilia’s in Springdale.

In 1946 Father Ganley purchased three more acres on Riverside Avenue, land north of the school and convent. Later on additional land was purchased on Riverside Avenue opposite the convent.

In 1955, St. Catherine’s conducted a Building Fund Drive hoping for pledges totaling $250,000 to build the new church - more than $320,000 was pledged (with a very notable percentage being contributed.

St. Catherine of Siena Church, the Church as we know it today, was dedicated on December 15, 1957.

On that day, when Father Walsh stood on the altar and looked out over the large congregation in this beautiful new church, there must have been those in the pews who could look back to that day in May of 1913 when Father Coleman turned to a handful of people in the small Mianus school and read his first announcements to mark the beginning of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Riverside.