Pieces of the Past> Historic Newcastle parish distinct among New England’s Catholic Churches

NEWCASTLE – Under the shelter of towering pines, children kick dead and fallen needles underfoot, drawing circles aimlessly in the dust with their toes. Pine cones crunch under the summer shoes of visitors who shoo black flies from sunburned faces.

The voices of men and women from foreign places – New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Connecticut – join in singing hymns with those whose ancestors conquered the rocky Maine soil. Strains of alleluia echo across the valley.

The outdoor Mass held at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Newcastle is the kind of service even those who express disdain for organized religion might embrace. People sit on green park benches facing a granite altar. On it sits a matching credence table where the Rev. Raymond A. Picard consecrates the bread and wine.

Behind the altar stands a unique 8-foot cross modeled on the San Damiano cross in Italy, painted in the style of 11th century Byzantine icons, its gold paint sparkling in the sunlight streaming through the trees.

The cross was painted by former deacon Martin Fallon, who surrounded the Christ figure with the faces of the Apostles, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Yet the outdoor altar and the cross are not the only things that make this parish exceptional. It is St. Patrick’s long, rich history and its plans for the coming century that earn this house of worship a unique place among all the churches in New England. That is why the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland designated it one of six Jubilee churches in Maine.

The small brick church on a hill overlooks the Damariscotta River from the old road from Newcastle to Damariscotta Mills. It is the oldest Catholic parish (outside Indian mission churches) on the Atlantic Seaboard north of St. Augustine that is still being used. St. Patrick’s roots are intertwined with the early settlers who established a community and made their fortunes on a venture known as Damariscotta Mills.

James Kavanagh and Matthew Cottrill immigrated to Boston from County Wexford, Ireland, when they were 24 and 18, respectively. In the late 1790s, the pair migrated to Newcastle, attracted by stories of waterpower, timber and shipbuilding facilities. As the new century began, they bought a 567-acre tract of land that gave them control of the water rights at Damariscotta Lake, and opened a fulling mill and shipyard.

The Rev. John Lefevre de Cheverus celebrated the first Mass in the area in 1798 on his way back to Boston from his missionary labors with the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians. That same year a small wooden chapel, St. Mary’s of the Mills, was built at Damariscotta Mill in Newcastle on land donated by Cottrill.

Father Cheverus left instructions for daily and Sunday devotions to be practiced in his long absences. Morning and evening prayers were to be offered with worshippers on their knees. On Sundays and holy day mornings, prayers, the epistle and gospel of the Mass and other devotions were to be said. In the afternoon, a vesper service with the Litany and prescribed chapter from “The Poor Man’s Catechism” was to be performed. He also warned them against joining in public worship with people of other faiths.

Construction on a church began less than a decade later and was completed in 1808. The architect, Nicholas Codd, who also designed homes for Kavanagh and Cottrill, was reputed to have been shanghaied from Ireland to design the structures.

Codd designed St. Patrick’s for solidity and endurance. The walls of the church, in the early Federal style, are a foot-and-a-half thick. The small, odd-shaped bricks were made across the lake and hauled by oxen on the ice during the winter of 1807. Lime was imported from Ireland and made into mortar on site.

The original pews were backless plank benches, hewn from the nearby forests. As was the custom of the day, the women sat on the Epistle side (the right-hand ide), the men on the Gospel side of the church. The unique altar, built in the form of a tomb, is older than the church and is the original altar at which Father Cheverus offered Mass.

For almost 200 years, the faithful have been summoned to worship at St. Patrick’s by a Paul Revere bell cast in 1818. It is one of the last bells cast by Revere, who died in November that year. St. Patrick’s is believed to be the only Catholic church in New England to have a Revere bell.

Despite the fact that the offspring of Kavanagh and Cottrill became prominent citizens in Maine, the church did not have a full-time pastor until 1932. The congregation grew slowly and weathered many changes, but the greatest impact on the church was the result of the influx of summer visitors.

In the mid-1960s the Rev. Edward O’Brien oversaw construction of the outdoor altar that enables the church to serve the many visitors to the peninsula. Nearly 1,000 people attend weekend Masses at the “chapel in the pines.” The parking spaces directly behind the last row of “pews” is reserved for the handicapped so they can attend church without leaving their cars. Father Picard walks up the aisle to bring communion to them.

Today, the church faces its greatest challenge since its hardscrabble beginnings. The parish not only has outgrown the original 100-seat structure, its population is too large to fit into the modern church center dedicated in 1987. Last month, the parish launched a campaign to raise $2.2 million to build a new building that will carry the St. Patrick’s well into the first century of the new millennium. Plans call for it to be completed by 2003.

Picard, 59, came to St. Patrick’s in 1995. He is a native of Biddeford and still speaks with a slight French accent. He has served many parishes since his ordination 32 years ago. The priest said that less than 10 years ago, the diocese was considering closing the parish because of dwindling membership.

The new building would be connected to the original, which would continue as a chapel. The addition would include a 500-seat sanctuary, narthex and sacristy on the upper floor. The lower level would have a parish hall, kitchen and storage area. Plans include an elevator and handicapped-accessible bathrooms.

The main reason for the expansion is the rapid growth in Lincoln County, between 1.5 and 3 percent for each of the last five years, according to Picard. Today, the ranks have swelled to 430 families in 13 towns from Wiscasset to Waldoboro and between Jefferson and Pemaquid. In October, Picard will add Our Lady Queen of Peace in Boothbay Harbor to his pastoral duties and the crowded conditions will get worse as the number of Masses at St. Patrick’s must be reduced.

It is a sense of history, however, that binds the parish and makes St. Patrick’s a special spiritual place. Frederick Harrigan of Sheepscot Village believes it is the past that led him to study to be a deacon and become part of the church’s future.

“I retired here six years ago from New Hampshire,” he said after an outdoor Mass last month. “This is a very special place and being here has given a spiritual boot in the seat of the pants. I am not sure I would have decided to pursue the diaconate if I had been in a suburban parish with a different kind of history. This very definitely is a different kind of place.”

That feeling of uniqueness is what Picard said the building project needs as the congregation works to connect its rich history with an unknown future.

Masses are celebrated at 5 p.m. Saturdays, 8 and 10:30 a.m. Sundays in the parish center. During summer months, services are held outside, weather permitting. A Latin Mass is held at noon the second Sunday of the month in the original church. For more information, call 563-3240.