By Tom Dalton
Staff writer
August 29, 2008 12:37 am SALEM — Cardinal Sean O'Malley is coming to Salem next week to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Immaculate Conception, the oldest Catholic church building in the Archdiocese of Boston. Immaculate Conception, the second-oldest parish in the archdiocese, was dedicated in 1858 to serve the large number of Catholic immigrants arriving in the city. The current building has been in use ever since. "This is the longest-serving church in Greater Boston," said the Rev. Timothy Murphy, the pastor. O'Malley will concelebrate a Mass on Sunday, Sept. 7, the first of his two visits to the North Shore next month. On Sept. 14, the cardinal is headed to Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the archdiocese, an event that is expected to draw hundreds of area Catholics. Immaculate Conception has been sending out invitations to its anniversary event. The church is inviting former priests who served at the church, as well as men who grew up in the parish and were later ordained. In addition, past and present parishioners, local officials and other dignitaries are being invited. The 11 a.m. service, which will feature both Spanish- and English-language choirs, is open to the public. Immaculate Conception is anticipating a large crowd, but probably not as large as the gathering for the first Mass in 1858. "Three thousand people filled the church that day," Murphy said. "But there were no fire laws in those days, I guess." The construction of this old church tells a story of Catholic immigration to America. Although Catholics were arriving from several different countries, there was a flood of immigrants during the Irish potato famine of the late 1840s and early 1850s. Before this brick-and-stone church was built, new parishioners used the former St. Mary's Church (the name changed to Immaculate Conception in 1858), which was a wooden structure located at Bridge and Mall streets. "Construction (of the new church) was started in 1857 following an incident in the old St. Mary's Church on Christmas Day 1856," according to a church press release. "The timbers of the old church actually began to groan and crack from bearing up the great numbers of Catholics in the parish, sending a clear signal that a new church was needed." A former estate on Walnut Street — now Hawthorne Boulevard — was purchased for $2,000 as the site of Immaculate Conception. The Rev. James Conway, the church pastor, oversaw the construction, but died a few months before the dedication. The construction of a new church became an occasion for changing its name. It was one of many churches to be named Immaculate Conception after Pope Pius IX proclaimed the "dogma of the Immaculate Conception" a few years earlier in Rome, referring to the belief that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born without original sin. St. James Church in Salem, which is on Federal Street, was dedicated on the same day in 1858, but that building has since been replaced. There is a cemetery chapel in South Boston that is older than Immaculate Conception, but it has not served continuously as a parish church.
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