The parish of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Red Hook celebrated its 170th anniversary on Sunday with a mass, a gala fundraiser, and a new song reflecting the history and community spirit of one of Brooklyn’s oldest churches.
Like other city churches, Visitation in 1854 first welcomed Italian, Irish and German immigrants, many of whom worked nearby on the docks and in factories. Now the church has been reborn as a community for Latin American Catholics, who have helped revive it under the guidance of an Italian pastor with a sparkling sense of humor.
Father Claudio Antecini's serendipitous journey to Brooklyn started with a missed connection. He originally arrived in the United States in the 1980s, thinking he was going to serve a Catholic community in New Jersey. When his ride didn’t show up at John F. Kennedy Airport, he felt lost, but only for a moment.
“Because then I saw a missionary I knew from my hometown in Italy at the airport,” Father Antecini said. “And he was the one who told me to come to Brooklyn.”
Although it took a few years, and a detour to California, Father Antecini arrived at Visitation in 2010. Down to about 60 parishioners, the church, built around 1897 after two earlier structures were lost to fires, was in disrepair, with peeling paint and $400,000 in debt.
“There was no money, no people and nothing in the building worked,” the pastor said. “It was mission impossible.”
Father Antecini, part of the community of priests and nuns of Koinonia John the Baptist, was determined to start a community with one simple mission: to help people. For two years, everyone who worked at the church did not collect a salary. Food was donated from other churches, and former parishioners who had moved away to Long Island and New Jersey would come on the weekends to fix things as best they could.
Then the church, built with dark Manhattan Schist in the gothic revival style, was hit with another crisis: flooding from Hurricane Sandy.
Father Antecini said the basement floor was still dirt in 2012 so water would often soak the floors during heavy rain. During Sandy, the water almost reached the basement ceiling.
“It was like a baptism for our church, for Red Hook,” the pastor recalled.
But the natural disaster was the fuel for the church to “distribute hope,” he said.
Church staff distributed hot meals twice a week, started a food bank and gave out clothes to nearby residents.
“It was a tough time, but it was also a renewal,” he said.
It took over a decade for the church to raise millions in funds to restore the building. Now, celebrating their 170th year (as well as the pastor’s 64th birthday), the interior has fresh paint, a restored main mural by Gustav Kinkelin, repaired light fixtures, and a cement basement floor.
The church also boasts several Tiffany stained-glass windows, as well as baptism and marriage records from 1854.
The parish now welcomes anywhere from 300 to 400 members to mass every week, many of them from nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods. Most are immigrants who speak Spanish, and many take part in guitar and vocal classes, while some adults train as waiters so they can get jobs in restaurants, according to Sister Emiliana Traversin.
On Sunday, Father Antecini talked to the parish about compassion and “opening your light to the world” during a tense political moment in the nation. An opera singer from Italy joined the celebration, as the pastor quizzed members about who was depicted in the ceiling murals. Sister Moira Close wrote and sang a moving, folksy number titled "The Stones Still Sing," about the church’s history.
Father Antecini continues to dream big. The acoustics of the church are so incredible, he would like the church fixed up completely so plays and musical performances can be produced there on a regular basis.
But the reconstruction has a long way to go: the church would like to fix its 1917 Reuben Midmer & Son pipe organ, the main floor and door, the electric system, the outdoor clocks and install an accessible elevator.
“The name Visitation means something,” Father Antecini said. “There are a lot of stories from all the people who have come through these doors. But they’ve all passed through here because they were looking for hope, for family.”
