Excerpt from a new story by Peter Feurherd in U.S. Catholic, September 2020:
On a winter’s day in New York City early in 2020, urban religion expert Tony Carnes walks down Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens, a boulevard that can be defined as crowded grit, with a single Starbucks as a concession to gentrification.
Some refer to the neighborhood as the most ethnically diverse in the nation, if not the world. The street is adorned with signs in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, and, occasionally, English.
Most would marvel at the diversity of ethnic dishes for sale. But for Carnes, there’s more to see on this cold winter afternoon amid crowded streets that would later empty during the spring novel coronavirus crisis.
As he munches on lunch in an Asian food court, Carnes identifies the religious symbols adorning the modest food stands: a Filipino Christian cross, Buddhist symbols, and Islamic crescents.
For Carnes, the area is a faith cornucopia, a glimpse at a Big Apple he insists is one of the most religious places in the country. Move over, Bible Belt, he says: New York is where faith reigns and secularism takes a back seat. Although the novel coronavirus has shifted what some of the city’s religious expression looks like, the city’s vibrant religious identity remains even in the aftermath of pandemic. …
A Catholic revival
Catholics are a big part of New York’s religious identity, says Carnes. But he thinks many Catholics are suffering a hangover from the church’s sexual abuse scandals. There is, he says, a lack of confidence, a sense that the faith moment has passed American Catholics by.
But some immigrants are telling, and believing, another story. Although older groups of Catholics continue to settle in the suburbs, their immigrant replacements embrace faith in creative and different ways.
Before the novel coronavirus pandemic, St. Bartholomew Church in Elmhurst offered Masses in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Bengali, and Indonesian for some 5,500 parishioners. Even during the pandemic, thousands participated via online Masses in English and Spanish. …
An ecology of faith
Back in Elmhurst, scholars study the neighborhood as a laboratory for how diverse religious communi ties function.
Richard Cimino, a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Old Westbury and editor of Religion Watch, spent much of2018 and 2019 tracking religious life in the neighborhood with a colleague, Hans Tokke, a professor of sociology at New York City College ofTechnology in Brooklyn.
Within a few blocks, Cimino spent time with 15 religious congregations, including Buddhist, Jain, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Baptist, Muslim, and megachurch evangelicals. He found regular patterns. …
On Queens Boulevard, the other main thoroughfare that cuts through Elmhurst, two megachurches have sprung up: New Life Fellowship and The Rock, a congregation that took over a historic movie theater. Each boasts more than 1,000 congregants.
The megachurches are separate but have a similar appeal to the groups at established Catholic parishes, says Cimino. These parishes, along with other established mainstream Christian churches, take in new immigrants and reinforce language and culture from the old countries. Their children, meanwhile, often gravitate toward megachurch congregations, which are sometimes seen as an aid to navigating professional work and family life. …
Faith in the midst of pandemic
The religious ecology of the city was thrown out of whack during the pandemic. Carnes would be awakened by the sounds of ambulances on their way to Elmhurst Hospital, the city facility that led the evening newscasts, as thousands battling the virus waited outside during the early days of the pandemic. Some nights the hospital experienced more than a dozen deaths. …
By the end of May, more than 60 parishioners from St. Bart’s had died from the virus. Other parishes reported similar tolls. At Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Corona, Queens, the toll included the illness of Father Raymond Roden, the pastor, and deaths and unemployment among nearly 10,000 parishioners, many of whom are undocumented immigrants…. Priests, including Father Jorge Ortiz-Garay, a Brooklyn priest noted for his work among his fellow Mexican immigrants, were among the fatalities (Ortiz-Garay is thought to be the first priest in the United States to die from COVID-19).
Carnes, living in the midst of the pandemic, is already seeing patterns. …
The city’s future is in serious question. Can a crowded metropolis emerge in an era of social dis tancing? Carnes, for one, will remain, the chronicler of religious life among the immigrants. Those churches, mosques, and temples, he believes, will have a say in how this epic story develops. Faith, in all its abundant forms in New York’s immigrant communities, is sure to continue. Those religious symbols in the Asian food court assuredly will have more use.
The whole story can be read in U.S. Catholic. Faith in Real Life, September 20, pages 20-25.
Peter Feuerherd is the news editor for National Catholic Reporter and an adjunct professor of journalism at St . John’s University, New York. He is the author of The Radical Gospel of Bishop Thom as Gumbleton (Orbis Books) .
