Pastor led St. Luke’s for 47 years
When Msgr. Gerald Ryan became pastor of St. Luke’s Roman Catholic Church on E. 138th Street, his new parish was beginning to change. Puerto Ricans were replacing the Irish and Italians who had been the congregation’s backbone.
So their priest learned Spanish, the better to serve them.
A son of the old Bronx, whose father drove a subway and whose parents were both immigrants from Ireland, he spent his life ministering to people from cultures other than his own–the African Americans and Latinos who began arriving in New York in great numbers from World War II on.
He marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama and withstood the destruction of a South Bronx ravaged by drugs, arson and abandonment.
For 47 years, Ryan remained the mainstay of St. Lukes and its flock, until his death on April 11 at the age of 93.
He was the longest-serving priest in New York City, according to The New York Times.
Three years ago, when St. Luke’s School marked its 100th birthday, it celebrated the pastor as much as the school’s history. Ryan linked the past to the present of the school and church, Principal Tracey Coleman reminded the members of the congregation and returning alumni. Most of them had never known another pastor.
Born in Harlem in 1920, Ryan moved with his family to the Pelham Bay section of the East Bronx when he was 2. “Pelham Bay was farmland,” he told an interviewer for NYU’s Ireland House oral history project. “We grew our own vegetables and had fruit trees.”
Ordained in 1945, he was assigned to St. Anthony of Padua, a primarily African-American parish on E. 166th Street, where he remained for 21 years and where he became active in the civil rights movement. He joined demonstrations, including the March on Washington in 1963.
Two years later, in Selma, he met Martin Luther King, when King asked to meet separately with the Roman Catholic clergy to express his gratitude for their participation. “There were the rednecks down there with their billys and rocks and whatever,” he told the oral history interviewer, but he was among those who decided to march no matter what.
At St. Luke’s, as people began to flee the fires, he helped build new apartments, and he worked with parishioners to create a community center in the church. He had a special affinity for the young, according to the church’s centennial history, The History of St. Luke’s Parish, 1897-1997 by Roland Chapdelaine, which noted that “The young people, in turn, influenced Father Ryan; and, over time, his style of clothing, his long hair, his beard, reflected their styles, and became part of his St. Luke’s persona.”
In his NYU interview, recorded when he was 85, the priest described a typical day. He awoke at 6, celebrated mass at 7:15 and 8:45, presided over a funeral at 10, then went to the school to talk to the children. After lunch, he and Fr. John Grange, the pastor of Mott Haven’s St. Jerome’s, would practice Tai Chi, he said.
At the Saint Luke School anniversary, the monsignor made a point of his efforts to help single mothers navigate the bureaucracy to enroll their children in St. Luke’s and other local Catholic schools.
And he reminded the children, as he did each month, to attend a special “promise Mass” for peace on the first Friday of each month.
Some at St. Luke’s remembered Msgr. Ryan as a modest and approachable man whose primary concern was for the people of Mott Haven.
“I’m still here because of Father Ryan. You could go and ask him anything,” said Helen Williams, 56, a Mott Haven native who has worked at St. Luke’s school for three decades. She attended the church as a child, and graduated from the school in 1970. Years later, Msgr. baptized her children.
“I remember when he had the red hair and the beard” and wore a beret, she said, adding that the pastor was uncomfortable with the label ‘Monsignor.’
“He was just an ordinary guy for us,” she said.
Sonia Andujar, 55, who also attended the church and school as a child, returned to St. Luke’s in 1979 to teach pre-kindergarten, “because this was a special place,” and has been there since then. Msgr. Ryan performed her wedding ceremony and baptized her three children.
“Sometimes he was a little stern, but he was always fair,” said Andujar, who grew up on Cypress Avenue two blocks away, where she still lives. She remembered the pastor as an eloquent and compelling speaker. “You’d always think it was just Father Ryan and you at the Mass,” she said.
But, Andujar recalled, the pastor looked “paler and slower” at last year’s Christmas party, and had stopped coming to Mass in recent months.
Msgr. Ryan spent his final days in a hospice for priests.
Wake and funeral services are scheduled for Monday, April 15, between noon and 7 p.m. at St. Luke’s Church, 623 E. 138th St. Mass of The Eucharist will be held at 7:30 p.m. Funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, April 16, at 10:30 a.m.
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Msgr. Ryan was one of the truest deciples of Christ and I consider myself to have been blessed to have worked with him at St. Luke’s during the 70’s and 80’s. He is now with Jesus, the savior he worked so hard to imitate. RIP-Gerry.
Rip Father Ryan you will be missed.
One of Father Ryan’s characteristics that stands out was his youthful, agile mind. His ability to empathize and connect was only equaled by his desire to learn, understand, forgive, and look forward. He was a rare, and important human being to so many.
This isn’t a coincidence that I just happen to discover the Mott Haven Herald. I live in Texas, but was born (in St. Francis Hospital) and raised in the heart of the Mott Haven area (137th street, later 147th street & Tinton, next the Samuel Gompers), going to St. Luke’s from the first to the fifth grade in the early to mid 60’s. I served as an altar boy with “Father Ryan” and remember him as a down to earth, no frills and thrills priest dedicated to the ministry. True story, one day I was scheduled to serve mass with him, and I thought I would be slick and take a few sips of wine while I prepared for mass. I didn’t know he was watching me, and to this day, I still don’t know how he saw me. He came out and socked me in my armed so hard, I fought back the tears. He said suck it up and don’t ever do it again. I tell you honestly, I had been thinking about him and the other priests who served with him. Such as Father Kelly and Father Carrol. Growing up in the Bronx and being a part of St. Luke’s was really great, and most memorable. The Irish priests, nuns and lay workers played a very important part in my life and thank them deeply for giving themselves for the service of the ministry.
I can go on and on but one thing I do know, “absent from the body, present with the LORD.” Well done Dear Friend. I’m not in a rush to visit with you yet, but I continue to pray that my eternal home will include a visit with you, Father Ryan.
!SHOUT OUT! High on the 5ive, St. Luke’s!! ^5