A Brief History
St. Teresa of Avila R.C. Church is the story of America. It is the story of men and women who left the country of their birth and journeyed to a new land in search of opportunity and a better life—the founding Irish and Italian parishioners of St.
Teresa, facing intense discrimination in their adopted country, wanted a church of their own in which to worship.
In 1874, the Diocese of Brooklyn assigned the task of building St. Teresa of Avila to a young priest named Thomas McNamee, himself a newly arrived immigrant from Ireland. Under Father McNamee's stewardship, the founding parishioners would literally not only build the lower church with their own hands but also raise funds over the next fifty years to build a convent for the Sisters of St. Joseph, a residence for the Franciscan Brothers and two Catholic schools.
In 1887, the parish added a second floor to the existing church installed stained glass windows designed by the renowned Franz Mayer Studios of Munich, Germany (named by Pope Leo XIII as the company of the "Pontifical Institute of Christian Art.") Founding parishioners also raised money and built a second convent in the community for the Carmelite Nuns, an auditorium for community activities, as well as a vocational school to prepare young women for secretarial careers.
St. Teresa adheres to the mission begun by the founders as a place of worship for new immigrants. Almost a hundred years after the founding of St. Teresa of Avila, newly arriving Haitian immigrants would experience the same type of discrimination in seeking a place to worship as the church founders.
In the 1970s, St. Teresa became the first church in the United States to open its doors for worship and assistance to newly arriving Haitians.