A parish that has long been a haven for immigrants opened an 18-month centennial celebration with a low-key Saturday morning street party on June 12 outside the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington, D.C. The event took place on the 100th anniversary of when the shrine’s cornerstone was laid on June 12, 1921. The church was dedicated in December 1922.
A proclamation marking the occasion by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser noted the parish’s founding in 1899 and the construction of its shrine, a landmark of faith for the Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan neighborhoods of Washington. The proclamation, which was read by representatives of the District of Columbia government, also credited Sacred Heart School’s integration in 1951, three years before the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling, and acknowledged the role of the Capuchin Franciscan friars there since 1984, as well as the parish’s decades-long history of support for immigrant families and its multi-ethnic, multi-lingual community.
“In a world today where it somehow seems like the only constant is change,” the Shrine of the Sacred Heart long has been an anchor for the community, Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau said.
Before cutting a symbolic red ribbon to the church’s main entrance, Washington Auxiliary Bishop Mario Dorsonville called it “a real joy to be here” for the celebration and noted that “the picture from 100 years ago was kind of different.”
The names in news articles from 1921 were mostly Irish, as the Washington Post and the Baltimore Catholic Review announced the laying of a cornerstone for a grand church to house the fledging parish of Sacred Heart. A panoramic photo of the 100-plus member campaign organization, charged with raising funds for the building, showed rows of men in three-piece suits, straw boaters in hand, and women in Sunday dresses and summer bonnets. In the photo on display that morning outside the church everyone appears to be white. The photo caption touts an extraordinary fundraising accomplishment for 1920: raising $231,180 in 10 days.
In 2021, the kickoff of a slow-rolling celebration of the church’s anniversary had a decidedly more multicultural look. Before 9 a.m., a Guatemalan marimba band positioned at the top of the church steps woke the Mount Pleasant neighborhood with cheery music, prompting at least one couple to start dancing in the street.
In the church basement and in the yard in front of the rectory, volunteers prepared Salvadoran breakfast: pupusas or eggs, beans, plantains and sour cream.
Representatives of the parish’s Latin American, Haitian and Vietnamese communities lined up for a procession into the church, carrying statues, historic photos and a small display case. The case contained recently recovered items that had been placed in a capsule when the cornerstone was laid on June 12, 1921, including coins and newspapers from that time.
Inside the church, two dozen middle schoolers and young adults and their families waited in place for the Confirmation Mass to follow the brief ceremony outdoors. The names in the Confirmation program were mostly of Spanish origin, with one Ethiopian- and one Dutch-sounding name.
The brief ceremony on the church steps opened with Sacred Heart’s pastor, Capuchin Father Emilio Biosca, welcoming the dignitaries, neighbors and parishioners and outlining some of the events planned for the 18-month observance of the anniversary, to conclude next December, 100 years after the completed church was dedicated.
Goals for the anniversary period include renewing the parish’s spiritual life and renewing the church building. Events will include spiritual initiatives like promoting and re-establishing devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and five pilgrimages to locations as close as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, two and a half miles away, and as distant as St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal and the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.
In a nod to the parish’s role as a community base for the Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods, parishioner Lilo Gonzalez played “with much love” his song about how Sacred Heart was a refuge during the 1991 riots in the area. The neighborhood was the scene of violent protests after a D.C. police officer shot and wounded a Salvadoran man following a Cinco de Mayo celebration in nearby streets. The gathered community sang along to the chorus about living in Mount Pleasant and going to Sacred Heart, to the table of the Lord.
The festivities took place in the street outside the church, Sacred Heart Way, a quiet one-block stretch separating the sanctuary and rectory from a tiny triangle of a park fronting on 16th Street. As part of the 16th Street Bus Project, the city plans to convert the small street into the only legal way to turn left from northbound 16th Street onto westbound Park Road. The parish and the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission members oppose the plan as creating a dangerous traffic pattern. Father Biosca told the Catholic Standard he delivered a petition to Nadeau with almost 3,100 signatures asking that Sacred Heart Way be declared a “no thru street,” which would stop the city’s plan.
