St. Patrick

Welcome

Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and Forever! Welcome to the internet home of Saint Patrick Parish, serving Catholics in the Newport and Sunapee area of New Hampshire. Our parish is blessed to be a place of committed faith and love for the Lord Jesus and His Holy Church, deeply rooted in the revealed truths of the Gospel. If you are new to the area, curious about Catholicism, or returning to the Catholic Church after some time away, then you are most welcome here, and please consider introducing yourself after Sunday Mass.

Sacraments

The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments. (CCC 1113) While we believe that human life is infused with the sacramental goodness of God, the Catholic Church has defined seven sacraments - instituted by and through the life of Jesus Christ. It is through the experience of the sacramental ritual that we are infused with God’s grace. The Sacraments nourish and strengthen us as they express and build up our faith.

• Baptism
• Eucharist
• Confirmation
• Penance (Reconciliation)
• Anointing of the Sick
• Marriage
• Holy Orders

Parish History

A History of St. Patrick Parish Rev. Michael Monette, 2017 Historical Ecclesiastical Background In 1835, the Pope is Gregory XVI. Bartolomeo Cardinal Alberto Cappellari was elected to the Pontificate on Wednesday February 2nd, 1831 after a five-day conclave. He became the two hundred and fifty-fourth successor of St. Peter. He will reign fifteen years and one hundred and nineteen days until his death on June 1, 1846. He was a Benedictine monk and the last non-bishop to be elected as Holy Father. In 1835 Pope Gregory XVI issued the papal encyclical Commissum Divinitus (On Church and State) which reiterated the role of the Church and its shepherds: "This power of teaching and governing in matters of religion, given by Christ to His Spouse, belongs to the priests and bishops. Christ established this system not only so that the Church would in no way belong to the civil government of the state, but also so that it could be totally free and not subject in the least to any earthly domination. Jesus Christ did not commit the sacred trust of the revealed doctrine to the worldly leaders, but to the apostles and their successors.” Pope Gregory was also famous for his apostolic letter In Sumpremo Apostolatus, in which he condemns the slave trade: "Placed at the summit of the Apostolic power and, although lacking in merits, holding the place of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who, being made Man through utmost Charity, deigned to die for the Redemption of the World, We have judged that it belonged to Our pastoral solicitude to exert Ourselves to turn away the Faithful from the inhuman slave trade in Negroes and all other men.” In 1835 the Catholic Church in the United States is organized into a single ecclesiastical province as the Archdiocese of Baltimore, this area of the country having the greatest concentration of Catholic immigrants. All the territory of the United States belonged to the Archdiocese of Baltimore under the pastoral ministry of the Most Rev. Samuel Eccleston. There were only four dioceses within the Archdiocese of Baltimore: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Louisville. Each of these dioceses came under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The nation itself was comprised of only twenty-four states. In 1835 St. John Neumann completed his studies for the priesthood in Europe; his bishop in the Czech Republic, however, had decided that there was a surplus of priests and so refused to ordain the future saint. St. John Neumann traveled the following year to the United States in 1836, was ordained in Old Saint Patrick Cathedral in New York and was eventually ordained the fourth Bishop of Philadelphia. Today his body lays incorrupt in the lower Church of St. Peter in Philadelphia. He is the first American male saint to be canonized. Concurrent World Events 1835. January 8th marks the day that the United States was without a national debt. The nation’s balanced budget would last only one year. “On January 8, 1835, all the big political names in Washington gathered to celebrate what President Andrew Jackson had just accomplished. A senator rose to make the big announcement: "Gentlemen ... the national debt ... is PAID.” When President Andrew Jackson had taken office six years earlier, the national debt was $58 million dollars. Jackson’s presidency would prove to be t