Harbor of Catholic Hospitality
Holy Family, Elizabeth City
When the Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge made his first pastoral visit to Holy Family in Elizabeth City, Pastor and Dean of the Albemarle Deanery Father Jim Buchholz joked that the deanery was “the farthest in the Diocese from Raleigh, but the closest to Rome.” Located in the extreme northeastern part of the state, Holy Family serves Catholics in five counties where the “local” media and many of the people’s jobs are in Virginia.
In the nineteenth century, Elizabeth City, nicknamed the “Harbor of Hospitality,” was the site of thriving lumber and oyster industries, but like most of North Carolina, home to very few Catholics. The first Mass wasn’t celebrated there until 1915, when a Canadian priest, Father John Doherty, on his way to retirement in Florida, said Mass in his hotel room. Father (later Msgr.) Doherty stayed until the parish church, not surprisingly named St. Elizabeth, was dedicated on July 21, 1928 by Bishop William J. Hafey.
In 1940, the Edmundite Fathers, missionaries headquartered in Selma, Alabama, with a special interest in evangelizing African Americans, looked towards the Diocese of Raleigh. After negotiations with Bishop Eugene J. McGuinness, Father William J. Lepage, S.S.E., traveled to Elizabeth City and moved into the St. Elizabeth rectory with Pastor Father Michael Carey. In a year’s time the Edmundites had purchased land on which was built the “colored” Catholic Church, a small red brick structure, called St. Catherine’s and staffed by Father Lepage and an assistant. The Holy Union Sisters of Fall River, Massachusetts, agreed to staff a grammar school for St. Catherine’s, and it opened in 1944.
The parishes and their schools grew side by side until, in 1978, both parish councils voted to merge into one parish, St. Elizabeth/St. Catherine. By 1989, continued growth required a new church, and Holy Family Parish was officially born on January 1, 1990.
In recent years Holy Family has added a family life center with a gym, industrial kitchen and classrooms, and built a church for its mission in Maple, NC, St. Katharine Drexel. Fr. Buchholz, a native of Southern Pines, NC, has been Pastor for six years. He cites the diversity of his congregation, and praises his parishioners: “Almost all the work of the parish and its maintenance is done by volunteers,” he says. He also praises Father Francisco Javier-Gonzalez and Sister Margaret Holleran, S.S.C., invaluable associates in faith formation for the growing Hispanic population at both Holy Family and St. Katharine Drexel, as well as the Sisters of Guadalupe who serve throughout the Albemarle Deanery.