The Oratory: 75 years of abiding faith

Following are important dates in the history of The Oratory in Rock Hill, including some of the social causes in which members were involved:

1934: Father Paul Hatch leads about dozen young men to Rock Hill to establish the Oratory, a new mission for a small but growing Catholic population.

Mid-1930s: St. Philip's Mercy Hospital on Confederate Avenue is operated by The Franciscan Sisters of Peoria, who were invited to Rock Hill by the Diocese and The Oratory. The hospital closes in the 1950s due to a lack of funds to build a new hospital.

1937: The Oratory School for Boys opens, a boarding school that is later closed for lack of funds.

1940s: The Oratory helps to establish labor unions for Rock Hill textile mill employees, enabling workers to press for better conditions.

1946: St. Mary's Catholic Church is established on Crawford Road in Rock Hill. A recreation center serves the youth.

1947: About 100 Catholic families in Rock Hill worship in a tiny church on Saluda Street. Catholics make up about half of 1 percent of the state's population.

1951: A credit union is established with the recreation center to help people get loans and encourage them to save money. The union operates until about 1980.

1954: St. Anne Catholic School, at the church rectory on Saluda Street, becomes the first racially integrated school in South Carolina. A new school is built on South Jones Avenue in 1958.

1960s: Members of the Oratory support the civil rights movement and local sit-in participants. They help local black citizens register to vote.

1975: The Oratory brings the first of several hundred refugees from Southeast Asia to Rock Hill. Later, it expands the ministry to include Hispanic immigrants.

Today: About 5,000 families worship at five different Catholic churches in York County -- two in Rock Hill and others in Fort Mill, York and Lake Wylie. Catholics make up about 4.5 percent of the state's population.

1934: Father Paul Hatch leads about dozen young men to Rock Hill to establish the Oratory, a new mission for a small but growing Catholic population.

Mid-1930s: St. Philip's Mercy Hospital on Confederate Avenue is operated by The Franciscan Sisters of Peoria, who were invited to Rock Hill by the Diocese and The Oratory. The hospital closes in the 1950s due to a lack of funds to build a new hospital.

1937: The Oratory School for Boys opens, a boarding school that is later closed for lack of funds.

75 years of abiding faith

1940s: The Oratory helps to establish labor unions for Rock Hill textile mill employees, enabling workers to press for better conditions.

1946: St. Mary's Catholic Church is established on Crawford Road in Rock Hill. A recreation center serves the youth.

1947: About 100 Catholic families in Rock Hill worship in a tiny church on Saluda Street. Catholics make up about half of 1 percent of the state's population.

1951: A credit union is established with the recreation center to help people get loans and encourage them to save money. The union operates until about 1980.

1954: St. Anne Catholic School, at the church rectory on Saluda Street, becomes the first racially integrated school in South Carolina. A new school is built on South Jones Avenue in 1958.

During the 1940s, York County textile workers labored for long hours under poor working conditions, and some died from job-related ills like brown lung.

Before the civil rights movement, African-Americans were banned from white establishments, and there was no place for the youths to have fun.

And during the 1970s, refugees from Southeast Asia sought their freedom in the United States, but many needed help to assimilate into their new communities.

Each time, members of The Oratory in Rock Hill were involved in working for change, and in helping improve conditions for the poor and the underprivileged.

"We always thought, we can see people dying from brown lung in the mills, being discriminated against -- we always thought that we had to get involved," said the Rev. Joseph Wahl.

This year marks the beginning of the 75th year that the Oratory has been in Rock Hill. The community of 16 Catholic priests and brothers -- which turns 75 on May 26, 2009 -- will be honored for its service on Thursday, during a Valentine's Day dinner and celebration at the Baxter Hood Center.

"It's my way of thanking them for letting me to settle in Rock Hill," said Rock Hill restaurant owner Thi Le, one of the event organizers, whose in-laws were assisted by the Oratory when they arrived from Vietnam in 1975.

"They gave us the beginning in Rock Hill years back," Le said. "I have always longed to do something for them . . . Many friends in the community feel the need to honor them as well."

The Oratory, founded in 1575 by St. Philip Neri of Florence, Italy, is a place where ordained and secular ministers pray, preach, evangelize and live as a community. There are six Oratory communities in the United States. The Rock Hill Oratory, established in 1934, was the first one in this country.

The priests and brothers who are members of the Oratory make a lifetime commitment, unlike many priests, who serve a parish for a few years and then move on. Oratory members also serve York County's five Catholic churches, preaching and ministering to the members.

"If it were not for the Oratory, the bishop of Charleston would not have had the priests to come up here," said St. Anne Catholic Church member Joe Berger, another event organizer.

"I don't know how they would have been able to staff the parishes in and around York County," he said. "Without the Oratory, we certainly wouldn't have grown the way that we have."

But Wahl, now 78, who arrived at the Rock Hill Oratory in 1947, when he was 18 years old, said the members also have worked for social change.

Wahl sees that as part of their charge. "The Catholic church has always had a position that you can't separate the gospel from life," he said.

One early member of the Oratory helped establish unions for local textile workers, enabling them to lobby for better working conditions, he said.

And Wahl's elder brother, the late Rev. Edward Wahl, also a Rock Hill Oratorian, worked among the poor black community. He raised the money to build St. Mary's Catholic Church on Crawford Road. The church was finished in 1947.

"He had this vision," Wahl said of his brother, who established a recreation center at St. Mary's, where black youths could attend dances, play basketball, enjoy milkshakes and have a young men's and women's club.

"The money, he went out and begged for it," Wahl said about his brother, who raised $20,000 of the $39,000 needed for St. Mary's. The balance was given by the Catholic bishop.

After the church was established, Edward Wahl ministered to the black community there. Said Joseph Wahl: "That was significant during the '40s, to reach out to the impoverished black community, because of racial segregation."

Brother David Boone, 75, who came to the Oratory in 1951, was assigned to St. Mary's church in 1959, and continued working with the community.

During the early 1950s, Boone said, a credit union was established at the recreation center that operated until about 1980. "People couldn't get loans from the banks," he said.

During the 1960s, Boone teamed with the Rev. Robert Toatley to help black citizens register to vote. The two saw that many citizens were not registering to vote, perhaps because they were intimidated, he said.

"We took them in cars and church buses to get registered," said Boone. "They didn't mind going, as long as we were there with them to give them support."

And the Oratory was involved with the integration of St. Anne Catholic School, which started in a Saluda Street home in 1954 and became the first integrated school in South Carolina. The school was built in 1958 on South Jones Avenue.

Wahl recalls that not everyone was supportive of the school's integration, and some parents voiced disagreement. But Wahl said Oratory members were firm.

"We certainly took a cue from the gospel and from our own convictions," Wahl said. "Where we were able to give good leadership is that we didn't do it as attacking them, putting them down, but just gently trying to bring them along . . . We stood our ground."

Boone said the Oratory also backed the Catawaba Indian Nation's effort to reclaim its federal recognition and land "at a time when it wasn't very popular, but it was most helpful and supportive to them, and they appreciated it very much."

He said they also supported the civil rights movement, including Rock Hill sit-in participants now known as Friendship Nine, and the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr.

Said Wahl: "We saw the difference between rights and opportunities. To this day, African-Americans suffer from lack of opportunities. They certainly have the right."

During the 1970s, the Oratory and members of St. Anne's Catholic Church collaborated to bring a family of Vietnamese refugees to Rock Hill.

They sponsored the 21 members of the Van Kai Phan and Tu Phan family -- brothers who still live here. Van Kai, who attends St. Anne church, said his family appreciates the help they received. "My family is doing well."

Now the Oratory has turned its attention to other issues, like the Hispanic community, which is served by Spanish worship services on Sunday.

And there is the ongoing problem of poverty.

"I think the Oratory has to continue to work with the poor in whatever way is needed to alleviate that cycle," said Boone, who shops and picks up food for the Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen in Rock Hill. "You see the people there and the need for it."

The Rev. William Pentis, 76, who came to the Oratory in 1959, has been involved in senior citizen work.

He also has operated a popular Bible camp for youth at Kings Mountain State Park.

Pentis said the Oratorians' lifetime commitment to the local community encourages them to get involved in making positive change.

"When you plan to stay in one place the rest of your life, you are encouraged to get more involved with the day to day, with the community," Pentis said.

It's also rewarding to get to know the people of the community, Pentis said.

"You really see people. Getting to know children's children's children is quite a blessing. There's a closeness that develops when you're in one place. That stability is quite a gift."

1960s: Members of the Oratory support the civil rights movement and local sit-in participants. They help local black citizens register to vote.

1975: The Oratory brings the first of several hundred refugees from Southeast Asia to Rock Hill. Later, it expands the ministry to include Hispanic immigrants.

About 5,000 families worship at five different Catholic churches in York County -- two in Rock Hill and others in Fort Mill, York and Lake Wylie. Catholics make up about 4.5 percent of the state's population.

This story was originally published February 9, 2008 at 11:31 PM with the headline "The Oratory: 75 years of abiding faith."