Diocesan News

Only in Print: St. Boniface: A Destination Parish | January 18, 2020

The Oratory Church of St. Boniface, Downtown Brooklyn, offers a coffee hour after the 11:15 a.m. Mass every Sunday, where attendees can enjoy free coffee and food, and socialize with their neighbors. (Photo: Jazmin Rosa)

By Jazmin Rosa

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — The Oratory Church of St. Boniface, Downtown Brooklyn, doesn’t have a problem filling up its church for Mass. In fact, the opposite is true: Masses often draw standing room-only crowds.

That’s partly because the parish’s sense of community and vibe draw church-goers from different neighborhoods in Brooklyn. People commute to go to Mass there. It’s a “destination parish.”

“Good music, accessible preaching and a sense of community” attract parishioners to the Oratory, Father Mark Lane, the pastor, said.

“A lot of these people are friends, and have been coming here since even before (I arrived),” he noted…


The rest of this article can be found exclusively in the Jan. 18 printed version of The Tablet. You can buy it at church for $1, or you can receive future editions of the paper in your mailbox at a discounted rate by subscribing here. Thank you for supporting Catholic journalism.