25 years of mission in Turks and Caicos

In January, the Catholics of the Turks and Caicos celebrated 25 years of Missio Sui Iuris — the Archdiocese of Newark providing priests as well as pastoral and spiritual care to the faithful of the islands. 

The anniversary marks the transfer of the mission from the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Nassau to the Archdiocese of Newark. Nassau had not been able to provide resident full-time priests. Newark accepted the Mission Sui Iuris (an autonomous mission) and has staffed it with priests ever since.  

The celebration took place from Saturday, Jan. 26, to Monday, Jan. 29, and included the dedication of a cornerstone and land for the new St. Joseph Chapel to be built in Grace Bay. A Mass was co-celebrated with Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Newark, and Bishop Peter Baldacchino (Las Cruces), a former priest of Newark and former pastor of the mission. The gathering included an assembly at Holy Family Academy with students, parents, and faculty and a gala dinner.  

The weekend celebrated the memorable date, and the people of the Turks and Caicos and the Archdiocese reflected on “the miracles the Lord has done in these tiny islands,” said Father Luis Orlando González M.Div., Chancellor of the Mission, and Pastor Our Lady of Divine Providence. 

As some Catholic schools are closing and churches are being sold elsewhere in the world, the Catholic Church is growing in Turks and Caicos, he said. 

“We are building and growing. Fathers Renzo Scaramella and Joseph Barrow planted the seed in 1998. Then Father Peter, now Bishop from Las Cruces, and myself, from 2014 to the present, are witnesses of great things the Lord has done,” Father González said. 

The solidarity with the Church in Turks and Caicos has produced many blessings for the archdiocese as well the Catholic communities of the island nation, said Cardinal Tobin, who serves as the Ecclesiastical superior and provides priests from Newark for the mission. 

“Hearing the name of that country, many will think of luxury hotels that straddle beautiful beaches,” Cardinal Tobin said. “While the Church welcomes those folks, the real growth has been among the poor who do not appear in tourist brochures.” 

The archdiocese comes to the islands 

In 1998, the Archdiocese of Newark sent its first two priests — Fathers Renzo Scaramella and Jospeh Barrow — to work on the mission. Five months later, the Archdioceses of Nassau, Bahamas, handed over the Missio Sui Iuris on the balmy islands to the Archdiocese of Newark with canonical Confirmation as requested by the Holy See. At the time, there were two Catholic churches — Holy Cross and Our Lady of Divine Providence — and the population was about 10,000, comprised of locals or “belongers,” Haitian and Dominican immigrants, and expats from the U.S., South Africa, Great Britain, and Canada. The first English Mass celebrated by the Archdiocese of Newark priests drew about 10 people who were mainly tourists and expats, while the Creole Mass drew about 60 people, Bishop Baldacchino said.  

Father George Klybus who arrived in 2005 recalled the people on the island — the people who wanted to be off the grid, fun and adventure seekers, trade and service industry people, and even some running from the law: “The islands drew different types of people from different countries. We encountered a vast background of people. …We engaged these people and tried to draw them to the parish and Masses.”

Today, about 1,000 attend the Masses held five times a weekend at Our Lady of Providence and three times a weekend at Holy Cross and in Creole, Spanish, and English. Three priests are now assigned to the islands — Father González, Father Rafael Velazquez, and Father Paul Passant. Msgr. Ronald J. Rozniak, the Pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Ridgewood, is the Vicar General for the Missio Sui Iuris. 

According to Father González, records show that the first Catholic baptism occurred at Holy Cross in August 1967. The first sacrament of Confirmation was in July 1998. 

Our Lady of Divine Providence was built in 1989 and expanded twice, in 2004 and 2012 a new church was built. 

“The amount of people doubled by 2009 such that half of the congregation was obliged to sit on wooden benches outdoors, exposed to the sun and occasional sudden downpours of rain,” a church newsletter about the church expansion stated. 

Today, about 10% of the 54,000 residents practice Catholicism despite Anglicanism being the official religion of Turks and Caicos, Father González said. 

Seeing that the youth is the Church’s future, the priests sought to attract young people through recreational activities, mainly sports. When the priest arrived, most of the faithful had not yet received First Communion, and some had not been baptized. A faith formation program was put in place at the church. At least two of the students have now entered the seminary and one ordained priest for the Archdioceses of Newark. 

In 2006, Holy Family Academy opened with just seven children in kindergarten and first grade and has grown to 170 students this school year, now offering Pre-K to 12th grade. The school is also working with St. Thomas University, the archdiocesan university in Miami, to provide Catholic university classes. This year, nine students enrolled in the university. The faculty for the parish school are all missionaries. Faculty for the online university classes are hybrid and also all volunteers.  

“We believe that our students are called by Christ to be ‘the light of the world’ and every learning and spiritual experience in school is touched by this Biblical statement,” according to the school’s mission statement. 

The mission has seen some challenges, including in September 2008 when Hurricane Ike destroyed 90% of the island, including the parish houses. The priests rallied, however, and moved into trailers until a new rectory was completed in April 2011.Hurricane Irma also damaged some of the island and blew off the roof of the rectory in 2017. 

When the mission spread to South Caicos, an Anglican Church was used to offer Mass while St. Lucy’s was being built. St. Lucy’s first Mass was celebrated on Easter Sunday in 2011. 

Future plans include erecting a chapel in Grace Bay on the same island as the Mission but near the resort area. 

The priests of the islands 

All the priests serving on the islands are formed in the Redemptoris Mater Seminary of Newark.

“We, the Archdiocese of Newark, were chosen thanks to a large number of ordinations and having a missionary seminary RM [Redemptoris Mater],” Father González said. 

Pope John Paul II created Redemptoris Mater Seminaries in response to the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the ministry and life of priests. That decree, Presbyterorum ordinis Chapter III number 10, says:

“The spiritual gift which priests receive at their ordination prepared them not for a sort of limited and narrow mission but for the widest possible and universal mission of salvation “even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), for every priestly ministry shares in the universality of the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles. The priesthood of Christ, in which all priests really share, is necessarily intended for all peoples and all times, and it knows no limits of blood, nationality or time, since it is already mysteriously prefigured in the person of Melchisedech.(59) Let priests remember, therefore, that the care of all churches must be their intimate concern. Hence, priests of such dioceses as are rich in vocations should show themselves willing and ready, with the permission of their own ordinaries (bishops), to volunteer for work in other regions, missions or endeavors which are poor in numbers of clergy”.

The specific characteristics of Redemptoris Mater seminaries are an international character, with vocations coming from different nations; a missionary spirit that, upon ordination, the priests are available to go wherever the ordinary sends them; and a connection to the Neocatechumenal Way. 

Priests or seminarians sent from Newark to the islands would carry out 2-by-2 missions, going door to door in pairs to the most remote neighborhoods to announce the Gospel and the love of Christ to the poor and marginalized.

While the Catholic Church at one time had close to 50 of these missions, today, there are only eight of these missio Sui Iuris, with only two having U.S. superiors— Newark and Detroit. 

Four priests came from Newark joined in the celebration in January: Father George Klybus, the pastor of Nativity’s Midland Park; Father Wojciech Jaskowiak, pastor of Our Lady of Victories in Harrington Park; Father Frenel Phanord from St. Mary’s in Plainfield; and Father Raul Silva, who is currently a pastor on a mission in Minnesota. 

“The Catholic community in Turks and Caicos was deeply moved by the celebration of the 25th anniversary of having a permanent priest from Newark,” said Father González. 

The Jubilee event, which was granted by the Vatican until April 9, 2024, provided a special opportunity for Catholics in Turks and Caicos to gain indulgences through the Holy Door, Father González said. 

Although Cardinal Tobin visits the mission each year, he said this year’s was special.  

“The recent celebration of the quarter century of this solidarity was an explosion of joy and gratitude under a clear blue sky,” Cardinal Tobin said.