Local
Father Belschner named to East Boston parish

By Father Robert M. O'Grady
Posted: 7/25/2003

Most Rev. Richard Lennon, Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese, has announced the appointment of Father Wayne Belschner from parochial vicar at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Woburn to pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in East Boston. The effective date of this new assignment was June 16, 2003.

A native of Revere, Father Belschner was ordained at Holy Cross Cathedral in May 1995 by Cardinal Law. His only previous assignment was as parochial vicar at St. Charles Parish.

Moving from Woburn to East Boston, while not a long trek geographically, will be a genuine change for the new pastor. The Woburn parish has a very busy sacramental schedule and a large, well-established Catholic population. With the parish grammar school and numerous ongoing activities, Father Belschner had been especially active with the youth of the parish and with the wider community of Woburn.

At East Boston, Father Belschner will find a large parish with a changing population, with an ever-increasing number of Hispanics from different nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean. Sacred Heart still has a number of the “old East Boston families” many of them of Italian or Irish ancestry. The parish once had its own parish grammar and high schools. Now the parish is part of a collaborative effort among several of the East Boston’s parishes which support East Boston Central Catholic, an inter-parish grammar school.

Father Belschner brings to Sacred Heart his youthful enthusiasm, an awareness of the tasks ahead, and a determined commitment to involvement in the wider East Boston community.