St. Michael's Monastery: The Early Days
Edited by Morgan P. Hanlon, C.P.
With the recent announcement that the Passionists will be retiring from the pastoral care of Sts. Joseph's & Michael's Parish in Union City as well as St. Joseph's in Baltimore, a glorious era comes to an end. We have been in Union City (known as West Hoboken until 1926) since 1863 and in Baltimore from a few years later. St. Michael's Monastery was, during most of this time, our Motherhouse, the principal American Passionist foundation. From her precincts a series of dedicated, self-sacrificing men went forth to carry the Good News to the four corners of the world. For 118 years, from 1863 to 1981, American Passionists were sent out from St. Michael's to labor in the USA and Canada. Beginning in 1880, they went also to Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, China, the Philippines, Haiti, Honduras, Botswana. No wonder that St. Michael's Monastery became known as "The Mother of Missionaries."
With this in mind, we think it appropriate to tell once again, the story of the beginnings of St. Michael's Monastery and of how we Passionists came to West Hoboken. In the beginning it is the story of a zealous French priest, Rev. Anthony Cauvin, the "Apostle of North-East Jersey." The story is also a tribute to all the men of St. Michael's who went forth to work for the triumph of the Cross at home and abroad and in a special way, it is the story of Fr. Gaudentius Rossi, C.P. who secured the foundation for us. May their names be great before God.
(The following has been excerpted and abridged from Historical Sketch of St. Michael's Monastery Parish 1862-1912, privately printed in 1914.
In 1847 there landed in the City of New York a priest (Continued on page 4) who was to be occupied in a remarkable manner in the first developments of what is now St. Michael's Parish. This was Father Anthony Cauvin—a name never to be forgotten when speaking of the development of Catholicism in North Hudson County.
Father Anthony Cauvin was born August 23rd, 1810, at Sclos, a fertile hamlet in the suburbs of Nice, then a part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. He was the son of Giacomo Cauvin and Margarita Castelli, and was next to the youngest of ten children. Both father and mother were persons of exemplary life and character who spared no effort or sacrifice to bring up their children in a pious and God-fearing way, and, as if for their reward, they lived to see three of their sons—the subject of this sketch and his two older brothers, Dom Sixte and Dom Eugene, as they were called—ordained priests.
After such preliminary education as was afforded by the schools in his native town the future priest, then in his sixteenth year, entered as a student at the Grand Seminary of Avignon, where he spent four years in the study of philosophy and theology.
The revolution of 1830 which raised Louis Phillippe to the throne, closed the seminary, and the young student returned to Nice, where he devoted another year to his studies in theology, at the same time serving as private secretary to the Vicar General of Bishop Colonna.
The following year he went to Turin, where he attended lectures in moral philosophy delivered by Gaula, a noted theologian. At this time he resided with the family of Count Prola for whose son he acted as tutor.
The next year found him at Monaco assisting his brother Dom Sixte, a scholarly man, who had there established a college which numbered among its pupils the sons of many of the well-to-do families of the neighborhood. After two years service at the college the young student went to Rome, where, on October 12, 1834, he was ordained priest by Cardinal Brignole-Sale.
For about nine years following his ordination, Father Cauvin taught in a college near Genoa. In 1844, tired and in poor health, he left the college and returned to Nice for rest. Thinking to recuperate his health by travel, he went to Turin in 1845, where for a short time he was private chaplain to Count Cavour, the father of the famous minister. Finally he decided to come to America and in 1847 he landed in the city of New York, and entered at once on his priestly work as an assistant to Father Lafont, the first permanent pastor of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul. This church, then better known as the French Church, was located at No. 26 Canal Street a short distance east of Broadway on the site of the former Protestant Episcopal Church of the Annunciation, which had been destroyed by fire.
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