St. Mary's Catholic Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one passing it along. Now, before the city of Orange was even a city — five years before it was incorporated, to be exact — a Catholic priest named Father P. F.

Parisot came through and conducted what the record shows as the earliest Catholic Mass in the area. That was 1853. A seed planted, you might say, in raw East Texas soil.

Then comes 1879, and this is where the story gets interesting. The local railroad superintendent, a man named Charles A. Barton, was apparently losing sleep over Orange's reputation.

The town had earned itself a name as a rowdy and lawless industrial place, and Barton decided something had to be done. So he made a request — and who answered that call was a native of France, the Reverend Vital Quinon. Father Quinon had a nickname.

They called him the Fighting Priest. Now the marker doesn't explain how a man of the cloth came to carry a title like that, but it does say he provided the leadership necessary for the formation of this church. You do the imagining.

He established it as St. Vital's, and from the start the parish was built on the shoulders of immigrants — German, Austrian, Irish, and Polish families putting down roots in a town that hadn't fully decided what it wanted to be yet. Father Quinon would carry that work until his death in 1894.

Significant growth, though — that's the marker's own phrase — began in 1896, when the Reverend J. M. Moran, born in 1859 and hailing from Ireland, was assigned as the first resident priest of the parish.

First resident. That distinction matters. Before him, this place had leadership; with him, it had a permanent presence.

Father Moran would remain part of this story until his death in 1922. In 1912, the congregation got a new name — St. Mary's Catholic Church — and in the nineteen-twenties, a school and a cemetery were established.

The parish was putting down roots in every sense of the word. And then came the Berberich brothers. The Reverend George Berberich, born in Germany, arrived in 1929.

Eight years later, in 1937, his brother — the Reverend Monsignor Joseph Berberich — joined him right here at St. Mary's. Two brothers, one church, one mission.

George would serve until his death in 1947. Joseph carried on until his death in 1980. Under their combined guidance, St.

Mary's grew into something larger than a congregation — a leader in community involvement, in quality education, and in the establishment of area missions. From a single Mass in 1853, in a place that didn't yet have a name on a map, to a church that shaped the character of an entire region. That's not a short story.

That's the long game, played out one priest and one generation at a time.

What the marker says

The earliest recorded Catholic Mass in the area was conducted by the Rev. P. F. Parisot in 1853, five years before the city of Orange was incorporated. In 1879 the Rev. Vital Quinon (d.1894), a native of France, came to Orange at the request of the local railroad superintendent Charles A. Barton, who was concerned about the city's reputation as a rowdy and lawless industrial town. Known as the "Fighting Priest," Father Quinon provided the leadership necessary for the formation of this church. Established as St. Vital's it originally served a parish comprised primarily of German, Austrian, Irish, and Polish immigrants. Significant growth began in 1896 when the Rev. J. M. Moran (1859-1922) of Ireland was assigned as the first resident priest of the parish. The congregational name was changed to St. Mary's in 1912 and a school and cemetery were established in the 1920s. Prominent church leaders have included the Rev. George Berberich (d.1947) of Germany, who came here in 1929, and his brother the Rev. Msgr. Joseph Berberich (d.1980), who joined him in 1937. Through their guidance, St. Mary's Catholic Church developed as a leader in community involvement, in quality education, and in the establishment of area missions.