St. Susanna Church is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of the

Archdiocese of Boston The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Boston () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its mother church is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross (Boston), Cathedral o ...

. It is located in

Dedham, Massachusetts Dedham ( ) is a New England town, town in, and the county seat of, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Located on Boston's southwestern border, the population was 25,364 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. First settled by E ...

, at 262 Needham St. The

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

is Father Stephen S. Josoma, and Laurence J. Bloom is the

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian denominations, such as the Cathol ...

. It is known as "one of the most liberal parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston."

History

20th century

The parish was founded in 1960 due to

overcrowding Overcrowding or crowding is the condition where more people are located within a given space than is considered tolerable from a safety and health perspective. Safety and health perspectives depend on current environments and on local cultural ...

at St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Dedham. By the 1930s St. Mary's was one of the biggest parishes in the Archdiocese with over 6,000 parishioners and 1,300 students in Sunday School. During the middle of that decade there were four priests and six nuns ministering to the congregation. In the 1950s it became clear that a second parish was needed in Dedham, and so St. Susanna's was established in February 1960 to serve the needs of the Riverdale neighborhood. When St. Susanna's opened it had 300 families, while 2,500 stayed at St. Mary's. During construction, masses were held at

Moseley's on the Charles Moseley's on the Charles, located on the banks of the Charles River in Dedham, Massachusetts, was the oldest continuous-running ballroom in the country. Founded in 1905 by Elisha Moseley, it originally functioned as a summer canoe house in addition ...

. The first pastor of St. Susana's, Father Michael Durant, lived at St. Mary's while his church was being constructed. The first mass was said in the new church on February 11, 1962. The church was named by Cardinal

Richard Cushing Richard James Cushing (August 24, 1895 – November 2, 1970) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1944 to 1970 and was made a cardinal in 1958. Cushing's main role was as fundraiser and builder ...

after his titular church,

Santa Susanna The Church of Saint Susanna at the Baths of Diocletian () is a Roman Catholic, Catholic parish church, parish and Cistercian conventual church located on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, Italy. There has been a titular church associated to its site as ...

, in Rome.

21st century

In 2000, average attendance at Sunday mass was 1,671, making it the 63rd most active parish out of the 357 parishes then in the archdiocese. It performed the 314th most sacraments in 2001–2002. The parish garnered the attention of national media during

Advent Advent is a season observed in most Christian denominations as a time of waiting and preparation for both the celebration of Jesus's birth at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Chri ...

2018 when the

Nativity scene In the Christian tradition, a nativity scene (also known as a manger scene, crib, crèche ( or ), or in Italian ''presepio'' or ''presepe'', or Bethlehem) is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmastide, Christmas season, of ar ...

outside of the church showed the

Baby Jesus The Christ Child—also known as Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, Child Jesus, Divine Child, Divine Infant and the Holy Child—refers to Jesus Christ during his early years. The term refers to a period of Jesus' life, described in the canonical Gospe ...

in a cage and the

three wise men 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies ...

separated from the others by a fence labeled "deportation." The scene was a statement on the

Trump administration family separation policy The family separation policy under the First presidency of Donald Trump, first Trump administration was a controversial immigration enforcement strategy implemented in the United States from 2017 to 2018, aimed at Immigration policy of the f ...

and on the condition of

refugees A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

more generally. The parish is a member of Parishes Organized to Welcome Immigrants and Refugees (POWIR).

Notes

References

Works cited

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Susanna Church, Dedham, Massachusetts Roman Catholic churches in Massachusetts Roman Catholic parishes of Archdiocese of Boston Churches in Dedham, Massachusetts Christian organizations established in 1960 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1960 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States