"In 1916, Bishop Charles McDonnell observed that the Spanish-speaking population of New York City had been growing since the 1890s, and with it, the need to provide services to the Catholic community among them. So, he took action. Bishop McDonnell established Our Lady of Pilar on Cumberland Street in Fort Greene in 1916 as a mission church catering to Spanish-speaking people, according to "History of the Diocese of Brooklyn," a comprehensive account of the diocese's origins written by Msgr. John Kean Sharp."
"At the dedication Mass, Bishop McDonnell was accompanied to Our Lady of Pilar by Bishop Antonio Monestel of Honduras, a visiting priest from Mexico, whose name was not reported by Msgr. Sharp, in his book, delivered the homily. To serve the parishioners of the church, Bishop McDonnell reached across the Atlantic Ocean to Spain. He asked priests from a Vincentian order in Barcelona to come to Brooklyn, and they accepted his invitation. One of them, Father Antonio Canas, was installed as the church's pastor."
The Diocese of Brooklyn, known as the "Diocese of Immigrants," has served Spanish-speaking Catholics in their native language for more than a century. Bishop Charles McDonnell noted the growing Spanish-speaking population and established Our Lady of Pilar in Fort Greene in 1916 as a mission church for that community. Visiting Latin American clergy participated in the dedication, and McDonnell invited Vincentian priests from Barcelona to staff the parish, installing Father Antonio Canas as pastor. The diocese began sending priests to the University of Salamanca to learn Spanish, a practice that continued for decades and included programs sending newly ordained priests to Puerto Rico.
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