ABOUT OUR PARISH

Good Shepherd had humble beginnings. A group of Catholics met in a privately owned one-room school house and discussed wanting to have their own parish instead of traveling to nearby communities to worship. The group called themselves the Catholic Action Committee and began the process of petitioning the Bishop of Erie for a new parish.

Land was purchased and the committee took their petition to Archbishop John Mark Gannon. Bishop Gannon visited the site in the summer of 1955 and shortly thereafter decreed on Sept. 30, 1955 the establishment of the Church of the Good Shepherd, so named because the CAC described themselves as “Christ’s lost sheep.”

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The Archbishop appointed Rev. Salvatore Mitchell as its first pastor to tend to its flock. He arrived October 4, 1955 and the first Mass of the newly established parish was celebrated on Oct. 9, 1955 in the old West Middlesex High School gym. It was attended by approximately 325 people. 

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A small home was erected on the church’s 13 acre property in December 1955 to serve as a rectory site and as a place to say daily Mass. In 1959 the present rectory was built. On July 22, 1956 ground was broken for the construction of the social hall, now known as the Monsignor Mitchell Center, in which Mass was held and fund-raisers took place.

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Within nine years ground was broken in the summer of 1965 for the present church building, the first circular church in the area. The first Mass in the new church was celebrated on May 22, 1966.