Volume 1 and Volume 2 are available for sale after the 10:15 Mass at the museum. Cost is $30 for each.

This article was taken from the Reading Eagle marking the 275th Anniversary of the Founding of MBS in Bally, PA (Contact Bruce Posten: [email protected])

Monsignor Edward Coyle of Most Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church in Bally recently put the parish's 275th year of existence in perspective.
"George Washington was 9 years old when the church was founded in 1741 as St. Paul's Chapel in an area that once was called Goshenhoppen," said Coyle, adding that the church was essentially a Jesuit mission in the heart of Protestant Colonial Pennsylvania.

Many artifacts in the church speak to its age and special historical niche, including the Goshenhoppen Registry, which records baptisms, marriages and deaths from 1741 and was borrowed from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in the Philadelphia Archdiocese to be displayed at the church during this celebratory year.

But two other delicate artifacts, a 1752 church deed and the Catholic missal of founder the Rev. Theodore Schneider, circa the 1740s and written in what appears to be an almost microscopic hand, all in Latin, already have been returned by Coyle to the archives at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. "We had the items here for about three weeks, but, frankly, the deed was folded and very crinkly, and the missal (or Catholic prayer book) was very delicate," Coyle said. "I was glad to get it back to the archives at Georgetown."

It's not that there aren't other fascinating historic items housed in the church that not only relate to the structure, but also to the personalities that defined the church over the centuries.  It is a living parish, but also a museum.  In fact, it has a museum named after one of its 20th century pastors, the Monsignor Charles Allwein Museum, 610 Pine St., Bally.

"Basically, I'm the museum committee," said Michael Miller, 65, of Washington Township, a longtime member of Most Blessed Sacrament.  "I left the church when I was younger, but then came back," Miller said, noting that the church has become much more diverse in recent decades compared to its once predominant Pennsylvania German heritage.

Coyle said the church has about 1,000 families, adding that only 25 pastors have served its parishioners during its long history. "To be honest, the museum only gets a handful of visitors these days," Miller said. "People mostly come because of genealogy issues and secondarily to see the architecture or learn about the personalities who led the church, particularly the founder, Father Schneider, and Father (Augustine) Bally, who was here for more than 40 years in the 19th century (1837-1882)."
Miller said that he and another parishioner, Ronald Thren, have been working to update church history during the past 15 years and will probably have the first of several volumes ready for publication this year.

"The first volume is nearly ready for our anniversary," Miller said. "This will be the first history of the parish published in 40 years since a booklet prepared by Monsignor Allwein sold out."
For those who wish to know more about the earliest migration of Catholics to Pennsylvania, two special lectures will be held at the church at 7 p.m. next Saturday and Sunday.

The lectures will be conducted by Helen Heinz, an adjunct history professor at Temple University and Philadelphia University, whose doctoral dissertation focused on Catholics in Protestant Pennsylvania between 1730-1790.

"My people came here as potato-famine Irish in the 19th century, but my husband's family has roots in Most Blessed Sacrament," Heinz said in a telephone interview.  She plans to tell the fascinating story of how German Catholics, many of them in mixed marriages with Protestants, came to Pennsylvania during the Palatine immigration during the early 18th century and came to settle in the Goshenhoppen area, which is now Bally.

Heinz said there was an awareness of this growing Catholic colony among the Germans, but was probably underestimated even by the likes of Benjamin Franklin.

A call for help by English Jesuits for German priests to serve the immigrants is what brought Theodore Schneider to the forefront as a leader who apparently found it practical to work with a variety of denominations while gaining their trust and respect.
"I think the point or lesson to be learned is how a minority (the Catholics) learned to survive in this different religious environment by being accommodating and drawing on others' expertise and strengths," Heinz said. "Father Schneider didn't practice a tradition of always being right or wrong, but recognized it was really about converting people to God. He married Protestants as well as Catholics. The Mennonite community worked very closely with him.

"For his time, I think he was a saint, and he happens to be buried in the floor of the church."
At a time during the French and Indian War when Catholics were automatically suspect, Schneider walked a fine line. Conrad Weiser, a prominent local man of the era, was not his friend for personal and political reasons, Heinz said.

And Heinz said Weiser called for an investigation of the Catholics of Goshenhoppen when their Feast of Corpus Christi Procession in 1755 was interpreted as a military drill.
As it turned out, Schneider and his neighbors were found to be peaceful neighbors and loyal citizens.
"The fact that the German ethnic culture was the same for Catholics and Protestants could be interpreted as a benefit," Heinz said. "But that wasn't always the case. Take for example the religious divisions that existed in England that prompted much of the immigration to early America."
Seeds of religious tolerance were sewn early in Berks County.

And even though situations weren't always perfect, Heinz believes the history of Most Blessed Sacrament stands as a beacon to light the way to future Christian and interfaith unity.

Most Blessed Sacrament Church, Bally, Pennsylvania

These images of the tombstones in the old Cemetery at MBS were taken during the summer of 2000. There are sample photographs of some of the stones taken 30 to 40 years ago in the museum. During this time there has been significant weathering damage to the stones, more than the previous 100 years, perhaps from acid rain. This is as complete an inventory of the stones as could be made. Over the years some of the stones had been used for building material in the Chapel, the Rectory and the Convent. My guess is that this was done during the 1920's. I had returned to the cemetery those stones and fragments that I could without causing structural damage. I was told that when the 1921 convent was removed fragments were seen in the rubble but were not saved because there small size made them unreadable. The only tombstones still in use for building material are cemented into the chapel wall, see photo under "views".

Michael A. Miller