Editor’s note: This is the fourth of several historical articles that were published in the April 16 issue of the AD Times in a special section for the 65th Anniversary of the Diocese of Allentown. To see the special section, click on AD Times at the top of AD Today, then Editions at right, then 04/16/26.
As Father Edward Connolly tells it, he was not yet a priest and not even in the seminary when he heard about the formation of the Diocese of Allentown.
It was 1961, and the news came in a call from his brother Frank, who was already a priest for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
“That very day,” said Father Connolly, now 88, “I hand-wrote a note to Bishop Joseph McShea, who was still Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese, and drove it to his parish in West Philadelphia. I told him I wanted to apply to be a priest in the new Diocese of Allentown.”
Which is how Father Connolly, shortly after Bishop McShea was installed as Allentown’s first Bishop, became the first man accepted by the Diocese of Allentown to enter formation for the Priesthood.
He would go on to be ordained by Bishop McShea in 1966. His first assignment was Sacred Heart of Jesus, Allentown.
Other priests and seminarians from the early days of the Diocese shared their recollections in interviews with the AD Times.
“We were in class at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary,” said Monsignor Vincent York, “when someone came in with the news that a new Diocese was being formed.”
Seminarians were told that anyone who lived in Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton, or Schuylkill counties would be destined for the Priesthood in the Diocese of Allentown rather than the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, he said.
Monsignor York, now 83, was ordained in 1968. His first assignment, after filling in for a few months at St. Joseph, Coopersburg, was the former Our Lady of Hungary, Northampton, now Queenship of Mary.
“It was a great time,” said Monsignor Edward Sacks, thinking back to the early years of the Diocese. “We were starting something new.” A seminarian at the time of the formation, he went on to be ordained in 1964, and his first assignment was St. John the Baptist, Pottsville.
“It was in some ways a more pleasant time then,” said Monsignor Sacks, now 88. “There was great emphasis on family and community. Today, kids are on their cellphones too much. They have lots of acquaintances but very few friends.”
The late Monsignor Robert Coll was interviewed for this article in March and died April 20, a few days after the article was first published. He was 95.
Monsignor Coll was ordained in 1959 as a priest for the Archdiocese and was assigned first to Sacred Heart, West Reading. He recalled having a new Diocese to call their own was “very much a source of pride” for many people.
He said he was pleased to transition to being a priest for the Diocese of Allentown when the Diocese was created. Truth be told, though, he said, there was some grumbling for a while among more senior priests whose strong ties to Philadelphia made them reluctant to remain posted in the new Diocese and its five “upstate” counties.
Ordained in 1964, Monsignor William Handges was a seminarian for the Archdiocese when the new Diocese was formed. “I was looking forward to being a priest in the Diocese of Allentown,” he said. “I’m from Pottsville, and it meant I would serve closer to home.”
Monsignor Handges recalled that his class was ordained by Bishop McShea early that year, in March instead of the usual June. “They wanted us to be in our parishes in time for Holy Week,” he said. Now 90, his Priesthood took him to assignments in all five counties of the Diocese.
“We were [transitional] deacons when the split happened and the Diocese of Allentown was formed,” said Monsignor Robert Kozel, now 90. “As a Tresckow native, I was just overjoyed that I would now be a priest in the Diocese of Allentown,” he said.
“I went to public schools because we didn’t have any Catholic schools near my home at the time,” he said. He was in the first “class” of priests for the new Diocese, ordained in 1961. His first assignment was Sacred Heart, Palmerton.
Father Robert Potts, now 89, was ordained in 1964. “We were happy to serve under Bishop McShea,” he said. “He fit in very well here in Allentown, and he was a very good bishop.”
“I was a coal cracker,” he said, having been born in St. Clair. Many seminarians at that time, he said, came from the Coal Regions.
“I loved every parish I went to,” he said. “I had a very good 62 years as a priest.”
In the feature image, pictured left to right in the top row are Msgr. York, Msgr. Kozel, Msgr. Sacks, and Msgr. Handges. In the second row, pictured left to right are Msgr. Coll, Fr. Connolly, and Fr. Potts.
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