About The Parish

Our Parish family is a member of the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts. There are approximately 600 families registered at St. Columba. In September of 2001 we began celebration of the 50th anniversary of our parish.

Read about our first 50 years as a parish, in an excellent article written by two parishoners Joan Bedard and Ruth Knott. As mentioned in the article, our formation coincided (in a Divine way) with the moving of Anna Maria College to Paxton.

Father James M. Shea was appointed pastor of St. Columba Parish by Bishop Daniel Reilly June 27th, 2003, replacing Father John D. Thomas. A Worcester native, Father Shea graduated from Sacred Heart Academy in 1965. He entered the United States Coast Guard in 1966 and served on a buoy tender in Alaska. Later he served at life saving stations in New Jersey and Massachusetts. He left the Coast Guard with the rank of seaman first class in 1970. He graduated from Worcester State College in 1980 with a bachelor of science degree in urban studies. He studied for the priesthood at Christ the King Seminary, East Aurora, N.Y. He was ordained by Bishop Harrington in St. Paul Cathedral, Worcester, on Jan. 5, 1985. He has served as associate pastor of St. Peter Parish from Jan. 18, 1985, to Feb. 12, 1991 when he was named associate pastor at St. Joan of Arc Parish. While at St. Joan of Arc he spent three months in Puerto Rico studying Spanish. He was assigned as associate pastor at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish on June 15, 1996.

we welcome Most Rev. Bishop McManus, who was introduced on March 9th, 2004 at the Chancery offices of the Diocese of Worcester as the fifth Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester. The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has appointed the Most Rev. Robert J. McManus as the fifth Bishop of Worcester, succeeding another Rhode Island native, the Most Rev. Daniel P. Reilly, who is retiring. Bishop McManus has been Auxiliary Bishop of Providence for five years. He will be installed as Bishop of Worcester on Friday, May 14, 2004 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in that city. Bishop McManus noted, with a tranquility of spirit that comes from believing that 'for those who love God everything works together for the good,' I look forward to serving the Diocese of Worcester as its Fifth Bishop.Bishop McManus was born in Providence on July 5, 1951. The son of the late Edward W. and Helen F. (King) McManus of Narragansett, he is a graduate of Blessed Sacrament School in Providence and Our Lady of Providence Seminary High School. He studied for the priesthood at Our Lady of Providence Seminary in Warwick, The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. (bachelor and master of arts degrees) and the Toronto School of Theology (master of divinity degree). He has also earned licentiate and doctoral degrees in sacred theology from The Pontifical Gregorian University.

Visit the Paxton Historical Commission website at www.Orgsites.com/MA/Paxton/

The Town of Paxton was originally taken from the towns of Leicester and Rutland, in nearly equal parts, and was incorporated February 12,1765. It then received its name from Charles Paxton a "Commissioner of the Customs". The inhabitants soon commenced their plan for building a meeting house, and on the first day of April, 1765, the town voted to build it. It was raised on the 18th day of June, 1766, and this is the frame of the present meeting house.

The first settlers of Paxton were very religious; one of the first cares was to provide a suitable house of worship. In 1766 within two years of the incorporation of the town, the foundation of the present meeting house was laid, on what is now the common, near the flag staff. The land was given by Seth Howe, from a piece of his pasture.

Paxton is a typical, quiet New England town just northwest of Worcester in the heart of Massachusetts. Our gathering place sits on the northern edge of the common in the center of Paxton, at the intersections of three state roads - Route 31, Route 56 and Route 122.

The original Church building was completed in June of 1952. The first Mass was celebrated in the new structure on July 27, 1952 and it was formally dedicated on October 26th of that year. 50 years later, there are plans in the works to add classrooms and meeting rooms onto the building. We hope to include the blueprints here as they become finalized.

Below is census information about Paxton's growth between 1990 and 1999:

click here to see a beautiful map of Massachusetts dating from 1895!

Click on the photograph to see an aerial close-up of Paxton Center, and get directions. Pleasant St runs north and south. The large buildings to the left are the Paxton Supermarket, north of Route 31 and the Center School to the south. Notice the Paxton Inn is featured in this 1995 aerial shot. The Paxton Inn burned to the ground on February 27th 2001.

Visit the Official Town of Paxton website for information regarding all the town services and town government.

Paxton sits in the middle of a watershed and hosts Moore State Park as one of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management's conservation projects. Click Here to visit the DEM site.

Rosebay.org is the official site of the American Rhododendron Society, Massachusetts chapter. Lois Breault and Denis Melican of Paxton offer a historical perspective of Moore State Park.

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Visit and bookmark Paxton's Richard's Memorial Library, which maintains a very well-done website with interesting pages for the whole family. www.ultranet.com/~rml/

To find links to other neighboring communities, you might look at NewEngland WOW "the portal to New England"