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St. Lawrence Church Returns To Its Roots For 50th

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Msgr. Laurence Higgins greets parishioners today after Mass at Hillsborough High School in Tampa; the service marked 50 years since the first service of St. Lawrence Catholic Church, which was also held at the high school.

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 8, 2009

TAMPA - Fifty years ago today 216 people filed into the first service of St. Lawrence Catholic Church and fell far short of filling the Hillsborough High School auditorium.

Today was a different story.

The man who celebrated that first Mass returned to the auditorium to mark the church's half century and faced a crowd about twice as large. More importantly, the service followed something St. Lawrence couldn't offer five decades ago – a full slate of Saturday and Sunday Masses at the parish complex it now calls home.

Msgr. Laurence Higgins stood on the auditorium stage, a spare table as the altar, and thanked the crowd, some of whom were with him there 50 years ago.

Higgins and those early parishioners helped build St. Lawrence into a congregation of 2,800 families today, even after spinning off three other churches – Epiphany, Incarnation and St. Paul's – as it grew through the years.

Polly Murray remembers feeling like one of the few Catholics in Tampa when she came from Minnesota and a 29-year-old priest moved in across the street. The priest, Higgins, asked her to help build a new parish.

The Irish-born priest gained a reputation for good works inside and outside the church, championing civil rights and affordable housing in Tampa.

Murray ended up working 47 years as the parish business manager.

"It's been part of my life and part of my children's lives," she said. "We grew up with the parish."

Today's service brought to mind the early days of the parish, including that first Mass.

"It was very intimate," Murray said. "There were not a lot of people."

At the time, only 3 percent of Florida's population was Catholic.

Higgins had no financial help. He went from door to door introducing himself to mostly blue-collar families, not even knowing if they were Catholic.

"He may have converted a few with his personality," Murray said. "He just started from absolute scratch."

It didn't go smoothly at first. A building fund drive failed to raise enough money for a church building.

But during his homily today, Higgins acknowledged those bare-bones beginnings and called them an integral part of the parish's eventual success.

"I got to know the people," he said.

Contact reporter Neil Johnson at (813) 259-7731 or njohnson@tampatrib.com.

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