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Rochester remembers Padre Tracy: 'He made us what we are'

www.padretracy.com

Many in Rochester are mourning the loss of Father Laurence Tracy, who died early Thursday morning due to complications from ALS.

Tracy, a Catholic priest, called the North Clinton Avenue neighborhood home his entire life. He spent many decades fighting to reduce poverty, drug use and sales and to provide better educational, housing and employment opportunities, particularly for the local Latino community.

He considered himself a Puerto Rican at heart and says he became close with the community through his first church, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel:

“I was assigned as assistant pastor at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, which was a predominantly Italian parish in a neighborhood which was predominately black and Hispanic,” he said on a 1994 episode of WXXI’s The Rochester I Know. “There was a Spanish Mass at that time, but quite small. I was assigned to work with the Spanish-speaking community because I knew a little bit of Spanish. But the pastor had the foresight after my first year to pay for me to go to Puerto Rico for a summer to improve my Spanish.”

That trip only enhanced his ability to connect with local Latino residents. While visiting Puerto Rico, he was able to see many of the cities and towns his parishioners and community members hailed from.

“He had been in the Hispanic community since his ordination, practically,” said Elizabeth Muñoz-Johnston, coordinator of evangelism and catechesis at St. Michael’s Church, where Tracy’s funeral service will be held next week.

“He watched the Hispanic community flourish and grow, and so he’s journeyed through thick and thin with us,” she said.

Tracy is, perhaps, best known for helping found the Ibero-American Action League and working to bring a bilingual educational program to the Rochester City School District. In fact, earlier this year, Ibero staff named the organization’s main building on East Main Street after the priest. And there’s a new community center just a few doors down from St. Michael’s that’s named after Tracy. The Father Tracy Health & Wellness Center offers everything from free clothing to visitors to finding treatment options for those addicted to drugs.

“He was our leader,” said Felix Martinez, who was a parishioner of Mt. Carmel when Tracy was co-pastor. “He was the person who made us into what we are right now. That’s why we need to continue his legacy. We have to fight for our rights.”  

Peter Schmitt, a former Rochesterian, was mentored by Tracy while he was studying to become a priest.

“For those of us that were looking to work in the Hispanic community, Father Tracy even back then was a leader, a mentor,” Schmitt said. "His ministry was always focused on taking care of the poor in a very special way and working with the Hispanic community in Rochester."

Muñoz-Johnston says Father Tracy never saw his work as something he did alone; it was always with the community. She says the community will be empowered and inspired to continue the work.

“Our next generations won’t know Father Tracy, but if they see a collective community that does the work that he fought for … that in itself is what he wanted,” she said.

Calling hours will be held Monday and Tuesday and a funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Michael’s Church, 859 N. Clinton Ave.

Tianna Mañon is a contributing reporter for WXXI news. She’s covered issues like the presence of plastic in the Great Lakes, the death of Trevyan Rowe and the impact of the opioid epidemic in the inner-city.