Denaro is eager to lead, and learn, at St. Mark’s

Father John Denaro

By Albert Amateau

Father John Denaro, who became pastor of St. Mark’s Church-in-the Bowery two weeks ago, is a nontraditional priest of a nontraditional parish.

“Happily nontraditional,” he told a visitor on the Monday the day after he delivered his first sermon as priest-in-charge of the historic church founded in the 17th century by Peter Stuyvesant.

He sees his role as the new pastor of the church as a fellow seeker as well as one of the leaders of a remarkable congregation.

“I thought I knew a lot about St. Mark’s, but this place is full of surprises,” he said. “I’ve been surprised at the incredible way — the courageous way — that people are trying to live their faith,” he said.

Denaro, 43, sees the struggles in the Episcopal Church — over issues ranging from the ordination of women, which started 30 years ago, to the recent installation of an openly gay bishop — as leading to strength.

“The ordination of women is not really controversial — the presiding bishop is herself a woman,” he said. “And appointing gay people to the clergy — including myself — is also accepted. The church is struggling with these issues, but we’re strengthened by conflict. But it’s too bad that we get bogged down on issues of sexuality when we could be pursuing other issues of life and death,” he added, citing the church’s commitment to ending poverty and disease as well as gender inequality.

“We’re called upon to be healers and there’s enough that’s broken to keep us busy trying to fix it,” he said.

He has been involved in fixing things since he graduated from Yale Divinity School. Even before he was ordained, he worked as a community organizer with an interfaith organization in Yonkers, a city he described as “a complicated place where a lot of people became marginalized and there was a need to empower people.”

After he was ordained in 1992 he served briefly as an interim associate at St. Mark’s, which was between pastors at the time, and then went to St. George’s Church on Stuyvesant Square as an associate. He then became pastor at Edward the Martyr, an Episcopal parish in East Harlem, where his knowledge of Spanish was important. As an undergraduate at Williams College, he had studied the language and spent a semester in Spain.

In February 2001, he joined Trinity Church’s television and new media department, producing programs for the church. It was a fateful year to be working in the Downtown parish, and after Sept. 11 he found himself involved in the St. Paul’s Chapel respite center for ground zero workers.

Since 2004 he has been working at the Episcopal Church headquarters for the church’s ministries for refugee resettlement and immigration advocacy and will continue that work while serving as St. Mark’s pastor.

Born and raised in the Bronx as the youngest of five children in a Roman Catholic family, he went to Cardinal Spellman High School. He describes his late father as a “committed Christian” who brought up the family to help people in need.

“He was involved in the Catholic Guild for the Blind and we had a lot of blind family friends,” Denaro recalled.

“When I was becoming Episcopalian, I thought my father might be upset. But he told me ‘I’ve only done good works because of God — not for any church,’” Denaro said.

“I like it that St. Mark’s has been a leader on issues of justice and not just taking cues from the culture,” he said. “I feel I’m going to learn a lot in a place that’s committed to action.”

In his first sermon at St. Mark’s, he said he hoped the congregation would help him keep in mind that God could make us all morally courageous and keep us discerning new ways of being people of courage and faith.

“St. Mark’s is a love train that I’ve gotten onboard and we’re going to make the journey together,” he said.