Dear Parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs,
If you have attended Mass in person or via the livestream, you have heard about the urgent need to repair our church bell tower. Over the past months, our parish committees have been working hard to initiate a program to address this essential project.
With your generous support, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs has completed many significant improvements in recent years. In 2023, major restoration work to the rectory roof was completed. In 2025, we put a new roof on the school building, refurbished the church doors, refreshed the church vestibules with paint and brighter lighting, provided a more welcoming entrance to the parish meeting room, repaired sidewalks along Queens Boulevard, repaved the schoolyard and parking lot and replaced the fence, and completed other repairs to the school, convent, and church buildings.
Through your prayerful and financial sacrifices, we have fulfilled every project promise.
When these various projects were being planned, we did not anticipate the major repair required to the bell tower. Water damage that has affected the tower for nearly 90 years now demands an essential and timely restoration. Addressing this issue requires a level of prayer and sacrifice that many would consider extraordinary and unattainable. Yet it is necessary if we are to preserve this beautiful and historic structure.
When Msgr. McLaughlin announced his plans to build this parish in the 1930s—another period of financial difficulty—the sacrificial efforts of past parishioners funded not only the daily needs of the new parish but also the construction of the church, school, rectory, and convent. Today, our parish community continues this tradition of faithful and uninterrupted collaboration.
We are asking for your prayerful and financial support through a pledge of $3,000 over a three-year period. “Strengthening Our Tower of Faith” encompasses three key goals: the repair of our bell tower, grants for our parish youth to attend faith-filled activities, and lastly, fulfillment of our Annual Catholic Appeal obligation to the Diocese.
A sacrificial pledge, paid over three years, is crucial to our success. Pledge cards were mailed to parish households. They may be completed and mailed, dropped off at the Rectory Office, or placed in the Offertory collection basket.
Together, we will succeed.
Placing this effort in the hands of our patroness, the Blessed Mother as Queen of Martyrs, I am,
Sincerely yours in Christ!
Very Rev. Francis J. Passenant, V.F.
Pastor
Winter 2026
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Prayer to “Strengthen Our Tower of Faith”
About the Bell Tower repair project
How to Contribute