St. Francis by the Sea Catholic Church
Celebrates Our 25th Anniversary!

Our Parish's Beginnings

In late 1984, Fr. Joseph Majewski, C.Ss.R., was sent to Hilton Head Island for the purpose of organizing a new parish for Catholics on the north end of the Island. He arrived on Hilton Head Island not knowing a soul, without a place to live, and with no place in which to say Mass.

He finally managed to find a condo on the third floor of a building on the north end of the island and settled in. Because of the many steps, he was reluctant to tell elderly potential parishioners to visit him, fearing they might fall.

Then he had to find a place to say Mass on Sundays, and scoured the north end of the island for any building large enough to hold an audience, the size of which he wasn't sure, or even if anyone would come when he said that first Mass.

He had no phone in his condo as there was a two week wait for installation, so he had to use pay phones to contact these prospective locations. When he talked with people about using their building on Sundays and they told him they would get back to him, he couldn't give them a phone number, but instead had to call them. He was turned down a number of times until he talked with Torn Reilly at Crazy Crab north, the only Crazy Crab restaurant on the island at that time. Tom told him it would be fine, and the "Holy Crab" was born.

The next problem was how to get any prospective parishioners to Mass on Sunday. Both Holy Family on Hilton Head Island and St. Andrews at Pinckney Colony near Bluffton agreed to run notices in their bulletins the two weekends before the first Sunday of Advent, 1984, and Father Joe ran ads in the Island Packet. The turnout that first Mass was about 75 people. The first collection was $102.50. The second Sunday, attendance rose to 100 people and the parishioners along with their priest never looked back.

One drawback that Father Joe had in celebrating Mass at the restaurant, and later on at other sites, was that he had to carry all of his vestments, liturgical books, chalice, candles, wine and wafers to be consecrated, and anything else he might need, in the trunk of his car. Bob Fought was of tremendous help here, serving as the first sacristan of the parish and helping Father set up everything needed to say Mass.

With more people coming to Mass each Sunday during 1985, he knew he had to find more space, so he went to Reverend John Miller, then pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, and the elders agreed to allow him to hold services there on Saturday evenings. They also allowed the parish to use their hall for parish dinners and get-togethers, permitting the new parishioners to mingle and become a closer family. This was a fine weekly arrangement that went on until the present church was built.

As more space was needed for Sunday Mass, Father Joe called the principal of Hilton Head Elementary School, and she allowed him to use their auditorium. Mass was celebrated from the stage, including the First Communion class of 1987. While using the Crazy Crab on weekdays, First Presbyterian on Saturdays, and Hilton Head Elementary on Sundays were not the perfect solution, the parish prospered and grew because of the faith of the people and Father Joe....