Background
During the early 1900s, a wave of immigrants from San Salvatore Telesino ("sansalvatoresi") arrived in Paterson, New Jersey. During the 1920s, the sansalvatoresi established a devotion from their hometown. Each year, the devotees would celebrate their town's patron saint, San Leucio. The celebration would include a Mass, statue procession, and feast.
This devotion thrived for many years until 1979 when a fire destroyed the procession grounds and did substantial damage to the beloved San Leucio statue. With a destroyed statue, devotees moving from the area, and logistical uncertainty lingering, the sansalvatoresi of New Haven, Connecticut took up the torch. Our family society in New Haven restored the statue and continued the devotion up in Connecticut, where it has been living ever since.
Now, the San Leucio Society of Paterson has been revived. What was once devastation in 1979 may have been by divine design as this devotion will now exist in both Paterson and New Haven.
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