Abotut Us:

The Mission Of the Religious Education Program at St. Joan of Arc Parish is to facilitate the religious formation of our Parishioners of every age, so that, while we travel together on our faith journey, we discover our own unique "Heart Song" and continue to walk humbly with God.

Until the Civil War, Catholics living in Sloatsburg traveled to Piermont, Paterson, or Greenwood whenever they went to church. At the end of the Civil War, Father John Quinn of Piermont made his first recorded appearance in the Suffern-Sloatsburg area as pastor of a parish that extended from Piermont to Goshen. Plans were soon made for Father Quinn to offer Mass in a private home in Suffern four times a year, an arrangement that continued for about two years.

The year 1868 saw the completion of the region’s first Catholic Church when the Church of St. Rose of Lima was dedicated in Suffern. The parish to be served by this new church stretched from Suffern to Harriman. In 1897, the parish was divided with Tuxedo becoming the seat of a new parish that included the communities north of Suffern. Thus began the long association of Sloatsburg with the Catholic Church in Tuxedo.

For the next twenty-seven years, until 1924, the Catholics of Sloatsburg attended church services in Tuxedo. Many walked the distance from Sloatsburg to Tuxedo. Subsequently weekly celebration of Mass was held in the Henry Club Hall, now the site of the Sloatsburg Hardware Store on Route 17, then the center of social activity in the village.

In August 1922, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel purchased the land on which the future church of St. Joan of Arc would be built from Henry A. and Doris L. Grangras for $3500. On May 30th of the following year Rt. Rev. James H. McGean, representing Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes, blessed the cornerstone and the actual building of the new church began.