Founding Pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Robbinsdale

Reverend Harrington was born in Cork County, Ireland in 1865. He was the second pastor assigned to Ascension Parish in North Minneapolis. He was the leader of that parish at the time when the present Church of the Ascension was constructed at 1723 Bryant Avenue North in 1902. At that time Ascension’s parish boundaries extended all the way to Robbinsdale. However, several leading local residents, by the end of that decade, were lobbying Father Harrington to establish a new and separate parish in Robbinsdale to accommodate the growing population of nearby Catholic families. There already was the Catholic mission church of St. Mary, worshiping in a small, simple frame building in the farming country area that is now occupied by the New Hope City offices off of the Rockford Road. So, Catholic families living in the growing village of Robbinsdale either had to travel 2 miles west on the Rockford Road or 4 miles south on Broadway to Ascension to attend mass.

Father Harrington supported the efforts to establish a church presence in Robbinsdale, but insisted on it being self sustaining before he could endorse the idea and take it to the archbishop for approval. Thus the residents undertook many fund raising efforts and by 1910 they were in a position to locate and build a new church building in Robbinsdale. Father Harrington supervised the building project just as he had done with the school and church buildings at Ascension. A modest wood framed and white sided church with a bell tower was constructed on a corner of Robbinsdale’s main street (today West Broadway & 40 1/2th Ave). On Christmas Day 1911, Father Harrington said the first mass at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale.

As Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale was being established, a newly ordained priest (and future longtime pastor at Sacred Heart) Reverend Francis Nolan was assigned as an assistant to Father Hamngton at Ascension Parish. He and other assistant parish priests were initially directed by Father Harrington to travel to Robbinsdale to attend to the provision of the sacraments until a permanent pastor for the Robbinsdale church could be assigned. By mid-year 1912, Reverend William Blum was assigned as the resident pastor at Sacred Heart in Robbinsdale. In 1914, Father Harrington used the occasion of his 25th Anniversary of Ordination to make and address regarding the World War I.  At a parochial assembly at Ascension, he reminded his flock that Germany was not alone at fault and that all the  crowned heads in Europe were sending their men to slaughter.  Father Harrington later served as a chaplain in the United States Army. He was for many years one of the best known members of the priesthood in Minneapolis. In November, 1924 Father Harrington passed away at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul. His body lay in state at  Ascension. 160 priests and prelates joined thousands of parishioners in mourning. Archbishop Austin Dowling said in his tribute,  “He was always a priest of this parish and you always knew where to find him. His whole heart and soul were wrapped up in the people of this district.”