Story and photo by Amy Borrelli
The Rev. Joseph Bisignano, the new pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Yorktown, had a simple request when he introduced himself to parishioners at each Mass last Sunday.

"Invite me to dinner. If I sit at your dinner table, I'll get to know you. It doesn't have to be anything but hot dogs and hamburgers, I'll eat anything," he told a laughing crowd.

If every family that belongs to the parish takes him up on his offer, Bisignano won't have to cook himself a meal for the next 13 years.

St. Patrick's, with 4,700 families, is a great deal larger than the parish Bisignano is leaving.

The 56-year-old priest is coming over from St. Joachim-St. John the Evangelist parish in Beacon.

"We got 800 people on Sunday, compared to here, where you get 800 at a Mass. That was our total population, so it's quite a difference," he said.

It's a daunting prospect, heading such a large, active parish and trying to fill the shoes of the popular Monsignor Dermot Brennan, who helmed St. Patrick's for the past 20 years.

"This is the second pastor that was held in high esteem that I'm replacing. The last one had been in the parish for 30 years, and everyone loved him. Now I'm stepping in for another one who's well loved," Bisignano said. "It's always a little humbling and intimidating. But everyone I've met in the time that I've been here has been exceptionally open and welcoming."

The Mount Vernon native, who was ordained in 1981, did not entertain thoughts of becoming a priest until he was in his 20s. In fact, as a teen-ager, he didn't attend church at all.

"In ninth grade I was invited to leave the Catholic Church by my pastor. He called me a communist and anti-Catholic because I was against the (Vietnam) war and he wasn't. He told me I had to leave his church, and I didn't know he didn't have the authority to do that, so I just left," he recalled. "For seven years I never stepped foot in a Catholic church."

Bisignano graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1967 and attended SUNY Stony Brook for two years, studying political science and dabbling with the idea of going to law school.

Instead, he quit college and worked at Macy's for five years.

"During that time I got involved in teaching CCD, and it was through that that God called me to the priesthood," he said.

In fact, the same priest who banned him from church wrote Bisignano's letter of recommendation to enter the seminary.

His first parish was St. Joseph's in Kingston, but when his father died, he asked to be transferred closer to his mother in lower Westchester.

"My mom was the old type of Italian woman, she had never written a check, she didn't drive.

She depended on my father for everything," he said. "When you play the mother card with the archdiocese, you get anything you want. In a couple of weeks, I was transferred to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Elmsford."

After his mother died, Bisignano was assigned to St. Claire's in the Bronx, and later St. Columba in Hopewell Junction. In 1995, he became the pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Beacon.

"Unfortunately, in my seventh year there they closed the school. That was not a happy time. In the same year I was made administrator of a second parish, St. Joachim's," he said.

Bisignano was asked to consolidate the two parishes, each of which suffered from low attendance, tight finances, and a lack of priests.

"It seemed logical, since the churches were only a mile apart," he said. "I had two parish councils, two finance councils, two everything. They saw how that was unnecessary and was actually going to land me in the hospital."

But after spending 10 years in Beacon, Bisignano was ready for a change and jumped at the chance when the Archdiocese of New York notified all the priests within its jurisdiction that St. Patrick's had an opening for a new pastor.

"I didn't expect to get this. I really didn't. I wrote a letter saying I'd like to be considered. I didn't know anything specific. I didn't know the size of it," he said. "But I had brought Beacon as far as I could as far as unification. What they needed now was a priest who didn't have the baggage I did as far as closing the school and uniting the parish. They needed someone without that who could bring that parish forward. My letter was really stating that I had done as much as I could do in Beacon. That this opened up and God chose for me to come here, that's icing on the cake."

Bisignano said he's not going to make any radical changes at St. Patrick's.

"I have this plan that for one year I'm going to observe, and just let things go on as they have been, and then influence things, but very slowly. If it's not broken, don't fix it," he said. "Things will eventually change, just because I'm me. I celebrate Mass differently. There will be some changes, but nothing major."

Number one on his list of priorities is the education of children, both at the parish grammar school and through the CCD program.

"They are the future of the church, so to teach them really good Catholic theology, not a lot of fluff, but really good solid Catholic teaching, is important," he said.

Bisignano said he also places strong emphasis on an effective liturgy and music ministry, and the sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist.

But, first things first.

"I'm going to try to get people's names down," he said. "It's not exactly one of my best gifts."