"In the year 1941, Our Lady of Sorrows Parish of McAllen was developed, bringing into its fold the English-speaking Catholics of Pharr and San Juan.  In 1950 it was decided by the Diocese [Corpus Christi at that time] that the Pharr-San Juan area had grown to sufficient proportions to establish a parish of its own." (St. Jude's Church, Dedication, p. 7).

These two sentences are taken from the "history" section of the dedicatory program used for the inauguration of St. Jude Thaddeus Church, Pharr, Texas.  This new Catholic community found its beginnings when Bishop M.S. Garriga of Corpus Christi placed the Rev. George A. Doyle, pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Church, in charge of immediate preparations for the establishment of the new parish.

Father Doyle and a committee of laymen had $500.00 placed in escrow to encourage them to go looking for a suitable plot of land where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass would be regularly celebrated for another growing community of English-speaking Catholics.  Finally, with a $2,000 gift from Our Lady of Sorrows Parish and a $4,000 loan from the Diocese of Corpus Christi, the emerging liturgical family secured "from the McIntyre Real Estate," five acres of land in the Kelly-Pharr Subdivision. 

The new parish, which Bishop Garriga named St. Jude Thaddeus, went northward to PUente Negro and southward to the Rio Grande River.  The eastern end of the new parish was Morningside Road and its western limit was set at Jackson Road South.  Today western limit remains the same but the north, south and east limits have been reduced to Business Highway 83 (N), "I" Road (E), and south to the Floodway.  In July of 1950, Father William Disney, assistant pastor of Christ the King Church in Corpus Christi, was appointed the first pastor of the new border parish.