NORWICH – To give parishioners a sense of the flavor of Norwich and its Italian heritage, newly-installed Catholic priest Father Ralph Bove will conduct portions of Sunday’s mass in Italian, in honor of the St. Bartholomew’s Feast Day celebration this weekend.

St. Bartholomew’s Feast normally falls on Monday, but permission was granted from the Diocese of Syracuse to hold the celebratory mass on Sunday.

Norwich’s small Italian citizenry hails from the tiny island of Lipari off the northern coast of Sicily.

“A small segment of Italians might understand Italian, so to keep the cultural idea alive, I’ll be doing two or three prayers and say a few words of the homily in Italian,” Father Bove said yesterday.