Tap, tap, tapping on heaven's door

The Rev. David Rider has been named the new administrator of Sacred Heart Church in Monroe effective July 1.
After working for many years as a professional tap dancer, Rider left his show business career to attend seminary at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Lateran University.
Rider’s background includes graduating from Fordham University, summa cum laude, with a double major in philosophy and history and a minor in theology. He spent a year at St. John Neumann Residence, where he did apostolic work visiting the sick at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, with additional assignments at St. Lawrence O’Toole in Brewster and St. Francis of Assisi in West Nyack.
From 2015 to 2018 he served as parochial vicar at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Staten Island. The following year, he served as parochial vicar at the parish of St. Barnabas in the Bronx.
'Never stop dancing'
Rider had opened his own dance studio at age 15, owning it for nine years, according to The Messenger of St. Anthony. He joined the national tour of the Broadway hit 42nd Street a year later.
In 2006, at age 21, he received the American Tap Dance Foundation’s award for excellence in dance education. Dance Spirit Magazine cited him as one of top 20 young tap dancers nationwide.
City Living Magazine said as Rider’s strong as his love for tap was “the call to follow God through the priesthood had become even stronger.”
“For the first time in my life, I had put God ahead of dancing,” Rider added in that report.
In various articles and videos, Rider noted his hero was Pope John Paul II, who “was an important part of my vocational journey,” according to Catholic New York.
“I was always impressed by his evangelical flair, his desire to bring Catholicism to the whole world, but the way he so courageously and boldly did that by traveling and speaking the truth without any compromises,” he said in the Catholic New York report.
However, Rider’s tap shows remain available.
“I love to share what my own archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, said to me the first time he met me as a seminarian and found out that I was a tap dancer,” Rider said the City Living Magazine report. “His first words were: ‘Never stop dancing. We need to use everything we can to bring people to Jesus Christ.’”
New assignment for the Rev. Thomas Byrnes
Rider assumes the role held by the Rev. Thomas Brynes, Sacred Heart’s long-term pastor. Brynes now assumes a new role at St. Anthony's Parish in West Harrison.
Brynes is credited with successfully introducing many programs, benefitting not only the parish but the greater Monroe community, most notably the church’s Community Outreach Program.
Within that larger outreach program, there are now a myriad of ways those in need can get help: Our Father’s Kitchen, Our Mother’s Cupboard, the Sonshine Boutique and the St. Teresa Furniture Program. Thousands of people have benefitted from those services.
Byrnes has been pastor of Sacred Heart Church and School since September 2007, coming to Sacred Heart from the Church of St. Stephen in Warwick.
Parishioners and pastors know the New York Archdiocese can and does reassign priests to different parishes after certain periods of time. However, a recent petition to the archdiocese by select parishioners to keep Brynes for an additional term went unanswered, according to social media postings.
Essentials
To learn more about Rider, view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5hWLiGorKc