Housewife’s Vision Breaks Out
Bayside Hills Turf War

By Aaron Rutkoff and David Oats

n a warm Sunday in June 1970, a deeply religious 47-year-old Bayside woman convened an unusual vigil beside a statue of the Virgin Mary near a neighborhood church.  By 1975, violent disputes between her thousands of followers and local homeowners caused weekly riots and threatened to leave the quiet residential area in anarchy.

This strange saga began when Veronica Leuken awoke in the night at her 69th Avenue apartment to a vision of St. Therese, who told her to prepare to receive visions from the Virgin Mary. During this first episode, Leuken said she was instructed to hold vigils near a statue of the Virgin Mary outside of the St. Robert Bellarmine Church. 

The vigils were to be held every Sunday and on the eve of Catholic feasts. Leuken said she was promised a “heavenly vision” during each pre-holiday vigil.

On June 18, 1970, when Veronica Leuken first led a small group of followers in prayer and chanting, few residents of the quiet Bayside Hills community took note.  But as the vigils continued on through the summer and into the winter, word of the visionary woman spread. 

Michael Fighting, a Catholic newspaper published in Quebec, picked up the story, and by December 1973 busloads of Canadian pilgrims began arriving in Bayside on Sundays. One account reported that over one hundred people saw the sky open up to reveal a “beautiful vision” at a vigil, and Veronica’s followers started taping her conversations with the vision to be reprinted in the publication.

“The Message, my child, that I have entrusted to you, will be rejected by many,” the vision told Veronica, according to reports in the Canadian paper. “Those in the darkness will not understand for they have not penetrated this darkness of spirit.”

In this purported statement, at least, Veronica’s vision proved prophetic. As the ever-increasing congregation of adherents — who took to wearing distinctive white berets — prayed and chanted on the lawn near the church every Sunday through the passing months, Bayside Hills residents and officials at St. Robert Bellarmine began to bristle at the invasion. 

Vice Chairman of the parish and a member of the Bayside Hills Civic Association William Caulfield wrote in the association’s newsletter that the buses of pilgrims constituted a neighborhood nuisance. He complained of vigilites relieving themselves on neighborhood lawns and disturbing residents at all hours with the sounds of their worship.

The monsignor at St. Robert Bellarmine called on Veronica to move her gatherings to another location. After an investigation, officials from the Roman Catholic Church issued a report that stated, “We can only conclude that nothing supernatural is occurring and many good people from various parts are being duped.” When priests at the church tried to read the report aloud at the vigil, worshippers shouted them down with chants.

In November 1973, St. Robert Bellarmine removed the statue of the Virgin Mary, put up a fence and secured a court order baring the vigils on church property. Veronica moved her followers to a grassy mall on 56th Avenue and 214th Street near the church. 

By the end of 1974, civic leaders asked police to bar the vigilites from the mall, but the police refused for fear of violating First Amendment rights. After Caulfield was arrested for disorderly conduct and another neighborhood resident was clubbed in the head by police while protesting near the vigil site, the community erupted.

The residents planned to pre-empt the vigilites by holding an early bicentennial celebration on the mall one weekend; civic leaders camped on the lawn to ensure their priority. When dusk came on Saturday and the pilgrims arrived with Veronica, a virtual riot ensued and police came in to separate the two sides. 

This scenario began to repeat itself as lawyers took the dispute to court. The confrontations reached a climax on May 17, 1975, when 2,500 worshippers lined up on Springfield Boulevard to face off against 900 area residents who amassed along Bell Boulevard. 

By the following week, Veronica Leuken announced that the vision had instructed her to move the vigils to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, on the site of the former Vatican Pavilion during the World’s Fair. A judge oversaw the pact, which established the park as the site of vigils for Leuken followers for years to come.