The Woodstock Reformed Church, led by its new pastor, the Rev. Kathryn Rivera Torea, is working with Kingston’s A.M.E. Zion Church to atone for a history that included early ministers and members who were slaveholders.
Representatives of the Woodstock church and Kingston’s A.M.E. Zion Church, part of a historically Black denomination, met for the first time to discuss slavery on April 6, she said. Follow-up meetings are in the works.
“We are in the process of working on a public apology,” said Rivera Torea, who goes by Pastor Kate and assumed her post in March before being installed May 17.
“What’s so great about a church as old as this one, or any church this age, is that it’s had a lot of chances to make a lot of mistakes and think through correcting those mistakes,” said Rivera Torea, 50. “And so there’s the greater Christian dilemma of, we are to display the Kingdom of God, and yet we’re still just humans doing the best that we can, and we make big mistakes.”
Founded in 1799 as the Dutch Reformed Church, the Woodstock church today has 70 members. Its inclusion of slaveholders under its original name came to light in a 2025 history of the church by congregation member William Rhoads, a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz.
Slavery was common in Ulster County between 1683 and 1827, when it ended, according to the Ulster County Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 1790, the county had an enslaved population of 2,818, 40% more than Dutchess County.
Rivera Torea learned of the slavery ties and steps being taken to make amends while she was under consideration by the church’s search committee to replace the Rev. Cari Pattison, who relocated to a congregation in Westchester County after five years in Woodstock.
“What she had to offer—her experience, her skill set, her energy—checked all the boxes,” said Jessica Wisneski, 47, an Olivebridge resident who was co-chair of the search committee. “She was just the right fit.”
The church’s push to address its racial history, as well as its support for immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community, aligned with Rivera Torea’s values and played a key role in her decision to take the job, she said.
She was also attracted by the congregation’s plans, through the Ulster County Interfaith Council, to support an immigrant family in Ulster County. The goal is to provide support that includes car rides to doctor’s appointments, groceries, and legal representation.
“I am overjoyed with the energy, excitement and desire to do good in the community that resides in this congregation,” Rivera Torea said. “I am thankful I have been called to come and serve among them.”
The Ohio native said an associate minister at her church asked her as she headed to college to consider becoming a pastor. Instead, she earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, and moved to Washington, D.C., after graduation to seek a job.
It was then, after deciding to ask those close to her for guidance, that Rivera Torea received a letter from that same associate minister. He included information about the seminary he attended, aiming to keep her mind open to becoming a minister.
“I was mature enough to go, ‘All right. This feels right,’” she said. “‘This resonates. I’m going to look into it.’”
That brought Rivera Torea to Kentucky’s Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. After graduating, she returned to Ohio and led a congregation. At the time, the Presbyterian Church in Ohio had something of a sister-city relationship with a Protestant church in Mexico City.
Exchange programs allowed members to travel between the two countries, including one that brought Rivera Torea’s future husband, Juan Pablo Rivera Torea, to her doorstep. He had flown to Detroit, where he was picked up by a minister who called Pastor Kate to help complete his journey.
“He was literally delivered to my door,” she said of her husband, a native of Mexico who is now a U.S. citizen.
“I met him on his first day in the U.S.,” Pastor Kate said. “He came to the door and he was wearing a fedora, a scarf and a long wool coat and the sun was shining behind him. I was so taken. I took him wherever he was going and I called my mentor and I said, ‘Bob, did you send me an early Christmas present?’”
John W. Barry is a reporter for The Overlook. Reach him at john@theoverlooknews.com.