The first Catholics of Malone settled here as early as 1820, and were cared for by the pastor of St.Patrick’s Parish in Hogansburg (1827-2013). It was not uncommon for these pioneering souls to walk the twenty-five miles between the two settlements in order to attend Mass at Christmas and Easter. The first Mass offered in Malone was likely said in the John McFarlene home in June of 1831.

The first Catholic church in Malone, a wooden structure capable of seating 150 people, was constructed in 1837. Having grown, the former mission of Hogansburg became an independent parish and St. Joseph’s Church was incorporated on July 26, 1848, with some 600 families within its territory, which extended as far as Chateauguay. The community’s first resident priest was Fr. Bernard McCabe, who died in a rectory fire in November of 1857. As the parish increased in membership and prosperity, property was secured for a larger, brick church on Main Street, and the cornerstone was laid on September 11, 1859. A time of turmoil followed, including legal difficulties and a string of priests offering temporary service to the parish. Still incomplete, the brick church was destroyed by fire on September 4, 1870. A cornerstone was again laid on July 4, 1871, but tragedy struck once more when a severe windstorm toppled the unfinished structure on October 15 of the same year. In the spring of 1872, yet another building was begun, and Mass was said in its basement for eleven years as the parish recovered from financial disaster. Work resumed in 1880, and the completed church was dedicated on October 22, 1882. This church burned on July 2, 1968. A new church was dedicated on June 3, 1970.

In order to care for the French-speaking Catholics who had come to populate the village in greater numbers, a second parish--Notre Dame--was incorporated on May 24, 1869, with Fr. Jean Baptiste Legrand as the first pastor of its over 500 families. The foundations for a church were laid on May 16, 1869, the cornerstone was blessed on June 13, and the first Mass offered in the rough building on August 15 of the same year. The exterior was finished before winter.

In 1877, Fr. Legrand began work on a church dedicated to St. Helen in Titusville (now Chasm Falls), nine miles south of Malone, to serve more than 70 scattered Catholic families on the edge of the Adirondack mountains. The parish was incorporated on June 21, land was donated for a church on September 7, and the church itself was dedicated on October 2. Fr. Legrand had collected most of the funds for construction from benefactors in his native France. St. Helen’s received its first resident pastor in 1888 with the appointment of Fr. Donald Halde. St. Helen’s would go on to establish mission churches in the surrounding communities of Mountain View (St. Elizabeth’s, 1907), Owls Head (St. Joseph’s, 1923), and Lake Titus (St. Mary’s, 1925); St. Elizabeth’s closed in 1959, and the last regularly scheduled Masses were offered in St. Joseph’s and St. Mary’s in 2007. St. Helen’s and its mission churches began to share a pastor with Notre Dame in 1985, as was originally the case when the parish was formed.

A third parish was begun within the village of Malone as St. John Bosco Church was incorporated on June 23, 1935, with Fr. Euclid Elie as its first pastor. Mass was offered in an open field on September 1 of that year to mark the formal beginnings of the parish, and land was acquired on September 5. An abandoned schoolhouse would be the parish’s first chapel, and Mass was later offered for a number of years in the finished basement of the church while construction progressed slowly through the Great Depression. The completed building was dedicated on June 15, 1952. The care of St. John Bosco Parish was entrusted to the Pallottine Fathers from 1963 until 1990.

In June of 2003, while not formally merging, the more than 2,000 families of St. Joseph’s, Notre Dame, St. Helen’s, and St. John Bosco Parishes all began to share a single pastor, a common staff, and a coordinated schedule and services under the name, “Malone Catholic Parishes.”

In August of 2013, Fr. Joseph Giroux, pastor of the Malone Catholic Parishes, announced that the four parishes would be consolidated into a single new parish. On February 28, 2014, Bishop Terry LaValley issued the decree uniting the parishes as one in the new St. André Bessette Parish, effective July 1, 2014.