St. David the King Parish was founded through an exceptional and persistent initiative on the part of lay Catholic leaders in West Windsor. In May 1972, The Catholic Club of West Windsor first gathered to discuss the needs of Catholics in West Windsor, which was just beginning a period of high population growth. In 1981, Bishop John Reiss first named St. David the King a mission church of St. Paul’s in Princeton. Throughout the 1980s, weekend mass was celebrated at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School and Prince of Peace Lutheran Church.
In 1987, a building fund was under way to work towards the establishment of a permanent parish and building. In early 1988, St. David the King was formally named a parish of the diocese, and later that year Fr. John Wake was appointed its first pastor. By late 1989, ground was broken for a church building, and on Christmas Eve 1991 the first mass was celebrated in the new church. Bishop Reiss officially dedicated the new church building on January 4, 1992.
In November 1994 Fr. Timothy J. Capewell was named the parish’s second pastor, and the community began a period of exceptional growth, from about 400 families at the time of the church’s dedication to more than 1,700 by the early 2000s. In 2008, the parish broke ground for a major expansion of office, event, and classroom space, including the Faith Formation Center and the Great Hall. The addition was dedicated in 2010.
With Fr. Tim’s retirement in June 2023 after almost 29 years as pastor, Fr. Jason Parzynski was named parish administrator, with the expectation of being named the parish’s third pastor in the near future.
St. David the King is the only Catholic church in North America, and perhaps the world, whose patron is King David of the Old Testament. The name was suggested by Fr. Evasio DeMarcellis, pastor of St. Paul’s in Princeton at the time of our founding. He noted that “David, most of all, was a human being, capable of greatness and of sin…but he was also humble, a man of great faith and prayer, just, and compassionate…a complex man, but a great man.”
Founding Families
Jane and Bud Avil
Alice and Tom McVeigh
Jim and Elaine Nolan
Anne and Larry Ryan
Gerry and Lynn Thornton
Kay and Bill Tighe