The parish was established in 1928[2][4] and dedicated in honor of St. Francis Xavier (1506–1552), the Spanish-born Jesuit missionary to India and Japan, who died en route to China.

Kearney had been influential spreading Catholicism in the Bronx, founding this parish first "using two portable structures as a temporary church and auditorium.

"[1] During his pastorate, he also served as professor of religion at Good Counsel College in White Plains and as superintendent of parochial schools in the Bronx.

However, in contrast to the post-war Modernist brick box churches of this period, St. Francis Xavier's Church is designed in an early Gothic style with pointed arched windows and entrances accentuating a stolid masonry mass of low gabled nave and hipped square tower.

The general red brick masonry of the walls is elegantly trimmed with white limestone, as is the corbelled tower cornice, which match the white masonry statues above the principal entrance gable and on the tower upper stage side elevations.

[1] The structure has a prominent, broad-hipped slate roof with an ornamental louvre surmounted by a copper-clad Latin cross.

Despite varying dates, all the complex structures appear to have been built in harmonious styles with a brick color that matches the vernacular neighborhood architecture.