The current St. Stanislaus church. COURTESY TIM LUCAS, ST. STANISLAUS.
Dave Bredemus, 72, has been a parishioner of St. Stanislaus near St. Paul’s West Seventh Street for more than 40 of its 150 years, most of that time under the pastorship of the late Father John Clay, whose well-known phrase, “Smile, God loves you,” remains a kind of parish motto.
“It’s an accepting place,” Bredemus said as the parish founded in 1872 to serve Czech and Polish immigrants in the working-class neighborhood celebrates its milestone anniversary this year. People struggling with issues of the Church, fallen away Catholics, people of all incomes, races and ethnicities are welcome, Bredemus said. It is the fifth-oldest Catholic parish founded in St. Paul, with St. Michael now in West St. Paul first founded in St. Paul in 1868.
Father Clay, pastor from 1975 to 2019, set the tone in recent years by emphasizing reconciliation, counseling and other efforts to help people know the love of God, said Bredemus, now a trustee and the parish treasurer. Efforts continue at the parish to provide spiritual counsel and faith-filled social activities with a book club, prayer groups, several women’s groups, a men’s Bible study and stewardship committee, he said. Father Dan Haugan is parochial administrator of the parish.
A 10 a.m. Mass and reception Nov. 13 will help mark the anniversary, on the feast day of St. Stanislaus of Kostka, a Polish novice in the Jesuits for whom the church was named, said Kim Myers, parish administrator.
The first, wood-frame St. Stanislaus church built in 1872 in St. Paul. COURTESY ARCHIVES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS
The first St. Stanislaus church, a wood-frame building, was replaced in 1886 by a brick church, and the old church became the parish school. As the parish grew, St. Stanislaus School also grew, and a four-room brick school was built in 1902. Added onto several times over the years, the school eventually closed in 1974 due to declining enrollment, according to the book “Gather Us In,” a history of parishes and schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis published by the archdiocese in 2000.
Fire destroyed the church in 1934, and the current brick church was completed in 1941, despite financial strain from the Great Depression. The school is now the MacDonald Montessori School.
Many parishioners continue to pitch in at St. Stan’s, Bredemus said, through prayer, donations and volunteering. And the church is reaching out to a new wave of 30- to 50-year-olds moving into the neighborhood as they seek less expensive but historic housing, he said.
“It’s meeting a need,” Bredemus said of parish efforts at evangelization.
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