1946 saw establishment of 11 parishes, the most in a single year in archdiocese’s history

As 1946 dawned, the world was still reeling from the Second World War, which had ended with Japan’s surrender the previous September. The year would see the first meeting of the United Nations, the opening of the Space Age and the Christmastime debut of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

That year in then-Archdiocese of St. Paul, Archbishop John Murray would establish 11 new parishes — the greatest number in a single year in the archdiocese’s nearly 175-year history. (Only 1856 and 1865 come close, each with nine.) The reason for the parish boom was twofold, archdiocesan historians suggest: The Catholic population was growing, and Archbishop Murray had promised priests who served as World War II chaplains their own parish when they returned.

Those 11 parishes mark their 75th anniversary this year. They are Holy Childhood and St. Pascal Baylon in St. Paul, Immaculate Heart of Mary in Minnetonka, Our Lady of Grace in Edina, Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Maplewood; St. Frances Cabrini, Visitation (merged with Annunciation in 2012) and St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis, St. John Vianney in South St. Paul, St. Margaret Mary in Golden Valley and St. Therese in Deephaven.

The parishes were established during a decade of institutional growth. From 1940-1949, 27 new parishes were founded in the archdiocese, the most in a single decade since the 1880s, and a number unsurpassed since. Among the 11 in 1946, eight had pastors who had served as wartime chaplains.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, Archbishop Murray invited assistant priests to volunteer with the armed forces and, as incentive, told them they would become pastors of their own parishes at the end of their service. According to the late Father Marvin O’Connell — a historian, longtime professor at the University of Notre Dame and priest of the archdiocese who died in 2016 — the first priest to enlist with this promise was Father John Buchanan, an assistant at Incarnation in Minneapolis who went on to serve with Gen. George Patton’s Third Army, which pushed across Normandy.

“Pilgrims to the Northland,” Father O’Connell’s history of the archdiocese from 1840 to 1962 (published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 2009), notes Father Buchanan was awarded the Silver Star for heroism on Aug. 26, 1944, after he dressed soldiers’ wounds while under direct enemy fire. He was discharged in September 1946, and six months later, he was named founding pastor of Holy Childhood.

Like the other parishes founded that year, Holy Childhood in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood had no church building, so its founding pastor sought civic spaces for worship. After its official incorporation in April 1946, Holy Childhood’s first Masses were celebrated in buildings at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, and Father Buchanan officed over the Midtown Theater, according to “Gather Us In” by Scott Wright (published by The Catholic Spirit in 2000). But the parish did not delay in building its own facilities, and by the fall of 1947, it had completed a basement church and two floors of its school building, allowing the school to open. However, 10 years passed before the parish finished the upper portion of the church as it stands today.

In Minnetonka, Immaculate Heart of Mary’s first Masses were in a Quonset hut; in Edina, Our Lady of Grace parishioners worshipped in the Edina Theater. Presentation, St. Frances Cabrini, St. Joan of Arc and Visitation’s members all gathered at nearby public schools, and St. Margaret Mary parishioners met at the Glenwood Hills Hospital.

In South St. Paul, St. John Vianney’s founding pastor, WWII chaplain Father Harold Whittet, offered Mass at the lodge building in nearby Kaposia Park and oversaw the construction of its first church, finished in 1947 with material from two Army barracks. With help from fundraising via a nearby roller skating rink, the parish went on to build a combined church and school — its present structure — that was completed in 1955.

Similarly, St. Pascal Baylon constructed a temporary church from surplus Army barracks before breaking ground on its combined church and school facility in 1949. But its first Mass was celebrated in the gymnasium at the Ramsey County Correctional Facility for Boys, also known as “Totem Town,” in St. Paul’s Highwood neighborhood.

For many of these parishes, the church building wasn’t the first priority, but rather the school. Most opened a school before constructing permanent churches, and worship shifted there from the public spaces. Like others across the archdiocese, the schools were staffed by religious sisters, among them the Schools Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of St. Joseph of Crookston, Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of St. Francis of Rochester. Of the parishes founded in 1946, only St. Frances Cabrini did not establish a parish school.

These parishes’ post-war founding was commemorated overtly in the naming of St. Joan of Arc, the “Maid of Orléans,” who was compelled by visions of St. Michael the Archangel, St. Margaret and St. Catherine of Alexandria to fight for Charles VII of France against England in the Hundred Years War. Founding pastor Father Mark Farrell — a returning WWII chaplain — chose her patronage as “a tribute of one soldier to another,” Father O’Connell observed.

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ANNIVERSARIES ABOUND

In addition to the parishes marking their 75th anniversary this year, The Catholic Spirit congratulates the parishes that celebrated last year or are celebrating this year significant anniversaries on the quarter century. Special parish anniversary celebrations are noted below. If information about a parish anniversary event was obtained by press time, it is noted. Not all parishes are holding anniversary celebrations, and for some, plans were undetermined at press time.

2020

50 years (1970 founding) 

Risen Savior, Burnsville. Risen Savior began with 350 households from Burnsville, Lakeview and Apple Valley. Initially, a house served as the center of parish life, with a priest residence, office space and a garage-turned-chapel. The parish’s anniversary celebration includes 5 p.m. Sept. 4 Charter Member Mass, and 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Masses Sept. 12 with Archbishop Bernard Hebda. risensavior.org

St. Gerard Majella, Brooklyn Park. Founded by Redemptorist Father Robert Oelerich. His religious order ministered at the parish for its first 20 years. In 1990, Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular assumed leadership of the parish. Then, from 2017-2019, the parish returned to the Redemptorists. It is now in the pastoral care of archdiocesan priests. st-gerard.org

75 years (1945 founding)

Good Shepherd, Golden Valley. Like many of the parishes that would be founded in the next year, Good Shepherd had a former World War II Army chaplain as a pastor. According to its website, its first Masses were celebrated at the Boulevard Café on Wayzata Boulevard on a portable altar its priest had used on the Italian battlefields. goodshepherdgv.org

Our Lady of Victory, Minneapolis. The parish’s earliest Masses were celebrated in a movie theatre before a temporary church was constructed of Quonset huts. Its current church was completed in 1953. (612) 529-7788

St. Leo the Great (now Lumen Christi), St. Paul. Like parishioners at Our Lady of Victory in north Minneapolis, members of St. Leo in St. Paul’s Highland Park first met at a movie theater, with daily Mass, confessions and baptisms taking place at a nearby empty storefront until a building holding the church and school was completed in 1946. Another church was built 20 years later and designed by Ade Bethune, an American Catholic liturgical artist. St. Leo later clustered with and then merged with neighboring parishes St. Therese and St. Gregory the Great to form Lumen Christi in 2006 at the former St. Leo campus. lumenchristicc.org

125 years (1895 founding)

St. Michael, Farmington. After 19 years as a mission church, St. Michael became its own parish in 1895. A small brick church served its community from 1913 until 2000, with the completion of a much larger church about one mile southwest to meet the needs of the area’s suburban expansion. An anniversary event at the parish will take place Sept. 26, near the feast of St. Michael. stmichael-farmington.org

150 years (1870 founding)

Sacred Heart, Rush City. Railroad expansion to the Rush City area created the need for a parish to serve the area’s Catholics. The first church was constructed under the leadership of a priest in Stillwater, who made the 100-mile round trip by horseback or stagecoach. Archbishop Hebda celebrated an anniversary Mass Oct. 25, 2020, at the parish. sacredheartrcmn.org

St. Joseph the Worker, Maple Grove. Founded simply as St. Joseph to serve German Catholics in Minneapolis, where it was located for its first 106 years, the parish boundaries moved westward in 1976 to Maple Grove after the State of Minnesota purchased its property to build Interstate 94. When the new church was completed the following year, it took the name St. Joseph the Worker. sjtw.net

St. Lawrence (now Divine Mercy), Faribault. Founded to serve German Catholics in Faribault, St. Lawrence shared a pastor as early as 1886 with nearby Sacred Heart, the French parish. The parishes formally merged in 1996, and in 2002, they joined with Faribault’s third Catholic parish, Immaculate Conception (the historically Irish parish) to form a single parish, Divine Mercy. divinemercy.cc

2021

100 years (1921 founding)

St. Joseph (now St. Gabriel the Archangel), Hopkins. St. Joseph was born from a merger of two other, older parishes: St. Margaret’s of Minnetonka (founded in 1879) and St. Mary of Hopkins (founded in 1895). In 2013, it merged with nearby St. John to become St. Gabriel the Archangel, a bilingual parish that continues to use both previous parishes’ campuses. Perpetual adoration is held at the former St. Joseph campus. stgabrielhopkins.org

125 years (1896 founding)

St. Augustine, South St. Paul. St. Augustine was the first Catholic parish established in South St. Paul. Its first church, a wood-frame building, was destroyed by fire in 1923 on Holy Saturday. Easter liturgies that year were quickly moved to the Ideal Theater. The parish’s second church, built of brick, was completed the following year in time for Christmas. Today, St. Augustine shares a pastor and ministries with nearby Holy Trinity. holytrinitysspmn.org

St. Luke, Clearwater. Sixteen years before St. Luke’s founding, a priest bought a schoolhouse to be remodeled as a mission church for nine families. According to “Gather Us In,” they paid the priest $10 to visit their community monthly. The current church building dates to 1904. It was restored after being badly damaged in a fire in 1942. churchofstlukes.com

150 years (1871 founding)

St. Agatha, Coates. In St. Agatha’s earliest years, priests from St. Patrick in Inver Grove Heights would travel about 20 miles south monthly to minister to its church, located then in Vermillion township. It built a new church in 1899, but it was struck by lightning in 1913 and destroyed by fire. Its current church was rebuilt that same year. Among the religious vocations to come from the parish are the priest-brothers Father Lawrence Ryan and Father John Ryan. Father Lawrence Ryan served as rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul in the early 20th century and oversaw its interior decoration, and Father John Ryan was a prominent national authority on social justice and labor issues. saintagatha.org