100 years of worship

From the Monday, Sept. 22, 2008 edition of the Northwest Herald:

100 years of worship
By DIANA SROKA - dsroka@nwherald.com

Ten pews from the altar, left side of the church.

That’s Kathleen Moehling’s spot at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Johnsburg. She’s sat there for weekend Mass for 70 years.

“My family had what they called ‘their pew,’ ” said Moehling, 70. “When I was a child, we always sat in the same place.”

Across McHenry County, Catholics such as Moehling are part of the growing Rockford Diocese that includes almost half a million Catholics. Since last year, the diocese has been celebrating the centennial of its founding by Pope Pius X, in 1908.

While the population of the Chicago Archdiocese has dwindled slightly during the past 25 years, Catholic populations in neighboring dioceses in Rockford and Joliet are booming as the collar counties have expanded.

To celebrate the closing of its centennial year, there will be a special Mass on Tuesday at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rockford. Attendance will be limited to ticket holders from parishes within the diocese.

For many area Catholics, the centennial celebration has prompted reflection on their personal experience of being a Catholic in the Rockford Diocese.

“Years ago, the Mass was in Latin and the priest wasn’t facing the people,” said Mary Ann Sharp, 74, of McHenry.

Sharp has been a parishioner of St. Patrick Church in McHenry her entire life. It’s where she experienced the changes of Vatican II that allowed Mass to be said in English, and the priests to face the congregation at Mass. St. Patrick is the place she’s celebrated major life milestones.

“All my children were baptized at St. Pat’s and married at St. Pat’s. My husband is buried at St. Pat’s,” she said. “I never would think about going to another church.”

St. Patrick Church, founded in 1840, is among the oldest in the diocese. But not all area Catholics attend a parish as historic as St. Patrick.

Church of the Holy Apostles, just a few miles away from St. Patrick, will turn 19 years old this month. The church was founded in 1989 when the county saw a population boom.

Between 1980 and 1990, population in McHenry County grew by about 24 percent, to 183,241, according to the McHenry County Clerk’s office. In the city of McHenry alone, the number of residents climbed from 10,908 in 1980 to 16,177 in 1990, said Cathy Kunzer, McHenry deputy clerk.

The population growth meant an influx of Catholics. McHenry’s two existing churches, St. Patrick and St. Mary, would not be enough.

“There were signs that new developments were going to be taking place in the McHenry city area,” said the Rev. Robert Sherry, founding pastor of Holy Apostles. “One day I was told go start a parish.”

Holy Apostles is home to more than 2,709 registered families.

That number had been steadily climbing until recently, when the housing market slowed, Sherry said. But new parishioners still are trickling in, many from Chicago or the near suburbs.

“People who are retiring want to get away from the congestion,” Sherry said. Other new parishioners are young couples hoping to raise a family in McHenry County.

That’s what prompted Irene Pasminski and her husband, Andrew, to move from the northwest suburbs to Harvard.

“We wanted to live in the country,” said Pasminski, 53. “I thought it would be a more wholesome place.”

Pasminski grew up on the northwest side of Chicago, attending Catholic school around the time of Vatican II. She remembered her young Catholic experience as more strict and structured.

“It was pretty much pay, pray and obey,” Pasminski said. “Church was a place of piety and mystery.”

She said after Vatican II, church was turned “upside down.” But that wasn’t the only dramatic change she would experience as a Catholic; moving to Harvard as an adult also meant a new church environment.

She brought her family to St. Joseph Church in Harvard, a smaller parish of about 535 families. She immediately noticed a difference from the large Chicago churches that she was accustomed.

“There’s a lot more opportunity for participation,” she said. It's a different atmosphere, but “the theology stays the same,” Pasminski said.

That sentiment about the Catholic Church spans not only distance, but time, say longtime Catholics.

“I don’t think the Church has changed that much,” Moehling said. “How the schools are run has changed somewhat ... but the religion, really isn’t that much different.”