Church Closure Details Studied, Mary Nevans pederson, The Telegraph Herald, March 7, 2010

Church Closure Details Studied

By Mary Nevans-pederson
The Telegraph Herald
March 7, 2010

http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=275455

[link to Save St. Mary site]

Rev. Daniel Knepper, the pastor of St. Anthony Catholic Church.
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Closing Mass for St. Mary's is set for May. After the closure, the archdiocese will link St. Patrick's and Cathedral.

Since the official announcement last year that Dubuque's St. Mary's Catholic Parish would close, a task force has been studying every aspect of that process. In addition, a committee of representatives from Dubuque's Catholic parishes has been examining issues facing all of the city's parishes and their future. Last week, several announcements were made about both by the Archdiocese of Dubuque:

Closing mass

The closing Mass for St. Mary's will be Tuesday, May 25. Led by their archbishop and other ordained leaders, the parish members will follow a solemn church ritual, focusing on the building, what has gone on in it and specific ceremonial places and items such as the baptismal font, altar, confessional and statues. The church and its furnishings will be decommissioned from sacred use.

Linked parishes

The cluster of St. Mary's and St. Patrick's parishes will no longer exist and St. Patrick's will be linked -- share a pastor -- with the Cathedral of St. Raphael. Monsignor Wayne Ressler, who is now the cathedral's pastor, will retire and the Rev. Dan Knepper will take over as the pastor of the two linked parishes. He will be replaced at St. Anthony Parish by the Rev. Steve Rosonke, who is now serving as pastor of the St. Mary's/St. Patrick's cluster.

Normally such clergy appointments are announced by the archbishop annually close to Easter to become effective in July. "But in this case, with the parish changes, the priests needed to work on their transitions before that," explained Monsignor Tom Toale, vicar general for the archdiocese. "They need to get up to speed about finances, staffing, the parish councils, etc."

Linked parishes share the same priest but operate independently, while clustered parishes have the same priest and cooperate formally in other areas. Parishes in Bellevue, St. Donatus and St. Catherine are linked. The Holy Spirit Pastorate (Holy Trinity, Holy Ghost and Sacred Heart) is an example of a clustered parish.

The linkage of St. Patrick's with the cathedral completes a historical circle. St. Patrick's was a mission from St. Raphael Parish in 1852. In 1858, it had grown large enough to be named as its own, mostly Irish, parish. More than 150 years later, it will again be connected to the cathedral.

Ironically, St. Mary's also was an offshoot of St. Raphael's. It was founded in 1850 as a church for Dubuque's growing German Catholic population.