Lower mass attendance and costly upkeep has resulted in the anticipated closure of St. Catherine of Siena-St. Lucy church.
The building, located at 27 Washington Blvd. in Oak Park, is part of a Catholic parish that includes St. Giles, 1045 Columbian Ave., Oak Park. Building closure will occur prior to the end of the parish’s fiscal year on June 30. A final commemorative mass will be hosted in June, according to a press release made available Monday by the parish, though no official closing date has been set.
While located in Oak Park, the parish has a long history as a shared community between Oak Park and Austin.
Rev. Carl Morello, pastor of St. Catherine-St. Lucy and St. Giles, made the announcement after 9 a.m. mass Sunday. He invited the roughly 75 parishioners in attendance at St. Catherine-St. Lucy to speak to each other and him about the announcement.
“I can tell you than in 42 years I’ve been a priest, I never imagined that I would be in a position to tell people that their sacred place was being closed,” he said Monday morning. “I had to pray about it. I had to struggle with it emotionally.
“I’ve come to appreciate the community, who they are, the cultural gifts they bring, some of the things they taught me, so there is a sense of connectedness.”
The press release noted that St. Catherine-St. Lucy Catholic School will remain open, while the nonprofit SisterHouse, which offers a temporary home to women seeking recovery from substance abuse, will remain in the church’s former convent building. The Neighborhood Bridge and the Faith and Fellowship Ministry will continue to operate out of the repurposed rectory. Housing Forward will have a presence there.
Morello said the church building will become relegated by the Archdiocese of Chicago, meaning it will no longer be considered for sacred use or space. The archdiocese can elect to rent the building or sell it to an organization that has use for it. But until it gets relegated, it will stand vacant.
“The church was not targeted for closure,” the Archdiocese of Chicago said in a statement. “At the request of St. Catherine of Siena-St. Lucy and St. Giles parish, the archdiocese assisted with a multi-site review in early 2024 to assess its buildings and finances. Following a townhall in October 2024, the parish determined that maintaining St. Catherine of Siena-St. Lucy Church was not sustainable due to finances and significant maintenance costs.”
Morello said ongoing maintenance and repair costs, including things such as tuck pointing, can cost more than a million dollars, which says nothing of the monthly costs to operate the church, such as electricity, heat, cleaning and air conditioning, which can cost as much as $20,000 per month.
“Ultimately, it’s the community that made the decision,” he said.
St. Catherine-St. Lucy parishioners have multiple options for Sunday mass and other ministries. St. Giles will remain open, and so will Ascension Catholic Church, 808 S. East Ave., and St. Edmund, 188 S. Oak Park Ave.
Valerie Jennings, a 40-year parishioner of St. Catherine-St. Lucy, said keeping the church open was not sustainable.
“I’m going to be that direct and to the point,” she said. “We had low church attendance. We are good stewards of the treasures we’ve been entrusted by God, but it’s not enough to provide additional educational and spiritual opportunities for parishioners.
“It’s not easy, but it made sense.”
Other long-time parishioners contacted by Wednesday Journal expressed a range of emotions.
Pat Nelson, with her family a member of the parish for 58 years, said she “cannot judge whether the decision to close is right or wrong., but I do believe it is inevitable.” She referred to the work of parish members who presented a financial overview at a town hall last October and said she felt “the writing was on the wall toward closure.”
Bill Cragg and his family joined the parish in 1972. He noted the parish had two eras. The first began in the early 1930s when the church was built and it was packed with big Irish families and had a school “busting at the seams.” The second era, he said, came in the 1960s and 1970s when Austin rapidly resegregated from white to Black and “the parish became a DEI leader before there was DEI. Everyone was welcome at St. Catherine’s.”
He offered his take on the emotions around the closing. “Speaking for myself and maybe for other parishioners, the announcement that the church will be silent on Sundays brings on a deep sense of melancholy and so many memories of baptisms, first communions, confirmations, weddings and funerals. … All those people, all of those years – just the best, just the very best. With faith, hope and charity we will carry on.”
Tom Nelson, husband of Pat Nelson, offered a contrary view.
“I do not believe the decision to close SCSL Church is the right decision. This church is a place to begin wonderful things. If a house pipe is broken, you fix it, you don’t sell the house,” he wrote in an email to Wednesday Journal. “I believe my American Black friends are fed up with band-aids. Cut and run is not the answer. Th incubator ideas of Big Shoulders and Bridge cannot do it alone. We all need to stop whining and get going. No more 3-hour committee meetings. Just set goals and do it,” Nelson wrote.
With Ash Wednesday this week, marking the beginning of Lent, Morello said the closure does provide a unique opportunity for all Catholics in Oak Park.
“We look at these challenges in faith,” he said. “We carry these crosses, [and] gain some new life from this.
“This is an important thing for me as a priest.”
Dan Haley contributed reporting to this story.
A legacy of servanthood
According to the book “The Archdiocese of Chicago: A Journey of Faith,” St. Catherine of Siena church was founded in 1889 and merged in 1974 with St. Lucy, located in Austin. The St. Catherine’s building was designed by Joseph W. McCarthy and completed in 1931. It was built in a Tudor Gothic style.
Though the church has had a long history of spiritual servanthood, the evolution to ultimate closure likely began in the late 1980s, when the Rev. Edward Braxton, now a retired bishop, arrived as pastor. At the time, Braxton and the now-deceased Sr. Teresita Weind had a brewing disagreement about her role in the parish.
“She would offer homilies and reflections during mass, and of course, women aren’t supposed to be doing that,” Valerie Jennings said. “Only an ordained priest and deacons are allowed to give homilies. That was the downturn of St. Catherine-St. Lucy. People were upset and they left.
Jennings said that while the church was decidedly “more lenient in some areas.” Braxton was focused on creating alignment with the Catholic church as a whole. Weind left the church in 1991, but her influence is still there for Jennings.
“She encouraged me,” she said. “I was working in a corporate environment and she was pushing me toward church and be a lay person with a family. I did a lot on a volunteer basis.”
Weind died on April 28, 2024 at the age of 81. After leaving St. Catherine-St. Lucy Church, Weind went on to lead her order internationally.
-Gregg Voss
