During a Jan. 28 virtual meeting of members of Oak Park’s four Roman Catholic parishes, officials of the Chicago archdiocese and three local pastors made the long-awaited announcement of how the parishes would be realigned under Cardinal Blase Cupich’s Renew My Church project.
After 25 minutes which included a hymn, a scripture reading, greetings from each pastor and prayers, the plan was announced by Auxiliary Bishop Kevin Birmingham, the vicar for the region including Oak Park.
The plan calls for the consolidation of four parishes into two with St. Giles Parish aligning with a diminished St. Catherine-St. Lucy Parish and Ascension Parish aligning with St. Edmund. Two current priests, both with roots at St. Giles will be appointed as pastors of the newly united parishes in actions to take effect July 1.
St. Giles is located at 1045 Columbian Ave. St. Catherine-St. Lucy is at 38 N. Austin Blvd. Ascension is at 808 S. East Ave. St. Edmund is at 188 S. Oak Park Ave.
All four church buildings will continue in use, though the announcement specifically said that St. Catherine-St. Lucy, which serves both Austin and Oak Park, will be considered a “sacred space” rather than the broader definition of a church.
Whether Sunday Mass will be held at the Austin Boulevard location on a regular basis was left unclear in the announcement with a decision on that ultimately to be made by the new pastor of the joined St. Giles/St. Catherine-St. Lucy Parish.
The plan, which included input over four months from members of each parish, was recommended to Cupich who made the final call. Renew My Church is a years’ long project aimed at right-sizing the number of parishes in the archdiocese to reflect the downturn in the number of people attending services and the shrinking number of priests available to serve as pastors.
All four churches in Oak Park will retain their names, but the two newly formed parishes will be assigned new names. Members of each parish will be asked to suggest five possible names with the final decision resting with Cupich.
Rev. Carl Morello, the pastor of St. Giles, will now serve as the pastor of the joined St. Giles/St. Catherine-St. Lucy Parish. Rev. Rex Pillai, who worked as an associate at St. Giles with Morello, will on July 1 become the pastor of the combined Ascension/St. Edmund Parish. Pillai has served as associate pastor at Ascension for the past 18 months. Rev. John McGivern, pastor of St. Edmund Church for 18 years, will be reassigned within the diocese this summer.
The future of three local Catholic schools was also dealt with in the plan. St. Giles School will be the “parish-governed” school for that newly formed parish. Meanwhile St. Catherine-St. Lucy School will continue to operate but under the auspices of the Big Shoulders Fund, a nonprofit entity which has invested heavily in Catholic schools within the city of Chicago. The school serves largely students from the West Side of Chicago.
In its Jan. 28 announcement, a spokesperson for the archdiocese credited both the Big Shoulders Fund and an expanding connection between St. Catherine-St. Lucy School and Fenwick High School as critical to the school’s future.
Ascension School will be the “parish-governed” school of that newly united parish. St. Edmund School closed several years ago.
The recommendation to the archdiocese from the local discernment group urged that a conscious effort be made by both newly formed Oak Park parishes to use the St. Catherine-St. Lucy campus as “a base for ministry outreach to the West Side of Chicago, supported by the Oak Park Catholic community.”
In response to multiple questions submitted by participants Friday night about the future of St. Catherine-St. Lucy Church, a spokesperson said the plan urges collaboration between the church and newly realigned Catholic churches remaining on the West Side.
The spokesman also said that as part of Renew My Church debts owed by the local parishes to the archdiocese, specifically “considerable debt” at St. Catherine-St. Lucy, will be cancelled so that the entities begin without any debt.
Multiple questions focused on how specific aspects of parish life will be merged including staffing, facilities and music and religious education ministries. The response was that the new pastors and leaders from each parish will spend the next five months discussing and finalizing those plans at the local level.
A viewer asked if the popular St. Giles Family Mass Community would continue. The spokesman said that decision will be made locally.
Asked if the Children’s School would continue to lease the former St. Edmund School, McGivern said there are two years remaining on a contract and that any decision will come later.
The spokesperson said that it is possible that over time unused buildings on the four campuses could be sold. Rectories at St. Catherine-St. Lucy and St. Edmund will possibly be left empty. The spokesperson said proceeds from any such sales would go to the archdiocese but could then be returned to the newly formed parishes.
