Yuba City parish celebrates
50 years service, new center
-- for The Catholic Herald
YUBA CITY (4/11/03) -- St. Isidore's Catholic Church will be celebrating its 50-year jubilee in multiple events over the coming weeks.
In 1952, Sacramento diocesan authorities proclaimed St. Isidore's as new parish split from what parish Business Manager Karen Brown called, "the Mother Church" of St. Joseph's in Marysville.
At a special 10 a.m., Mass April 27, at St. Isidore's, The Rev. Soane Kaniseli for St. Joseph's across the Feather River, will commemorate the historic event by reading again the original proclamatory letter.
Among the people there to receive a copy of the treasured letter will be Margaret Steel, who was among the laity pioneers of St. Isidore's Parish, according to Brown.
"They used to hold Mass at (Steel's) home before we had a church," Brown recalled.
St. Isidore's half-century of history will be further celebrated Saturday May 10, with Sacramento's Bishop William K. Weigand presiding over a gala bilingual ceremony dedicating the church's spanking new $2.6 million parish center, Brown said.
While it may have begun as a small offshoot of the older St. Joseph's parish in Marysville, St. Isidore's has grown greatly, especially in recent years as Yuba City and Sutter County have out-paced its neighboring twin city and county.
St. Isidore's now has 1,567 registered Catholic families in the parish, supporting a strong, 183-student kindergarten to eighth-grade parochial school, Brown reported.
Parochial Vicar Father Loreto Rojas, 28, and know affectionately to one and all as "Father Bong" said that the Yuba City parish was one of great faith and diversity.
"I'm called 'Bong' in the Filipino tradition of calling the eldest 'bong,' or 'junior'," Father Rojas explained.
The congregation he serves is 40 to 45 percent Hispanic, three percent Asian and one percent African-American, with the remainder Caucasian, Father Rojas said.
But it is nonetheless a united and blending parish.
Both Father Rojas and The Rev. Manuel B. Soria, pastor of the parish, are bilingual, Spanish-English, which helps bridge the two most populous segments of the parish.
"And we have a lot of bilingual events which brings everyone together," Father Rojas said.
The overall congregation is quite diverse when plotted across the spectrum of faith, with some "rigidity" still visible from people still clinging to pre-Vatican II ideas," Father Rojas said.
Nonetheless, there generally trend is toward acceptance, he said.
After three years serving the parish, Father Rojas said he will be departing in June to return to school, and he will miss the parish he has come to love.
St. Isidore's first parish church was a modest chapel built for Italian prisoners being held at what is now Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County during World War II.
In 1952 it was transported lock, stock and vestibule from Beale to the parishes initial digs on Cooper Avenue in Yuba City. It was later moved again to Clark Avenue location the parish now calls home.
In later years the picturesque chapel gave way to the much larger St. Isidore's Church were the faithful now congregate for Mass. But it remained in use as both the parish hall and, with its restaurant-type kitchen the venue for hot lunch for the school students.
"I can remember coming to church here," said Margaret Stawpert, who grew up worshipping in the small chapel. She is now the co-director of kitchen services and school lunches.
Stawpert's small dining hall will soon give way to the spiffy new 16,000-square-foot parish center expected to be completed in the next fortnight, or so, according to construction supervisor Paul LaPlante.
"The landscapers were supposed to start today," LaPlante said, looking around at the neat, but still turfless campus setting.
The dream of a new parish center began about three years ago when the church launched a successful $2.6 million capital acquisition program that, according to Brown, drew on the spirit, ingenuity and generosity of many, many faithful in the diverse parish.
Work began on the parish center in October and, with, six months later, craftsman putting the finishing touches to the inside accouterments.
The 16,000-square-foot parish center includes an office, a conference room, two bathrooms, topnotch 7,000-square-foot multipurpose room and a state of the art commercial kitchen and storeroom.
Kitchen workers can serve direct to the multipurpose room or to a dividable dining room than can be split into both large and small rooms to accommodate events of various sizes, said LaPlante, of Hilbers Construction Company.
For many, the jewel of the facility is the multipurpose room, with its polished hardwood floor and large seating capacity for basketball and volleyball games and musical events.
"We'll finally have indoor basketball," Stawpert said.
The arts have also been considered in the design and construction of the center.
"There'll be a portable stage for plays," LaPlante said.
"And you see those speakers up there," LaPlante said, pointing a large rectangular speakers hanging suspended from the rafters some 70 or 80 feet in the air.
"When those things are on, you can really feel the music," he said.
50 years service, new center
-- for The Catholic Herald
YUBA CITY (4/11/03) -- St. Isidore's Catholic Church will be celebrating its 50-year jubilee in multiple events over the coming weeks.
In 1952, Sacramento diocesan authorities proclaimed St. Isidore's as new parish split from what parish Business Manager Karen Brown called, "the Mother Church" of St. Joseph's in Marysville.
At a special 10 a.m., Mass April 27, at St. Isidore's, The Rev. Soane Kaniseli for St. Joseph's across the Feather River, will commemorate the historic event by reading again the original proclamatory letter.
Among the people there to receive a copy of the treasured letter will be Margaret Steel, who was among the laity pioneers of St. Isidore's Parish, according to Brown.
"They used to hold Mass at (Steel's) home before we had a church," Brown recalled.
St. Isidore's half-century of history will be further celebrated Saturday May 10, with Sacramento's Bishop William K. Weigand presiding over a gala bilingual ceremony dedicating the church's spanking new $2.6 million parish center, Brown said.
While it may have begun as a small offshoot of the older St. Joseph's parish in Marysville, St. Isidore's has grown greatly, especially in recent years as Yuba City and Sutter County have out-paced its neighboring twin city and county.
St. Isidore's now has 1,567 registered Catholic families in the parish, supporting a strong, 183-student kindergarten to eighth-grade parochial school, Brown reported.
Parochial Vicar Father Loreto Rojas, 28, and know affectionately to one and all as "Father Bong" said that the Yuba City parish was one of great faith and diversity.
"I'm called 'Bong' in the Filipino tradition of calling the eldest 'bong,' or 'junior'," Father Rojas explained.
The congregation he serves is 40 to 45 percent Hispanic, three percent Asian and one percent African-American, with the remainder Caucasian, Father Rojas said.
But it is nonetheless a united and blending parish.
Both Father Rojas and The Rev. Manuel B. Soria, pastor of the parish, are bilingual, Spanish-English, which helps bridge the two most populous segments of the parish.
"And we have a lot of bilingual events which brings everyone together," Father Rojas said.
The overall congregation is quite diverse when plotted across the spectrum of faith, with some "rigidity" still visible from people still clinging to pre-Vatican II ideas," Father Rojas said.
Nonetheless, there generally trend is toward acceptance, he said.
After three years serving the parish, Father Rojas said he will be departing in June to return to school, and he will miss the parish he has come to love.
St. Isidore's first parish church was a modest chapel built for Italian prisoners being held at what is now Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County during World War II.
In 1952 it was transported lock, stock and vestibule from Beale to the parishes initial digs on Cooper Avenue in Yuba City. It was later moved again to Clark Avenue location the parish now calls home.
In later years the picturesque chapel gave way to the much larger St. Isidore's Church were the faithful now congregate for Mass. But it remained in use as both the parish hall and, with its restaurant-type kitchen the venue for hot lunch for the school students.
"I can remember coming to church here," said Margaret Stawpert, who grew up worshipping in the small chapel. She is now the co-director of kitchen services and school lunches.
Stawpert's small dining hall will soon give way to the spiffy new 16,000-square-foot parish center expected to be completed in the next fortnight, or so, according to construction supervisor Paul LaPlante.
"The landscapers were supposed to start today," LaPlante said, looking around at the neat, but still turfless campus setting.
The dream of a new parish center began about three years ago when the church launched a successful $2.6 million capital acquisition program that, according to Brown, drew on the spirit, ingenuity and generosity of many, many faithful in the diverse parish.
Work began on the parish center in October and, with, six months later, craftsman putting the finishing touches to the inside accouterments.
The 16,000-square-foot parish center includes an office, a conference room, two bathrooms, topnotch 7,000-square-foot multipurpose room and a state of the art commercial kitchen and storeroom.
Kitchen workers can serve direct to the multipurpose room or to a dividable dining room than can be split into both large and small rooms to accommodate events of various sizes, said LaPlante, of Hilbers Construction Company.
For many, the jewel of the facility is the multipurpose room, with its polished hardwood floor and large seating capacity for basketball and volleyball games and musical events.
"We'll finally have indoor basketball," Stawpert said.
The arts have also been considered in the design and construction of the center.
"There'll be a portable stage for plays," LaPlante said.
"And you see those speakers up there," LaPlante said, pointing a large rectangular speakers hanging suspended from the rafters some 70 or 80 feet in the air.
"When those things are on, you can really feel the music," he said.
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