St. Roch, Flat Rock, celebrates 50 years
Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published August 25, 2006
Detroit – Amid a time of hope and transition, parishioners at St. Roch Parish in Flat Rock took time last weekend to celebrate the community’s 50th anniversary.
“We’re celebrating that we’re a faith-filled community and we’re a warm and loving group of people,” said Anne Gagne, chairwoman of the parish’s 50th anniversary committee who raised her seven children in the parish.
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Photo by Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Fr. Richard Hartmann, pastor, chats with parishioner Amanda Scheffler, holding her son, Brandon, 1, after the 50th anniversary Mass last Saturday. | Gathered in a building meant to contain just classrooms – what five decades ago was considered a “temporary” church – St. Roch parishioners celebrated Mass Aug. 19 with Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Francis Reiss, while elsewhere on the property their new church stood nearing completion.
But the big story at St. Roch’s isn’t the new church building, which parishioners hope will be ready by Easter 2007. Rather, said pastor Fr. Richard Hartmann, the building is an illustration of the growth the parish has undergone, both in terms of parishioners and in charity over the past several years.
“It’s a growing parish that, as we build the physical building, we’re really building the living stones of the people of God,” Fr. Hartmann said. “It’s a very welcoming parish, a very open parish. We say there are no strangers in the house of God, and the people seem to love that and they personify that in many ways.”
St. Roch Parish was founded in 1956 after Cardinal Edward Mooney had given permission for the creation of the Mission of St. Roch, served by St. Mary Parish in Rockwood. Fr. Norbert Chateau was the founding pastor of the parish, the original church of which was a farmhouse.
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Photo by Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic
Auxiliary Bishop Francis Reiss acknowledges parishioners as he recesses out of St. Roch Church at the end of Mass. | “I remember going into the old farmhouse for church and everybody getting together and cleaning out the farmhouse and making room for the pastor, Fr. Chateau.” said Gagne. “We had the Mass on the front porch to start with.”
The current church building was erected in 1957. It originally was meant for catechetical classrooms, but the young parish made it the main church building when it coundn’t afford a church.
The community has done well in its temporary church for 49 years.
Currently, Fr. Hartmann said, St. Roch’s parishioners are an active part of the larger community, with many involved civically in Flat Rock, Brownstown and other surrounding municipalities. Further, the parishioners are very active within the parish itself.
The parish – which with 600 families has grown in the past decade – has hospital and convalescent home ministries. It’s involved ecumenically with other Christian churches in the area. Parishioners regularly volunteer to visit the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit and other venues to feed the hungry. And the parish has a wide array of community-building gatherings.
“They’re always reaching out to have a sense of what else they can do,” Fr. Hartman said.
 St. Roch Parish
Founded: 1956
Location: 25022 Gibraltar Road in Flat Rock
Phone: (734) 782-4471
Families: 600
Founding pastor: Fr. Norbert Chateau
Current pastor: Fr. Richard Hartmann
Area involvement: Hospital and convalescent home ministries; food pantry; trips to soup kitchens; pro-life organization; Christian service organization; interfaith worship with area Christian churches.
Major project: The parish is nearing completion of a $2.5 million construction project to build a new church. | Carolyn Roberts, the parishioner spearheading the fundraising campaign for the new church building, said the responses to charity efforts and fundraising are impressive.
“People are constantly carrying bags of food in to give to the food pantries,” she said. “They just seem to care about each other.”
In his homily at the 50th anniversary Mass, Bishop Reiss told the community it was a challenge to bring into the world the wisdom given the Church by the Scriptures and the saints.
“We have to remind ourselves that it is through following the great obedience of Jesus that we find a freedom that nothing else can give us,” the bishop said.
The Mass was followed by a reception and dinner for old and new parishioners to gather and enjoy the parish community.
Some new parishioners at the anniversary celebration, such as Jim Francis, already are looking forward to all the parish could offer them and their families for the next half century.
“I’m in love with it,” said Francis, who joined St. Roch Parish with his wife, Ann, a year ago. “This is the first time in 25 or 27 years that I’ve really felt at home in a Catholic church.”
Michigan Catholic reporter Robert Delaney contributed to this story.
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