Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2007 / St. Bartholomew, St. Rita to hold unity Mass Nov. 18
St. Bartholomew, St. Rita to hold unity Mass Nov. 18
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published November 16, 2007
 Detroit — By joining together, the people of St. Bartholomew Parish and St. Rita Parish are creating a new parish that should be viable for years to come, says Basilian Fr. Ronald Borg, who will be the merged parish's pastor.
The newly merged St. Bartholomew-St. Rita Parish will formally begin its new life with a Mass of unity at 11 a.m., Sunday, Nov. 18, at St. Bartholomew Church, on East Outer Drive at Wexford Street in northeast Detroit.
Liturgical activity was discontinued at St. Rita Church, on East State Fair Avenue at Hawthorne, in June after a vandalism incident that resulted in desecration of the Church (with the tabernacle broken into and the Blessed Sacrament strewn on the floor). The incident was one of 17 break-ins at St. Rita since Jan. 1.
Since the desecration, most St. Rita parishioners have been worshipping at St. Bartholomew, while some have found their way to other parishes. The St. Rita parishioners decided against a closing Mass in the damaged church. The parish buildings are now boarded up and awaiting sale.
With the merger, about 75 families from St. Rita are combining with about 180 families of St. Bartholomew to launch the new parish.
Fr. Borg says the merger allows for at least the possibility of some growth. Although the St. Bartholomew families are more numerous, they are almost all senior citizens, while the St. Rita families include some who are younger, albeit middle-aged, he explains.
Perhaps more significant for any community evangelization efforts in the new parish's overwhelmingly black neighborhood is that the St. Rita parishioners are almost all black, while the St. Bartholomew parishioners are almost all white, Fr. Borg says.
A strongly integrated parish might also be good for the prospects of the parish elementary school, whose student body is drawn from the surrounding area, he maintains.
Fr. Borg said he is glad to have been chosen as the new parish's pastor: "I've been here for a year as the administrator, and I have been very happy here. I think I have been accepted by both the St. Bartholomew and the St. Rita people. I love them and they love me."
Veronica Kawa, a St. Rita parishioner for about 23 years, said she is "most definitely hopeful" about the merged parish's prospects. "We were already clustered with them, and had worked together with them on some volunteer projects. We had a good time with them," she says.
Kawa says she had been worried that the St. Rita parishioners would lose the feeling of closeness they had had, "but St. Bart's parishioners opening their doors to us made a big difference."
Paul Thomas, who was parish council president at St. Rita, sounds a note of cautious hopefulness about the merger. "It was looking pretty bleak, but now it's looking strong," he says.
A lot will depend on how many St. Rita parishioners stay with the new merged parish, and how many of those who have drifted away can be lured back, Thomas explains.
As for himself, however, "I feel welcome there," he says.
Deacon Ray Lubien, who has been serving at St. Bartholomew and who will continue to serve the merged parish, says he can understand what the St. Rita parishioners are going through.
"I was a member of Holy Name of Jesus Parish, on Van Dyke and McNichols, which closed in 1990, and I can remember how hard it was for us," he says.
And he says he knows St. Rita had a proud history of turning out Catholics, having once had its own grade school and high school.
"When parishes merge, it's something the people have to work hard at. But the St. Rita's people are really good people, and we welcome them with open arms, and will try to make sure they don' feel they are strangers," Deacon Lubien adds.
Pam Beech, of the archdiocesan Department of Parish Life and Services, says the merger has been difficult for the St. Rita parishioners. "They suffered numerous episodes of vandalism, yet they never lost faith or hope," she says.
Beech praised Fr. Borg for helping to bring St. Rita people "from anger to acceptance and forgiveness."
But she says she is hopeful about the future: "The new parish of St. Bartholomew-St. Rita is committed to the mission of Jesus Christ."
St. Bartholomew Church is at 2291 E. Outer Drive, Detroit. For more information, call (313) 892-1446.
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