Three Catholic churches to merge into one parish

Date: 7/12/2021

HOLYOKE – Three Catholic churches in Holyoke that are run by the Diocese of Springfield will officially merge and become a single congregation beginning in August.

Father Mark Stelzer, who serves as the administrator of St. Jerome’s Parish in Holyoke, said the leaders of the three churches have been working on the merger of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and the Immaculate Conception Parish into St. Jerome’s Parish, since July 2020.

He emphasized that this was a decision made by the people rather than a decree from the diocese. “This is a model of the way things should be done in the church. I asked former Bishop [Mitchell] Rozanski to lead from behind on this one, to let me and the people figure this out together and he agreed,” Stelzer said. “That’s why this has been a success. The Diocese has been there when needed, but they weren’t making the decision.”

Stelzer explained that those attending Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish on 427 Maple St. began attending St. Jerome’s Parish on 169 Hampden St. for mass in October 2020.

This, he said, was due to structural issues within the building.

“There were structural issues, it was unsafe for masses. Things were falling on people, there was mold. The estimated costs to repair [it] years ago was $5 million and that has gone way up,” he said.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Stelzer said people had been worshipping in a gym for a number of years. “The people had been in a gym for four years, that became problematic. They couldn’t fit the number of people in the space since COVID, [and] it didn’t lead to a sense of worship space. They were itching to have a church to come into,” he said.

He said Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and St. Jerome’s were relatively close to one another and both offered services in English and Spanish, making it easy to join the two congregations. “Everyone fits in at St. Jerome’s and it’s only about six blocks away. We celebrated it, there was a welcoming ceremony with a banner. It’s like people have been there forever,” he said.     

Stelzer said people “feel like they have the best of both worlds,” as they have access to the “old gym [and the] community center next to the church.” He called the merging congregations a “well blended anglican and Latino community,” and were “very welcoming.”

In addition to the structural issues, Stelzer said he felt other problems contributed to the merging of the churches. “There’s a shortage of priests, fewer people. Do we need to support as many buildings? Regardless of structural changes, that change was going to happen in some way,” he said.

He said moving forward masses in both Spanish and English will continue at the Immaculate Conception Parish located at 54 N. Summer St. and at St. Jerome. Stelzer said they felt it was important to maintain the Immaculate Conception Parish to provide options for those who may not have transportation to St. Jerome.

“It’s a nice little community, a lot of people in the area don’t have cars so it would be hard for them to get to St. Jerome’s,” he said.

Stelzer said the Diocese intends to keep the “social center” at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. “We’re maintaining a presence in Churchill, a presence in the flats, in South Holyoke,” he said. “We’re not abandoning those areas of the city, we want to maintain a presence.”

As for the church building and rectory at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, Stelzer said no official decision had been made at the time he spoke with Reminder Publishing. “We’re working right now with the mayor of the city and developers and the diocese to come up with what we want to do with those buildings,” he said. Stelzer added that there were also structural issues at the rectory and it would cost a large sum of money to repair the building.

“Both [buildings] were built in the 19th century. There are structural issues, to repair that building would be expensive too. It would be over $2 million to fix the rectory,” he said. Stelzer added that there were rectories at both St. Jerome’s and Immaculate Conception. He said as of August, no priest would be living at the rectory at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and it would be vacated.

“All of those plans are still evolving, no final decisions have been made,” he said.

Stelzer said the merger will be official in August and the church would celebrate. “We’ll celebrate this, it takes effect in August,” he said, adding that the merger was only “news to people who aren’t in Holyoke or people in Holyoke who aren’t Catholic.”

A new pastor/administrator will be named to lead the merged parish, but in the meantime Stelzer said people have continued to come back slowly to attend in-person mass.  He said people who are not vaccinated are encouraged to wear masks, but “we can’t mandate that.” Additionally, he said those distributing communion would also wear a mask and the church was encouraging those receiving communion to do so in their hand. “The numbers are increasing each week, more and more people are coming back,” he said.

Masses at the Immaculate Conception Chapel are as follows:

• Saturday – 8:30 a.m. in English and in Spanish at 6 p.m.

• Sunday – 8 a.m. in English and at 10:30 a.m. in Spanish

•Wednesday – 8:30 a.m., in English with Eucharistic Adoration following Mass

Masses at the St. Jerome Church are as follows:

• Saturday – 4 p.m. in English

• Sunday – 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. in English and 11:45 a.m. in Spanish

•Monday to Friday – 12:15 p.m. in English.

• Monday, Tuesday and Thursday – 7:45 a.m. in English

• Friday – 7 p.m. in Spanish with Eucharistic Adoration and Confessions before Mass.