Diocese of St. Cloud, All Things New- My Reflection on the Harvest of Hope Community and the Catholic History of Stearns County
- Leah Brix
- 14 hours ago
- 5 min read
Last Saturday night, I had the RARE luxury of going to mass alone with Adam. We were invited to a going-away party afterwards at the local bar in “town”. And by town, I mean Farming, MN. Population 40. It’s a cluster of houses where two county roads meet. There is a gorgeous ball field, a blacksmith shop, the bar, and the charming St. Catherine’s Oratory.
Father’s homily was on the All Things New bishop’s message to all parishes about the future of the Diocese of St. Cloud. He eloquently spoke about the alarming state of affairs and the unsustainability of our current arrangement with three priests for our five parishes due to the sharp decline in priests in the near future.
The Bishop has allowed the dignity of each ACC cluster to form their own plan for how that looks. In our case, we are asked to come up with a viable plan with only one priest, where we now have 3.
We heard a message of hope from the bishop about moving forward with love, honoring the past, and inspiring the future. But his statistics were jarring! Weddings and baptisms have decreased by 45% since 2010, and mass attendance has dropped to 39%.
Where have all of the Catholics gone? A decline in the sacraments is a decline in the very means through which Christ dispenses grace, builds up His body, and fosters the faith among the believers. So, in a sense, how can we be surprised to find ourselves in this situation?
I wrote about the German settlers in our area a few weeks ago- https://www.catholiccountrychronicles.com/post/grasshopper-chapel-cold-spring-mn-a-symbol-of-unwavering-faith-resiliency-and-a-sign-of-hope-in
and in this time, I believe it is appropriate to honor them!
In 1851, Father Francis Xavier Pierz, a Slovenian missionary, published appeals in German Catholic newspapers in Central Europe, urging devout Catholics to settle here in central Minnesota.
His call led a major wave of Catholic immigration, primarily from Germany, Slovenia, and Poland, who established more than 20 parishes in what later became Stearns County. To the north of the county, Irish-American and Scottish-Canadian Catholics brought their Gaelic traditions alongside the Catholic faith.
By 1856, a small Benedictine house was founded in St. Cloud by a group of Benedictine monks from Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. It quickly moved to the breathtaking site that we now know as Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville.
The monks traveled on foot into rural German-Catholic settlements, founding dozens of parishes and schools across central Minnesota and beyond.
Thanks to the recruiting efforts of Father Pierz and the Abbey, which trained and supplied priests and teachers to many parishes and schools, Stearns County became an incredible anomaly.
Even into the 2000s, 70-80% of the population in Stearns County identified as Catholic in some of the small towns, ranking Stearns County among the top U.S. counties by percentage of practicing Catholics.
Some of you may not know this, but it is NOT the norm to have a Catholic Church every 5 miles, like the one I sat in last Saturday night.
Looking at the data from the last 15 years, something has drastically changed. I’m not at all qualified to speak into this situation, but I would be willing to bet that it is a combination of people moving off of the farm and often into a bigger city, the families moving into the area are of a different religious affiliation, fewer men are seeking the priestly vocation, so there aren’t enough pastors to support the amount of current parishes, fewer women are entering religious life, who were once the primary educators in our Catholic schools, and as a whole, younger generations from all across the country have seemed to reject the religion of their ancestors.
But setting aside all of those factors, we should, and we deserve to celebrate our unbelievable Catholic history! These tiny towns, boasting some of the most beautiful churches, deserve to honor the men and women of old who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into building these masterpieces with the modest income they made off the land.
Sometimes I wish I could go back and experience life in the glory days, when the churches were filled to the brim, and the smell of farm and soap lingered, as the neighbors stood out on the church steps after mass, catching up on all that had happened in the past week. Back when the church was not only the spiritual center, but also the social hub of the community. Back when these tiny towns had their beer… I mean church baseball leagues, and good-natured town rivalries.
But then again, I would realize that life wasn’t perfect then, like it isn’t perfect now. God called me to live in this particular time in history.
As I sat in the pew in Farming last Saturday night, I couldn’t help but think of the irony of the situation. I was reminded of the many sacraments that had occurred in this very church over the years, my oldest son's baptism being one of them. And then I remembered the unhappy day when we celebrated mass and closed the doors in this same church for what we thought was the very last time as we decommissioned it.
However, God had other plans, and St. Catherine’s Parish, later decommissioned, is now St. Catherine’s Oratory, an incredible gift to our parish cluster, offering weekly adoration and a monthly Mass.
None of us knows how this will all play out; we are still writing this chapter of history. But I really want to focus on Bishop Neary’s message of hope. If we approach this subject in humility together, with hope, and a belief that the Holy Spirit is guiding us, then we know that we are doing God’s Will, and His Will is always perfect.
There are so many hurting people right now. You get to mourn the changes we will be experiencing! Your feelings are completely valid!
And when the period of mourning is over, I hope that we can all come together as one, and design a plan for the future that we can give to our children, and our children’s children.
Let’s find a way to keep Christ always in the center, realizing that He is the same Eucharist Lord in Farming, as He is in Albany, as He is in St. Martin, as He is in St. Anthony, as He is in Avon, and as He is in every single Catholic Church in this world.
Together, we will find a way to keep the red sanctuary lamp burning in our community, and do so in a way that inspires both fallen-away Catholics and those of other denominations to hunger to discover this precious gift that we have in Our Eucharistic Lord.
Let’s muster the courage of St. Joan of Arc and shout together, “I was born for this!”
St. Anthony, Pray for us.
St. Benedict, Pray for us.
St. Catherine, Pray for us.
St. Martin, Pray for us.
Our Lady of Sorrows, Pray for us.
St. Cloud, Pray for us.
Until next time, your sister in Christ,
Leah
Great and inspiring blogs!