About 420 students filed quietly from the gymnasium of St. Joseph Catholic school here on Sept. 10 – the very last time the opening mass for the new school year would be held there.
If all goes well, students from St. Joseph in Fergus will have a short walk next year to celebrate their first mass of the school year in a brand new church, and its teachers and the clergy take that very seriously.
The current church is located at 420 St. George Street in Fergus, but the new one, off St. David Street North right beside the school, is well underway, with the roof trusses up and the roof being closed in so construction can continue all winter.
The current church is 141 years old, and it has long since outgrown its congregation. The move to locate it beside the school brings smiles of approval from Father Ian Duffy, and school principal Lowell Butts.
“Traditionally, the school and church have shared the same property,” said Father Duffy after that school mass. “It makes for a very unified presence.”
Butts agrees.
“The school, in my view, is the arm of the church. They’re so intimately connected. Most of us grew up with a church and a school” close together.
Wellington County Catholic School Board Director Don Drone clearly approves of the move of the church adjacent to the school grounds.
“Ideally, any place where there’s a Catholic Church you had a school nearby,” he said in an interview. “It’s very significant value added from our point of view.” Drone said it means a parish priest is close to the school and that is useful in preparation for the sacraments that are a big part of the Catholic life and education.
“It’s part and parcel of what we do,” said Drone.
He also noted holding mass at the school means set-up and tear-down time.
“From a practical stand–point [a church close by] is fabulous. It just reinforces the relationship.”
For a Catholic school offering a religious education, having the church nearby is an important issue. Students can attend not only weekday masses, but also Stations of the Cross, special religious events during Advent and Lent and other religious rites. They can use the church for rehearsals for sacraments like Holy Communion and Confirmation, as well as for preparing for feast days such as the Crowning of Mary, in May.
“There are things we can easily accomplish by walking across the yard,” said Butts. “To have it beside us is a big blessing.”
St. Joseph Catholic Church was opened in 1869 in Fergus (the church was actually established in 1854, but such buildings took some time in those days, too). Fergus was a Scottish town, and hence mainly Presbyterian, although there have been many other denominations with a long history in the community. Father Duffy said there are currently 650 families on the church books, mainly from Fergus and Belwood. Others, he noted, have moved away, but some of them return for mass each Sunday.
But the capacity of the current church is 150. The new church will hold 550. And, he noted, “Currently, almost all of our school masses are held in the gym.”
Like with many churches these days, Father Duffy admitted some parents are not particularly regular in their attendance. He said with their children having opportunities to attend church services more often, they might start bringing parents and other family members back to more regular attendance.
Things have changed in the past few years for the Catholic Church – and for Catholic education. For example, since there is full funding for all Catholic schools at all grade levels today, there is no longer a demand that students attending Catholic schools be practicing Catholics. Father Duffy said students of other faiths are welcome to the educational opportunities as long as they are respectful of the Catholic ways of the school.
Another change is some–what like that movie, Back to the Future. Pope Benedict is now permitting Latin masses to be celebrated, and St. Joseph Church has offered such a service every Saturday morning for the past year and a half. It also offers a Latin mass “on some of the greater feast days,” Father Duffy said. The next one is for All Soul’s Day, on Nov. 2.
He said, “People come from far and wide” on feast days to attend those Latin masses, but the attendance is not what can be called huge. As many as 30 or 40 people will attend.
Father Duffy said he hopes that as people learn about them, they will attract more people.
Education has long been a tradition of the Catholic church. One other building that goes with the church and the school is the Catholic rectory, or housing for the local priest. Father Duffy said for now he will continue living where he is, and no plans have been made for a change in housing. That will be up to the diocese headquarters, in Hamilton.
A fourth standby of the past will not likely be considered because some changes now seem permanent. At one time, many Catholic schools were taught mainly by nuns, who lived in a nearby convent. Today, the vast majority of teachers in the system are laity, and Father Duffy could recall only a couple of nuns who are still living and active.
But Butts said everyone knows the debt that is owed to the religious people who taught in Catholic schools for years.
He said, “The rise of the Catholic school is a gift to us by the Sisters and Fathers. Some played double roles. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Sisters and Brothers [another division within the church], and the religious that founded our system.”
Oddly enough though, the first Fergus Catholic school was founded by a woman who was not part of the church hierarchy. Father Duffy said the teaching nuns came later. From 1874 to 1900, a now-forgotten laywoman ran the Catholic school. The Sisters of Notre Dame, known particularly for their teaching services, arrived only in the 1940s.
And Butts said it was a Jesuit, a Father Holtzer, who had an early influence on teaching and education in Wellington County.
Jesuits were particularly renowned as teachers within the church and also by outsiders. The order, the Society of Jesus, was founded in 1539 by Ignatius Loyola as a means to combat the Reformation, where thousands deserted the Catholic Church to become Protestants.
Jesuits developed a huge reputation as teachers and helped bring many back to the Catholic Church.
But even before that, as Father Duffy noted, Catholics as teachers and promoters of education go back about 1,600 years, and during the Dark Ages, at a time when only about two per cent of the population was literate, most of those people lived in monasteries and led religious lives. The Benedictine Order was particularly prominent in keeping education alive, albeit for only a select few in those days.
Father Duffy and Butts are hoping the students they are preparing for the world will also live religious lives, but they noted that many St. Joseph’s school students, instead of going on to St. James Catholic High School in Guelph, are now opting for the public high school in Fergus instead.
Which brings the question, why isn’t there a Catholic High School in Fergus? There are Catholic elementary schools in Arthur and Mount Forest, as well as Elora. Those schools might find it easier to send students to a Fergus high school than to one in Guelph. Students from outside Fergus might prefer a trip to Fergus than the longer bus ride to the city.
Father Duffy and Butts said those are questions for the school board to consider, and in the meantime, they are simply excited about first getting a new church. Some of the stained glass from the current church will be brought to the new one, keeping a connection with the past.
That new church is scheduled to open on Sept. 11 of 2011. Butts said, “It appears we’re on schedule right now.”
