On Jan. 1, one of the great-granddaddies of St. Paul's Roman Catholic parishes will officially close. The next day, the Rev. Joseph Weiss hopes, a new parish will be born on the same spot.
The Church of St. Luke was founded in 1888 by Archbishop John Ireland. In two weeks, it will complete a merger with the neighboring Immaculate Heart of Mary. The new parish will be the Church of St. Thomas More.
Although St. Luke's is four times the size of the other church and its members pressured Weiss to keep the historic name alive, he lobbied for a new designation.
"Keeping the [St. Luke's] name would have created the impression of a big church swallowing up a smaller one," he said. "We want to give the new parish its own identity. The goal is to take two communities and merge them together into a new community."
At the same time, he said, there's less internal politicking than often accompanies mergers. That's because the two parishes, which are about a mile apart on Summit Avenue, have been cooperating for a long time. Nineteen years ago they combined their schools into the IHM-St. Luke's School, and for the past four years, Weiss has been serving both congregations.
He will continue to celebrate mass at both sanctuaries, which will be designated the "east campus" (St. Luke) and "west campus" (Immaculate Heart of Mary). The school will be renamed St. Thomas More Catholic School.
Although the name change becomes official Jan. 1, the new board of trustees will not be installed until a celebratory mass on Feb. 2.
"The state mandates that the change take place Jan. 1, but we decided to put some separation between our celebration and the holidays," Weiss said.
