Former parishioners gather by the hundreds for Mass at South Holland church
For Bob Winslow, a longtime South Holland resident who now lives in Western Springs, attending mass Sunday at the Holy Ghost Parish felt like a homecoming.
“This is really like a reunion for many of us here,” Winslow said of the roughly 600-plus parishioners who were on hand for the Holy Ghost’s final Mass before merging with two other area parishes Monday. “Many of us haven’t seen each other in years.”
But Winslow said the pull of Holy Ghost parish was strong, even though he quit attending services there some quarter of a century ago.
“I haven’t been here in 25 years, yet there were so many significant points of my life that occurred here,” he said. “This was such a strong community that was based out of this parish, and I had to experience it one more time before it goes away.”
The going away, as explained by the Rev. Gosbert Rwezahura, is that the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is combining Holy Ghost with St. Mary Queen of Apostles in Riverdale and St. Jude the Apostle to form a new parish which will hold services at the St. Jude church in South Holland at 880 E. 154th St.
On the last Sunday before the first meeting of the new Holy Ghost and Saints Mary and Jude Parish, generations who had worshiped at Holy Ghost dating back to its opening in 1962 made a point of being on hand for the final mass.
Rwezahura, who will be pastor of the combined congregations, said Sunday’s Celebration of Holy Ghost event packed the church close to capacity.
But he said that has not been the norm in recent years, which is why Holy Ghost was slated for closure.
“If I could be assured that all of these people would come to church here every Sunday and support us financially, I’d be able to call up the Cardinal (Blasé Cupich) and tell him, ‘don’t close this parish,’” he said.
But he preferred to look to the future rather than spend too much time dwelling on the past.
“The only thing consistent about change is the fact that things do change,” Rwezahura said.
One older parishioner, who only would identify herself as Mary Ann, of St. John, Ind., said Holy Ghost contained many life’s memories for her, including the funeral of her first husband. But she ultimately left, she said, as many of her contemporaries moved away.
“There was hardly anybody left in the parish when I moved away,” she said.
Rwezahura acknowledged the area’s racial demographic shift played a role in the changes at the parish. At one point Sunday, he asked worshipers to stand if they had been attending Holy Ghost services regularly in recent years. A few dozen people, all of whom were African-American, stood up.
“These are the people who kept the faith here,” Rwezahura said.
While the congregation is moving north to the St. Jude campus, there will be some continued life for the Holy Ghost structure at 700 E. 170th St. Rwezahura said the building will continue as some sort of church for the short-term, although that church will no longer be an officiallyrecognized part of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese.
But there was time for one last Mass on Sunday at Holy Ghost, which drew Dean Peszel, of Mokena, and his sister, Debbie Peady, of Westmont, who were parishioners as children before growing up and moving away.
“The (parish) schools here were a part of our lives,” Peszel said. “We had to see this again before it’s gone.”
“There were marriages in our family that took place here, along with baptisms and so many other important moments in our family story,” Peady said.
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