‘THIS IS WHAT WE FEARED’
Despite best efforts, parishioners bid farewell as Calumet City’s St. Victor Church closes
The Archdiocese of Chicago is closing St. Victor Church in Calumet City, despite efforts by parishioners to keep the church open as a worship site.
A final Mass will be celebrated at 6 p.m. Thursday. Parishioners and the public will be unable to attend in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Only the celebrant priest, concelebrants and the needed ministers will be present,” the Rev. Luis Valerio-Romero wrote in the most recent weekly parish bulletin for the church.
The final Mass may be viewed online, and people may walk through the church building this weekend for a final time. The church is located at 553 Hirsch Ave., Calumet City.
Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich in February named Valerio-Romero pastor of Jesus, Shepherd of Souls, a newly created parish serving all of Calumet City. Previously, three separate Roman Catholic parishes served the town of about 37,000 residents.
The archdiocese announced plans in September 2018 to create the single parish during a community meeting at Thornton Fractional North High School. The consolidation was part of a parish grouping process through the archdiocese’s Renew My Church initiative.
Two years ago, the archdiocese said it would close St. Victor and that Calumet City’s new, single parish would maintain two worship sites at St. Andrew the Apostle, 738 Lincoln Ave., and Our Lady of Knock, 497 163rd St.
St. Victor parishioners, however, successfully appealed to the Vatican and last year appeared to win a favorable ruling that contradicted the archdiocese’s decision. The Congregation for the Clergy in Rome announced in May 2019 that it had approved the appeal for “hierarchical recourse” through canon law and that St. Victor should remain open.
Cupich then issued a revised decree that no longer said St. Victor would close.
“We caused it to be altered a little bit,” said George Grenchik, a St. Victor parishioner who formerly taught at a defunct elementary school that was attached to the parish.
I asked an archdiocese official how St. Victor could be closed when a Vatican decree last year said it should remain open.
“It is up to the pastor’s discretion to look at financial and operational considerations in conversation with the cardinal and local bishop,” said the Rev. Jason Malave, the cardinal’s liaison to Renew My Church.
Valerio-Romero has served in Calumet City since he was appointed an associate
pastor at St. Victor in 2015.
“During the five years of being a member of Calumet City’s community God has given me a special mission to walk through the transition and changes of our Catholic Family in this part of the world,” he wrote in the bulletin. “It has not been an easy journey for all of us, but little by little we are getting together as one big family.”
The Mass at 6 p.m. Thursday will be transmitted live on social media at facebook.com/jesus shepherdofsouls. The church will welcome visitors for a final time from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday and 3 to 8 p.m. Sunday.
“I’m going to watch the Mass and plan to go through this weekend,” said Kevin Donahue, 31, an alumnus of St. Victor School and member of the Blue Island City Council.
Donahue said generations of his family were members of St. Victor, which was founded in 1925. The church building was dedicated in 1928.
“There are so many memories,” Donahue said. “My parents and grandparents were married there. My grandparents’ funerals were held there. It’s been a consistent pillar in the community.”
Calumet City 1st Ward Ald. Michael Navarrete, also a St. Victor alumnus, said the vibrancy of the parish factored into improved home sales and infrastructure investment in the neighborhood surrounding the church.
“(The closing) is devastating from an economic development standpoint,” Navarrete said.
Last year, Calumet City and the archdiocese each contributed funds to demolish the former school building after parishioners raised most of the money needed, he said. The school closed in 2004 and the building had fallen into disrepair.
St. Victor flourished by offering Spanish language services as more Hispanic families moved into the neighborhood, Navarrete said.
“St. Victor was the largest and most active of the three parishes,” Grenchik said.
Navarrete provided a copy of a 2018 report for the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at
Chicago that showed St. Victor had more parishioners (791) than St. Andrew (371) or Our Lady of Knock (547). St. Victor held four times more baptisms than the other two parishes and far more first communions and confirmations — other Catholic sacraments — than the other parishes.
“It was the leader,” Navarrete said. He said he wished the archdiocese’s consolidation process placed less emphasis on financial considerations, such as the age of buildings and how much money needed to be raised for repairs and improvements.
“St. Victor was a huge driver in terms of revitalizing that neighborhood,” he said. “The ward is still struggling to recover from the housing crisis in 2008.”
“It’s very sad,” he said of the decision to close the church.
Representatives of the archdiocese have discussed potential future uses for the property with Calumet City officials, Navarrete said, though there are no definite plans at this time.
Grenchik said it was “disheartening” that the parish was closing despite the efforts of parishioners.
“This is what we feared would happen,” he said. “They need to sell it, but I don’t know that there are any buyers.”
He expressed frustration that parishioners could not attend the final Mass in person. The next few days will feel like hold a funeral for the church, he said.
“The burial is on Thursday, then there are three days of wake after that,” he said.