November 7, 2009
Multicultural community
Immaculate Conception Parish to mark centennial
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
As more young Hispanic families join Immaculate Conception Parish, located at 3263 First Ave. in Sacramento, the Spanish-language Mass at noon on Sundays is the parish community’s most well-attended Mass. Luis Gris/Herald photo
Immaculate Conception Parish in Sacramento has always been a multicultural
community.
Dating from the parish’s founding on the feast of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, 1909, early sacramental records present a diverse body of parishioners — German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish and Croatian immigrants — in a range of working class jobs, Deacon Gerald Pauly, parish steward, who has researched the parish’s history extensively.
In the second half of the 20th century, Immaculate Conception Parish welcomed a large black population, as black Catholics from New Orleans and elsewhere, newly mobile after World War II, made Immaculate Conception their home parish and enrolled their children in the parish school.
In the 1970s, Spanish-speaking immigrants began to join the parish and continued coming, so that now more than half of the parishioners are Hispanic. The noon Sunday Spanish language Mass is the most well-attended.
“All of the young families are Hispanic,” observed parishioner Connie Sarkifia. “The beautiful Hispanic people are the next generation.”
Born in 1943, Sarkifia grew up in the parish in the Oak Park area of Sacramento. She attended kindergarten through eighth grade at Immaculate Conception School, was married in the parish church when she was 21, and didn’t leave the parish until 1970. She and her husband Richard moved back home a few years ago when they retired, she said. Her mother still lives in Sarkifia’s childhood home.
“My generation (of people) in the parish are in their 60s, and my mother’s generation is in their 90s,” Sarkifia said. “The parish altar society is a group of ‘Golden Girls.’ Everyone is in their 90s.”
Ana Owings, director of religious education at the parish for the past 12 years, oversees 22 catechists and 180 children in the kindergarten through eighth grade faith formation program, which serves youngsters of many different cultures.
“The Spanish language Masses are packed, and the youth program is thriving, but all the younger people are Hispanic,” Owings said.
When she joined the parish 22 years ago, Owings noticed that longtime parishioners were somewhat aloof from the Hispanic newcomers. But over time, the older parish community began to trust the younger Hispanics, she said.
“We work hard for the community, very hard, and they see that,” Owings said. “The parish is much more welcoming now.”
A member of the parish council, Owings notes that a third or more of the council members who regularly attend meetings are Hispanic. The shared leadership of the parish helps blend the community, she said.
Deacon Pauly, parish steward since 2001 and a parishioner since 1962, noted that language barriers initially separated the English-speaking parishioners from the Spanish-speaking newcomers, who hailed from Panama, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador, as well as from Mexico.
But over time, he said, as the children of the immigrant parishioners were born, learned English as a first language, and grew old enough to join the parish youth ministry, the language barrier became more permeable. And as Hispanic parishioners joined the parish council and involved the English-speaking leadership in issues affecting the Spanish-speaking parishioners, the parish began to be a more united community.
“This parish has always been a racially-mixed parish, with the mix of ethnic groups evolving over time,” Deacon Pauly said. The parish has been mixed in another way as well: Generations of children from three parishes attended Immaculate Conception School, before its closure in 2003, he added.
Families from the neighborhoods that would become All Hallows Parish and Holy Spirit Parish sent their children to Immaculate Conception School when it opened its doors in 1930, staffed by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, a teaching order headquartered in Notre Dame, Ind. All Hallows and Holy Spirit Schools both opened in 1948, 18 years after those neighborhoods’ children had begun attending classes at Immaculate Conception.
“A lot of people in the diocese have called this place home,” Deacon Pauly noted.
The school closed in 2003 because families in the area could not afford the tuition, he explained, but the campus is now used by the Aspire public charter school, whose mission is to prepare urban youth for college.
Owings, whose religious education program shares space with the charter school, said that the charter school is excellent but neither the parish nor the school keep track of how many children from parish families attend the school.
Immaculate Conception Parish is also the birthplace of Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services, established in 1976 by Father Daniel Madigan, who was pastor at that time, who expanded the parish food locker that his predecessor, Father Leo McAllister, had created in the late 1960s. Now independently run, Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services feeds more than 12,000 different people each month and provides a range of social services.
On Tuesday, Dec. 8, the parish community will gather to celebrate a century of faithfulness and service with Bishop Jaime Soto, who will preside at a bilingual Mass in Immaculate Conception Church at 7 p.m.
On the preceding Sunday, Dec. 6, the parish community will host a reception at 5 p.m. at the former Immaculate Conception School hall, followed by a catered dinner at 6 p.m. All of the priests and religious who have served in the parish have been invited to attend. Dinner reservations are priced at $40 per person. Some reservations are still available. For more information, call the parish office at (916) 452-6866.
A brief history
Dec. 8, 1909: Sacramento Bishop Thomas Grace establishes Immaculate Conception Parish, appointing Father William Ellis as the founding pastor. A modest temporary building houses the first Mass, attended by 15 people.
Early 1910s: Planning ahead, Father Ellis and his brother, Father John Ellis, also a priest in the Sacramento Diocese, buy land adjacent to the original parish property, then transfer the land to the diocese.
1913: The rectory is built. The parish has 500 families.
May 6, 1916: The present Immaculate Conception Church is dedicated.
Sept. 6, 1922: Father William Ellis dies. His brother, Father John Ellis, is appointed pastor.
1930: Immaculate Conception School opens, staffed by Sisters of the Holy Cross. Sisters of Mercy had been teaching the parish children without a formal school.
October 1933: Father John Ellis dies. Father Patrick O’Sullivan, later Msgr. O’Sullivan, is appointed pastor.
1940s: Establishment of adjacent parishes — Holy Spirit, All Hallows and St. Rose — diminishes Immaculate Conception Parish boundaries.
August 1958: Msgr. O’Sullivan retires. Msgr. Thomas A. Kirby is appointed pastor.
1960s: The parish loses members when hundreds of homes are demolished to make way for two freeways and a cloverleaf. As a result, the surrounding neighborhood goes into decline.
1963: Father Michael Fitzgerald is appointed pastor.
1968: Father Leo McAllister is appointed pastor. Father McAllister starts a parish food locker.
1975: Sisters of the Holy Cross withdraw from the school. Father Daniel Madigan is appointed pastor. Father Madigan expands the food locker, which eventually becomes Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services, now operated independently from the parish.
1989: Father James Sheets is appointed pastor. He is the parish’s first Spanish-speaking pastor.
1995: Father Mark Mosher is appointed pastor.
2001: Deacon Gerald Pauly is appointed parish steward. Priests in residence, currently Father Santiago Raudes, and retired priests, Father William Feeser and Father Patrick Lee, celebrate Mass and minister to parishioners along with Deacon Pauly.
2003: Immaculate Conception School closes.
