Worship Center Project

                                                          Worship Center Project

  Within the past three years, our parish registrations here at St. Catherine’s has more than doubled, nearly tripling the total number of parishioners who now attend Mass regularly and who come to celebrate their spiritual faith and a sense of community. 

The parish of St. Catherine's is young, vibrant, and engaged community – built across multiple cultures, yet with the primary cultural influence coming from our Hispanic community.  Many of our Hispanic families are financially lower income households, most being employed within the unpredictability of the nursery industry environment…resulting in weather extremes, long hard manual hours, and the unpredictability of employment.  Still, they embrace the opportunity to provide for their family, to educate their children in both studies and faith, and to ultimately secure opportunities for the next generation of their families.

As St. Catherine continues to grow Spiritually and in Faith, so have the numerous ministries required to meet the needs of ALL Parishioners.  We work hard to promote pride in their accomplishment and a sense of unity within the parish.  We celebrate the diversity of our spiritual and social activities across both Anglo and various Hispanic cultures, resulting in the church overflowing with members who are Spiritually rich.

To support this incredible growth, we now host 5 weekend Masses, just to accommodate our bilingual and Spanish community.  Still, these weekend services are consistently overcrowded; often, leaving parishioners sitting in folding chairs on the sanctuary;  standing and sitting in the aisles, the narthex, and sometimes even outside with the elements of weather. (see photos below)   The church has reached its physical limits, resulting in many other parishioners disappointed, as the closest nearby Catholic church is a 30-minute drive from McMinnville. Now we are starting to feel the effects in both our Mass participation and growth.

Today, knowing we can no longer sustain all those parishioners seeking to attend a Mass, retreat, or community events, we must take the steps to support our growth and in doing so, we envision constructing a steal-fabricated modular building – and with the blessings of our Donors, it will become our Worship & Learning Center – an all-purpose building where we can hold worship services, retreats, festivals, religious education opportunities.  This project is estimated to cost around $1,500,000, and will seat 560 parishioners, vs the 220 seats we currently have in the chapel.

To date, we have $170,000, through 2-years of hard work and personal sacrifices. With the support of the Diocese and another parish we now have available funds of $400,000.  The gap is large, but we know with God’s grace and your support, come this time next year, we will celebrate Mass as one large family vs. multiple smaller families.  Our church will now become one.  Your financial support and prayers are greatly appreciated.

 We, the people of St. Catherine, are grateful to you for your prayers

and support for our parish growth projects.