Bringing Men to Communion in Utah, 1920-1990

Diocese of Salt Lake City Archives Photo

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The St. Ambrose Parish?s Men?s Club sponsored a St. Patrick?s Day Dance in 1967. The men are Vincent Smith, Jack Seul, Bob Wasmer and Bill Geiermann.

Michael Courtney

Archivist, Diocese of Salt Lake City

How to encourage men to receive Communion on a frequent basis vexed the early and mid-20th century Catholic Church in Utah. Two reasons for infrequent Mass attendance by Utah Catholic men were the lack of parish-based organizations for men (this article does not include a discussion of the Knights of Columbus because they are a national organization) and the fact that many men, especially miners, worked on Sunday.

To address this issue statewide, the diocese held an annual Men’s Communion Breakfast, which brought men from across Utah to the Cathedral of the Madeleine, where they received Communion and afterward went to Judge Memorial Catholic High School for breakfast and to listen to a prominent Catholic speaker.  

Local parishes also attempted to solve this problem in various ways. St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Helper began a parish-sponsored men’s Communion breakfast in 1945, when Father Francis R. Lamothe, pastor, extended an invitation to “all Catholic men and young men of the parish to receive Communion in a body” on Palm Sunday, as reported in the Helper Journal.  After the Mass, the men gathered in St. Anthony Hall for a breakfast prepared by the parish Altar Society.

Parish men’s Communion breakfasts like the one at St. Anthony mirrored the diocesan breakfast in that the men received Communion jointly and enjoyed a meal together, but the breakfasts at the parish did not always have a speaker. The parish events also evolved over time: St. Anthony’s inaugural breakfast included only a Mass and a meal, with no presentation.  In 1971, however, the Knights of Columbus sponsored the event and encouraged fathers and sons to attend together, the Helper Journal reported. At that event Hal Molitor, executive vice-president of the Continental Agency in Salt Lake City, spoke about the role of laymen in the contemporary Church, and Father Reel Scheller, C.S.P of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Layton, offered the Sacrament of Confession. The breakfast was held at the civic auditorium. Each year brought a new flavor and format to St. Anthony’s men’s Communion breakfasts.

Employing a different slant, some pastors set aside a Mass on a specific Sunday or several Sundays over the course of the year for men to receive Communion. In the 1940s, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Salt Lake City reserved one Sunday each month as a Men’s Communion Sunday; they also offered extended hours for Confession on the Saturday evening before, in preparation for the special day.

For some men, especially miners, these special events didn’t help them attend Mass because their employers required them to work on Sundays. Sympathetic to this matter, pastors began to offer Mass on Sunday evenings. However, one obstacle stood in the way: the need to fast before receiving Communion. Prior to the Second Vatican Council, canon law required that Catholics, before receiving Communion on Sunday, observe a fast starting Saturday evening. For a Catholic to attend a 6 p.m. Sunday Mass, they would, according to Church law, have to fast from Saturday evening and all day Sunday – an impossibility for most.  

To dispense with this law, the local bishop had to write the Vatican for special permission. In a December 1950 letter to the Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, fifth Bishop of Salt Lake City, Father Valmore C. Marceau (later monsignor), pastor of St. Marguerite Parish in Tooele, asked for continued authorization to celebrate a 6 p.m. Mass on Sunday. Fr. Marceau happily informed the bishop that throughout the previous year an average of 50 to 75 people attended that Mass. Many attendees worked at the local mining companies.

Although turnout for the Mass was positive, only two or three parishioners frequently received Communion, Fr. Marceau said, and surmised that this was because most parishioners were not accustomed to frequent Communion. He hoped this situation would change in the future, explaining that at other Masses more people had been receiving regular Communion.  

Catholic men in the diocese addressed the question of their Mass attendance themselves by forming men’s clubs. The first of these was founded in the late 1920s and disbanded in the early 1930s. The first two documented men’s clubs established in a parish were at St. Vincent de Paul Parish, then in Midvale, founding date unknown; and St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Park City, founding date 1936. Interest in Catholic men’s clubs grew steadily in the 1940s and 1950s, with clubs being organized in the parishes of St. Patrick, Salt Lake City; St. Helen, Roosevelt; St. Patrick, Eureka; St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Midvale; and Immaculate Conception Parish, Copperton. Catholic men’s clubs offered a way for men to engage in the Church and society on a service, social, civic, educational and spiritual levels. Often men’s clubs joined other parish groups to help organize parish events, worked with civic groups on community-wide projects, held education events to learn about the Church, and planned spiritual events.

Men’s clubs flourished at a time of reform in the Catholic Church and continue to exist today. With the many changes the Second Vatican Council brought to the Church, one was the ability for men to more broadly participate in the life the Church, replacing the need for men’s Communion breakfasts and men’s Communion Sundays. The changes allowed men to take on more roles in their parish, such as joining parish councils, finance councils, or serving as lectors, deacons and attending Mass on Saturday and Sunday evenings.