Diocese's 20 missions keep the Catholic faith in rural Utah

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

Father Marco T. Lopez, parochial vicar at Saint Mary of the Assumption Parish in Park City, baptizes two children at the Saint John Bosco Mission in Delta. In the next month, the mission parish will celebrate four weddings as well as confirmations and First Communions, a sign of the Holy Spirit working in the community, Fr. Lopez said.

DELTA — In the middle of a landscape filled with juniper and scrub brush 170 miles from Salt Lake City sits a plain white building topped with a wooden cross. Father Marco T. Lopez has arrived an hour before the 10 a.m. Mass at Saint John Bosco Catholic Church to baptize two infants. After celebrating the Eucharist, he will drive the 45 minutes to Fillmore for the 1 p.m. liturgy there, then return to his home parish of Saint Mary of the Assumption in Park City for the 7 p.m. Mass.

Such is service in the Diocese of Salt Lake City’s 20 missions, which serve about 1,450 families from Tremonton to Kanab. Each mission is visited by a priest at least once a month; at other times the service is led by by a deacon or a lay minister. At St. Jude Mission in Ephraim, more than 300 people attend every Sunday, and they insist on having the procession in with the cross, and that there are altar servers even if the ceremony is celebrated by a deacon or a lay minister, said Deacon Forrest Gray, coordinator for continuing deacon formation at the diocese. The missions are "a major, major part of the Church in Utah," he said, and without the solace and the mercy they offer, "many people would be lost. To them, faith is all important."

Deacon Rubel Salaz, who serves the Holy Family Mission in Fillmore, gives one example. Recently, a woman came up to him after the service, he said. "She had a little flask with her, and she says, ‘I wonder of you could bless the ashes of my little baby boy.’ Then she just melted into my arms and started sobbing."

The child had been less than a month old when he died, Deacon Salaz said, and the mother had him cremated a short time before she talked with the deacon. Her request caught him by surprise, he said, "but at least somebody was there for her."

The church also serves a social center for the community, said Betty Ramos, a St. John Bosco parishioner, pointing to a recent youth gathering that was sponsored by the diocese’s Hispanic Ministry. "Nothing like that would have happened without the church," said Ramos, whose cousins attended the event. "I think it’s a very wonderful experience for them. It also helps them come together as friends."

In Delta, where Catholics comprise only a very small percentage of the population, "you feel out of it" when coworkers attend LDS gatherings, said Elaine Brown, a music minister at the parish, and the church is a place where she feels she belongs. "It’s important to keep our Catholic faith and to let us exercise our faith and to get the sacraments," she said. "If we don’t have that, your life would be worth nothing."

Despite the tremendous appreciation parishioners at the missions show to the priests and deacons, the missions can’t support themselves. Deacon Salaz says sometimes the collection in Fillmore amounts to only $15 or $20; at St. John Bosco only a handful of people regularly contribute, said Tony Trezza, a longtime parishioner.

Still, Trezza said, having the church is necessary. " It’s not just that we want it; we should have it. If we didn’t, I think a lot of people would go astray. A lot of people here, they work in places where sometimes they have to take off for an hour or two (to attend Mass), so it can be very difficult for them to really keep Catholicism in their minds."

The annual Home Missions Collection, which this year is April 25, helps support the 20 missions in Utah, said Michael Lee, a pastoral administrator for the diocese. Despite the missions having no frills – not even exterior lights on the buildings –but "in our mission areas we don’t have enough money to support the day-to-day operations" such as the utilities and the insurance, he said. "They could never afford the salary for a priest."

The Most Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of Salt Lake City, said it’s exciting for him to shepherd a missionary diocese. "We are just like those first apostles who spread the faith through their love and commitment to Jesus Christ," he said. "Our lives give witness to the Risen Christ, whom we celebrate this Easter Season. We are dedicated to living our Baptismal call by spreading the Good News throughout the world. I am honored to be part of this graced enterprise here in the State of Utah and I hope that all our parishioners will respond generously to the annual appeal that is being taken up this week."