Year of Faith Utah pilgrimage: Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish in Hyde Park

Intermountain Catholic

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Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Hyde Park was dedicated in 2006; the crucifix behind the altar was sculpted by parishioner Eileen Doktorski, a local artist and professor at Utah State University. IC photos/Marie Mischel

(Editor’s note: For the Year of Faith, which ends Nov. 24, Bishop John C. Wester has designated 12 churches in the Diocese of Salt Lake City as pilgrimage sites. This article is one in a series about the sites. More information can be found at http://www.dioslc.org/images/year-of-faith/pilgrimage/Year%20of%20Faith%20Passport%20Booklet%20Version%20English.pdf.)

HYDE PARK — The Dominican influence at Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish goes further than merely the name of the 13th century Doctor of the Church who left his wealthy family to join the Order of Preachers.

The parish in Hyde Park can trace its roots back to 1871, when the Archbishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany of San Francisco, himself a Dominican, assigned a pastor to cover the northern region of Utah. But it wasn’t until 1941 that the Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, Bishop of Salt Lake, established a parish that then stretched over Box Elder, Rich and Cache counties.

Bishop Hunt invited Dominicans from the San Francisco Province of the Holy Name to serve the new parish, and bestowed the name that honors one of their order’s most famous members.

The first church was a combined rectory-chapel-hall at 45 East 500 North in Logan. The first pastor was the late Dominican Father Joseph H. Valine. He later became known as the donut priest because he made and sold donuts to support his ministries in the mission Church in central and southern Utah.

Fr. Valine was just one of several illustrious St. Thomas Aquinas pastors. In 1988, he became the only Utah ever to receive the Lumen Christi Award, given by Catholic Extension "to an individual working to help strengthen communities located in the poorest, most isolated regions of America."

In 1947, the parish passed to a diocesan priest, the late Father Jerome C. Stoffel. Fr. Stoffel became a diocesan historian and was named a Domestic Prelate in 1958, a year after the diocese bought a place near Utah State University to be used as a Catholic Newman Center as well as a parish center. The renovated house, which included a chapel, was named in honor of St. Jerome, Msgr. Stoffel’s patron.

Two other of the parish’s former pastors have been awarded the title of monsignor: Msgr. Robert J. Bussen, who served as the diocese’s vicar general from 1986 to 1994; and Msgr. Colin F. Bircumshaw, the current vicar general.

By 1995, the parish had outgrown its small chapel. An anonymous donor provided the land, and after a three-year fundraising effort led by then-pastor Father Clarence Sandoval, a new church was built at the current location. It was dedicated June 24, 2006.

The parish has seen its share of suffering in the past few years: in 2009, funerals were celebrated for Evelia Jacqueline Leavey and her two children, Victor Alanis, 13, and Abbey Alanis, 12, who all died in a mud slide that crushed their home on July 11. Three years earlier, the parish felt the effects of the deportations brought about by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raid on the meat-packing plant in Hyrum. These affected not only the Spanish-speaking community but the entire parish and all of Cache Valley, Fr. Sandoval said in a Jan. 7, 2007 interview.

While the new church, with its classrooms and offices, is the hub of parish activities, Mass continues to be celebrated in St. Jerome Chapel during the school year when the Newman Center is active, said Father Francis W. Voellmecke, who served at the parish’s sixth pastor, from 1989 to 1995.

Fr. Voellmecke is now retired and resides in Cincinnati, but he returns to Logan each summer as a visiting priest. He enjoys not only renewing old acquaintances, but also attending performances at the annual Utah Festival. The festival performers hail from all over the country, but many attend Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas while they are in town, he said. This season, Carla Thelen Hanson (Desdemona in "Otello") was among those who attended Mass at the church, Fr. Voellmecke said.

Because of the church’s wonderful acoustics, it has begun to host community concerts. Recent performers have included La Catrina Quartet from New Mexico State University and the Utah State University Chamber Singers.

Incorporated in the church is a small chapel for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. With a window facing the mountains to the east and a tabernacle in the center between two sets of pews, the chapel offers a beautiful quiet place for pilgrims to pray if they choose to visit when Mass is not being celebrated.

IF YOU GO: Saint Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church is located at 725 South 250 East in Hyde Park, northeast of Logan, Utah. Daily Mass is celebrated in English at noon on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Spanish. The Saturday Vigil Mass is at 5 p.m. in English and 7 p.m. in Spanish. Sunday Mass is at 10 a.m. in English and 1 p.m. in Spanish. The church is in a rural residential area; restaurants and motels are available in nearby Logan.