Saints John&Paul Roman Catholic Parish

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News

Ecumenism at its best
Catholic parish, Protestant church cooperate on land transaction

By PATRICIA BARTOS
Senior Staff Writer, Pittsburgh Catholic

A funny thing happened to SS. John and Paul Parish in Franklin Park on its way to erecting a church — it helped construct a Protestant church first.

Both SS. John and Paul and its immediate neighbor, the New Heights Church of God, shared the same problem, they each needed to build a church.

But the Catholic parish didn't have enough usable land on its 12-acre property to construct a big enough structure to accommodate its 7,000 members.

And New Heights, much smaller with 100 members, couldn't raise enough funds to build on its 12 acres, instead holding worship services in the Blueberry Hill Park community building.

The problem seemed insurmountable until representatives of both congregations took what all involved call a "leap of faith."

And it worked.

The two church communities agreed to a transaction that involved SS.

John and Paul locating a new property for its neighbor and — with parishioners with expertise in legal matters, development and construction — building a church. In return, the Protestant community signed over its property adjacent to the Catholic parish.

In January, the New Heights community entered its new home at 2365 Wharrey Drive, a 12-acre property located off of Nicholson Road in Franklin Park. The all-brick structure, a five-minute drive from the original property, has seating for 150 and includes a worship center, offices, classrooms and multi-purpose fellowship area.

The church will host dedication ceremonies on June 3 and special guests will include Father Joseph McCaffrey, pastor of SS. John and Paul, and parishioners who oversaw the land acquisition agreement.

"It was unique," said Father McCaffrey. "No money changed hands."

"We had the legal protections in place, but it never got to that," he said of the level of trust that developed between the two churches.

The Church of God had been through the process of raising funds for construction when SS. John and Paul approached them, said Pastor Ken Church.

"They offered to help us with the resources and contacts they had, to locate a property of interest to us," Pastor Church said. "It was a partnership of faith.

"We worked together to make this happen. We really believe God had a hand in this, to help us do what God called us to do in the community."

"It took a high level of trust, believing in one another," Pastor Church said. "Oftentimes in today's society it's difficult, the legal things get in the way. But we decided to move forward. It kind of restores your faith in how things work."

Father McCaffrey recalled the events that led to the agreement.

"It was a desperate situation," he said. "We could not expand." The SS. John and Paul property, at 2586 Wexford Bayne Road (Route 910), though 12 acres in size, included just five "developable" acres. The rear of the property was taken up by a retaining pond for water runoff.

The parish had been looking at land since 2003.

"We needed property, we were desperate to expand, and we approached them," he said. "They were not interested, but then we came up with a very creative solution."

"It was painfully difficult at first, but we developed a lot of good fellowship and trust in working together," he said. "It is a beautiful example of ecumenism. It took a lot of prayer. We had to trust each other."

"They're very proud they worked with Catholics and I take a little bit of pride and even humor in the fact that as a Catholic priest I was involved in the building of a Protestant church before a Catholic one."

Actually, it was Father McCaffrey's second non-Catholic building. While serving as chaplain at the state's Youth Development Center in New Castle several years ago, he was the key force behind construction of a freestanding non-denominational chapel at the facility.

Father McCaffrey credits the parish's land acquisition committee for both the idea and execution of the Church of God arrangement.

Mike McCabe, of the law firm of Goehring, Rutter and Boehm, outlined the legal agreement, Jerry Horn of Jerry Horn Construction Inc. built the church and worked closely with Pastor Ken and his people. Gary Sippel of Spectra Development Co. came up with the actual idea and served as the original liaison for the parish with the Church of God.

Joe Nowak of the parish's finance committee and Tim Schweers of the Capital Campaign Committee "kept a close eye on keeping things fair,"

Father McCaffrey said. "We came up with an architect and they approved the design," said McCabe. "At the end of the day we gave them their deed and keys to the building and they gave us our deed."

The parties completed the transaction without really writing a check, he said, although the land acquisition and church construction required the generosity of SS. John and Paul parishioners.

"I give a lot of credit to the diocese, to Chris Ponticello (the diocese's legal counsel for real estate) and Bishop (Paul) Bradley,"

McCabe said. "They agreed to do this. It was a leap of faith. They had a lot of faith." The project came in $200,000 under budget, he added, because parishioners donated much of their services. "If we would have had to pay all these people it would have been cost-prohibitive," said Jerry Horn. The new church includes 4,000 square feet of worship space and 2,000 square feet of office and meeting space, he said. "I always thought we could make it," he said of the agreement. "I was very positive about it, as long as we could solve each other's problem and were able to envision it.

"Pastor Ken had a job convincing his congregation to trust us, but he stayed the course. I give a lot of credit to him. It was a really good group effort," Horn said. "They were very nice people to work for. It was important that we come up with something that would work for them."

Gary Sippel, whose firm builds and designs office buildings, had completed an earlier land-swap agreement and suggested it for the two parishes.

"We kept going back and forth and it seemed like nothing would work,"

he said. "We got to the 11th hour and put our heads together and came up with it. "It was really good that two parishes who are not similar in faith, but with people who mean well and want to do well show how they can all work together. They're happy with the building and site and we're happy we can expand.

"They had to be pretty open-minded to understand the concept," Sippel said, giving much of the credit to Pastor Church. "I'm sure a lot of their parishioners were apprehensive. A lot of things could have gone wrong, but we had the right intentions. Everyone wanted to achieve the same thing."

Sidebar: "Now we can move forward," said Father Joseph McCaffrey as SS. John and Paul Parish accepted the deed for the 12 acres adjoining its Franklin Park property.

That land acquisition doubled the size of the parish to 24 acres and will provide enough space to build its first church.

The parish has the highest growth rate — and the most children — in its cluster of St. Alphonsus, St. Alexis and St. John Neumann. It's in the process of undertaking a parish census, but current figures show close to 1,900 families, or 7,000 individuals.

Also, the parish adds an average of 10 to 15 new families a month. By contrast, two families may rotate out each month — "far below the level of those moving in," Father McCaffrey said.

Township projections show continued population increases in the area. The land addition, coupled with a successful capital campaign, will allow the parish to build a basilica-like structure of brick and sandstone in the shape of a cross which will face, but sit back from, Wexford Bayne Road.

All of the newly acquired land is "developable," he said. "We did a feasibility study and the feeling of the parish was that they wanted the building to have a traditional church design, sacred, warm and welcoming."

The current design of the church, pending final approval and adequate funds, features rough-cut timbers and "lots of natural materials inside, with beautiful stained glass windows the parish acquired from the former St. Anthony's School in Oakmont," Father McCaffrey said.

It is proposed to have seating for 1,500, a choir loft, a full basement to house parish offices, meeting space and a grotto chapel.

The proposed chapel will have seating for 150 and be used for daily Mass, small weddings, children's Liturgy of the Word and Eucharistic Adoration.

The architect is Luke Desmone of Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood. The parish's present building will then house religious education programs and the parish social hall. Site development should begin this summer when a large underground gas transmission line is moved. The parish is poised to soon begin the public part of its $8-million capital campaign to fund construction. With the financial support of the entire parish, SS. John and Paul hopes to begin construction in spring 2008.

Republished with permission by Pittsburgh Catholic from the June 1, 2007.